Woman Stalked A Man For Two And A Half Years — And Then Married Him
Her actions crossed the line.
Antonio Guillem / Shutterstock According to statistics, 1 in 6 men have experienced stalking victimization at some point in their lifetime. Stalking is defined as “a pattern of behavior directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear.”
Stalker behavior incudes but is not limited to following a person, driving by a person’s place of employment or school, sending unwanted gifts, persistent calling, tracking a person via GPS or other means, or threatening their friends and/or family.
One woman on Reddit revealed that stalked a man for two and a half years before meeting him and eventually becoming his wife.
The woman (Hot_Relation899) explained in a now-deleted post on the subreddit r/offmychest that she met the man of her dreams when he was walking his dog at the park and stopped to talk to her brother. They both walked him home and continued to chat. “That was the moment I became hooked,” she wrote.
That night she found his Instagram, his family’s social media, and where he lived. She was only 14 and he was 18 so she devised a plan. Phase one of the plan was to infiltrate his family.
His little brother was a year younger than she was and going to go to the same high school as her the following year. The woman decided to befriend him as quickly as possible. It wasn’t until she was a junior in high school that this was completed, but then she moved onto gaining the trust of his mom.
She became close with his mom, who loved to talk about her son. From his mom she learned “what college he was attending, about his past girlfriends, what his elementary/middle school was, his favorite/least favorite foods, his pet peeves, what he likes.”
She finally formally met her current husband. The woman grew close with him.
photo: Reddit / @Hot_Relations899
By her senior year, he was volunteering as a coach at her high school for a sport that she just so happened to play. This brought them even closer.
He ended up getting a job offer in New York City, so the Redditor decided to apply for colleges near his workplace, which was phase two of the plan. She got into the college and followed him to New York. They were each other’s only friends in a new place.
They began dating shortly after they moved and eventually got married, which was the final phase of the plan. He knew nothing about the stalking and believed that fate brought them together through his younger brother.
The Redditor stated that she has been feeling guilty every time he tells their love story and because she used his brother to get to him.
While the Redditor was not stalking him for malicious reasons, she was still stalking him. She used other people to get what she wanted and followed this stranger to a place where she knew he would be isolated.
Users in the comments told the woman to keep the information to herself. One user wrote, “Speaking from the male perspective, I would take this to your grave. Your plan was executed to perfection, the only way to F it up now, is to expose it. Don't do it, the risk/reward just isn't there.”
Another user told the Redditor that they were creepy, and if the roles were reversed, people would say that he groomed her.
A different user asked her why she was feeling guilty about it after all of these years. The Redditor responded by saying that she started to feel guilty when she befriended his mom, but it's eating at her differently now. She wanted to tell him but might opt out of doing so because of the backlash.
The woman ultimately decided to tell her husband the truth about their love story.
As stated in a now-deleted update post, the woman showed her husband her original post that explained everything. He was “dumbfounded, scared, and confused all at the same time.” The Redditor profusely apologized about the situation before he began to cry.
He asked her how much of their relationship was fabricated so she would be to his liking. She explained that none of her personality or identity was fabricated for him, except for how they met and that she liked Chinese food.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t want a divorce; rather, he wants time apart so he can absorb the truth. He packed his things and went to a hotel.
A few days later, the Redditor woke up to a text message from her husband stating that he went to his family’s house, told them everything, and wanted a divorce. She wrote that he “probably exaggerated it too to make me seem crazy.” Now, his whole family wants nothing to do with her and thinks she’s a “psycho.”
The woman feels exasperated that he did all this work for her relationship to end up like this. By telling him the truth, she believed that she was being a good wife. However, she did admit that she might deserve it.
The woman also revealed that she told her husband the truth because she believed he had a suspicion about her. She found her old phone, which contained screenshots of his old Instagram photos and notes about her stalking plan, in his desk drawer at work. “So I guess he never truly loved me if he can't even get past an honest confession like this one,” she concluded.
photo: Reddit / @Hot_Relations899
The thread was filled with “I told you so’s” and unsympathetic comments towards the Redditor because she was told to keep the information to herself and she chose to ignore the advice.
One user wrote that her behavior was pretty scary because she isolated her husband when she told him that her actions were “gross and manipulative,” and it made no sense how the Redditor believed her husband would forgive her for lying and manipulating him and his family for all these years.
The woman's post sparks a conversation about where we should draw the line to get what we want.
One user in the comments tried to say that what the Redditor did was not wrong or manipulative. They claimed that she was 14 and fangirling over a boy she liked, so she tried to do anything possible to get close to him.
But a majority of people agreed that the Redditor went too far. People are not objects to use for the means to an end. People are not objects to be owned, either. The woman's behavior was very scary and it's clear she continued to keep close tabs on her husband ever since she looked through his drawer at work.
It's also concerning that she took her stalking behavior so lightly, because stalking is not a joke. In fact, stalking victims are stalked by current or former intimate partners 40% of the time. Intimate partner stalkers are also more likely to approach, threaten, or harm their victims.
Tarah Hickel is a Washington-based writer and a frequent contributor to YourTango. She focuses on entertainment and news stories including human interest stories and relationships.