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?

Having been on the recieving end of an actual stalker, I think some of these comments are harsh. Occasionally looking at someone's profile is what a LOT of people do. Stalking, however, is a whole different world apart! A STALKER is someone who is on another level and is VERY dangerous! Unless you are actually hacking their Facebook, hacking their emails, hanging around someone's house, following where they go, using tracking devices, putting spyware on their phones, planting listening devices in their house, contacting people on their lives directly, making up fake profiles to enable you to contact them, leaving gifts for them outside their house, sending unwanted correspondence and so on, then you're NOT a stalker. The term is used with ease but the reality of a true stalker is life destroying. Believe me, I know!

We all do it.. I don’t think it’s weird, it’s more curiosity. However I wouldn’t have mentioned it to him, that’s too far.

I really don’t think you’ve any evidence to support occasionally looking at your partners ex face book , and in that every few weeks is something a lot of people do. In fact this thread would evidentually prove otherwise.

and stalking isn’t unless it’s extreme it’s not stalking. Of course irs not as bad as her hanging around outsice her home or following her, no one is saying such a thing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not stalking. It is.

Look up the definition of a stalker please. Try looking on the victim support web page or even check out the police definition of what a stalker is. I absolutely agree that it's not healthy to spy on the profile of an ex of your partner's, however, that doesn't make someone a stalker. Jealous, insecure... Maybe. There is a fine line here with using the term stalker because stalking is a criminal offence.

The definition of stalking is to pursue or approach stealthily. It can also mean to harass or persecute.

she is stalking.

Christ the ‘I’m better than you’ crew are tiring. It’s Friday, give the high horses a day off.

The whole model of social media is based on getting people looking at others profiles, it’s literally the entire point of it and what it’s programmed to encourage users to do.

You haven’t done something millions of others haven’t @Paninaro94. Clearly there is an issue that’s niggling about this woman.
The red flags for me are her seeking your profile out and making herself known (which is actually more stalker ish) and your partners completely OTT reaction to the question. There’s likely more to it than you’ve been told so you’ve got to decide if it’s something you can live with not knowing about.

In your case I’d block her so the temptation is no longer there to look when you feel
insecure. It also means she can’t drop anymore likes on you either.

I really would not say having a look into his past is unusual,the unusual part is mentioning it to him....never a good idea!
Try to be happy and content in the knowledge that you have been together 3 years and seem good with each other.

We'll agree to disagree on this one. You're entitled to your opinion and I am to mine. I go by actual experience and education and the fact that I now work in this field because of my lived experience.

Totally agree.

Looking at someone's public Facebook info, that they've chosen to share, isn't stalking. Hiring managers do it, journalists do it, people who follow influencers and other people they find interesting do it. I used to work with a guy years ago and his wife, who I've never met, watches my Instagram stories all the time. I don't find it weird.

Make your mind up, you first of all said check the definition, and when the definition was provided and you were proved wrong, you’ve now resorted to I work in this field so trust me.

it doesn’t come across well. If you worked in this field you’d know the defitinition. And understand it’s a sliding scale.

what you’re writing is like saying my husband giving me a slap isn’t dv, because he’s not beating the shit out of me every night.

it’s a sliding scale. This is stalking.

I think you’re confused by standard social media following someone behaviour and regularly checking out your partners ex who you have never met, and only doing so as it’s his ex.

His colleague isn't the ex and she's been checking her out too.

It's this kind of easy to throw around use of the word "stalker" that invalidates people's real stalking experiences and also makes people less believed. Did you see the case about the woman who tried to report her stalker to the police and was fined for wasting police time? He then killed her.

If you have been genuinely stalked, you know how serious it is and how it's comparable to people throwing around terms like OCD when they're not OCD or talking about actual OCD. Same with depression and a bunch of other things.

🙄🤦🥱

I don't think it's stalking - which is a criminal offence and ruins lives. Stalking is camping outside peoples homes, sending them hundreds of messages a day, following them etc.

Really, I wasn’t.

Really, you were.

