Because of my husband's stalker, I had to erase eight years of hard-earned freelance writing reputation and clients. And that wasn't even the worst part.

Those Crazy, Irresistible Musicians

My husband is a musician. He's been in bands since I was in grade school, and had a solid local following when I met him. He even had an album that was selling well in local record stores.

With his long hair, obvious musical talent, and a sensitive side that allowed him to create the beautiful poetry that went into his original songs, I got hooked on him right away. What woman wouldn't?

The thing is, other women were hooked on him, too. When we started dating, girls who hung out at the coffee house where I met him, girls who had never once spoken to me in the two years we'd been seeing each other there every week, suddenly wanted to be my best friends. They would call me at home to chat, and casually work him into the conversation, or get me alone in a quiet corner of the coffee house on open mic nights to reveal intimate things about themselves, then ask for personal details on him and what he was really like.

Other Women Acted Like I Won the Freaking Lottery or Something

The day before my wedding, one of his female friends called me and asked if I was getting cold feet. When I said no, she asked how I managed to "get" him. She told me so many other women tried over the years, and she wanted to know my secret. I didn't have one.

He just liked me for me, probably because I didn't throw myself at him like most other women did. Though I was no doubt madly in love with him, HE approached ME first.

Another of his female friends refused to come to our wedding, because she couldn't stand to see him marry someone else. They'd never even dated. A year or so after we got married, she started coming to his gigs again, and I met her at one of them, as I often worked the door taking cover charges and stamping hands. We became good friends on our own, and still are.

However, she never got over her longing for him. Even just a few months ago, around our 20th wedding anniversary, she told him on the phone that she still wants to jump on him any time she sees him.

If you've read some of my other posts, you'll know marriage to a musician isn't what it's cracked up to be, and I'd gladly hand him off to any of these women; it doesn't mean I don't love him, because I do. It's just that I know why his other marriages before me didn't last....and he's the common denominator.

But, that's not the point of this story. It does set up the premise, though.

There are Some Crazy People Out There....Like, Obsessively Crazy

Obviously, I was used to him getting a lot of attention from other women since the beginning of our relationship; that didn't bother me. Even before we started having issues in our marriage, I took the attitude that I married a musician, so some of that was to be expected. 

As far as I was concerned, he could enjoy all the extra female attention he desired; he still came home to me, after all (ironically, his second wife....the one before me....took this same attitude with him when they were together).

It was only after we'd been married about 11 years that it became a problem. And, it wasn't because I was jealous. It was because he'd attracted the attention of someone who was, to put it mildly, batshit crazy.

She was also obsessive, and had no job, husband, kids at home (they were all grown), or anything else to do except sit at home and imagine him leaving me to go live with her.

Thanks, MySpace (She Said, Sarcastically)

He met her on MySpace, back in the days before everyone migrated to Facebook. He was actively promoting his music on there, and gained quite a following. Most of his followers were women, and he got to know some of them personally. It started as hours of IM-ing with his most ardent admirers every night. Then, with the ones he liked best, it progressed to phone calls. 

A few of them even came to our house to visit.

The crazy lady was among those he would call and talk to for hours on end.  The only reason she didn't come over was because, thankfully, she lived several states away, and had no way to get to us.

He didn't know she was crazy at first; neither of us did. 

He let me read the IMs and listen in on phone calls if I wanted to, and sometimes even insisted when I had no interest, especially if he had a question about what one of his fans may truly mean by something they said. He's a really smart guy and scores ultra-high on intelligence tests in every area but one....communications. Personal communication with other people is NOT his strong suit.

He says what he feels in his songs pretty well, but try having a conversation with him. It's like stepping into an M.C. Escher drawing.

Anyway, MySpace was the start of this whole ordeal. In some ways, it's still ongoing.

Apparently I Was the Only Thing Standing in the Way of Their True Love....in Crazy-Land

This woman decided she and my husband were soul mates. They had a lot of the same interests, including similar tastes in music and movies....things he and I did NOT share, because of the generation gap between us. 

They talked about a lot of personal things with each other, and when he and I would argue, he would go to her to complain about me (while I was complaining about HIM to my friends and family).

She decided they were meant to be together, and that he needed to get away from me. Again and again, she offered to let him come live with her.

He was really just using her as someone to vent to, but she took it all to mean he was thinking of leaving me, and needed a place to go. Moving in with her would be just what she desired, because once he was in her home, she could work her charms on him, and make him fall in love with her, or admit the love he already felt, but refused to admit out of loyalty to me.

In her mind, I became the only obstacle to them being together.

Oh, and did I mention, she's older than MY MOTHER?

A Woman Scorned is NOT Someone You Want Paying Attention to You

When she started suggesting he leave me and move in with her, my husband got a little weirded out by her, and started to try to distance himself from her. He stopped calling her, and wouldn't pick up her calls, and only IM-ed with her briefly, every now and then.

