My, what a story. It sends shivers down my spine. I was a victim of domestic violence. He made a lot of threats, but once we broke up for good he kind of went away without too much trouble.

Although I have never been stalked on the level you have been, I do feel I was stalked by one ex. The relationship started off on the wrong foot when he kind of pressured me into having sex. I fought him off for quite some time, but eventually got sick of his persistence and gave in. I didn't like myself much back then so I continued the relationship even though I didn't really like him. For me, it was never anything serious, and I knew it was a temporary relationship, and told him as much. He didn't quite get it.

Once I made it clear the relationship was over things got ugly. I remember having caller id, and back then it could only calculate up to 99 calls. He called me insistently for about two hours, back to back to back. the phone stopped calculating after 99 calls, so he called me100+ times. He then started showing up at my job, and calling my job. He called my home once and described the cars that were parked in front of my home, which means he was close by and watching. Totally creepy for someone I was only seeing for 3 or 4 months. No matter how nasty and vile I spoke to him, he just didn't get it. I came right out and told him to stop calling me, that I hated him, and that he disgusted me, but I think he just got a kick out of it. In hindsight, I realize that having any communication with him, even if it was just to curse him out, was actually adding fuel to his fire.

The intensity died out after a few months, but even years after the relationship was over, I would still get a call from him at least once every few months. To this day, I no longer have a house phone, and he is the reason why.

At the time I didn't realize I was being stalked. Since he never threatened me in any way, I didn't feel it was something I could go the cops over. I do not know what the laws are in New Jersey, but I always tell women to take it seriously any time they are threatened by a man. The man who emotionally abused me for five years, and threatened to kill me if I left him went away with very little problems, whereas some random guy who I only knew for four months caused me a lot of trouble and nervousness.

The stories of stalking are dreadful, and I have trouble understanding how some people feel they have the right to own another person.

One of my friends was stalked and threatened by her ex-husband for several years. We believe he even paid someone to follow her. She and I took a trip together, and saw a man photographing us. (Since we're both middle aged women, we couldn't imagine why some random stranger would be doing that.) He also included threatening notes with her alimony payments. Now she has remarried, lives in a remote area, uses a Post Office box, and is very careful about letting people know where she is. It is so sad that she has to live that way.

Now, one of my grown daughters is going through a divorce from a man who was an abusive alcoholic. She is taking almost all of the same steps as my friend. The difference is that she has elementary age children. This means they could give their Dad her address, which is worrisome. We just hope she is able to stay safe. It is such a worry.

I know there are anti-stalking laws, but it is hard to protect yourself from such an upredictable situation. There is no way for laws to cover every possibility.

I certainly have not been a victim of stalking to the degree that you describe. I have felt stalked by my ex's new wife, but she mainly follows me around the internet and annoys the daylights out of me. She doesn't really make any threats. She just tries to prove me a liar with things she thinks she knows more about than me. It used to frighten me, but she's done it so much and so often that now it's more like a gnat flying around my head. I may swipe at it occasionally, but it's only annoying, not scary.

As for the things that you have been through, I cannot imagine that. It would scare me badly. It is important in any kind of situation like that that you make sure the police take you seriously. Nobody should ever get away with that. I do hope that things get better for you, because this is just not right.

There was just a women who was killed by her ex-husband a couple months ago a few cities away from me. Although she did have a restraining order (not worth the paper they are printed on) against him, she had been contacting her local police department for a few weeks saying she feared for her life.

Yes, anti-stalking laws (including cyber-stalking laws) seem to be updated in a number of states to reflect the more appropriate and serious matter that it is (and has always been). This, however, doesn't mean that people's perception of stalking has changed at all.

Why is this? Is it because the victim is almost always a woman? Possibly. Is it because people chalk it up to the stalker being a crazy person? Because this is not the case. A stalker is a sane person with extreme anger and jealousy issues, however, it doesn't seem to impede on any other part of their life--work and/or personal. Usually, everyone is surprised when they hear about their friend so-and-so who killed his ex, except for the ex-woman's close friends and family.

When I was in high school, I broke up with a boyfriend who began to stalk me. It went on for a few months, and it was pretty bad. He even ended up following my little brother and sister around.

