When Stalking Doesn’t Feel Like Stalking

One of the common signs of domestic abuse that gets overlooked because they are “in a relationship”.

Those who have lived through narcissistic or domestic abuse will feel this in their bones. Sometimes, the abuse doesn’t feel like abuse until years later.

I know this concept well because I lived it for many years. I married my stalker without realizing that he was a stalker to begin with. It wasn’t until I was divorced and dating my current spouse that it dawned on me. (Dawned on me is too passive a statement. It hit me like a Mack truck.)

It happened one day out of the blue. He asked me to describe a situation so he could understand my history. I recounted a few things, and he replied, “So you married your stalker, huh?”

Ummmm. Excuse me? What did you say?

Why Couldn’t I Recognize It Happening To Me?

At first, I was in denial.

No. How could that be true? I would have known it if that were the case.

Later that night, I had a nightmare. PTSD nightmares are not the same as regular nightmares. They are intense in the worst way. The absolute fear, pain, and immobility that you experience can’t be described to someone who hasn’t been through one. There is no control. You go from being unconscious to being in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. You are going for that ride no matter what.

I don’t recall the dream, but I do recall waking up knowing that he was right. I had done exactly what I denied. I had married my stalker.

I Missed The Same Things Most Survivors Miss

In the same way that I had overlooked all the other abuses in that relationship, I had overlooked this aspect as well.

It didn’t seem like stalking, so I pushed it under the rug as just him being dramatic. If I had recognized it for what it truly was, I would have been forced to act differently. It made sense that I would minimize his actions and slap a nicer label onto it. I had to do it to remain in my relationship.

This is what happens to so many men and women in abusive relationships. They shrink the offense to a manageable size and dull the edges until it seems harmless.

Actions that would be deemed as crazy or scary from any other person are now given reframes like:

• He cares about me so much that he can’t help himself.

• He worries when he can’t get a hold of me.

• She gets anxiety if I don’t let her know what I’m up to.

• This is her way of showing that she cares.

• He was hurt in his last relationship and has a hard time trusting.

• She just needs a little extra reassurance.

Or some version of these excuses.

The Things I Missed

These specific situations may be unique to me, but the concepts are easily applied to what many people go through.

Non-stop texting (after it existed)

Day in, day out, I would be texted. My first 2–6 texts of the day would be hours before I woke up. He was an early morning riser and went to the gym at 4 AM.

I didn’t. Which meant I would get texts he sent while he was lifting.

They continued throughout the day. All day. Every day. Dozens to hundreds of texts.

Repeated phone calls

I had to respond soon(ish) to the texts. If I didn’t, I would get the phone calls. Within minutes, I would receive calls from his line, other people’s lines, the front desk, his cell phone, etc. Any phone he had access to was an option.

On top of that, there were the calls that came at the same time every day, like clockwork. The drive to work. The drive to the gym. The drive from the gym. From work. Breakfast break. Lunch break.

For the days he was out of town, you can add dinner time and bedtime as well.

That’s 6 to 8 regularly scheduled calls that I had to answer if I didn’t want to receive the next part.

Emailing if I didn’t answer my phone

If he couldn’t get a hold of me, I would first get the barrage of texts and calls, but if I didn’t answer any of those, I would then get emails from every email account he had.

He would log in to old emails he hadn’t used in months or years to send messages. They would be from his business account, work, or personal.

Sometimes I would get emails from others doing a “Test” to see if I was able to receive messages.

From the first unanswered text to the calls and emails, the time span was short. You would think it was hours in between, but this would all happen in less than an hour. Anywhere from 25 to 50+ missed texts, calls, and emails in an hour.

It was always accompanied by the reasoning, “I got so worried when you didn’t respond. What if something had happened to you?”

This is how grooming works. I trained myself to be on call by the repeated occurrence of these tactics. To react to every vibration, notification ping, or ring of the phone. (I couldn’t let him worry for one moment. That would be cruel of me, wouldn’t it?) It didn’t happen all at once. It crept up slowly over the years. Together, he and I created an imbalanced system of stimulus vs reactions. It worked both ways.

We had been to multiple marriage counselors because of it. I was worn down. This extreme amount of contact was on the tail end of 2 decades. If it had started that way, I never would have married him.

They don’t start off extreme. That’s how they suck you in.

Check-ins for every activity

It didn’t matter what I was doing. Heading to carpool, driving to work, going to the grocery store, heading home from the same store, leaving the gym, etc.

I had to let him know what I was doing.

This happens to many abuse victims. Eventually, you begin to report your daily activities ahead of time. (For many years before I left, I would text or call if I was going to take a shower, just in case he decided to call while I was in there.) An itinerary of the day’s events is mandatory, and you will be punished in some way if you don’t comply. In my case, it was through heavy psychological manipulation. If I didn’t inform him of my plans, I would either get the calls, texts, and emails above immediately, or I would get the silent treatment later on.

