After a decision didn’t go my ex-husband’s way in divorce proceedings, he used an app to spoof my work phone number (making calls that appeared to come from my work number), calling publicly listed mobile numbers for multiple clients of mine.

I discovered this as over a period of a few days I began to get a number of calls from numbers not known to me, who had received “missed calls” from me, and were calling me back. On the Sunday morning, one of them, was adamant that I’d just called them as my number had come up on her phone, but the caller ended the call after one ring, before she’d been able to answer.

She mentioned the name of the company that she worked for in case that helped jog my memory about why I’d phoned her. The company was a corporate partner, who my company had posted a blog post about that week, and the blog was credited as having been written by me.

After the call, I googled her number, and it was listed on their company website. I then googled the other numbers who had returned my “missed calls” over the previous days, and discovered that they were all phone numbers listed on the websites of clients of mine.

I felt sick to my stomach for the whole of Sunday, not knowing who else my ex-husband might have called, and how his actions might have affected my professional relationships.

How my manager supported me 

On the Monday morning, I messaged my manager first thing, asking for an urgent catch up, and we had a virtual call a few minutes later. He couldn’t have been kinder or more supportive.

He was already aware that I was going through complicated divorce proceedings, as I’d taken annual leave for a hearing, but I had never mentioned anything about any abuse in the marriage, or post its ending.

When I explained the situation, there was no judgement, and it felt like his concern was solely for my welfare. He checked whether I was ok, offering to cover any meetings or duties, if I needed to take any time off that morning.

Once he’d confirmed that I was ok, he said that he’d pick up with HR and IT, about getting my number changed as soon as possible, so I wouldn’t have to answer any questions about why.

He checked that I was comfortable with him disclosing the situation to the HR director, and said that he’d check in with me if he might need to disclose anything to the IT Director in relation to data security.

Within half an hour, he had arranged for a new phone and number to be delivered to my home the following morning.

Once I had disclosed about this situation, my manager checked in occasionally over the following months to see how I was doing, and offering support should I need it.

How I worked with my manager to plan ahead together

This was the first time, post separation, that my ex-husband tried to target my work (it was shortly after our final financial hearing, so he waited until jeopardising my role would no longer affect his financial position). 

He had though previously done many things to lash out at me personally, always either around legal proceedings, or important dates like birthdays or Christmas. 

As I knew my ex-husband was most likely to lash out in some way around dates of legal proceedings, and was aware that the police would be beginning to have contact with him, I expected that he would try further measures in the near future to affect me personally, or professionally.

I asked the police to give me 48 hours’ notice in advance of any contact they would be having with him, which they agreed, and kept to throughout.

I would then block out time in my work diary in the days surrounding expected police contact, as well as any planned divorce proceedings, in case something came up that I needed to urgently deal with.

I let my manager know about this plan, and he was happy for me to take advantage of our flexible working hours, to take time when needed, and make up the hours over the rest of the week.

This also allowed my manager to know when I might be going through a stressful period and might need additional support and, where possible, schedule big meetings/pieces of work, on alternative weeks.

*Eliza’s name has been changed to protect her identity.