[letmebeme69]

Hi there! I am new to all of this but, I felt like I needed an outsiders view and some ideas on a problem that will not seem to go away.

Basically I met a man a year ago in June. We were together briefly in what was a very passionate and deeply intense relationship. It ended because one day he said he was in love with me but was afraid he would really hurt me and to me, that sounded a little off and I immediately became suspicious so I had a friend run his license plate number (I have never done that before) and found out the car was registered to him and his wife.

Needless to say I confronted him in our gym parking lot and ended it right then and there. I blocked him from texting and emailing and I changed gyms, I even moved because I didn't want him showing up on a whim.

A few months go by and my phone rang. It was him, he called from a different number and we spoke for a few minutes. I assured him nothing had changed and that I was not interested in seeing a married man. I blocked that number as well.

The has called from several different numbers and each time I have answered not knowing it was for him. I do a lot of business in my area so many people call my cell from numbers I do not recognize.

I have told him to stop and he doesn't get it. I have been harsh with him, mean to him, nice to him, I have told him to think of his wife and kids but nothing gets through to him.

I am in a good place with a good person and want to keep it that way but today he called again. I am at the point that I want to call his wife. I don't want to hurt her or the kids but he doesn't seem to care. He wants to meet with me just to talk like we used to so often. He just wants to see me for a few minutes.. blah blah blah.. I am at my wits end. I can't change my number due to work so, what now? I would never want to be in his wife's position. He told me I wasn't the first girlfriend he had on the side. Do I email his wife, call her and send her all the text messages or what?

[winter4me]

You might want to see if the police can help---have a chat with him...he is harassing you.
If he calls again, you could a) hang up immediately & block the #, b) tell him you will need to talk to the police, or his wife if he calls again, c)....
if you aren't going to forward the texts, erase all and answer none.
Be consistent, be unavailable, don't try one thing and then another---
You could still change your number, it is a pain with work, but you can.

[iwonderaboutstuff]

hmmm tough one. Would telling his wife actually result in him stopping his attempts to contact you? Is there a risk it would escalate (you said you moved)?

Did you try a straight up "i'm not talking to you again" and hanging up; followed by hanging up without saying anything as soon as you hear his voice on subsequent calls?

If it comes to it, you could always temp route your current cell thru an answering service as you transition to a new number. A pain in the youknowwhat for sure, but doable if needed.

[~Christina]

I would tell him that you do not want to hear form him again, at all . If he does call again or tries to contact you in any way you will have your attorney draw up papers and have them mailed to his home certified so that it will need to be signed for. I imagine he wont want his wife to get that kind of mail.

I personally do not see a need for you to go out of your way to change your number. He is the problem.

[CosmicRose]

That's a little unnerving. He's going to quite some extreme lengths to get your number. And if he REALLY wanted you back he would have divorced his wife, called you up, and said "I divorced my wife, I want to see you again. I am no longer married." But no. Sounds a little creepy to me. Next time he calls, tell him that if he contacts you again you will contact the police. I had to do that once, this guy I met randomly at a mall would not take no for an answer and I had to threaten him with the police. I never contacted the police because I never heard from him again. So it works.

[scorpiosis37]

Call the police and file a restraining order. He is demonstrating stalking tendencies and that is not something to treat lightly. He needs to be reported. You are likely not the only woman he has done this to. Talking to his wife directly could be very dangerous because it could cause him to lash out at you. Talk to the police instead.

[Bill3]

Police.

.

[divine1966]

Talk to the police

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[Rose76]

If you just don't talk to him when he calls, he'll get bored and stop calling. Any little bit of conversation you give him encourages him to keep calling.

Making contact with his wife is actually a way of you getting more deeply involved with him. I wouldn't do that. Don't imagine that you would be helping his wife by contacting her. It may be that she avoids knowing what she prefers not to know. That's her right. Stay out of it. Otherwise you are just spinning this into a bigger drama.

This guy seeks attention from women. Give him none, and he will tire of trying to get it from you. There are plenty of other women out there for him to seduce, and he will find one.

