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Help please, advice needed on unwanted contact from work colleague

ParaTed

Hi, 

I am really desperate for some advice and help.

It is super complex and long, but I will try shorten it. 

I have recently put in a complaint about someone I work with very closely, we had become what I thought was good friends. He began to get verbally forceful with me when I would tell him I couldn’t meet up with him etc, we had planned a trip to France with a small group of friends but I was unwell and couldn’t make it. He began to threaten me and when I asked him to stop communicating with me he advised me ‘I will never stop, this isn’t going to stop’ I blocked him number and he contacted me on Facebook and via email. A work colleague advised him he needed to stop and he has. 

This has not been an issue since (maybe a month or so) but he has been off sick and is due to return shortly. Work have advised me there is nothing they can do unless I make a formal complaint. Which I have, all I have asked is that we no longer work so closely together. They have seen a sample of messages he sent and have raised concerns that is is more of a criminal matter (stalking possibly?) than a work matter. They feel work wise he has done nothing wrong and unless I now report the issue to the police they can not do anything further. 

My union rep has been involved and had originally seen the messages included in the complaint. I have this week sent him our entire text history (3000 pages on word!) as he has asked to go through them. He now thinks I have been dishonest about my colleagues behaviour and selected messages to make him look bad. He expressed his concerns that inbetween my colleagues controlling behaviour etc I am communicating with him normally and even have arranged to meet up with him. 

This is because I was concerned about our working relationship in the future and I wanted to maintain some level of friendship going forward, including our trip to France. 

What can I do? What should I do? Is there a term used to describe my behaviour? Specifically returning to talk to him after he had demonstrated threatening behaviour. I feel completely broken and I’m worried everyone thinks I’m a fraud now. He has genuinely caused me huge amounts of distress and upset over the last 12 months, and I would resign before I could work alongside him again.  

Parents

  • Hi, I think this may be a police matter. I’m going to give you my take on things. Feel free to tell me if I’m wrong.

    This ‘friendship’ sounds like an emotionally abusive relationship (as a friendship is a type of relationship). The problem with an emotionally abusive relationship as compared to a physically abusiFrogve relationship is that people don’t realise how bad it’s got or at least it kind of gets really bad without them realising that it is heading that way, therefore they stay in that relationship for longer because you don’t fully realise the harm or the danger. Let me use the analogy of a boiled frog. now if you put a live frog into a pan of boiling hot water (a physically abusive relationship) it realises that it’s hot straight away and jumps out immediately. If however you put the frog into a pan of cold water then turn on the hob and slowly boil the water, the frog doesn’t realise the slow and subtle change in temperature so it stays in the pan and gets boiled alive, this is the emotionally abusive relationship/friendship, it gets worse slowly so you don’t notice the danger you are in and you don’t try to get out quicker. Also, because emotional abuse is subtler, we are more likely to make excuses for it: they were drunk/tired/stressed and we make more allowances for them. It sounds like that’s what’s happened here. You tolerated this person for longer than you should have because you didn’t fully see the danger, also you probably thought if you were nice to him then he might go back to being nice to you, it’s sad to lose a friend and we all like to give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes. But just because you kept giving him chances to redeem himself doesn’t make you wrong and it doesn’t justify his behaviour. It is stalking and harassment.

  • in reply to Kitsune

    Thank you for your reply, the bit about the frog makes a lot of sense, I really like the analogy. As it happens my union rep has continued to read all the messages between us and feel the policShrug tone1ed to be involved.  So a new hurdle to cross with that, as I called the number and she said it was a low level crime and wasn’t In the publics best interest to re open the case. Unhelpful to saShrug tone1e least! Shrug tone1‍♀️

  • in reply to ParaTed

    I'm glad that you liked the analogy. It's frustrating that the police won't take it further at the moment. What I would suggest is keeping the texts, maybe save them on your computer too just in case your phone breaks, then if this man starts again once he is back at work (though hopefully he doesn't) then at least you have all the evidence if you need to go back to the police again

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  • in reply to ParaTed

    I'm glad that you liked the analogy. It's frustrating that the police won't take it further at the moment. What I would suggest is keeping the texts, maybe save them on your computer too just in case your phone breaks, then if this man starts again once he is back at work (though hopefully he doesn't) then at least you have all the evidence if you need to go back to the police again

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