The silent treatment is worse. It’s followed by lectures about how you’re disappointing them and tears about how they try so hard to love you, but you just won’t let them do it their way, and how lucky you are to have someone who cares so much.

Friends and neighbors coming by to see what I was up to

This is third-person stalking.

Using other people to “check in” on you when you don’t need to be checked on is ridiculous. As an adult, with a career and parenting kids, I didn’t need any of my neighbors to swing by to see if I was alive or not, simply because I hadn’t answered the phone in 20 minutes.

Usually, I was either working, doing housework, or showering when I would get these visits. Neighbors and friends stopped coming over after a while because I told them not to anymore. They warned me it was strange, but I had been trained for many years to overlook this as just another one of his weird things.

I recall the first time it happened. My ex was on deployment in the Middle East and had called on his lunch break. Our oldest son was only 9 weeks old, and I had finally gotten him to go down for a nap. I was in the shower when he called and missed it.

Within 10 minutes, there was banging and the doorbell was ringing. One of his friends from college had driven over in a panic, thinking the baby and I had been attacked, because that was the urgency he had put into his message to him.

Of course, I was fine physically, but I was angry because the banging on the door and repeated doorbell chimes woke up our son.

Later that same deployment, his satellite phone privileges were revoked because he was using it too much. After repeated warnings and noncompliance, he was relegated to calling from the regular phones like everyone else. This is a big deal in the special forces community because these phones are needed for missions.

And NO, he didn’t learn his lesson. The same issue happened on his next deployment.

I loved the peace that the loss of those privileges provided me. This was before cell phones and texting were as common, so I was no longer tethered to the landline.

Driving by to make sure I was where I said I was

This didn’t happen often, but it was often enough. If he got it in his head that I was lying about my location, he would drive by to see if I was there.

This is one of the more perplexing things he did because he would often deny it. Even if I had seen him and we had waved to each other. Later, he would deny it had ever happened.

But not every time.

Sometimes he would stop and say hi and pretend he was on his way somewhere else or claim he came by because he missed me so much.

You can tell when someone misses you or if they’re scanning the area for something. I assume that something was a secret lover he thought I had.

It was a sporadic thing. I didn’t know when he would show up or when he would trust.

I know now he never trusted me. A guilty conscious can’t trust.

Surprise visits at work

It would be easy to confuse this with love and care.

I would receive flowers, food, or desserts, hand-delivered at work. Though he knew where I was every second of the day, I didn’t keep tabs on him, so I wasn’t sure what his daily activities were unless he volunteered the information. Every so often, he would stop by my job and bring me things.

Working in rehab, you aren’t in control of much of your schedule. The days are long and the work is physically demanding. If I was literally holding up a client to help them walk, I couldn’t stop in the moment and take a break for however long my ex wanted me to. That would be unethical and illegal.

I didn’t like the unplanned work visits because I would later be scolded for not showing more appreciation. The pouting, moping, and sad faces were enough to drive you crazy.

I was also given grief for not returning the favor. A favor I couldn’t return… because I was at work.

This tactic is used as a show. He liked the praise he got from coworkers who applauded how amazing and caring he was. They didn’t know about the guilt trips and complaining he did behind the scenes. They didn’t know how I dreaded when he would come by next. Because I never said a word.

I stayed silent for a good reason. I didn’t recognize that it was emotional manipulation. I was exasperated and upset by it. I cried and felt physical pain from it, but I didn’t consider that it was abuse. Even when that fact was pointed out by marriage counselors. Even when they made me read books about being blind to abuse. Even when they outright said the words, “This is abuse.” My mind could not wrap around the idea.

I refused to entertain the thought because I was unable to pay the price. I was more invested in the fantasy than in reality.

This is why many victims of stalking are unaware that it is happening. They don’t recognize the behaviors for what they are. The “reasons” are what they want to hear.

They want to believe that the person hurting them is doing it with positive intentions. They want to hear them say that they matter and are chosen. They want to feel that they are loved and cherished, even if it’s too much, even if it’s extreme. They want to feel that the person they care about is thinking about their safety and welfare.

They are primed and ready to believe the bullshit. So then, when bullshit presents itself, it’s easily absorbed as the truth.

Beyond that, they are also primed to deflect sound reasoning and anything that tries to shine light on the abuse. They don’t want to hear any of that, so it gets pushed away. People, information, and content that attempt to bring how the situation is abusive to the forefront are dismissed outright or viewed as offensive.

Many stalking and abuse victims begin to go inward and isolate themselves from their prior support networks. They cut themselves off from the people who could help them because they are either embarrassed by their situations, are tired of hearing things that would go against their thinking, or are trying to avoid the judgments of others.

