... and the silent calls continue... now to my daughter's phone

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

I started answering those calls turned out they were robocalls from a payday loan lender. I tried dialing number back and recording said number was "not in service" so apparently this does happen. It was a huge letdown. That does not mean this is the case for Shadow or JRT, because BPDs are notorious for this behavior. My own mother does it! But one size does not fit all, that was my point. All BPDs are different, particularly those comorbid npd or with strong narc traits. The more grandiose, the more shameless. The only reason a narc would make contact in this manner, according to my therapist, would be to check if you are still available. But checking if you are available and actually wanting contact are two different things.

[Beach_Babe]

I started answering those calls turned out they were robocalls from a payday loan lender. I tried dialing number back and recording said number was "not in service" so apparently this does happen. It was a huge letdown. That does not mean this is the case for Shadow or JRT, because BPDs are notorious for this behavior. My own mother does it! But one size does not fit all, that was my point. All BPDs are different, particularly those comorbid npd or with strong narc traits. The more grandiose, the more shameless. The only reason a narc would make contact in this manner, according to my therapist, would be to check if you are still available. But checking if you are available and actually wanting contact are two different things.

[JRT]

@Dis... .thank you very much for sharing... .I really wish that it had worked up much differently for you... .It certainly sounds like you gave it your best effort

@BB... .so if a NPD is checking for supply, why would a BPD be doing this?

@Infra... .mine was a waif too... .maybe there is something to that... .I do think that the actions are similar... .yes, I am open to contact and indicated that when I returned some maile to her on a note... .I surmise that shame is preventing this or as dis mentioned in her post.

[Beach_Babe]

My guess would be a fear of rejection? She knows she messed up. Shame.

[enlighten me]

Just to try and put this behaviour in context. Imagine a child that has been naughty and sent to their room. They sulk at first then they sneak out to check on you. They peer into the room trying not to be seen to make sure your still there and to guage your mood. As infrared mentioned this is child like behaviour we are dealing with and their arrested emotional development is the root cause.

[lipstick]

Just to try and put this behaviour in context. Imagine a child that has been naughty and sent to their room. They sulk at first then they sneak out to check on you. They peer into the room trying not to be seen to make sure your still there and to guage your mood. As infrared mentioned this is child like behaviour we are dealing with and their arrested emotional development is the root cause.

Hi JRT,

Remember me? Haven't been on the boards in a while - how are you doing?  Have to agree with enlighten me on this. You know my story and how my ex "creeps" my Facebook page, right? Well - he's still watching my FB videos to this day. This behavior has been going on since the end of February. I will admit - when it first started, I was a bit excited. I thought he would eventually contact me and we could have a decent conversation. Wrong. It's been, what? Three months now of this with zero contact. He just can't do it. And I'm certainly not going to reach out to him ever again.

What do I take from this behavior? My ex likes to project to the world that his life & marriage are "amazing" and that he is "so blessed". If it's so amazing - then why does he visit my Facebook page several times a day to watch silly videos of me and my pets? If it's so amazing - he wouldn't bother... . 

Childlike behavior? Yep.   

[BorisAcusio]

It seems that in era of social media, stalking is the new norm:

According to a study, 88 percent of lovers follow their exes around on Facebook after break up. The surveyed people were recruited from the general population who’d broken up with an boyfriend or girlfriend in the past 12 months.

Not merely did the vast majority stalk, but 70 percent admitted to using a mutual friend's profile or even logging in as that mutual friend to do their stalking.

Is that not painful enough for you? Well, 74 percent crept around the profile of their ex's new partner or someone they feared might be their ex's new partner.

Please don't think of these people as victims of love. For 31 percent admitted to posting pictures to try and make their exes jealous -- on the presumably logical assumption that their ex would be stalking them too.

www.cnet.com/news/88-percent-stalk-their-exes-on-facebook/

[JRT]

Thanks for all of your insightful comments. Welcome back Lipstick!

Those are some big numbers Boris, many thanks for sharing them.

Just a follow up from me on this. I was out of the country without phone service for the past 7 days. I had my cell phone forwarded to my land line so that anyone that call would be forwarded there. Guess what? Not even one silent call at all... .down for a high of 3-5 to zero coinciding with my vacation (one that I did little to hide on FB). This does a lot to convince me at this point but if they pick back up next week, I will be 99.999% sure.

The BPD behavior is amazing... .

