Case of the Kanye: The ex who just won't let go

Waceke Thindigua, an advocate of the High Court and mother of one says when she met her ex in 2014 through a friend, she thought he was a nice man. Immediately they began dating, and he love bombed her.

Love bombing is characterised by the process of bombarding someone or giving excessive attention, admiration, and affection, especially at the beginning of a relationship with the goal to make the recipient feel dependent and obligated to the initiator.

“He would pick me up in the morning and take me to work. Sometimes he would come over and take me to lunch or at random times he would visit me in the office as he worked close by, and in the evening, he would take me home.

“If I had a meeting even outside town, he would drop me and wait. For my chama meetings, he preferred to come and sit a few tables away from the meeting. We literally spent 80 per cent of our free time together. From the outside looking in, he looked like the perfect boyfriend,” she says.

“My friends and colleagues thought he was being a sweet and thoughtful boyfriend. They never realised he picked me up to ensure I did not meet another man; even after picking me up he would ensure the only time I am not with him is when I am deeply asleep.

“This man would drive from his office to mine if he called and I missed his call. If I said I was in a meeting, he would camp outside the office until he was sure I was done.”

Waceke says as the relationship progressed things got worse.

“It reached a point where I could not go anywhere without him, so much so that even visiting my mother was becoming a problem. Once I had gone to visit my mother in Naivasha, and he texted me, but I was tired and so I did not reply. Imagine the next day I woke up and found 100 missed calls and with him at my mother’s doorstep asking for an explanation,” she says.

“He was so controlling that if he called or texted and I did not reply, I would find a long thread of texts that bounced between extreme love to hate and anger where he would call me names for not picking up. On one weekend I missed his phone call, and found over 600 of his calls and messages were well over 230.”

By 2015, Waceke started working on an exit strategy. “I started saving to buy a car, and as I waited for my car to arrive, I started leaving work early and using an Uber or a matatu. This was so he would only pick me up from work at least once a week. This I did in preparation for releasing the control he had over my life.

“By the end of 2015, I broke up with him, but he would not let me; he would call me all the time and tell me how much he loved me, and also threaten to kill me and himself,” she says.

Waceke says there are days he said he would cut her into pieces like sukuma wiki, then “there are days he threatened to pump 20 bullets into my body (he was a licensed gun holder).” Other times, he threatened to commit suicide.

The narcissist ex-partner

“The day I broke up with him he came to my office and knelt before my then boss, and professed his love for me and when I did not budge, he started insulting me in front of my boss. My boss thereafter warned me that the murders you see on TV happen with personalities like my ex.

“He was so concerned he gave me time off to put my life in order. He would regularly check up on me to find out if I was safe. I am very grateful to my former boss,” says Waceke.

“I blocked my ex on my phone, email and social media, and even informed him I had told the OCS about our situation. I eventually got my car and so I would leave work early because he would still pass by my office to pick me up.

“I would get home and lock myself in, and sometimes to switch routines I would sleep at my friend’s house. Around April 2016, I knew I was safe. He stopped camping outside my office,” she says.

Waceke recently met her ex at a restaurant. “He of course tried to be friendly, but I now know that you cannot leave anything open for a personality who is controlling to that extent. The boundaries must be so clear he knows that the door is closed and it will never be opened again,” she says.

“I now realise the reason women stay in such toxic relationships is that they are not financially independent, and they have no support system because personalities like my ex make sure they ostracise you from your family and friends in order to make sure they are your only support system, and so leaving is hard because you have no support.”

If we lived in a perfect world, once you broke up with someone and they became an ex, they would not only go on to suffer because they did you wrong ‘obviously’, but proceed to completely disappear from your life without a trace.

Heal and move on

However, we do not live in a perfect world and so exes not only go on to prosper and live in abundance despite the fact that they may have done you wrong, but some exes refuse to let go.

They don’t seem to understand what a break-up means. They keep calling, texting, commenting on your social media pages, and in extreme cases stalk you even after you have moved on to another relationship. We all have experienced or know someone who has experienced the case of the ex who just won’t let go.

The ex who won’t let go could be motivated by the fact that he or she is not over you and is trying to win you back. Or it could be blamed on those dang misguided Rom-Com movies that we all love so much even though we may not always admit it publicly.

It does not help that in most, the couple in the movie always break-up somewhere towards the end of the film.

After the break-up, they get back together after the party who did wrong (often the man) that led to the implosion of the relationship does everything - from stalking to showing up at the ex’s door uninvited, to non-stop calls, and pulls off some over-the-top romantic gesture.

However, there are times when a persistent ex is not motivated by any of the above, but by more sinister intentions: if they cannot have you, then no one will. Here the antics to get their ex back can border on creepy, manipulative, harassment and even dangerous. 

The line between an ex being creepy and engaging in a romantic gesture to win back the one who got away can be thin. For example, you have Ben Affleck who won back his ex-fiancé Jennifer Lopez with whom he broke up back in 2004.

Apparently, she was the one who got away, and after her break up with her ex Alex Rodriquez in late 2020, Ben saw an opening and began wooing her back with persistent emails in January 2021 and by July they came out as a couple.

Kanye ‘Ye’ West on the other hand whose wife filed for divorce in January 2021, has also been trying to woo his ex-back, but it seems to be bordering on the line of creepy ex.

Unless you have been living under a rock you have probably heard of Kanye West’s theatrical and dramatic attempts to win the wife and mother of his four children back.

West has been dramatic; from mum shaming his ex by tagging the reality star in all-caps Instagram screeds, calling her out for what he sees as parental alienation in one Instagram post, to posting a picture on Instagram that showed Kim out and about in an extravagant silver coat, which he proceeded to point out that he bought her because he loves her.

The theatrics continue - from buying a house right next to hers, to sharing private texts with her on social media, to threatening her new boyfriend, Pete Davidson, and to delaying the divorce process.

And with the most cringe-worthy move being sending her a black truck filled with red roses with the side of the car read the phrase, “My vision is Krystal Klear” on Valentine’s Day.

Kim Kardashian, the object of his attention has remained mum, except for a statement she made earlier in the month on one Instagram story where she claimed that West’s attempts to “control and manipulate” their divorce was only causing “further pain” to their four children.

Jackie Keya, a psychologist, counsellor and life coach warns that if while dating your ex you could describe him or her as clingy, controlling or as manifesting stalker tendencies, these are possible indicators that the relationship is not healthy, and an indicator that if it ends it will not also be the typical break-up.

Keya explains that being clingy, or controlling, is a manifestation of other emotional issues.

“It can be a manifestation of deep-seated insecurity and low self-esteem, and therefore they see a relationship as a source of their self-worth and security. So, they become clingy because losing the relationship is equivalent to losing their self-worth and security.

Another reason is that maybe the relationship was a co-dependent relationship. This is an unhealthy relationship where we put our relationship before ourselves. Basically, the relationship is more important than you. So, in such cases, one cannot imagine losing it. Further, there is also the fear of being alone – if one fears to be alone, they will be clingy,” she says.

Keya says that in some circumstances the party with a clingy ex is also to blame as they are the reason that an ex is unable to move on.

“This happens when a couple breaks up, but one party keeps sending mixed signals to their ex because they have failed to set boundaries that the relationship is over. They keep blowing hot and cold to their ex, or you sometimes behave like the relationship is on or has a chance.

“Other times you behave like it is over. These can prevent the other party from moving on and turn them into a clingy ex. So, you end up complaining about your clingy ex yet you are the one who has created him or her by failing to set boundaries.”