You Have 65,000 Missed Calls: Women Who Use Telephones as Weapons to Stalk and Harass
Last week in the Netherlands, Dutch prosecutors charged a 42-year-old woman with stalking. She allegedly called a man with whom she claims to have had a relationship 65,000 times in the past year. The male victim of the telephone stalking and harassment denied that he had a relationship with the woman.
The 62-year-old man filed a police complaint in August due to the continuous harassment. Police arrested the woman suspected of stalking and confiscated multiple mobile phones and computers from her home.
According to Hague prosecution spokeswoman Nicolette Stoel, the woman argued at a preliminary hearing that the number of calls she made to the man wasn’t excessive.
The court ordered the woman not to contact the man again.
Gee, I wonder why he didn’t think of that?
Where to begin, where to begin . . .
65,000 phone calls in the span of one full calendar year equals 1,246.7 phone calls per week, 178.1 phone calls per day, which averages out to 7.4 phone calls per hour every 24 hours and that’s roughly one phone call every 8 minutes per hour provided you’re calling all day every day for a year.
In case you missed it, the woman being prosecuted for stalking argued that the frequency of her phone calls wasn’t excessive. 65,000 phone calls in a year. 178 phone calls per day.
One wonders what would qualify as excessive to this woman.
One also wonders how this was allowed to go on for so long that she was able to rack up 65,000 calls.
When did the man file the complaint? Or, better yet, how many times did he have to file a complaint or try to press charges before the Dutch police decided to take him seriously and prosecute the woman?
The man surely must have felt frustrated and terrorized long before the woman clocked in 65,000 calls. Who could tolerate that kind of harassment beyond the first week? It’s difficult to believe that the 64,999th call was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Then again, I suppose everyone has a different threshold for harassment and abuse.
One can only imagine what the Dutch woman’s problems are, but I don’t think it’s too much of an assumptive leap to suggest there’s a strong likelihood that there’s some pathology there.
The point is, in the hands of the wrong person, a telephone can be a weapon, as can a computer or any other communication device.
I have clients who are subjected to dozens and, in some cases, hundreds, of angry, shaming, nasty texts, emails, calls and voicemails from their wives, girlfriends and exes, often on a daily basis, while they’re at work. In such cases, these texts and calls are very much like the staccato rhythm hail of gunfire.
Make no mistake. This is harassment. These men are being harassed by their own wives and girlfriends.
These men are at work supporting their wives and families. They’re told if they don’t answer their wives’ calls or respond to their texts immediately, that they’re being lousy husbands who don’t care about their families.
Fellas, this is nuts.
You should be able to go to work to earn money to support your wife and children and not be harassed via text, email or phone from one of the people you’re supporting. If your wife is calling you or texting you more than one or two or three times a day at work to — I don’t know — tell you about a schedule change for picking the kids up after school or picking up a gallon of milk on the way home from work or to say, “Hi, I love you, hope you’re having a good day,” there’s a problem.
This behavior reminds me a little bit of my own behavior — when I was a child.
I was one of those latchkey kids. Both of my parents worked and I minded myself after school and summers from the age of 8 onward. When I would get bored during the day — for example, when friends weren’t available to play or when reruns of Gilligan’s Island were pre-empted by a special news report — I’d call my mom at her office.
When I called, I didn’t really have anything important to communicate. I’d call, ask her what she was doing (um, working), tell her I was bored and ask if she wanted to say hi to the dog.
My mother tolerated this for about a week and then set some ground rules about calling her at work.
At the age of 8, I understood it wasn’t okay to bother my mom for non-emergency issues while she was busy trying to earn money to support our family. I especially knew that it wasn’t okay to pitch a temper tantrum over the phone when she couldn’t give me her undivided attention at work.
Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to set limits with a child in the body of 37-year old woman.
One of my clients’ wives threatened to get him fired by telling his boss that he’s stealing from the company if he doesn’t answer her calls and texts immediately.
