I Just Discovered My Boyfriend Is Stalking My Stalker And Encouraging Him | r/RelationshipAdvice

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_00] Hey Waffle Gang, I do hope you are well. My name is Mark and today we're checking out some more Reddit stories. And if you do love a Reddit story, why not consider hitting that like, subscribe, maybe that notification bell too. Let's crack on with today's first story.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_00] Now today's first story is an update to an older story that we've covered. There's a couple of updates that we haven't seen on this channel. You may have seen it on other places before. So, you know, if you've seen it, please skip the story or skip certain parts of the story if that's what you want to do. Or listen to it all again. Totally up to you. Timestamps are always down in the description and along the timeline below. Let's get started. Much love guys. Now today's first story comes from Deceased Caterpillar and says,

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_00] My 28 female boyfriend, 29 male, let my stalker ex, 28 male into our apartment to leave me a birthday surprise. How do I handle this absurdity? I, 28 female, broke up with my ex, 28 male, 10 months ago. But he will not get over it. Despite me wishing to no longer interact with my ex, as well as me dating someone new, Cole, 29 male, my ex has been trying to win me back by

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00] doing over the top things like sending me gift baskets, love letters, chocolates, etc. Even though I've blocked his number on all social media and always ignores attempts to woo me with his gifts. He never actually interacts with me directly, never waits for me outside or tries to talk to me. He just leaves me gifts at our doorstep and runs away. It's creepy and makes me super uncomfortable.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00] Cole, who I live with, doesn't actually see an issue with this and says he feels bad for my ex and doesn't want me to waste my ex's money slash efforts. So I reluctantly just let Cole eat the chocolates and other crap since he insists I don't throw them out. He even likes reading the love letters even though I tell him I don't want to. I don't understand why he's so chill about this because my ex and Cole aren't even friends and have never interacted.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00] So it makes no sense why he's okay with my ex doing these dumb gestures that he knows makes me uncomfortable and creeped out. If anything, Cole should be pissed off that someone is trying to steal his girlfriend, right? Anyway, all of this finally came to a head on my birthday. After work, I came home to our apartment decorated in balloons, chocolates and flowers. I'm immediately touched, thinking all of this was a surprise from Cole. Nope.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00] Apparently, my ex actually came over with all this crap, buzzed our apartment doorbell. Cole let him in and allowed my ex to decorate our apartment and leave gifts for me. Then my ex left before I could get home. Cole apparently saw no issues with this. He literally let my ex into our apartment like it was no big deal because my ex came all the way with all these gifts which was such a thoughtful gesture. Now I feel totally unsafe.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_00] What if my ex secretly left a hidden camera or something? I have no idea why Cole is so fine with all of this. I've talked to him over and over and he won't understand why I would want to reject free stuff from someone who cares about me. I love Cole but the fact that he actually let my ex into our apartment was a huge breach of my trust and I have no clue how to deal with this. Is this relationship just unsalvageable or is there a way I can get it through Cole's head that none of this is okay?

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00] Could Cole have ulterior motives by letting my ex do all these things? Any advice is welcome. I just have no clue how to handle this absurd situation. Thanks. Edit and thank you for all the insights everyone. I really appreciate it. I don't have the money to do everything that was recommended but I'm going to do some investigating into Cole and my ex possibly being in cahoots with each other and confront Cole this weekend. Likely to end this clusterfuck of a relationship.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_00] If there's any interest I'll update if anything significant happens. Thank you again. So, you know, an overview of the comments on this was basically this relationship is done, don't even go there kind of thing. Opie was replying to some comments. One was why she's already living with Cole. Opie says cost of living mostly. I live in a very expensive city so I was living month to month on my own.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00] He basically offered to be my roommate so that we can go half-half on the rent internet utilities and it would relieve my financial stress, which it has a lot. It might have been stupid to jump the gun at us moving in so quickly but he had only shown green flags until now. So, I can technically kick him out and try to look for a different roommate if things are totally done for since most of the stuff in our apartment is mine.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_00] I mentioned above it was mostly to do with the cost of living in an expensive city that we moved in quickly. I've known Cole for a couple of years as a friendly co-worker and gaming buddy and then started dating him eight months ago. I thought I knew him well enough but apparently not. And, I mean, he only showed green flags before we started properly dating and we moved in together. Before this whole stalker mess, he was, or at least pretended to be, thoughtful, funny, helpful and sweet.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_00] The type if you told him you had a hard day, he'd offer a shoulder massage and let you vent to him. It wasn't until this stalker ex-stuffed that he showed such disregard for my safety and comfort. Then says I've been with Cole for almost eight months at this point. I have no idea how the two of them could have met since they don't share any friends. Went to different schools, worked totally different jobs and had completely different interests. Unless they secretly became friends while my ex has been stalking me and he's hidden that from me,

