Long time lurker, occasional poster, and semi regular commentator. I went Anon for this because I'm being paranoid. My SN is a bit of a clue of my normal SN.
Long story short: My FOO is problematic and over the past 10 years I've moved to a complete cut off, but it's still pretty recent. The last relative finally drank the cool-aid and started with the hating on me too (I'm the SG).
Hubby and I lucked out and are getting the chance to MOVE 3,000 miles away from the drama!! I want to fully utilize this opportunity to essentially disappear. I want to make it very hard for them to digitally stalk me or worse, show up randomly (it's happened in our current location 3 hours away; ambush at work).
FOO knows nothing about the move we've been planning for months. I've been diligent that there's been no leaks. I'm 99.9% certain that they are completely clueless. I work in a highly public field that I can't avoid my resignation being published on the website. However, that won't tip them off about the move; just that I changed employers or maybe became a SAHM.
I'm hoping you can PAN me your best tips to accomplish this. For the protection of the DWIL community, I would rather received PANs than do a regular thread. I would hate to compromise these important secrets by consolidating them in a single place on a public site for crazy relatives to find and stymie us (paranoid much? yep!).
Important facts to consider when sending your thoughts:
- I didn't change my name upon marriage for various reasons, and the FOO probably won't look to google me under a new name (They have been told 3rd hand that I have no intention of changing my name). But of course now I'm considering it. I'm not sure it's worth it though. I have a unique first and last name and hubby's last name is also unique. I thought of changing my first name too. It would be spoken the same way, but spelled alternatively (Ex: Caitlin to Katelynn). I'm not sure if that's enough to stump a search engine. And that does nothing to stop them from search for hubby's name. I'm not entirely sure if they know his last name, but I think they do. Of course the name change will happen in the new state, so no records will exist in my current state.
- My cellphone number will be changed (the recently CO relative had this number, and theoretically he didn't share it. But I can't say for certain, so it will be changed).
- My facebook profile will be deleted
- Hubby's FB will probably stay active but still report our current city. Also, he's not friends with anyone they would know and they are blocked.
- My email will be shut down (the only way they reach me these days. Though they get an autoreply that is a fake error message).
- I am debating a PO box or using that service that has a remote PO box and scans your mail to you; forwards packages.
- New employer for hubby and I are less public and won't post our names on a website.
What else can I do? Again, please keep the community safe by only leaving a comment that would be harmless in the hands of a stalker. Otherwise PAN.
Thank you!!