It’s been 7 months, how to stop ds ex gf?!?

[sagittariusThroughandthrough]

Wasnt sure where to post this 🤦‍♀️
Sorry in advance it’s a super long post, I promise I tried to slim it down 😬

I have ds15, he had a gf for approx 9 months. Seemed nice enough but over time I started to just get this ‘feeling’ that I needed to just pay a bit more attention.
Son would get anxious if he didn’t have phone - tell me she needs to be able to get hold of him, he’d be asleep and his phone would be ringing constantly all through early hours in morning until it woke him (or me), he stopped hanging out with his friends amongst other things..
Long story short, she had apparent mh issues, from outside in, it seemed very much he become her ‘coping’ method some may say her ‘thing’ to control.

I just kind of knew which way this was heading so took the decision to offer son gentle advice, ensuring he comes talk to me and keeps me updated ect.
I had tried point out some inconsistency in her stories and behaviours - but of course he wouldn’t agree with me at the time, so instead I was there for when he put two and two together.

He figured it out, had enough and ended it. Of course she was heart broken as expected however behaviours following this completely irrational, it’s been 7 months since ‘break up’ and I’m at my wits end.

List of some things she’s done:
Threats to hurt herself
Sm posts about ds
100s phone calls and texts a day (blocked and then contacts off different numbers).
fake SM accounts she made.
told everyone ds said he’d ‘stab’ her
Told people he attempted to ‘grab her’.
Denied having his jumper, would then wear it to school every day.
Returned jumper months later damaged
Started hanging around with ds group of friends.
Harasses anyone that’s been anywhere near ds
Somewhere between this ds met another girl, ex gf harassed her so much they broke up.

Ds stopped hanging out with friends as ex gf would be there, no longer posts on sm, hasn’t been out for 3 months… DS isn’t the same person as he was before, he’s playing by the rules of ignoring her, blocking her, if he attempts to do anything ex gf will find away to harass him.

We’ve spoken to school, I’ve spoke to ex gf and her parents multiple times, police were suppose to see her last Saturday, but ex gf has started again today.

It’s ridiculous and childish, far to much for any child and I feel completely helpless and have no solutions…

Any advice/solutions or even reassurance that at some point this will end?

Moving schools isn’t really an option, he’s actually settled in school and he’s going into his final year.
it really wouldn’t surprise me if he moved school and she went with him 😅

as for the catfish idea, I can see where your going with that - although she has had another boyfriend since my ds, she went to find a boyfriend who attended the same as ds then ‘new’ gf. I only know this as her parents were shocked she was still bothered by my ds as she had moved on… 🤷🏻‍♀️

It sounds like you're doing absolutely everything you can. Hopefully the school have realised now that this is a serious situation if police are involved. I hope that it will put a stop to her behaviour. It might be worth investigating a restraining order.

Thank you x

ds is going into year 11 so last year of gsces, here they do some gcses in year 10 and 11 which I’m learning isn’t the norm 😅
moving schools isn’t really an option, due to it being his last year and he’s actually settled in school considering all of this.

@sagittariusThroughandthrough
I'm afraid we've been through this with our son. It didn't end well, as the ex's lie's became more extreme and my son faced very big accusations, it became a big investigation. Luckily, there was no evidence and actually we were able to disprove everything, but it took months of turmoil.
Unfortunately, the officer I reported it to at first didn't take it seriously, said it was not a police matter.
The subsequent officers I dealt with said it should have been acted upon when we first took it to them.
My advice is fight for him, make sure the police have clear evidence of the number of messages, the content, and the way she is contacting others.
Secondly, try to engage him in some support, he is going to need it, it took a couple of years for my son to resurface as him. The officer that I dealt with subsequently let me know that she feels it was emotional / domestic abuse and coercive control that she had used on him.
I'm so sorry you are going through this, please let me know if I can support you further.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond,
I’ve tried to respond where I can 🙃

In my heart this behaviour doesn’t feel normal and is harassment but I guess I feared the police, schools ect would have thought this was just childish and ridiculous and maybe we were wasting their time or an over the top mum reaction.

Weirdly though if a 20 year old woman had said she was experiencing such behaviour I’d probably have insisted they went to police and told her put a stop to it! I guess I’d never consider a 15 year old could demonstrate such extremes over such a length of time.