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00] which would just be ridiculous because who wants to be friends with a guy who is stalking slash trying to steal your girlfriend? But at this point, I have no idea anymore. On how she met Cole. Through work. We both worked together in retail for a couple of years before I moved to a proper salary job and casually stayed in touch with him after I quit. We would text just to catch up and play video games together over Steam. A couple of months ago, after I broke up with my ex,

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00] he asked me out for coffee and things just progressed from there. On if OP is sure that her ex was in the apartment. Then says, I mean, all of the love letters and sign tags are in my ex's handwriting. So unless someone has copied his handwriting down to a T, then I'm pretty sure it's my ex. OP says, Cole has been the one eating all the edibles and interacting with the gifts. I do not even touch them lol. My initial thought is maybe he wanted to keep my ex's gifts around so he could get free chocolates to eat.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00] At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if he's actually that careless. His friends already know about all of this and seem to think it's funny that my ex is such a tryhard. His family lives across the country, but I could try texting them. OP says, my ex was easy to break up with because I'd only been dating him two months before he pulled some absolutely dumb crap that pissed me off so much. I felt no remorse in dumping him instantly.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00] With Cole, it's a bit different since I've known him years before dating and thought he was a really great guy until now. He's genuinely sweet in every other way except this one thing. But this one thing is definitely bad enough to outweigh the good things. It just sucks, but I have to think about my safety first. OP says, my boyfriend is working from home, so there's a chance he caught my ex while he was dropping things off and they talked.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00] He denies that, but I'm becoming more and more paranoid now and I'm definitely going to see what I can do to end this relationship in case they are secretly in cahoots. I'm becoming more and more paranoid that they have somehow come into contact. If Cole caught my ex while he was dropping stuff off previously and then became buddies. It makes no sense in my head, but neither does any of this shit. It's all so nonsensical that I could believe anything at this point. I don't have the money to break my lease, but I can kick Cole out since he's not on the lease.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00] That admits I'm a bit of a pushover. Being raised by an abusive mother does that sadly. I definitely needed this wake up call. I grew up with an abusive mom and an absent father, so my relationship understandings are probably screwed up. Maybe I should go back to therapy for a while after this before putting myself out there again. So it was three days after this that OP comes in with their first update, which says, hello all.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00] My last post blew up a bit and many people were concerned about me, so I'm going to give you this update. I can't even put it into words how insane this situation has gotten. When I got back home on Friday, I tried to come up with a good plan to keep myself safe while I confronted Cole in case he were to do something scary. A lot of people put the fear of God into me in the comments of my last post. I invited my very tall and intimidating younger brother over to be there while I talked to Cole.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00] My brother couldn't come over until Sunday, so I spent a day and a half awkwardly trying to pretend everything was fine. But I must have done a shit job because Cole kept asking me what was wrong and love bombing me. Eventually, Sunday came around, my brother showed up and I slash we grilled Cole on why the hell he's been so fine with my ex coming around with gifts and even letting him decorate our apartment for my birthday. I was not ready. All of you had a lot of theories.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_00] One of which came up a lot was that the two knew each other and slash or were working together to do this. If anything, I would have rather that been the case because the truth is so much more fucked up. Basically, Cole has been fixated on my ex. He has essentially been stalking my stalker. Cole admitted that he made a fake social media accounts. Yes, multiple to follow my ex. And has been stalking his Instagram and Facebook.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_00] Apparently, my ex has been making a lot of vent posts about me, about how hurt he is that I'm not returning his feelings and have moved on so fast. And Cole has been egging him on on his old accounts to get my ex to keep trying. The reason my ex is still stalking me is because Cole has been literally telling him a ton on his fucking old accounts. It's obvious my ex is unstable if he's listening to random strangers telling him to keep trying. And Cole has taken advantage of his instability by planting thoughts into his head.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_00] If I'm to believe Cole's words, my ex has no idea that it's Cole that's been encouraging him to keep pursuing me. But I can't be certain about anything this guy says at this point. So why, you ask, was Cole doing all this? That is exactly what my brother and I asked. This was his answer. To give my ex false hope. Basically, to bully him. Anytime my ex's angst posted on his social media about me, got some sick satisfaction out of watching his misery.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_00] He wanted to string my ex along to keep trying to win my heart just to watch him fail over and over. Cole finds it hilarious that my ex is wasting so much money on gifts for me and that it's him who eats the chocolates and reads the desperate love letters my ex sends to me while I act like my ex's gifts are radioactive and avoid them. This has all been some sick game to see how long he can keep my ex pining for me. Who the hell even does this?