She started stalking him online, finding any website he was on to promote his music, and making accounts there to try to engage him in conversation. She even made a fan page for him, and promised if he came to live with her, she would promote his music, saying she knew people who could make him famous beyond his little corner of the Internet.

Every time he would block her, she'd appear again under a different user name. 

A few times, she got mad and stopped talking to him for a while. Each time, we hoped she was gone for good, and would leave him alone. 

She always came back.

She even started uploading his YouTube videos to her own website without giving him credit, putting up Adsense to try to earn money from his work. He reported her to Google and had her site shut down.

After that incident, she decided I was the problem. She blamed me for keeping him from her, turning him against her, and being a bad wife who didn't treat him well. If she could just make him see that, he would surely turn to her. Right?

It Was Bound to Happen--A Psycho Goes After Me Online

Up until this point, all of her ire toward me was mostly verbal, and maybe a little bit mental (due to jealousy that he was married to me and not her). Now, she got nasty with me in a direct way.

Because he'd revealed too much to her about both of us when they first became friends, not knowing she was crazy, she knew just how to go after me. 

I'd been working part-time as a freelance writer for years, while I worked full-time teaching and background investigating jobs. I was on all the freelancing message and job boards; my profile was out there in any number of places for potential clients to see, and to interact with other writers. I even had a few non-fiction books I'd written that were selling pretty well on Amazon. 

My work was in hundreds, if not thousands, of places online. Some of it was ghostwriting I'd done that someone else put their name on, but a lot of it was under my own name.

She got to work leaving nasty, demeaning comments about me and my work everywhere she could, trying to dissuade old clients from continuing to work with me, and to keep new ones from wanting to hire me. 

Even at the more obscure writing websites where I thought I was safe, she somehow managed to find me.

I had a good enough reputation, due to years of meticulously and carefully building it, that I didn't lose any work over it, but her attempts to sideline the business I'd worked so hard for were upsetting. 

At this point, my husband told her we'd gotten divorced, and started talking to her on the phone again, in the hopes that he could draw her attention away from me, and back onto him.

One Toke Over the Line....and One Step Too Far

She seemed happier once he resumed communications with her, but her goal remained the same....to have him come live with her. He claimed to not have the funds since our "divorce" to travel to her. 

She sent him some money to help him with his moving fund. He sent it back.

She also took it upon herself to help him get "revenge" on me for all the trouble I'd given him over the years by being what she believed was a bad wife. This desire to screw with me on what she felt was his behalf led her to take the most horrifying step of all.

I was on long-term disability from my full-time job due to my knee, which would lead to my second knee replacement a couple of years later. Because I'd never really wanted to work for someone else, and entrepreneurship had been my goal since I graduated college, I took this opportunity to try to build my part-time freelancing business into a full-time one.

It was my goal to not return to traditional employment. I achieved that goal, but it was no thanks to her.

Because he was still talking to her on the phone, she knew I was on disability from my job. She also knew I was trying to go full-time with the freelancing. 

She thought I should be paying him alimony, and that if he had that money, he could travel to her and live with her. Because I wasn't, and this was the reason they couldn't be together (in her mind), I had to suffer.

One morning, I was awakened far earlier than I usually got up by my cell phone ringing in my ear.

It was an investigator from my state's department of insurance fraud, and he wanted me to come to his office for some questioning.

Oh. My. God.

Freaking the $&@* Out

It was an anonymous tip. Someone called that department and claimed I was earning a high income while taking disability payments from my employer. It wasn't true, but I had to go in and defend myself.

I got to the office as quickly as I could, not wanting to delay it and just freak out even more over it. Upon my arrival, the investigator told me he was going to read me my Miranda rights. I nearly burst into tears, and asked him if he was going to arrest me. 

"Not at this time," was his not-comforting-at-all response.

So, for the first, and so far (and hopefully) only time in my life, I had my rights read to me, just like they do on those cop shows I don't normally watch. I felt nauseous.

Their main piece of evidence against me was my personal blog, which I'd been posting in almost every day for six years. They'd printed out the whole damn thing!

Some of the more recent posts talked about my business building activities, and how I was working on going full-time as a freelancer. The most recent one, posted the day before, mentioned how I'd been approached by a new client for a potentially high-paying gig.

After explaining that this was work I'd been doing part-time for years, and that I was trying to make a new job for myself, as I didn't believe I'd be going back to my old one after my knee surgery, I was permitted to leave, and told they would call me if they had any follow-up questions. 

Thankfully, they never called back.

However, the first thing I did when I got home was call a lawyer. He was a nice guy who was able to talk me down from my freak-out, explaining that intent had everything to do with it when it came to fraud cases. Even if I HAD committed fraud, which, he agreed, I hadn't, it would have to be proven I did it on purpose for it to be considered a criminal act. 

I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I was safe. 