[Infared]

Thanks for all of your insightful comments. Welcome back Lipstick!

Those are some big numbers Boris, many thanks for sharing them.

Just a follow up from me on this. I was out of the country without phone service for the past 7 days. I had my cell phone forwarded to my land line so that anyone that call would be forwarded there. Guess what? Not even one silent call at all... .down for a high of 3-5 to zero coinciding with my vacation (one that I did little to hide on FB). This does a lot to convince me at this point but if they pick back up next week, I will be 99.999% sure.

The BPD behavior is amazing... .

Amazing and so hard to convince others that it actually goes on. No on believes you, right?

[enlighten me]

Thanks for all of your insightful comments. Welcome back Lipstick!

Those are some big numbers Boris, many thanks for sharing them.

Just a follow up from me on this. I was out of the country without phone service for the past 7 days. I had my cell phone forwarded to my land line so that anyone that call would be forwarded there. Guess what? Not even one silent call at all... .down for a high of 3-5 to zero coinciding with my vacation (one that I did little to hide on FB). This does a lot to convince me at this point but if they pick back up next week, I will be 99.999% sure.

The BPD behavior is amazing... .

Amazing and so hard to convince others that it actually goes on. No on believes you, right?

I think part of the problem is a lot of their behaviour can be so subtle that only we can see it. Sometimes when I think about it I can see the big picture but it is made up of so many little bits that on their own seem insignificant. When you look at all the insignificant bits on their own you can doubt yourself so hardly suprising others dont see it and you end up looking crazy.

[Infared]

Thanks for all of your insightful comments. Welcome back Lipstick!

Those are some big numbers Boris, many thanks for sharing them.

Just a follow up from me on this. I was out of the country without phone service for the past 7 days. I had my cell phone forwarded to my land line so that anyone that call would be forwarded there. Guess what? Not even one silent call at all... .down for a high of 3-5 to zero coinciding with my vacation (one that I did little to hide on FB). This does a lot to convince me at this point but if they pick back up next week, I will be 99.999% sure.

The BPD behavior is amazing... .

Amazing and so hard to convince others that it actually goes on. No on believes you, right?

I think part of the problem is a lot of their behaviour can be so subtle that only we can see it. Sometimes when I think about it I can see the big picture but it is made up of so many little bits that on their own seem insignificant. When you look at all the insignificant bits on their own you can doubt yourself so hardly suprising others dont see it and you end up looking crazy.

It's exasperating... .and very painful.

[ShadowIntheNight]

Thanks for all of your insightful comments. Welcome back Lipstick!

Those are some big numbers Boris, many thanks for sharing them.

Just a follow up from me on this. I was out of the country without phone service for the past 7 days. I had my cell phone forwarded to my land line so that anyone that call would be forwarded there. Guess what? Not even one silent call at all... .down for a high of 3-5 to zero coinciding with my vacation (one that I did little to hide on FB). This does a lot to convince me at this point but if they pick back up next week, I will be 99.999% sure.

The BPD behavior is amazing... .

Amazing and so hard to convince others that it actually goes on. No on believes you, right?

The interesting thing in my case is that most of my friends actually agree it more than likely is my exgf doing the calling. What they can't believe is the manner in which she ended our relationship, they why of it (there was no why, I have no idea only my speculations why she left), and the fact that she wouldn't take any calls to talk about why she left when this all went down. This is the part that is so unbelievable to my friends. None of my friends have ever heard of such behavior. I had never heard of such a thing til I was forced to live through it.

I guess it all depends on how your friends feel about you and what their experiences in life have been. I think in my case my friends think that someone who would end a relationship in such a crazy manner would be crazy enough to make hang up phone calls, even if she is 46 and a therapist.

[JRT]

There are only a couple of people in my life that even know about it, one being my daughter who has received one such call and the woman i have been seeing who was here when I received two of them. I have not bothered to tell anyone else as I am pretty certain that they would say something to the effect of, 'its just a telemarketer, why would she be doing that anyway (presupposing a rational mind)?... .not saying anything... .thats crazy' or, ' you really need to move on JRT'.

The calls are pissing me off a little bit especially if it is true that she is making them to my daughter. I have no problem talking to her but I am not sure if the nature of these calls is about talking.

[enlighten me]

It could be about object constancy. The fact that if she doesnt stay connected to something then it dissapears. If she feels that everyone has this trait then it could be her way of keeping her in yours and your daughters mind.

