Six years ago, I went on a trip to Hawaii with my then-boyfriend and his family. Later that year, we broke up; I unfollowed him and everyone he knew, and I’ve nary seen a trace of him online or anywhere else since. So I was startled when, a few months ago, his name popped up in a phone notification that said something like: “[My ex’s name] updated the shared Google Map list for Hawaii.” I quickly clicked into the list, one I vaguely remember we added beaches and hikes and shaved ice spots to, and removed myself from it. More than five years since we’ve spoken, the internet kept me tied to my ex in this amorphous way.

Some people have far more consequential tales of post-breakup digital enmeshment in our modern account- and password-sharing world. Horror stories regularly surface online and in the news about exes draining a joint bank account, using shared email accounts to send embarrassing mass messages and stealthily stalking ex-wives.

Lindsey Hall, a 35-year-old who works in public relations, had an international breakup last spring (she was living in Colombia with her Canadian boyfriend) and found herself in a confusing maze of trying to separate finances across continents.

The digital life they had created together lived on well past their split. Hall’s ex still had access to all of her streaming accounts and continued to rent movies off Amazon Prime under her credit card. They had shared a Rappi account, which is a food delivery service, and Hall was continually charged monthly for the pro account her ex had signed up for. Six months later, she eventually had to contact the company’s headquarters in broken Spanish and get her ex’s approval to close the account.

“Don’t even get me started on the subscribe and saves,” Hall said, referring to the Amazon subscription feature. “I had deodorant and body spray and other stuff on delivery for him, and for up to six months I was still canceling subscriptions we’d forgotten about. It would be like, ‘Your Axe body spray has been delivered to an address we don’t live at anymore.’”

Hall and her ex got everything sorted eventually.

“It finally feels like I’m free, and I’m sure he feels that way too,” she said. But she hopes to handle things........

© HuffPost