Nice, huh?
Mind you, his wife refuses to work, despite having multiple advanced and highly employable degrees. Even though she’s not willing to go to work, she is willing to destroy her husband’s career and impoverish their family because he isn’t able to take her 30-plus calls per day because she’s bored and doesn’t know how to amuse herself other than to harass him at work. I think this particular strain of nonsense would probably end if she actually went out and got a job with which to occupy her time, but then I’m crazy like that.
Naturally, I encouraged my client to validate his wife’s need to feel important and heard and understood, in the hopes it would bring him some relief. I suggested he discuss scheduling set times for her to call, such as on his lunch hour and breaks, but no dice.
On the off chance this woman’s entitlement and hostile dependency issues might surpass her inability to self-soothe or find meaningful ways to occupy her time during the day, I suggested my client explain the simple mathematics of him keeping his job. That didn’t work either, but then approaching abusive, emotional reasoners with logic is often like waving a red cape in front of a bull.
In this woman’s mind, if my client loses his job it will be his fault for not taking her calls at work and not because she lied to his boss about stealing from the company and getting him fired.
Pretzel logic: It’s a mind twister.
My client is currently in the process of extricating himself from his marriage. [*Please note: My client's wife engages in many more abusive behaviors in addition to the telephone harassment.] He’s informed his company of the impending divorce and that she may try to get him fired. They believe my client, who is a valued employee, and told him, if necessary, they will seek to slap his wife with a restraining order if she continues to harass him at work and disrupt their business after he files.
Now that’s what I call a natural consequence.
Bottom line: No one should have to tolerate this kind of torture — especially from their wife, partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or ex. If you’re being harassed and abused like this by your partner, please consider taking steps to end the abuse. Get support, talk to someone you trust and really consider if this is how you want to live your life.
*This article is also discussed in the Welcome to Shrink4Men Radio episode.
Shrink4Men Services:
Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.
41 Responses to “You Have 65,000 Missed Calls: Women Who Use Telephones as Weapons to Stalk and Harass”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Follow Shrink4men
Where in the World
Subscribe to Comments
Affiliate
Wow, just like many of your articles, this one hits close to home. My wife averages about 10 calls and 10 text messages per day. I believe that her record is 74 calls and 85 text in one day. I have tried to explain that there are times that I can’t take her call but I will call her back as soon as I can. She just keeps calling and calling. Her response is always that she should be more important than my work and that is why we have problems. Sheesh! Some days are a real struggle.
Sometimes I wonder if S4M is treating my Ex, most of the articles fits her to a t.
My hobby is restoring old cars and I make a good chunk of money from it. Money she didn’t mind spending when I sold a car but she always complains whenever I am working on the cars.
Hi QuickSilver,
Re: treating your wife is highly unlikely. My female clients are primarily working with me to help their husbands/boyfriends/fiances who have high-conflict, abusive and unstable exes and to manage their own stress from having to deal these issues as well as alienated step-kids.
Great point about wanting to spend the money you earn from working while resenting the fact that working means you can’t spend your every waking minute feeding their need for attention. It seems some people really do believe that money grows on trees. Of course, one option would be to actually get a job to help support a partner so that he can spend more time with the family, but it’s often an act of sacrilege to even suggest that to some women with these issues.
Me? Be a grown-up? How dare you!
Hi kenny,
Sorry to read you’re experiencing this kind of behavior. Are you doing anything to resolve the situation? Just curious, but does your wife work?
Another client has a similar situation, except his wife works. But, naturally, there’s a double standard.
He must answer her calls while at work, no matter what he’s doing. He can’t always do this. Contrary to what some women think, you can’t answer your phone during the middle of a meeting or client call. However, he is not allowed to interrupt her while at work. Even if it’s a childcare emergency, she still gives him grief.
Intellectually, I understand why some men tolerate this kind of crap, but I still don’t understand why they tolerate this kind of crap, if you know what I mean.