[JRT]

It could be about object constancy. The fact that if she doesnt stay connected to something then it dissapears. If she feels that everyone has this trait then it could be her way of keeping her in yours and your daughters mind.

Interesting EM... .are you saying that she is making these calls for our benefit? That she wants to keep the connection and prove that she is 'real' and is, hence, making the calls?

[enlighten me]

I think its a possibility. Thats why fb is such a godsend to BPDs they can pop into peoples heads when they like.

At the end of the day we can only really guess at what drives them from our knowledge of the individual.

Just a question. Did she ever get back in touch with people out of the blue then not continue communicating?

[once removed]

i think its a possibility too, though i dont know if itd be for your benefit, per se. i stand by my theory, but i think its possibly a bit of both. she calls trying to recall you, she wonders (if unconsciously) if you recall her (or assumes you dont) and that makes her uncomfortable.

im sorry this is going on jrt. its confusing, and even when youre 99% sure that 1% makes you feel crazy. i hope the fact that you left, got no calls, came back, calls started up again, is validating on some level.

[JRT]

@EM... .I don't really think that she did that, not as far as I know. But she did get back in touch with people that she had stopped communicating with. When I met her, she effectively had only one friend and even that person she had loathing for. Slowly, she would bring up 3 or so other GF's that she had, for this reason or that, stopped communicating with. They were all back in her life at the time that we b/u... .,almost as if she was gathering them to support her future b/u, dunno. I suspect (more intuition than anything else) that she is now NOT communicating with them.,... .this seems to follow some sort of cycle with her after she breaks up with men; she withdraws, gains weight and cuts herself off from everyone. 

@OR... .You really hit the nail squarely on the head: its that one percent that has been driving me nuts. It is validating and will be more so if they continue next week, but what then? Its been 8 months! I can't go on living my life like this. If she hadn't called the cops on me on Xmas eve when I attempted to contact her, I'd give her a call and say 'What the heck?'. But I prefer to not deal with the potential legal impact.

Of all the gin joints in the world... .

[enlighten me]

My ex gets her friends out of the toy cupboard. Its funny as she pretty much cut all her friends when she got with her boyfriend. Now she is all chummy with them again and I think about to break up with him. I say this as its her weekend without the kids and she normally goes away but today she isnt.

Just a thought as she called the police then if she actually contacted you then it would make her complaint look odd.

[JRT]

I wonder if thats a standard play in the BPD playbook: push the friends away during the r/s (but why? They might blow their cover?), gather them around towards the end, ex bash after the fact.

Are you concerned that you have a recycle on the way? (forgive me, I know that you have told me before but how long have you been NC and b/u?)

[enlighten me]

No chance of a recycle. I wouldnt allow it. No I keep an eye as we have a son. My biggest concern is that I think she is having a fling with her landlord. He is always there apparently. His girlfriend is already suspicious and had a go at her and called her a slapper in the school playground. So my biggest worry is her getting kicked out when it all blows up. She will either move closer to me which I dont want or further away which will be more awkward for seeing my son.

It does make a fascinating case study though and combined with this site fills in a lot of behavioural blanks.

[cj488]

I believe I had the same from my exBPDgf. Some months after we split, my phone began to ring, silent calls, over and over. At first I didn't know what it was about, assuming a wrong number, but it continued. I finally wrote an email to her wishing her well, and asking "if you might happened to know who is calling me incessantly and hanging up, please as them to stop." All calls stopped immediately, from that moment.

A few months later, again.

I sent another email, it stopped immediately.

[JRT]

Thanks for sharing that CJ... .its one of the maddening thing about it: I am pretty darn sure but there is a small margin of of possible deniability. I 'spoke' to her by name on one of the calls and they stopped for a short while. I suspect that mine desperately wants me to come and chase her as Shadow describes but at the same time I am a trigger to her and should expect a call from the cops (again) if I did.

Do you happen to have a link to Shari's article on this?

[hibye]

my ex does silent calls too from uknown number.

she just wants to hear me and throw the ball at me. maybe she hopes me to figure it out and call back and talk. she is afraid of talking because she is with her rebound relationship and in our "closure" i told her to stay off of me or else i will tell him everything. if she had broken up with him she would definitely call and talk.

how do i know all this? i am just guessing but i think i know her pretty well.

[Kwamina]

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