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_00] I've been living in fear for months because Cole thinks it's funny to manipulate my ex and watch him be heartbroken. I cannot articulate how sick all of this is. How is this funny? What is wrong with him? He said he makes sure not to go too far by discouraging my ex to make direct contact with me. But I can't believe anything anymore. I've read so many stories of people who were dating someone who seemed so sweet initially but turned out to be actually unhinged.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_00] But I naively never thought that could be me. I was so careless and dumb because I clung to someone who finally treated me with kindness. But he is a twisted man who turned my ex into a monster by feeding his delusions. I think if he hadn't done all of this, my ex probably wouldn't still be stalking me in the first place. My constant fear and discomfort have just been an unfortunate byproduct of his little game of puppetry. I can't even comprehend how someone could do something like this.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_00] I'm so shaken up I feel like I'm spiraling. Suffice to say, I'm living with my brother and his girlfriend while my ex gets the hell out. I told him he needs to move out within the week or I'm getting the cops involved. He didn't make a fuss or anything, surprisingly. He just looked at the floor like a kicked puppy. He hasn't even tried to call or text me but I blocked him just in case. I'm gonna see if my landlord can understand my situation and let me break my lease early with no extra cost.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_00] But if I can't, my brother is going to cover the extra cost in the meantime. And I'll stay with him and his girlfriend until I can find somewhere else. My brother is seriously a godsend. I'm definitely going to go back to therapy as soon as possible because this whole situation has me unable to sleep at night. Trust anyone and I really need a better understanding of what are red flags in our relationships. So many of you told me I was a pushover and you're all right. It shouldn't have taken this long for me to call this relationship with Cole off.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_00] This is so fucked up but I'm safe for now. What I'd do without my brother and his girlfriend. Thanks to everyone who told me to get out of this relationship because Cole was way more twisted than I ever could have thought. I don't even know if he told the whole truth. But I don't even care anymore. I'm out. Gone. Never looking back. Edits. Thank you everyone for your advice and words of encouragement. I called the non-emergency police line to file a report of all this.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_00] It wasn't super helpful other than just making a record so I'll do a follow up with them. Once I have safe access to my apartment and can collect evidence. I'm blocked Cole for now to gather any text evidence as some of you suggested but he's been pretty quiet. He sent a photo of a couple of garbage bags full of his stuff and he asked if he could have a day to say goodbye to my cat. I have her with me currently at my brother's place. No way am I letting her near him. I haven't replied yet.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_00] I turned red receipts off. Haven't contacted X1 yet. Still figuring out the best way to do that. Tomorrow is a stat holiday where I live so my brother and his girlfriend will be home from work. We are working together to figure all this out. Definitely moving out of my current place as soon as I can. Sorry I can't reply to all the comments. I'm pretty overwhelmed and anxious and there are so many that it's frying my brain. But I'm trying to read most of them. I appreciate every one of you though.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_00] A couple of comments from OP within that post before the next update says I took the week off from work because I need to just figure all this shit out. I'm so full of anxiety but my brother is trying to distract me by talking about competitive Pokemon. Bless his heart. People were suggesting in the comments to have somebody tell her ex that he's being stalked and cyber bullied and says I was so caught up in escaping that I never considered this. You're right. Thank you for reminding me. My head is such a mess right now.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_00] I need to brainstorm the best way to let my ex know. I hate to know how he reacts to that though. I'm going to find a way to get someone to tell him. He might be a creep but he deserves to know he's being manipulated. And oh I'm definitely not going to contact my stalker ex myself. I'll probably get my brother to do it since he at least met my ex a few times while I was dating. My dumb self didn't think to record Cole's confession so we don't have hard proof of his cyber harassment towards my ex.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_00] Just gotta hope he believes us and stops interacting with Cole's alt accounts. Though I don't know the names of Cole's alts. Just that he has them. Which is also complicated. Opie adds he was sending me gifts before I started dating Cole. But it definitely ramped up after I started dating Cole. Sometimes a girl just needs a hard dose of reality from some wise redditors to get her shit together. I'm glad I posted here. Holy crap.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_00] And I will buy him a draft beer and get him a custom mug that says world's best brother. With a tyrannotar on it. So it was 11 days after the first post. Eight days after the first update. That another update comes in. And says. Hello. Relationship advice only allows one update so I'm continuing here. Which was on their page. Saying sorry it has been a while. It's been a hectic week. Here are the highlights. Cole has moved out. Locks have been changed.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_00] Still looking for a different place to move into. The housing market here is awful. I've been staying with my brother despite Cole having moved out. Because I don't feel safe in that apartment. We have a nice arrangement at my brother's place with me buying half the groceries and cooking three times a week. Kitty is now comfortable here. She was hiding under the bed for like three days. Still not sleeping well but I'm safe so that's what matters. I haven't talked to the police since before.

