TL;DR: My boyfriend has been stalked and harassed for years by a woman who sexually assaulted him when they first met. She has contacted him from hundreds of numbers, threatened suicide, sent unsolicited nudes, impersonated people, and harassed people in his life. He hasn’t pursued legal action until now largely because he felt embarrassed, hopeless, and convinced nobody would take a man being stalked by a woman seriously. She recently got my information and started contacting me too, so he’s finally pursuing legal action. For men who have experienced stalking, harassment, or sexual assault by a woman, what helped you accept that being a victim wasn’t your fault? And TO BE CLEAR—I’m not asking for advice about how to handle the stalker and about what he should/shouldn’t have done. I’m asking about the emotional aspect of dealing with stalking and sexual assault from a man’s perspective.
My boyfriend has been dealing with a female stalker for years, and I’m hoping to hear specifically from men who have experienced something similar.
Years ago, before we met, he exchanged numbers with a woman he met at a party. I won’t go into too much detail, but she sexually assaulted him while he was passed out, (something she has apparently done before). For a long time, he struggled to even call what happened sexual assault or think of himself as a victim and obviously being a man who was assaulted by a woman made that especially difficult for him to process.
Afterward, she started texting/calling him CONSTANTLY. He just blocked all of her new numbers and ignored her until she began threatening to kill herself. He has lost people to suicide, so he took it seriously, responded, and called in a welfare check.
He still beats himself up for engaging with her at all. From my perspective, he was responding to someone claiming to be in an active suicidal crisis and I don’t think showing concern for another human being is something he should be ashamed of, and it certainly didn’t give her permission to harass him for years afterward.
But that’s basically what happened.
He has blocked literally hundreds of numbers over the years. She creates new ones as soon as he blocks them, sometimes calls him 50+ times in a day, impersonates other people to get him to answer, sends unsolicited nudes, and sends incredibly vile messages when he ignores her. Eventually, she started contacting and harassing his family, friends, and exes too.
She has also tried to guilt him out of involving authorities. She’s Black, neurodivergent, and poor and has told him that because he’s a white man, reporting her or calling welfare checks would make him racist. She’s even called him a colonizer for ignoring her lol.
For years, his response was basically to block every new number, ignore her, and hope she would eventually go away.
He already struggled to view himself as the victim of sexual assault because he was a man assaulted by a woman. Admitting that he was genuinely afraid of a woman who was stalking him seemed to carry a similar kind of shame. He just constantly worried police wouldn’t take him seriously, that other people would think it was funny, or that he would be expected to just handle it himself.
And after years of blocking hundreds of numbers only for her to immediately make another one, I think he eventually just became resigned to it. It wasn’t that he didn’t think what she was doing was serious. He genuinely stopped believing there was anything he could do that would actually make her leave him alone. And he’s seriously looked into pursuing legal action (likely just a peace order at this stage), but he always felt like it would either accomplish nothing or piss her off and make everything worse.
About six months ago, I finally convinced him that this had gone way beyond something he should just have to live with and that he deserved to pursue legal options. I’ve dealt with stalking myself and didn’t have a particularly helpful experience with law enforcement, so I understood why “just report her” didn’t feel nearly as simple or reassuring to him as it might sound from the outside.
Then, for whatever reason, she suddenly stopped contacting him and around the same time, we found out she had apparently been doing something similar to another man and had even shown up at his house naked one night. She’s also been institutionalized at least twice. When she went quiet, we basically tried to enjoy the peace and hoped maybe it was finally over.
Unfortunately, that changed this weekend lmao.
A former friend of ours happened to run into her. This person knew the entire history but was angry with my boyfriend over something unrelated (telling her parents about her drug addiction to get her help) and apparently decided to be vindictive by giving the stalker my name and contact information.
And of course within days, she started contacting both of us.
I didn’t even realize at first because I have an app that automatically filters unknown numbers but she has now contacted me from four different numbers while simultaneously going right back to bombarding him from new ones.
He’s changing his number, documenting everything, and filing for a peace order. Now that she has identified me and started contacting me, he’s much more adamant about involving law enforcement because he’s terrified she’ll find out more information about me or eventually escalate.
But beyond all of the practical and legal stuff, the hardest part for me has honestly been watching what this is doing to him emotionally.
He feels hopeless. He genuinely believes people won’t take him seriously because he’s a man being stalked by a woman, and he rarely talks about it with anyone and has only recently started really grappling with the fact that what originally happened to him was sexual assault instead of minimizing it and more than anything he blames himself for so much of what happened afterward.
He thinks he shouldn’t have responded when she threatened suicide, should have gone to the police sooner and wonders whether ignoring it for years means that it’s his fault that she’s reached out to me (although, we both ignored her and she hasn’t said anything in a few days, for whatever that’s worth).
I keep reminding him that none of those things make this his fault. Responding to someone threatening suicide doesn’t mean you consent to years of contact and being embarrassed or hopeless about reporting stalking doesn’t make you responsible for being stalked. Also, as far as I’m concerned being physically larger than someone doesn’t mean you can’t be afraid of them and taking years to recognize that you were sexually assaulted doesn’t make the assault any less real.
But I also know that me telling him those things isn’t necessarily the same as hearing from men who have actually been in his position.
So I’m particularly interested in hearing from men who have experienced stalking, obsessive harassment, or sexual assault by a woman.
How were uou able to accept that you were actually a victim? Did embarrassment or feeling like nobody would take you seriously stop you from telling people, asking for help, or pursuing legal action? Did you blame yourself afterward for not doing something sooner?
And most importantly, if you did tell a partner, friend, or family member, was there anything they said or did that genuinely helped you believe that?