LOL. I heard this on the radio on my way to work the other morning and laughed out loud, “HCP much?”
It is sad, but it is almost funny now when J texts his soon-to-be-ex wife a with something like, “I will be there tomorrow at 4PM to pick up the kids.” and twenty mintues later we hear *bling* *bling* *bling* *bling* *bling*. She has texted him 6 long paragraphs of bitching. Can never just be a yes or no answer can it?
On the down side I still have major anxiety about answering my phone because of my abusive ex husband who used the phone harrassment game as one of his favorite ways to torture me. I would be in a meeting or someplace I was unavailable and when I would check my phone I would see I had 12 missed calls from him complete with increasingly abusive voicemails. If I didn’t answer my phone or his text IMMEDIATELY he would call over and over and over and then threaten to take my phone away or to change the phone settings so that I could only call him. What he didn’t understand and it took me a long time to get over was that I was so afraid of what he was going to say if I DID answer the phone that I just avoided it. Even now if he has to call me for some reason with our daughter I feel a brief flicker of panic.
LOL. The day I finally left him I had 120 texts and 145 missed calls. My mailbox was full for months because I was too scared to delete them all because I didn’t want to hear his voice for even a few seconds before I could delete them.
With my new healthy relationship, J can attest to the fact that it took him sitting down with me and explaining kindly that I didn’t have to answer my phone every time and that he truely understood that if I can’t answer, I can’t answer…and I’ll call him back.
Sad how messed up we get after abusive relationships…
And for those of you out there thinking, “this sounds like my wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband,” this is your reality check…it isn’t normal.
Hugs to all!
Jenn
Hi Refinnej (Jenn),
Your trauma response when the phone rings is perfectly understandable. Your ex used the phone to perpetrate psychological violence. If he’d used carrier pigeons, you’d be having Tippi Hedren reactions (The Birds, Alfred Hitchock) whenever a feathered creature appears.
I wish some tech genius would create a phone app that would allow a person to program a phone so that if a blocked number tries to reach him/her, instead of going to v-mail the stalker/caller would hear a really grating noise, like that old fax machine sound.
As for nuisance texts, the app would allow a person to enter the stalker’s/texter’s number so that every time they tried to text the person trying to block them, their phone would deliver a significant, but not harmful electric shock.
Any engineers out there?
I like this plan. The S4M HCP Vmail destroyer…there’s an app for that.
The woman I dated prior to meeting my wife would call 30 some times per day after we broke up. Luckily, at the time I didn’t have a cell phone. I knew roughly how many times she’d called by how many messages consisting of of “disconnected dial-tone” were on my answering machine.
I changed my outgoing message to “please leave a message of some sort so I don’t have to listen to half an hour of BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.” This prompted her to email asking why she should leave a message when I wasn’t going to call her back anyway.
Luckily, she stopped calling when I emailed her back and told her to not to call or email me again. She started hanging out in places where it would be hard to avoid her. Luckily I had friends who would warn me so I could take an alternate route.
The worst part was how bad I felt – massive guilt and shame – for apparently breaking her heart. If I’d only known then what I know now.
Mr E, Mr E, Mr E,
You’ve had a rough time of it, haven’t you?
Pug Island. Someday. . .
(A joke form a S4M Forum).
Dr T
Someday sooner than later, I expect. Sailing weather is almost here.
As for the rough time of it, well, at least I’m finally learning to stop touching the hot stove. Better late than never. Besides, who wants to get through life without a gnarly scar or two?
Hi Dr. T,
Thanks for the response. We are currently seeing a counselor of her choosing. It hasn’t really helped anything other than make me feel a little better about being able to bring light to her actions. Of course she turns things the counselor suggests to her favor. For example, the counselor says that we need to focus on communicating better and take time for each other. Which apparently means that I need to listen to her more and spend my time doing everything for her.