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_00] I just couldn't find enough evidence in my apartment to make any kind of case since I threw out most of my stalker's ex's gifts. Here's the pretty big update. Stalker X has been informed of Cole's doings. I'm just gonna start calling stalker X James to make things easier. My brother contacted James on Facebook and told him what's been going on. We didn't have physical proof of what Cole did nor the names of his alts. But we knew enough specific details that it seems James believed us.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_00] I've been vetting everything my brother has been sending. James is informed that he checked that most of the accounts that were encouraging his stalking have been deactivated. So it further backed our story and it seems like Cole is covering his tracks. Probably anticipated this. From the conversation it seems that James has been wary of Cole ever since Cole let him into my apartment for my birthday. He said he didn't actually want to come into the apartment and just wanted to leave the gifts and decor with Cole.

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_00] But Cole insisted he came in. And that made him feel super awkward and uncomfortable. He was worried that Cole was trying to coax him inside my apartment in order to hurt him. Because the way he was acting was really off. He did his best to be in and out as fast as possible because apparently Cole just gave him bad vibes. Anyway, James seems pretty shaken. He didn't put two and two together that Cole was the one encouraging his behavior but was starting to get frustrated by the encouragement.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00] Which James said bordered on harassment because one of Cole's alts would spam his DMs with ideas and ask him for updates. And it was getting really intrusive. Why did it take this many months for him to finally feel this way? He apologized and promised he would leave me alone. Telling me that the situation has him really shaken up. Smells like he wants pity but I'm not falling for that. I don't know if I believe anything James said.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_00] I think he may have tried to play up his negative feelings about this in order to gain sympathy from my brother and me by proxy. But who knows? I'm not going to talk to him. That's hopefully it for James' side of things. On Cole's side he has been mostly quiet but something did freak me out. After I told James about what Cole did, Cole sent these texts, grammar and spelling edited from original texts. Why did you give James my number? Note, I didn't. Not sure how he got James' number.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_00] What the fuck is wrong with you? Why did you tell him and give him my number? Note, again, I only did the former, not latter. Seriously, this is fucking ridiculous. He's blowing up my fucking phone, piece of shit. You're such a petty bitch for this. Fucking freak. That was three days ago. Haven't heard anything from Cole since. Haven't replied to anything he sent. No idea how James got Cole's number so that freaks me out. But that is currently not my problem.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_00] Went back to work today. Things are okay but I'm still anxious. We'll update here on my profile if anything develops but things are stable for now. I don't know if there will be much new now that James is informed and Cole is out. Hopefully things will stay stable and I can go back to my life. Some comments on this one before Opie adds another update and says, Cole seems pretty disinterested in any kind of contact since he moved out and sent those last text messages.

