Am I a stalker?

[Paninaro94]

Been with my boyfriend for almost 3 years, we. are both divorced with grown up children. We don’t live together but we’re exclusive, have been on lots of holidays together and see each other a lot and are very happy with the situation. He had a few years of dating, both OLD and real-life, before he met me and he doesn’t like to talk about it in anything but the most general sense which is fine.

Last week he mentioned one of his colleagues in a story about work. I had heard him mention her before in passing but didn’t know much about and she has a fairly unusual first name her so found her on Facebook and had a quick nose. I saw the colleague is friends with a woman he dated before we met so the next time I saw him I asked how colleague and former date knew each other independently of him or through him. My boyfriend went crazy, accusing me of “stalking” and looking into his past. Really, I wasn’t. I’ve always thought there was more to his relationship with that woman (not the colleague) than he lets on as she knows (even if superficially) lots of members of his family and friends but he has always assured me that nothing much really happened, they were just sort of friends it was definitely over before we met. Whilst I do have an occasional look at her FB profile (everything is public) because I find her dramatic and amusing but it is literally a 2 minute look and then done.

My take on it is that the ex and the colleague both have pretty open Facebook pages which anyone can see and had they not wanted people to see what they are up to then they wouldn’t have changed the default settings. It literally took me less than one minute to see this information so it is hardly like I was digging back years into their profiles.

I’m upset at being called a stalker but also that he won’t tell me how the ex and the colleague know one another. He flat-out refuses to discuss anything to do with them at all. I now have a niggly feeling, one that I haven’t had before. that something isn’t right and there was a lot more to his relationship with the former date, perhaps even overlapping into ours.

Basically, am I making too much of this? Why won’t he tell me how they know one another?

Op, yes it’s stalking, I understand his reaction, I’d be concerned if my husband did this.

the question is why are you so jealous and insecure, have you always been like this?

But that’s not what you asked him, you asked him how the two other women knew each other. And were stalking her face book.

49!

I thought you'd be early 20's or something.

Yanbu he’s shady AF. You’ve been together 3 years but he doesn’t like to talk about his past in any detail and goes off on one because you understandably did a bit of FB stalking.

I think your gut is probably telling you that things aren’t right with this guy which is probably why you’re driven to FB stalking…/you don’t trust him and I wouldn’t either.

I was shocked to be called a “stalker” and genuinely didn’t know that occasionally looking at someone’s open facebook profile was considered “stalking” but I accept it is and I have fucked up.

Things are good between us now so do I bring it up and apologise or just leave it?

Honestly I’d just walk away. It’s not going to get better. I couldn’t have a meaningful relationship with someone who I felt was withholding their past and exploded when I asked questions.

How can you not even know if they still meet up at social occasions?! Seriously, this isn’t normal despite what the ‘cool girlfriends’ on here say.

Personally I would move on but I guess you have to decide if he is up to something and / or you are paranoid, if you cant put it behind you and get back to normal it wont work

he could be up to something or it could be just you have issues we dont know, but if you cant stop something is up, if I felt I eas being questioned I would not tell anything

Got to say I agree. Slightly different perspective, friend of mine looked up my friend’s hubby and found that they were divorced and asked me about the divorce. She knew my friend as we all worked together previously.
I thought it was bit intrusive asking me about it, but I didn’t get upset or angry about it.
I’ve also had “oh your friends with so and so”. They only know from scrolling through - who cares!

If you are on SM then it goes with the turf I guess. You make your life available for public consumption.

I don’t think they are meeting up alone but she used to go to an event on occasion (don’t want to say as identifying) where he would be with other people. In fact I met her there twice, the first time I did not know it was her and only worked it out months afterwards when she made her presence known to me on Facebook.

The more I hear about this the more I think you need to get rid. This isn’t normal.

For context - I'm a woman in a long-term (nearly 20 years) relationship with someone who I love very much, and who can trust me completely.

If I found out he had done what you have done, I would be really concerned and very very disappointed. I would talk to him very seriously about it, and make it clear to him that, despite how much I love him, and despite our years together, I could never accept being with someone who behaved like that on a continuing basis. It is so utterly disrespectful and controlling - I mean - seriously! - stalking your partners's friends online and checking out who is friends with who? Utterly grim - and I'm shocked by people who've said "this is fine - your mistake was to talk about it'".

If he did that and then interrogated me about what he found, we would be done.

Context is everything though. What you have done is really shit, in the context of a normal loving relationship. Maybe that's not what you have.

I don’t think he is still seeing her now though before we met, they were clearly closer than he has ever admitted.

We’re not financially dependent on each other and have our own houses and families so if he wants to stop seeing me and have a different life, it would just be a case of ending it and that would be that. No drawn out separation. He is already talking about something we are planning to do together in 2026. Am I being daft?

LOLLL are people really pretending they don't FB stalk exes and so on! Pull the other one - we all do it! OP chill. Your DP's reaction is the concerning thing here.

um we really don’t, I’ve never once looked at my husbands ex’s on Facebook, never mind repeatedly

same, no idea if he has mine or not

Trying to create a narrative that makes your behaviour normal, is not helpful to the OP at all.

I can assure you we don't 'all' do it.

Yes thats stalking ... but the real issue is why you would want to. Are there genuine trust issues that need to be addressed

The cool DWs are out in force. Social media is designed to be looked at. Stop getting on your moral high horse to make yourself feel morally superior and attacking OP. It's normal to be curious. Calling her a stalker is frankly ridiculous.

Isn’t the difference that another person wouldn’t look up the social media of an opposite sex colleague in the first place? I mean, by the time you asked him how his colleague knew his ex, it was clear you’d been snooping. Are you normally this paranoid? What are you imagining is the reason they know one another — an illicit threesome or something ? Isn’t it possible the colleague and the ex went to school or university together, or are cousins, or used to work together, or were in a houseshare, or have friends in common?

I’m imagining you in a pinny and rollers on your doorstep in about 1930, hoiking your bosom and saying ‘’Er at number seventeen’s no better than she ought to be.’

Wow how unbelievably sexist and derogatory of you @DullGret ! Plus really detached from reality since your little description bears no relation to what @changedagain67543 was saying? Very weird.

I don't think it's stalking, no.

"Stalking is fixated, obsessive, unwanted and repeated behaviour that makes you feel pestered and harassed. It includes behaviour that happens two or more times, directed at or towards you by another person, which causes you to feel alarmed or distressed or to fear violence might be used against you."

Presumably the person in question is not in any way affected by you looking at their open profile!

Is it healthy or helpful though? No.

The whole ‘cool girls’ bit that people are pulling is embarrassing. Misogyny is never clever.

You don’t have a right to know the ins and outs and details of how serious his past relationship is.

Seeking out his exs Facebook to look down on her and reassure yourself you are better than her isn’t healthy. Looking up colleagues that he mentions in passing does feel like a bit full on. Going through the colleagues friends list is also a bit odd, imo.

Social media

The whole relationship is a bit odd. You say you don’t know if he still sees this ex socially. Is that because he refuses to answer? Or has he answered and you just don’t believe him when he says no?

Her being at the same place isn’t them meeting up socially. And there’s a difference between them saying hello and having a chat when they happen to see each other and them arranging to meet up but, him, not being honest with you.

This could be a case of you being quite obsessive about his ex and he isn’t doing anything wrong and is honestly just fed up of it. Or he is a shady shit who is hiding things from you, which is why you are suspicious.