Is Your Abusive Partner Or Ex-Partner A Stalker?

This is how you can tell when your abuser is a stalker, and when you or your child are being targeted

Welcome

Coercive control and domestic violence and abuse often involve stalking. However, societies may be slow to label these perpetrators as stalkers. This is because we have an image of a stalker as a stranger or as someone who is no more than an acquaintance — not somebody we know very well.

Also, we tend to see stalking as an adult-to-adult crime and are reluctant to acknowledge that perpetrators may stalk their own children. For instance, stalking by perpetrating fathers impacts children as well as victim-survivor mothers. There are many ways in which stalking behaviors by the perpetrating father can have negative impacts for children as for the victim-survivor mother.

Indeed, it can be part of perpetrators’ strategies to target children with their stalking and harassment behaviors. This is why it is argued by myself and my colleagues that children who are subjected to parental stalking should be considered victims in their own right, alongside the adult victim.

What does this post do?

This post provides paid subscribers with expert answers to:

• Do women get stalked more than men? How does it differ?

  Access statistics on stalking, comparing those for males and females, including from recent academic research

• How do you know if you’re being stalked?

  Access a typology of different examples of stalking, including cyberstalking

• How does it feel to have a stalker use technology against you?

  Access cutting-edge analysis of the harms caused by stalking and cyberstalking, with key information drawn from major academic research on the subject

• Could your children be affected by stalking and cyberstalking?

  Access cutting-edge analysis of how perpetrators’ stalking and cyberstalking actions against victim-survivor parents also harm children, and how perpetrators also target children as part of stalking and cyberstalking.

I am an expert in coercive control in children’s and mothers’ lives: My book on the subject was published in 2022 by Oxford University Press. Link to the book at Barnes & Noble here.

Many of my posts in Decoding Coercive Control with Dr Emma Katz, including this one, include analysis of how coercive control affects children as well as adults.

The importance of detecting and understanding stalking

So how can you know if yourself or somebody in your life who’s experiencing domestic abuse or post-separation abuse is being stalked? This is what we will be exploring in this post.

Why does this matter? It matters because there can be value in being able to fully describe the perpetrator’s actions. It can be important for victims and survivors to have the right language to describe exactly what they have been subjected to.

Also, given that some kinds of stalking are recognised as a crime, it can be potentially helpful to know when your abuser is crossing into committing crimes against you. (Here it has to be recognized that the police and criminal justice responses to stalking can often be deeply flawed.)

Bringing issues like these to light helps to raise awareness and understanding of the harms caused by abusers. Please read more on coercive control by accessing my archive of posts on Decoding Coercive Control with Dr Emma Katz, and also follow me on my social media channels.

Stalking is very normalized and romanticized in our culture, as found in various “classic” song lyrics. For instance:

Blondie, “One Way Or Another” (1979)

One way or another I’m gonna see ya / I’m gonna meet ya, meet ya, meet ya, meet ya […] I, will, drive past your house / And, if, the lights are all down / I’ll see who’s around.

Maroon 5, “She Will Be Loved” (2004)

I drove for miles and miles / And wound up at your door / I've had you so many times / But somehow, I want more.

I know where you hide / Alone in your car / Know all of the things that make you who you are / I know that goodbye means nothing at all.

This contributes to creating environments where it can be hard to spot when romance and reasonable conduct has crossed over into stalking.

What is stalking? The FOUR characteristics

Stalking is defined by four characteristics. The four features describe a particular chosen style of behavior on the part of the perpetrator — the four features represent an attention to another person that goes well beyond simply romantic or family interest.

Stalkers’ actions are:

• Fixated

• Obsessive

• Unwanted

• Repeated

The four features of stalking serve the overall purpose of the coercive controller.

The overall objective is to control your life and greatly reduce your autonomy, freedom and choices.

The perpetrator’s aims of control and punishment

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