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_00] I don't really want to overthink too much about it because I'm anxious enough as it is. If Cole could vanish into the abyss now that his fun is over, I'd be pleased. Cole is definitely some kind of evil but I'm starting to think James is just a mentally ill man who is very susceptible to manipulation. I know I shouldn't feel pity for my stalker but I can't help it after seeing what Cole did to him. I don't have enough for a restraining order for either of them where I live but I haven't had an issue with either since my update.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00] Just apartment searching and my bro's girlfriend treated me to a spa day. Crazy cat lady sounds pretty good compared to whatever the hell I just went through. So it was a month after this that Opie updated again and says, Hello everyone. I know it's been a hot minute but I'd like to let you know I'm safe. Have a new place lined up, was able to break lease early and have not been contacted by James or Cole since earlier this month. This is just a mini update because a friend who is following James' Facebook

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_00] saw him post a bunch of selfies of him at a Halloween party. In about four of those photos you can see Cole in the far background. Like where's Waldo style just in the way back slash peripherals and not looking at the camera slash talking to other people. This is super freaky because as I've mentioned in an early post and from all my knowledge, James and Cole don't know each other. Except now they've had their text confrontation which I have no idea how that concluded.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_00] So yeah, I don't know at all what is going on there but it's making my head go to worst case scenarios. Should I be worried that they become friends or is this something else? I'm feeling so paranoid now after not having heard anything for weeks. I thought things might be finally over. Is there any good explanation for this? I don't want to start spiraling again. Should I get my brother to text James to ask him? Which we haven't talked to him since we let him know about Cole's cyberstalking.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00] Any advice is welcome. Thank you. And edit. I'd like to add that despite James being extremely weird and obviously unwell, he's actually very extroverted and has a huge social circle so there is a very moderate possibility that this is a coincidence. But my gut is saying it isn't. And OP adds a couple of comments after that saying, if James is stalking Cole, then I guess that's just some all no consequences and I will not be touching that drama with a five foot pole.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_00] And as long as whatever the hell is happening at that party has nothing to do with me, then I'm doing way better now. My brother and his girlfriend have been the best ever. So I'm really grateful and in a much better place than the end of September. What an absolute scary situation. And honestly, the Halloween party photo, that sounded creepy in itself, but it had me thinking this could go like one of several ways. Like the absolute best case scenario, this is like pure coincidence that

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_00] you said yourself that James has a huge social circle and someone invited Cole independently and neither knew that the other would be there and that they're potentially avoiding each other, which is why Cole looks like he's lurking in the background. A medium baddish scenario is that James is now stalking his stalker and the worst and absolutely terrifying thought is that they're somehow working together now, which, you know, in the grand scheme of things would make zero sense.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_00] But when we've just had this story going on, what does? And I think OP's absolutely right to just stay out of this situation. Not your circus, not your monkeys kind of thing, right? Do not engage. It seems like you're safe. You've got a new place lined up and neither has contacted you in a month, which is, you know, sounds fantastic considering what we've just read and just be totally done with this and that these two absolute disasters

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_00] figure out this weird dynamic without you because bloody hell. Not saying OP should do this in any way whatsoever, but I just kind of think, you know, they're at this party. There was a picture taken with both of them in it. What would everyone else at this party think about these two with the behavior that we've just seen in this story? Because if I was at that party and I heard that, I'd be like, what? I would be pretty concerned because the behaviors that they've shown don't change in an instant.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_00] But now I'm going to turn this one to you guys. What do you guys make of this situation? What is your theory on what was going on there? Is it any of those theories? Maybe you got a different thought on the matter. Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. Now, just a huge thank you for being here today, getting involved in the stories, your love, your support, your time. It always means the absolute world to me. So thank you so, so much for being here. Truly, it's absolutely amazing.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_00] And hopefully I'm going to see you in the next one. Take care and much love.