Sleeping with the Enemy: When You Know Your Stalker
A woman opens up about a controlling ex-boyfriend who continues to stalk her four years after she broke up with him
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(This is a first person account by a 28-year-old design and humanities graduate, who was in an abusive relationship for seven years. She chooses to remain anonymous, while describing her account of breaking up and the stalking that followed.)
I was 18 when my first relationship started. We were almost the same age. It was a new experience for me and I ignored numerous red flags till the relationship became a dangerous thing to deal with.
I was too naive to realize that he had begun to control me. When ever I complained about his behavior he said this was normal in love. According to him jealousy and possessiveness were a part of any relationship.
At times he said that he could not stand me having male friends, talking to boys, or even storing their phone numbers in my phone, because he loved me. And, at other times he would label me a whore if he saw me interacting with any male friend or colleague. He controlled the way I dressed, my lifestyle (I became a recluse from a very sporty and outgoing person) and my friends (I was left with none as I was never ‘allowed’ to hang out with them).
He controlled me completely - I was not allowed to be on Facebook and he had access to my phone and emails. For him this was a sign of honesty and transparency in our relationship. Looking back, he was stalking, tracking and successfully controlling my life.
I broke up over a thousand times in a period of 7 years. Yes, it lasted for seven years. But he either cried and begged me to stay or threatened to tell my parents about our affair (at that age, I was petrified of parents knowing about my affairs) and at a later stage when I was no more afraid of his petty threats, he threatened to kill my family (It worked. I was terrified to leave for few more years).
He also warned me that if I broke up and moved on he won’t spare me - he would kill my next lover and would never let me live in peace. He said he cannot imagine me with anyone else and he could go to any extent (including murder) to not ‘lose’ me.
When I broke up with him saying I had no feelings for him and that I had started to like someone else, he said he was willing to ‘forgive’ me and start afresh. When I said NO, he began to harass me online and offline. He even used password recovery tricks to read my emails and check Facebook messages, and began to stalk and threaten me online.
When I did not budge he began to stalk me on the roads, exactly like a rowdy one sees in Hindi films. He would stare at me while standing in front of cigarette stalls or stalk me in the book shops that I frequented. He was everywhere and I had no privacy outside my home. He would stalk my younger brother and friends on Facebook to find out information about me.
I was suffocated when I was in the relationship and I was suffocating even more after I ended it.
One day he was stalking me on my way home from work, I headed towards the police station and called my brother for help. When he realised that I was going to the police station he called me on the phone and begged me not to do that and that he was doing this out of desperation. I guess the fear of a police complaint scared him enough to leave me alone.
Today, almost 4 years after the breakup and almost 3 years after this police station incident, he has not harassed me in my offline (real) life but he still continues to message me on Facebook and Gmail. I ignore them. He even found out my new phone number and texted me on my birthday.
These texts and mails bother me but now I don’t let the fear control my life. Even though I am afraid that someday he could just come up and throw acid at my face, or stab my new boyfriend or reach my home and kill my parents. But I cannot control his actions, but I can definitely be bold enough to not let this fear ruin my life.
I am happy with my new found freedom. I wear what I like to wear, I play sports (that he had stopped me from playing), I have great male friends and my family knows about this whole ugly affair. I couldn’t be happier in life. I hold no grudges and have forgiven him. I have no regrets and I thank life for this experience that taught me so much about what relationships should not be.