I just want to say thank you to you all for letting me speak ‘out loud’ and get other’s perspective and reassure me that this isn’t normal. it’s been nice to get it all out of my head I may actually get a good sleep!

ds is with mentor tomorrow, he may have an update from the police.
we have and will continue keeping a log of all the stuff she is doing.
schools back open shortly il inform them the police are involved and they surely would have to safeguard ds.

ds is a tough cookie, I guess he can put this down as an experience.

thank you all again and I really do appreciate the time you’ve taken to respond x

Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry to hear this. I hope your son is ok now?

it’s just awful, I think our fear is that she will become more extreme, she made big accusations previously but not to the police, this is partly why he doesn’t go out, if he isn’t out he can’t be accused I guess. It’s scary to think this girl is only 15 and already demonstrating such behaviours

thank you for the advice, and I genuinely hope your son and family are ok and come through it x

Every phone call to her, every visit and phone call to her parents makes a harassment case against her harder for you to prove.
Stop contacting her and her parents.
Log everything and keep after the police.
I’ve been harassed like this before and I know how terrifying it is — only I was an adult. Your son is just a kid and the pressure must be enormous. I’m glad he has you.
Still, this has gone on far too long
Somebody - her parents - the school or the police or social services - need to get grip on this crazy girl.
Sending love & best wishes.

She sounds as unhinged as a local girl in my going-into-year-9 kid's year. The ('our') girl exhibits signs of something called Main Character Syndrome. The one you describe sounds very similar. Her MO is to orchestrate massive episodes of drama between people, usually casting herself as the victim whilst actually being the perpetrator. She's mostly out of the picture now but it took months and months and a lot of speaking to the school and to other people here. We are a very small community in a village and we've been lucky that other people know of her and her family and have rallied round my child to ensure she's safe. Kid comes across like bitter wouldn't melt but she's nasty. Good luck.

Op, your son desperately needs you to go to war over this. Getting the proper authorities to stop the girl must be your new full-time job. Every single little thing has to be documented and all of it needs to be reported, every day. Do not allow the school and police to take this less seriously because this is a female on male crime, and even more than that, a teenager female on teenager male crime. This isn't just some dramatic breakup. This girl is terrorising him, and that is criminal.

OP and glitter they (the problematic girls) sound like narcissists

Please stop worrying about it being viewed as childish - it is time to report to the police very seriously. You must keep very accurate records.

Can you escalate at school and get permanent agreement about them separating them?

This sounds so stressful.

I would also investigate moving schools. He needs a break from the behaviour.

This is way bigger than you just helping your teen navigate normal teen issues. This isn’t a normal teen issue. You need proper help and advice. You could try calling the national stalking helpline or any other related charity that has a helpline. They’ll be able to advise on the next actions with the police etc and give general advice for staying safe.

You've already had some good advice, especially to log everything and to stop your contact with the girl's family.

As for social media it's good he's getting a new SIM but I wouldn't be so quick to discard his "old" contact details/SM.

From what you describe as soon as he blocks her, she finds out his new contact details.

Perhaps better to leave an account/number she knows that you can track and log her contact/communications and occasionally "feed" it with innocuous content so it appears live.

Your DS needs to be careful who he shares his new contact details with and make sure any SM accounts he has are locked down only to people he trusts.

In this way you may be able to channel her communications away from his active accounts so he can communicate freely with friends.

Do not as a pp suggested go online and write an expose about her. It will just add fuel to the fire and give her more reason to go on the offensive and play the victim. It also won't play well re the police as you end up in a situation where it appears they are both as bad as each other.

Read up on the "grey rock" approach. Essentially just no reaction, no drama to thrive off.

My god OP this is horrendous. I really feel for your son and you too having to deal with this all, her stepping all over your boundaries.

My son's ex stalked him but basically just following him, going to places he would go to (this was university days). He just blocked and ignored her. She finally thank god gave up and returned to her own country.

You have to escalate this on all levels, school, police, the men's organisation someone mentioned up-thread.

Maybe write a piece for the Guardian or some such, just to get some knowledge out there how damaging this is to a teenager and a male. It might get a discussion going and get people to sit up and see how serious this is with men being targeted too.

Wishing you both all the best and hope school and police step up on this.

Your poor son, I do hope for his sake that she stops this harassment!

I wonder if legal advice might help? Or report her to social services as her parents are doing a shit job of looking after her.

Hire a solicitor to have a cease and desist letter sent.

You need to show these people that you are willing to pull out the big guns.

Keep pestering the police.

When your ds gets his new phone maybe try you taking his old phone out when he's at home and see if that makes her think he's gone out?

I'd really want to get to the bottom of how she knows where he is, if you can stop that and then you stop any contact with her aswell as your ds then maybe she'll get bored.

Contact school, tell them you need to speak to DSL or deputy DSL. Report these as incidents as peer on peer abuse. Ask how they are going to safeguard your child. If n essay you can contact your customer first safeguarding team (names may vary by county) to make the same disclosure.

It is very much a safeguarding issue and needs to be taken seriously.