I think you sound like very different people. You sound like an open book and he sounds like someone who holds his cards close to his chest.
I think in this kind of pairing, the more open person can get a bit insecure because we don't understand the secrecy and tend to wonder if there's some deep dark secret when really, the truth is usually quite boring. Or the more secretive person has been burned in the past by sharing too much with the wrong person.
I think in this situation you are more likely to go looking for information. It's a symptom of overthinking. But it's not really healthy, nor is it satisfying because people only put the best version of themselves on social media.

I think the main issue is that, if I'm understanding this correctly, the OPs partner is bring extremely evasive about his past with his ex. I mean, why the secrecy, unless there's something to hide? On top if this he has gone mad over the fact that she's gone snooping to find more information which is suggestive of him not wanting her to find possible information, presumably, again because there's something to hide.

Why would you assume if someone is pissed at an invasion of privacy it’s as they’ve something to hide?

No I don’t think it’s stalking, just being nosy about publicly posted information. Lot’s of people do it but would never admit to it. And I imagine there is a lot of curiosity about partner’s exes in general.

I deleted my Facebook account though because of the lack of privacy all around. Also because my ex would create false profiles in his mother’s name to try and look at the public accounts of people who had purposely blocked him. That definitely is stalking and it put me off social media.

This! The first rule of being a facebook detective is never tell anyone you’ve done it!!

This is mad unhealthy. If I was him I'd make you swear you will stop doing this. Why do you do it? Please see sense.

So what if his colleague knows his ex, so what if his ex does x,y,z? How would you feel if he did the same thing to you, looking through your exs socials and grilling you about colleagues and their FB friends list.

You do know that most FB 'friends' have never even met eachother or spoken to eachother?

His reaction does seem a little over the top, but I wonder if it’s because he’s upset that you don’t trust him rather than trying to cover something up.
Despite what many are saying on here, you’re not a stalker. Most people do what you do whether they admit it or not. The fessing up to it was the mistake.

Does it really matter how serious it was? I mean my husband has been married before. I have never felt the need to pry more. He knows I've had previous relationships. We know the essential details but as long as the previous relationships have no ongoing issues (e.g. children, property, animosity, family problems) then I have no reason to know more. A bit of a snoop on social media is not untoward, nosiness is understandable, it is the needing to know more, letting it make you feel entitled to information and paranoid that has crossed over boundaries.

OP you can see that people feel differently about what consitutes snooping when it comes to checking out an open facebook page. He freaked out at the idea that he mentioned a female colleague in passing and the next thing he knows you've gone and looked up the colleague, identified a link to his ex and are asking him about it. Maybe that does feel pretty weird and creepy to him... Did you apologise (genuinely) for being intrusive? Did he go "crazy" (which is not reasonable) or is that your defensive interpretation because you are feeling shamed by the use of the word "stalker"? It is perhaps 'a bit odd' that he is choosing to prolong the drama and discomfort by not saying "look, X knows Y because I introduced them when I was dating X. In future, this sort of snooping will be a dealbreaker for me." But maybe he feels that if he responds to one or two of your questions you're just going to come back at him with a whole lot more...

If I was dating a man who looked up my colleagues on Facebook for no other reason than that I'd mentioned them in passing, or made regular visits to the pages of any of my exes to check out who they were friends with and to observed their 'dramatic and amusing' behaviour, and then started fucking questioning me about it to let me know they'd been checking things out, I would dump them instantly. Controlling, creepy, possessive and intense.

Perfectly normal to be a bit curious about people's exes, and of course social media makes it easier to find out things. One quick glance at an ex's profile out of curiosity? Pretty normal.

However, regularly looking at their profile 'because you find them dramatic', checking who else they're friends with etc - that's fucking weird and stepping well into bunny-boiler territory. And as for looking up your partner's colleague because he mentioned her once... yeah, that's really weird.

I think the most revealing thing about your post is actually this:

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

Why? Why did you look for his colleague on Facebook? Why did you want/need to know more about her than the fact that she works at the same place as your boyfriend? Do you look up his male colleagues too?

I have never, literally never, thought 'Hmm, I'll check out my boyfriend's colleagues on social media'. You do come across as extremely intense and stalky and your behaviour is a big red flag.