The people handling my disability payments even called me a few days later and offered me a lump sum settlement to help me get my full-time business going. They asked me what things I needed and how much they would cost, and sent me a check for that amount, in exchange for me not taking the bi-weekly payments anymore (they would have run out in a couple of months, anyway, so I was actually getting a good deal). I even got to keep my COBRA insurance coverage, which was scheduled to last for quite a bit longer.

Starting All Over Again

Even though I knew I wasn't in any trouble with the insurance people, I was shaken. The lawyer told me the only way they would have known about my blog or anything else about me was if someone who knew me and my situation told them.

I knew exactly who it was. 

My husband asked her about it on the phone, and she didn't even bother denying it. She said I deserved it for not paying him alimony (since she still thought we were divorced).

I wanted to make sure she could never find me again. Unfortunately, this meant disassembling the business I'd built up over around eight years, and starting from scratch.

I took down the blog, and deleted or erased any article on the Internet I could find with my name on it. I shut down all of my social media accounts except Facebook, and I locked the security settings on that as tightly as the site allowed. I even used a variation of my name on it, despite the fact I only kept it for communicating with family and friends, just so she wouldn't somehow accidentally find me.

All of my online portfolios with samples of my writing came down, too.

I even had to take my decently selling non-fiction books off Amazon, lest she find them and post something terrible and untrue about me on my author profile.

To say I was both bummed and pissed at the same time would be an understatement.

I had to start over from scratch. This meant beginning again with building a reputation on the freelance writing message boards and job boards, putting up new portfolios, and seeking out new places for getting clients. I did all this under a series of names. I always used my real first name, but used things like my maiden name or surnames from other branches of my family, creating three distinct identities for different niches in which I wrote. 

It was another three or four years before I dared put up even a cartoon profile picture of me anywhere, as this woman identified a cartoon version of me once before.

It took some time to build my full-time freelance business, as I didn't have my previous reputation to build on, but I managed to do it. I even kept some of my previous clients, which helped. You would be amazed at how understanding people are when you tell them you will be writing for them under a different last name henceforth because of your husband's stalker.

Today, I have that successful, full-time freelance writing business I wanted to build. I've even published my first novel and am working on my second. I'm also back on social media like Instagram and Twitter to promote my novels, and have gained good followings there.

It would have been easier if it hadn't been for her, but I learned a lot about the importance of internet privacy, and privacy in general, from this experience.

Learning How to Be Invisible

During all of this turmoil, I read an excellent book by J. J. Luna called, "How to Be Invisible." It really taught me a lot about how important it is to keep your identity and whereabouts secret from all but those who truly know you well, and who you know you can trust.

Because of my husband's stalker, who kind of became mine, I learned how to:

• Erase my name and contact information from those "people search" databases online
• How to use a ghost address in another state and still get my mail
• How to keep my phone number out of the hands of evildoers by getting a few burner phones, and only using those numbers on websites that ask for a number
• How using my passport is sufficient identity confirmation, and no one but the IRS really needs my Social Security number
• How to use an LLC to conceal my location from stalkers and other bad people

Conclusion--You Can Still Have a Business and a  Life While Being Cautious About Your Privacy

It's been two or three years since my husband has heard from the crazy stalker lady, and I think she's given up on bothering either of us. After my husband dropped and blocked her from all his social media, changed his phone number, and changed his address to a P.O. box, I think she got the hint that he didn't want anything to do with her, and the reason had nothing to do with me.

We're both still cautious with what we do online and where and how we reveal our identity and location, just in case she IS out there, watching for any new signs of us.

You won't find our actual address on any public record. Our phone numbers are secret to all but those who know us personally. Our cars are even registered to LLCs that are based in other states and attached to ghost addresses.

We're under contract to buy a house, a decade after the most recent time we owned one. Property records are public in our state, and readily available to anyone who looks online. 

We're putting the deed to the house in the name of a trust that is registered in another state. That's what people will see when they look up our new address. Our names won't be attached to it at all, at least not anywhere the public can access it. 

I don't mind putting my picture online anymore. It's on all my author and writer profiles, and I've used plenty of personal pictures of me here. But, those pictures are hosted on domains registered to LLCs, and then further protected with private registration.

Even though my husband met this woman online, the same thing could have easily happened with someone he met in person. The point is to make sure you know someone really well, and are sure you can trust them, before giving them any truly personal information about you or your family. 

Or, you know, write tell-all confessions on an anonymous platform like this one. I've put real pictures of myself here, I use my real first name, and I tell true tales without mentioning anyone else's name. That's the best way to keep your privacy intact when doing this kind of thing. And, it's too much fun to not do it!

The moral of the story is this--Be careful with your privacy and that of your loved ones. Or, you might find one day you have to tear down everything you've spent years building, and start again from scratch, just to get yourself out of the crosshairs of a crazy person. It happened to me, and it could happen to you.

Be safe out there, guys.

Actually me, happy to be free of my husband's stalker, but far wiser about the crazy people of the world, and how to protect myself from them.