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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

I got a creepy message from an acquaintances husband last night

138 replies

Cockapoomummy · 26/08/2018 12:20

I’ve another thread about how he did it (Facebook messenger). I’ve blocked him.

Should I tell her though?

I’m divorced, early days dating someone if that’s relevant.

OP posts:
AviatorShades · 26/08/2018 13:48

Flowers OP, I've been there. Police involvement too + phone no.change etc. Years ago, but it never leaves you, does it?
So...me, I'd mail him just one time. I'd tell him his 'ass' comments are well out of order. Any more and I'll be screenshotting his wife.
And then I'd block.
JerkAngry

Original poster
Cockapoomummy · 26/08/2018 13:52

I’ve changed my number since I was stalked. So he couldn’t text me.

I am second guessing if I shouldn’t have replied at all and feeling incredibly guilty that I did. Is that encouraging him?

OP posts:
WorraLiberty · 26/08/2018 13:56

I wouldn't have bothered replying but you chose to and that's your right.

You've blocked him now so personally I wouldn't give it a second thought.

LetsGoBitches · 26/08/2018 13:57

By sending the message to his wife, the OP’s protecting herself further, as his wife will make sure he doesn’t text her anymore.

Let him swing for it.

Victim support key help you OP with your understandable anxiety. My sympathies.

IncrediblySturdyPyjamas · 26/08/2018 13:59

Yes I would send that to the wife.

Assuming they are still married.

No way should you have to deal with another fucking stalker.

Why are these men suck utter fucking stalky bastards?

MissVanjie · 26/08/2018 13:59

Ugh that is thoroughly grim and would give me that horrible panicky butterflies in stomach feeling, and i have not been stalked. It is normal to feel grossed out by men who show they do not respect boundaries.

Not only did he disrespect you op, he ignored your hint at putting him back in the ‘partner of my friend’ box when you asked about her by doubling down and making a disrespectful comment about her. He is showing you clearly who he is and who he is is a man who has no respect for women and does not care about making them uncomfortable. Absolutely normal to be freaked out by such a person making overtures to you.

Yes it is possible for you to shut him down (and you have, really well) but now he had made his creepy behaviour your problem to deal with (as in, should you tell your friend? Will she be upset wth you? Will there be fallout in your friendship and other friendships? What if you bump into him again?) all this would be making my guts churn and i am sure you are the same, and the really angry making thing is, women never ask to be put in these positions yet we get this shit behaviour and the associated fallout dumped on us all the time and the men in question swan blithely about their normal business with not a care in the world. It makes me furious actually.

ForeverJung · 26/08/2018 14:01

I'd be shocked if I got this message to. One wants to think well of the husbands of people we like and he's made that impossible.

You have screenshotted it to protect yourself. As his wife is an acquaintance and not a friend, there's no friendship to lose really. I bet he has got in there first to spin some story about you flirting with him seeing as how his testing the water plummeted to the sea bed.

Is there any chance HE was your stalker?

Original poster
Cockapoomummy · 26/08/2018 14:01

MissVanjie that’s it exactly.

OP posts:
Original poster
Cockapoomummy · 26/08/2018 14:02

No chance he was the stalker I know who it was. And it wasn’t him.

OP posts:
ForeverJung · 26/08/2018 14:03

Apologies, you know it's not him.

I hate this sort of nonsense. It puts you in a vulnerable situation where you are scared you'll end up blamed.

JohnMcCainsDeathStare · 26/08/2018 14:04

I'd be rattled by the message and I haven't been stalked. Don't let anyone on here or RL minimise this or dismiss your feelings. Keep screenshots, dates and printouts.

ForeverJung · 26/08/2018 14:05

You've been through enough. I'd send it to his wife and then blcok the pair of them.

Women waste their lives with this knobs who have a lecherous eye out

Rebecca36 · 26/08/2018 14:06

I don't blame you for being rattled, he sounds really creepy.

Any more of it and I'd go to the police and I would not do that lightly. At least your complaint would be logged and they'd have a word with him which would scare him.

Hope you've kept all messages.

I'm very glad you have a 20 year old living with you, it helps to have another adult around.

ForeverJung · 26/08/2018 14:06

I agree it's been minimised on here. As though any reaction at all is drama. How can you not have an emotional reaction to the creepy comment from the husband of an acquaintance. It's uncomfortable, threatening.

UpstartCrow · 26/08/2018 14:09

Cockapoomummy You didn't do anything wrong and you haven't encouraged him.
You aren't overreacting. The comment about your car was designed to rattle you. It isn't friendly. Its the sort of thing stalkers say to let their victim know they're being watched.

He's married, and he's a creep. He found out you are divorced and he put out feelers. Keep the message just in case he escalates.

Original poster
Cockapoomummy · 26/08/2018 14:09

I’ve screenshotted the message.

OP posts:
MissVanjie · 26/08/2018 14:13

I have a friend whose partner disrespects her in front of her friends and who makes disparaging remarks about her behind her back all the time. It really puts me on edge and there isn’t the added aspect of him being sexually creepy. It just gives me that ‘who the actual FUCK do you think you are’ rage that he thinks it’s ok to act like that. And you know of course that if you said anything you would be ‘causing drama’ or ‘can’t take a joke’ or whatever.

LizzieSiddal · 26/08/2018 14:17

Tbh I would want to send the message to his wife but I’d be scared he would then try to find me!

Maybe send him a message saying “You are a creep, if you ever contact me again I will forward all messages to your poor wife. I have sent all these sceeenshots to several other people, with your details so do not even think about trying to bully me. We know who you are”.

WorraLiberty · 26/08/2018 14:18

By sending the message to his wife, the OP’s protecting herself further, as his wife will make sure he doesn’t text her anymore.

The OP has made sure of that by blocking him.

MissVanjie · 26/08/2018 14:21

this is a lengthy but good article about why things like this rattle us, particularly in the wake of abuse, and how this feeling of ‘no, wait, that is NOT OK’ is actually a healthy response (it shows you are highly attuned to behavioural red flags from would-be abusers). However the fact that this sort of thing is so so common and it’s always women doing the thinking and the managing and the dealing with the fallout (i somehow doubt that there is a parallel universe where men are fretting over their behaviour and what they should do and whether they should apologise etc) makes me rage.

WorraLiberty · 26/08/2018 14:21

Actually I've just thought.

If you haven't heard from him in over 10 years, are you sure he still even has a wife?

MissVanjie · 26/08/2018 14:25

The advice from a pp upthread about sending it to his wife and then blocking HER was pretty good - it sounds cold but you are then ensuring that they thrash this out between them without getting dragged further into things any more than you already have.

Of course there is then the worry that your friend could infer from the blocking that you blame her for her husband’s shitty behaviour, or that you have cut off the friendship when she really needs support. It really is a tricky one. Why do these horrible men feel the need to shit all over their own doorsteps like this?

supadupapupascupa · 26/08/2018 14:26

You could approach your friend and just explain that the message has brought up your trauma over the stalking and to please speak to her husband about it as he may not have meant it to come across how it did. Give her a way out to remain friends but alert her to his behaviour.

MissVanjie · 26/08/2018 14:26

Worra from the context of their message exchange it sounds very much like he is still married:

“I replied with sorry didn’t see you how are x and the kids

He replied with x yapping as usual no change there”

WorraLiberty · 26/08/2018 14:27

Ahh yes, missed that MissVanjie, thanks.