She does not work. I do have to travel often so she thinks she needs to be there to take care of the home. If only that were the case. I could go on and on. I always thought that I could deal with anything. Always the eternal optimist. Only recently have I begun to entertain the thought of leaving it all behind. I know what you mean, I don’t understand why I tolerated it either. Tomorrow is a new day!
Hi Kenny,
Ah, yes. Cherry picking and twisting therapeutic interventions. Many do the same things with relationship self-help books, which are also cherry picked and distorted.
Hope that whatever you decide to do, you get some peace and relief.
Dr T
Thank you for posting this article! I just spent two hours of my workday on the phone arguing with my wife about anything and everything that I supposedly do or don’t do that makes her feel unloved. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and I haven’t found a way to get her off the phone without having to deal with “aftershocks” later when I get home.
You’re absolutely right that logic doesn’t work – I found that out the hard way. Nothing works – I end up having to just endure it as best as I can, knowing that she’ll try to guilt/shame me by accusing me of caring about work more than my family if I tell her I have to get back to work.
If she gets my voicemail when she calls, her first question when I call back is, “Where were you?” God forbid I have a meeting, or have to go the copier/fax machine/bathroom…
Although she doesn’t call me 178.1 times a day, all it takes is one call to put me a half day behind in my job. And I don’t know why I put up with it, either….
Mother of god – you are, word for word, describing my life.
Sorry to read that, rogercordia. That’s no way to live — at least not for the long haul.
yeah, i don’t know why “honey, i’m at work” doesn’t seem to work. then you go into the hallway. “honey, i’m WORKing…” doesn’t work. your co-workers see you. you are embarrassed. you get into the elevator, but someone from work is on the elevator so you press two floors down and say things like “sure, of course, i understand, no problem” and get off the elevator, hoping she won’t get so loud your colleague will hear.
you say “look, honey, i’m WORKING i can’t talk now…”
nothing works.
she comes up with something that you need to deal with.
you promise to buy the raspberry yoghurt on your way home.
you tell her where the printout is that explains how to log into the computer
you’ll get the stuff for the party.
ok, now everything is ok
ok, bye.
35 minutes. smack dab in the middle of prime working time. everyone saw. you are sweating because, technically you really should stay late. you are on the clock and can’t have personal conversations and get paid for them.
you crank out your work. you go into mega-mode
you add 25 minutes to your time. you’ll put in 10 or so extra tomorrow.
you know you’ll have to speed.
you drive your car faster than you should, but otherwise you won’t be home on time, and you still need to get yoghurt, pick up the party stuff, and get a new color printer cartridge for your home business.
you skip the color printer cartridge, you figure out a shortcut, you get the party supplies first, then stop off to get the yoghurt from a different store than usual who gratefully have it.
you are only 11 minutes late.
it was a herculean effort.
yes, you are a bit late, but she doesn’t have dinner ready as promised. she eats her yoghurt right then and there while you make dinner.
been there.
also: 4 voicemails, 6 FB chats, 8 skype messages in under 4 hours. because she needed nail polish remover.
What you describe sounds very toxic and draining, anon.father.
That’s not good, Marshall Stack. When do you get some peace? When do you get to be happy? What about your needs and feelings?
I get peace whenever I’m not on the phone with her.
I find my little private moments of happiness – joking with coworkers, listening to music driving to and from work, reading/watching tv/twiddling on a guitar in bed at night. I used to let her guilt/shame me away from doing those things, but I learned better, thanks to your website!
I’ve also learned from this place not to expect my needs to be met or feelings to be respected by her. I don’t want to live the rest of my life in a relationship like this, so I’ve promised myself that I’m going to try to leave again if the next round of marriage counseling doesn’t work.
It is hard enough when they harass you at work. When i was still with my HCP ex, there was a period of a year (near the end!) when we both were at home. I ran a business from my home office and was interrupted ALL the time!