It is one of the aspects of stalking that does double duty for the abuser.

Limited unaccompanied trips to the store

I was the main parent for our children. I worked and did 99% of the parenting because he was either on deployments, while he was enlisted, or working out of town after he got out. For the first 4 years of our oldest son’s life, we tallied that he had been in the home for less than 1 year total. That pattern did improve somewhat when he was in the civilian world, but not by a lot.

As a parent, going to a store without having to tow around young kids is a luxury. Another luxury is having the other parent take them for a moment so you can get some downtime.

That didn’t happen often. It was rare that I was allowed to go grocery shopping alone or to stay behind if my ex went to the store. It was demanded that I take him with me.

I say take him with me because I was required to drive. In my first marriage, I was the one who did almost all of the driving. For both local and long road trips, I was the main person behind the wheel. This came about slowly as well. For the first few years, it was equal, but it didn’t remain that way.

I can’t stand driving. I do it daily because I have to, but if there were buses or other options in my area, I wouldn’t.

Initially, I would attempt to stay home so I could get things done in peace, but the discomfort I felt afterward was not worth it, so I eventually stopped trying. I would chauffeur everyone around to sports practices, shopping, carpool, the gym, or some other activity.

In a household with two parents, it is normal that one may take a child to an event while the other stays at home to split responsibilities.

Not in ours! I liken it to being a married single parent. I still had to do everything I normally did, but this time I added a grown man to the mix to take care of as well. It felt like I had an extra child.

It was his way of keeping tabs on me; at the same time, he was being catered to like a princess. If I packed snacks and lunches, I packed his as well. If I packed extra clothes or supplies for activities, I packed his in too.

If I didn’t, it was my fault for “not being prepared enough”.

If I didn’t accompany him to the activities and drive him there, I would be on the tail end of lectures. The one I heard most commonly was, “It shouldn’t be like this. Good moms want to be with their children.” or “Don’t wives like spending time with their husbands? I’m gone so much, why can’t you just want to do this for me?”

There was a complete lack of understanding that sometimes you don’t want to have to be on call for every moment of every day. It has nothing to do with love or caring. It has to do with being burned out and needing a break, even if it’s for just one hour.

I think that was one of the goals. While it may not seem like this is stalking, it is because I had to remain in eyesight at all times and stay in close proximity so he could feel relieved that he knew what I was doing and could dictate how I lived my life.

My freedom and equality were a threat. It was all by allowance. If I were at the end of my rope, I would be more easily manipulated and controlled.

It worked. It worked amazingly well. It made it easy for him.

I’ll never forget the night he used my words against me during an argument. He had come home from a long flight and told me that his therapist told him that I was abusive and to leave me. He then said, “Well, you’ll finally get your wish to go to the store alone.”

Within hours, he admitted that he was angry because they wouldn’t upgrade his seat on the flight home, so he picked a fight with me and lied about what his therapist said.

This was before I knew about narcissism and personality disorders. Today, I would never stick around after any of the things that were said or done. But back then… I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

If you know about narcissists, you know that their accusations are admissions. If they are coming at you with off-the-wall ideas or accusing you of cheating, lying, or stealing, then you’d better start searching because they are telling on themselves.

He was admitting that he was aware of his abusive behaviors.

Believe me. I know this sounds really, really, REALLY stupid. Looking back through the rearview mirror, I am embarrassed. I put up with (and promoted) something that was obviously unhinged and toxic. Which means I was equally as unhinged and toxic.

Hindsight is painful sometimes.

What we can’t see under our noses is easily viewed when we take a second, third, or thousandth look back. And that is only if you have the awareness that a look-back is even warranted; many survivors don’t think to do it at all.

Which makes a lot of sense. If life in the moment is chaotic and tense, when do you have time to reflect? How can you do it when you’re focused on survival?

It’s been said a million times and I’ll say it as well… If I can do it, so can you.

I was mired in it. I was groomed from a young age (9 yrs old) to accept it from my ex. We met in the 4th grade. I was completely bought into the dysfunction and had accepted that I would die in my role.

And I got out!

After 30 years of the same person whispering in my ear and building this delusional fantasy with me, I got out.

That’s why I don’t believe anyone is doomed to be stuck forever. If they have a moment of clarity, that is the time to strike with information. They may not listen right then, but they may listen later.

I’m grateful for all the people who tried along the way. They tried their best, but I wasn’t ready until I was. Then, I had all of their words and thoughts to look back on. Then, I could absorb all the information they had tried to pound into my psyche. Then, I broke free and began a new life.

So if you see a friend going through this, or if you are going through it yourself, don’t give up hope.

Your words may be the final straw they need to break the delusion.

Call behaviors like the ones above for what they are. They are abusive. They are scary. They are coercive control.

They are stalking.