[JaGo]

A couple options:
1. Call the police
2. Call his wife
3. Tell him he needs to stop or you're going to go to the police or go to his wife.

In situations like these, where stalker behavior is demonstrated, the police is definitely the safest option.

Okay, so I'll add my opinion here. I have had a similar problem before, not from a married man, but once from someone I went on two dates with and another time from someone that I refused to date.

In both cases, I took the easy way out. When I would answer the phone and then realize that it was the harassing person on the other end of the line, I would hang up immediately. I wouldn't let them hear my voice beyond "hello". If I answered and no one said anything on the other end, I would also hang up immediately.

This worked to get rid of about 95% of the calls from these people within a month.

I would urge you to act in the direction of disengaging yourself from this situation. That means no contact with his wife. That could be potentially dangerous for you. It also will not look good if you later decide to or need to get the police involved.

So far your actions have been very good as far as showing that you are trying to discourage contact with him. Moving and changing your gym means you put some effort into getting this guy out of your life.

If you want to, before you start just hanging up on him, you could talk to him one last time and say something like "This is the last time I'm going to speak to you. Do not call me again. If you do call again, I will be keeping a record of the calls and will contact the police to find out how to handle this. Goodbye." and hang up. Don't let him have a "side" in the conversation. If he starts talking, talk over him and finish what you have to say then hang up. It's better to keep your voice matter-of-fact - no anger.

Make a note of the time and date of that conversation and of what you said and of what he said, if anything. You can make a screen capture of the call record if he's calling you on your mobile phone.

If he calls again, just say nothing and hang up. No feedback will be enough to discourage most people. If it doesn't work, then you will probably have to talk to the police for advice.

As far as whether you contact the police now, that's up to you. If you are feeling threatened or very stressed by the calls, it might be helpful to call them. On the non-emergency number, of course. Whether you feel less stressed afterwards depends on how the interaction with the police goes.

I talked to the police once about a guy that I had spoken to one time on the bus who started showing up at my door. My apartment is near a bus stop, and he watched to find out where I lived. The police didn't act like I was wasting their time, and they gave me good advice.

I'm including a link for telephone harassment statues for each state. If your situation doesn't fit your state's laws, I wouldn't worry about it. That just means that the guy's behavior may be classified as stalking via telephone.

Good luck to you. I hope you get the calls to stop.

[Rose76]

Jo thorne, above, offers excellent advice . . . and she speaks from experience.

[avlady]

call police

[doyoutrustme]

get a restraining order. That will protect you and tip off the wife indirectly.

[Rose76]

No one should ever assume that a restraining order is any guarantee of protection. Woman have been killed relying on restraining orders. Besides, we have to bear some responsibilities for the entanglements we get ourselves into. Cops got other things to do besides babysit every love affair gone awry. Recourse to them is a civil right. But first a responsible citizen should make a reasonable and diligent effort to stop feeding into the craziness, which I think means that you stop giving an unwanted caller any attention, in just the same way that the phone company advises us to handle obscene or nuisance calls.

[*Laurie*]

I have been in a very similar situation and I can tell you that (at least here in California) the police will not do
A N Y T H I N G to deter someone who is harassing you. Many people have a very false security about what the police will/can do.

You can get a restraining order, but unless the guy has a history/criminal conviction of having physically abused you (and unless there is a minor child involved) a restraining order is best left to TV programs. IRL they aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Here's what you MUST do if you are serious about keeping this bum out of your life: Do not respond to any of the guy's attempts to communicate with you. DO NOT RESPOND. At all. That means, block his number. Do not listen to his messages - the second you think he's left a message DELETE (don't 'just listen to it this time'). Filter his email address so it goes directly into your trash bin, then delete all of your trash email without peeking at who sent what. Make everything private on Facebook, if he can find you there.
You get my point...If you are 'tempted' you will be giving him hope that he can see you. Be bluntly honest with yourself, because no one will 'keep the bad man away' from you except YOU.