If I shut my office door, I was being ‘rude’ and ‘mean’ to her. If I left it open, she would interrupt me all the time to help her with her things. (she was writing her dissertation at the time (on couples therapy!! which she later would NOT attend with me)). In any case, it was constant interruption for me to do tech support, reading, editing, errands, questions, read her emails, write her emails, etc etc.
When I would say i was busy, she would either say ‘well, I looked on your computer screen before I came in and it didnt look like you were doing anything important’. Ie, watching what I was doing over my shoulder and judging weather or not she deemed it ‘worthy’ (not that she could tell what i was doing anyway!). Then she would say ‘well why dont you just shut your office door then!’
No. Win. Situation.
Needless to say, I got barely anything done that whole year. She finally got so jealous of my ‘lack of attention’ towards her (ie, only 23 hours a day and not a full 24), that she cheated on me and blamed me for it. I divorced her shortly after that and boy has my business succeeded GREATLY since she is no longer a constant drain of energy and time!
I have to remind myself now that I’m dating again, that not all relationships will be like this and, who knows, maybe down the line there would even be someone who would help ME when I need help! Hard to imagine.
And ditto to those who said that its totally different if you interrupt HER. She wouldn’t even look up from her computer if i asked her a question.
worked from home while our newborn daughter was an infant. we were doing couples therapy. the therapist recommended a physical barrier. pulled a closet in front of the door to keep my wife from coming in. for a while she said “it helped, because then she knew the door was really closed.” wound up urinating in cups. if i went to the kitchen to get a drink, she would hop on the computer without asking. same if i went to the bathroom. if i passed by the baby, she would scream at me for checking up on her, but then a few times, she was “watching over” our child, but was actually in the bathtub and our daughter pulled nails out of the side of the wall (the nails that pin the cable wire to the wall), and put them in her mouth. and yes, i wound up asking our daughter to open her mouth and spit out the nails while my wife was panicking. i saved the nails.
for years, i tried to create a computer schedule or a 24 hour notice agreement or something and eventually bought a laptop.
while i was working part-time for an employer, it was hard for me to understand why my wife would call me to tell me what to purchase on my way home, when she wasn’t working. what about leaving our home and going shopping? how about an outing with the baby?
and then our home after my being gone for 6 hours was a complete and total wreck. so there i was cleaning.
tending to our child at night, because if our child woke up, my wife would go into screaming and cursing fits.
tending to our child through lunchtime
going to and working a very high paying part time job
going shopping
often making or “picking up” dinner
tending to our child through bed time, usually my wife would then oddly have something to do right when our child wanted to be nursed to sleep, so nurturing and holding a very tired baby till mommy decided to nurse
if the child did not fall asleep, rocking the child to sleep because mom was too tired
working on my own business
going to graduate school
cleaning
doing laundry
while my wife was not working.
“tending to our child through bed time, usually my wife would then oddly have something to do right when our child wanted to be nursed to sleep, so nurturing and holding a very tired baby till mommy decided to nurse”
– I remember doing that a number of times as well, and feeling so sorry for my son that he had to wait to be fed just because his mother was throwing a tantrum — I used to think to myself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just feed him and put him to bed myself”. Luckily for me the way things worked out I get to do that every night now.
I don’t know how you survived that, thistooshallpass. I would have had a, “Here’s Johnny!” moment from The Shining. Well, I wouldn’t have acted it out, but the fantasy of doing so would have been playing in my mind.
Glad to read you’re out and that your business is thriving. That’s fantastic!
Have fun dating. Just watch for the warning signs and if a woman starts pulling the all too familiar crap, don’t make excuses for her behavior or ignore it. Call her on it and see how she responds. If she holds herself accountable, cool. If she starts blame shifting and projecting, make like the wind and blow.
Amen to that.
Something Dr. T. said during her radio show, “they are only grateful for what they do not have, and once they get it, they devalue it.” That should be another sign, and there is really nothing that can cure that illness, except personal responsibility to seek treatment, or some form of therapy.