Later in college, when I was only 17, a thirty-something year old man was harassing me every time I turned around. He was creepy. I enrolled in a woman's self-defense class. After the class, I used my new-found voice on him--in a parking lot after class. This got everyone's attention, since I was quite loud and firm. In very simple terms, loud enough for everyone to hear and firm enough for him to understand I meant business, I made it quite clear that I didn't appreciate him following me and touching me and that he needed to leave me alone.

It was successful. I suppose I was lucky, however, I do believe that a woman's personality plays a small role in a stalker's enjoyment. The more frightened a stalker makes his victim, the more powerful he becomes.

I was raped when I was 16 and for two years after that his wife - who had been one of my best friends, or so I thought - stalked me at the school. The school forced her to change her class schedule the first year since we had a few classes together, but the entire semester she would end up in the wrong room until reminded that she wasn't in that class anymore. Every. Single. Day. It's not an accident when it happens every day.

She graduated that year but still came back to the school at least once a week. She found my schedule through trial and error and would go to my classes under the guise of visiting her favorite teachers. She went to my lunch period under the guise of speaking with friends. She even tried to sit at my table once, though the people with me promptly told her 'we were never your friends, go away'.

What made it worse was that she had a baby with her, born about 9 months after her husband raped me. Either she stayed with him because she found out she was pregnant (because she had been supportive of me when I told her first then quickly changed her mind a day later) or she happily got knocked up after hearing about her husband's second rape (I was the second 16 year old girl he had raped in two years and the police didn't charge him with either crime).

I complained to the assistance principal who told me if it bothered me I could go do my work/eat my lunch in the counselor's office, as if the visitor had more rights to be comfortable than I did. And if friends asked if they could come to the office to eat with me they were told no, they had to stay in the lunchroom. So I was expected to be ostracized because this woman was taunting me.

I complained to my teachers after the first two months of her visiting at least once a week. Only two saw through what she was doing - one because she saw what it did to me everytime this woman showed up and how pleased the woman looked when I would cringe or cry a little, and the other because he had never known the woman so visiting her 'favorite teacher' didn't work as a great excuse for why she was in his classroom. The others told me I would just have to suck it up. They didn't even ask that she please visit during another class period, just that I needed to suck it up.

Thankfully I graduated that year. Those I went to school with told me she never visited the school again either.

I think it was all an intimidation tactic to keep me too messed up to pursue why the police weren't doing anything to her husband (they apparently believed it was consensual like he said, but that didn't excuse statutory rape). I never pursued a restraining order against her (I didn't have a lot of support from anyone except that one teacher) but I imagine if the police can put off filing rape charges after two attacks then a judge would probably tell me to suck it up, too.

I once had a friend break up with a bad boyfriend and he attacked her with a sword a few weeks later as well. What is it with weirdo stalkers and swords?

I was stalked by my ex-husband during our divorce process, but he was an ineffectual stalker (we always said he smoked too much pot and just forgot what he was doing).

But seriously, it did unnerve me since his threats were all about kidnapping our son. So the daycare, the police, eventually the school...were all informed that the father had no rights to see or remove the boy from the premises.

Every place except the police were exceedingly helpful in keeping an eye on my son. But the one time my ex called the police on me because I wasn't letting him see my son, I had a police officer at my door demanding that I allow visitation right then and there (oddly, the ex was not with him...he just sent the police).

I had the habit of keeping the custody papers, the restraining order and the specific page with "no visitation" on it clipped to the refrigerator. I pulled those off, showed them to the cop and after he got done lecturing me on my duties as a mother to allow visitation, he realized he was way out of league.

He offered no apology, just left. The ex continued calling that night, drove past several times honking the horn and eventually went away. The next day, on the advice of my attorney, I took copies of all those papers to the police department, left them there and also spoke to the Chief of Police, who vaguely apologized for his officer but never got as far as telling me I was right. He treated the whole thing as if it were my fault that I was being stalked and harassed.

Eventually the ex either forgot he wanted to kidnap my son (he's changed to "my" son now, I see...not "our" son) or when I moved he lost track of me (I moved 2 blocks to a big house and spent a lot of time in the front garden...I'm sure he didn't see me.)

My stalking was nothing like yours, Glory, and I'm thankful that you're back among us.