In my heart this behaviour doesn’t feel normal and is harassment but I guess I feared the police, schools ect would have thought this was just childish and ridiculous and maybe we were wasting their time or an over the top mum reaction

Your instinct is right OP, it's not childish, it's stalking, harassment and abuse.

Agree with PP this needs to be your new FT job now. Every contact, every incident needs to be documented and reported to the police and the safeguarding lead at DSs school.

Peer on peer abuse is specifically mentioned in the KCSIE guidance all schools are bound by. Use those words - peer on peer abuse, harassment, stalking.

Contact organisations such as paladin for advice and again document everyone you speak to and what they say.

Make a nuisance of yourself.

And never ever contact the girl or her parents again. And make sure DS doesn't either. The school or the police will do that if they need to.

hi all thank you for your responses and sorry I’ve taken a day or so to reply between all this I work full time and in uni, so I had to switch off and get my essay submitted!

update:
police came to speak to us, we explained everything and showed them all the stuff that we have saved.

the issue we have is what she is saying and sending isn’t necessarily ‘criminal’ and the bigger issue is more of her intent or ‘underlying’ motive.

Thankfully the police looked through the ‘stuff’ and commented basically the same thing they can see what she is trying to do and some what provoke a reaction by her actions but isn’t physically saying or doing anything to land herself in serious trouble however when you look at it on a whole it’s clearly harassment.

they are enroute to speak to her, stated they’d talk to her and parents and ensure they know it is being taken a seriously, although they didn’t seem convinced they could ‘Stop’ her’ but atleast for the time being it will be on their radar.
The PC did say if she makes comments about harming herself again then to ring police and request welfare check and for a short period would arrange regular catch ups with ds to make sure everything is ok and to continue monitoring situation.

ds has new phone and sim, his old sim and phone is with me and has remained on for the time being.
I’ve emailed the school to update them that the police are now involved, ds mentor is ‘attached’ to the school and has informed me he will discuss this in the school at the beginning of next week too.

btw I did tell the police if this was the other way around and my ds was the ‘stalker’ and doing the harassing - the school, police, parents and friends would have frowned upon it months ago and he would have been labelled and no doubt a conviction against his name. The police completely agreed and said most definitely, and when I thought about this longer woman who do this behaviour are usually called ‘bunny boilers’ and butt of jokes 🤷🏻‍♀️

thank you to those who mentioned peer or peer abuse I will use these words.

thank you all again, you genuinely have no idea how much you’ve all helped x

Hmm I think you might need to push this a bit further with the police. You’ve said she’s made, for example, 100 phone calls, this clearly falls under the FOUR behaviour for stalking (Fixated, Obsessive, Unwanted and Repeated.) I think this is a not uncommon issue with the police and the stalking / harrassment laws. I would consider pushing this harder. There’s a reason the laws were tightened up.

The National Stalking Helpline could be good to advise:

www.suzylamplugh.org/stalking-help-and-advice

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/stalking-or-harassment

You are doing a great job but must keep on at the police. Make sure they have given you a crime number so it is properly recorded, not just a casual ‘chat’. It is an offence, at least harassment if not the more serious offence of stalking. Log everything. Try and get it allocated to the domestic abuse team not just beat officers. If officers do not do anything about it take it to their supervising officer – within a week. If you have no luck with them make a complaint to professional standards. Do not let them downplay this – she ticks every box. Youths can and do get restraining orders against them. Alternatively you could ask police to seek a stalking protection order.

Substantial adverse impact includes

• impact on physical or mental ill-health
• the victim stopping /or changing the way they socialise

Behaviour can include

• following a person
• contacting, or attempting to contact, a person by any means
• publishing any statement or other material relating or purporting to relate to a person, or purporting to originate from a person
• monitoring the use by a person of the internet, email, or any other form of electronic communication
• loitering in any place (whether public or private)
• interfering with any property in the possession of a person
• watching or spying on a person
• cyberstalking". This can include the use of social networking sites, email, chat rooms and other forums facilitated by technology.

It is a course of conduct where each bit individually may not be criminal but the legislation is designed for exactly this situation where they should be taken altogether. Make sure you keep a copy of anything you or he have sent saying leave me/him alone as this will show either that she knew or ought to have known that her behaviour was unwanted and causing harassment/alarm/distress.

Good luck

I have no advice but my brother went through something similar and they were both in their 20s.

This sort of behaviour is far more common than a lot of people realise.

What a horrible situation for your son to be in. I agree with others that you shouldn't have any contact with this girl or her parents again. In fact I don't think I'd go through school, either, but always via the police.

Would it be possible to have a restraining order against her? Can that be done for under 18s?

Did you hear about the bastard who was stalking Emily Maitlis? That had gone on since they were at university.