I have heard my brother-in-law tell similar stories about his first marriage of 20-years, with whom he had 4-children with, and I would have to say he needs some sort of intervention as well, to see what this does to him. He has repeated the pattern with my sister, which I think comes from guilt he takes on for being what he perceives as a failure in his first marriage.
Hi gooberzzz,
Yes, more often than not, these types only value what they don’t have and then begin to devalue, for example, a partner, as soon as they’re secure in their attachment. It seems like they only feel safe abusing people who will let them get away with it.
Voicemail is always amusing too. I have caller I’d at work so i screen my calls Work voicemail is always full of rambling messages three of which fill the allotted time. Thursdays record during work hours. 12 calls to my work phone, 11 calls to my cell phone, 22 text messages. 8 email messages sent to both private and work email. 6 emails sent to facebook account. And that’s pretty much an average day. If ya call me and leave me a voice mail ya better get to the point in the first 15 seconds or I’m liable to delete it. I can’t stand ” a couple of things” and 8 minutes and 3 voicemails later ( it takes 3 because the machine cuts you off after 3 minutes) I finally find out what she wanted. It was amusing the first 2 weeks we were married now I just delete them after the first 15-20 seconds. If it’s important that’s just too bad. I can’t wait till the divorce is final and I can tell her to never call again or face legal action.
Hi alreadylost,
Good policy deleting the message if she hasn’t gotten to the point in the first 15-20 seconds. Although, frequently, there isn’t really a point, is there? Well, no point beyond, “Pay attention to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Good luck and godspeed with the divorce.
I remember dealing with a voip phone provider when I was breaking up with my bpd ex and trying to keep nc. The person on the phone was willing to do the “disconnect on my land line or change my # with no charge if I had a reason like abuse. Well I told him I was getting calls all the time; he instantly saw the # I was talking about and knew it was ridiculous. He talked to a supervisor and I was put on hold. Not surprisingly they chose not to waive the fee. Wish I had had a female friend make the call for me. Regardless- I still have photo’s of my caller id that I took because she would call so often that my phone’s 100 # memory would fill up with her name everyday. I took photos because I wanted proof that she was nuts but… apparently this is all just acceptable if your female and stalking if your male. In retrospect I wish I had recorded the entire phone conversation with the phone company that day. Talk about hypocrisy. I have a female friend that I’ve directed to this article because lately she is going through the same thing with an ex. Crazy people…. who needs em? Lol
Hi justin_case,
Sorry to read you went through that. If that ever happens to you again, take the evidence to the police and press charges. Then take the police report to your mobile provider.
Hopefully, there won’t be a next time!
Wow, dejavu all over again.
I get calls at work all the time, the dependency drives me nuts.
I need to keep reading these articles to remind myself I’m not in a normal relationship and I don’t have to take it anymore. Thanks again Dr. T for bringing me back to reality.
You’re welcome, ziggy. I hope you always remember that you don’t have to take this kind of abuse, too.
Was funny today, watching her texts begin with ‘we need to work this out’ to, on the 9th message, turning into veiled threats of breakup.
Instead of playing into her hands (because her messages were simple whines instead of admission of guilt or suggestion of solutions) I ignored her to the end, with my message consisting of ‘you are damaged and, with the aid of this feminist-dominated society, will do everything to mask this. I however have no interest in being your psychotherapist (unpaid!) and sap, so screw of, b_ _ _ h’.
It kept my mental balance intact while deterring her childish indulgence.
Hi Lovekraft,
Setting a boundary is good. However, next time I’d avoid the name-calling — especially when she’s acting like a royal bitch. Sinking to her level gives her the nugget she so desperately wants, i.e., now she gets to portray herself as the victim. If you really want to get to her, don’t give her any ammo with which to portray herself as the victim.
Hang in there, Lovekraft, and don’t let her drag you down.