DH didn’t stop when I said stop

Oh sweetheart. I'm so sorry.

This must be so hard to wrap your head around.

Have you told anyone? Mum? Sister? You need support.

How's the baby?

So sorry op. Is there anyone you can talk to about this who will help you?

I'm so so sorry @bijouhibou

Do you have any RL support?

What thread did you mean to post that comment on ?

Sorry, wrong thread. I've asked my below comment to be removed.

I wpuld never judge anyone for not reporting a sexual assault. It's a personal thing and some folk just do not feel able to face the shitstorm that could come their way.

It's ok to find your support and validation elsewhere if that is all you can cope with.

I'm glad they were supportive of you, I get that it's hard to deal with. In my mum's case, she sufferedn SA herself as a child, at the hands of an uncle, who was her guardian after she was orphaned at 10. She has expressed herself devastated when my DSis and I told her what had happened. She says she had no idea, we have no idea whether we believe her or not. She's good at making it all about her as well, getting all upset if we ever talk about the past. She has asked me not to talk about it so I don't spoil her time with her DGDs.

Rant over. At least I have a lovely DH and DDs, and my DSis and her family. And some supportive friends too. Hope you have the support you need as well. Therapy can be really helpful too.

😱😱 my folks didn't know how to handle it when i told them but they were at least supportive of me falling apart

I know, she actually asked me to ask what penalties he might be facing. But then, she's always expected me to look out for him. I know he was a victim, too, and he's vulnerable, but I'm finally putting my own family first and I'm low contact with both of them. She didn't even ask how I was coping with having reported him.

Thanks lizzie, thankfully i had support elsewhere & now feel stronger despite it. I'm aghast that your mum made life difficult for you 😔

That's so awful, @mustbemad17 I'm sorry.

It was bad enough reporting what my brother did. My DM really guilt tripped me about it, that he wouldn't cope in prison blah blah. DSis and I agreed that we didn't want to pursue it, and because he's a vulnerable adult, the police agreed that it wasn't in the public interests to charge him. But it was all very difficult.

I ended up dropping charges against the one rapist i reported. Despite CCTV of him dragging me down an alleyway at knife point, then running off & me coming out of said alley in hysterics, the police made life as difficult as possible for me. It was absolutely soul destroying & in some respects worse than the actual attack!!

That was true for me, balsamicbarbara I reported the one that was still alive because I was concerned he might be a danger to other children. And I had the reassurance at the end that the allegation would be on his record in a DBS check, meaning that he won't ever be able to work with children. That was very much a comfort. Also, at least DSis and I did what we could.

But it's a harrowing process. The man was a stranger to me, and my abusive F is dead. For the OP to report her DH is a whole different ball game. So I wouldn't ever make a judgement on what she should or shouldn't do.

Reporting a rape - be it within a relationship or outside - is a harrowing experience that can further traumatise the person involved. It's all well & good to say that morally a victim of rape should report it...unfortunately the resources are not there to fully support them whilst doing so, or afterwards.

The OP is not obligated to report what happened to her

I'm not so sure of that morally. Part of reporting serious crime is about protecting other people from the perpetrators, and not just an independent judgment as to whether you were really affected or not. This comes up perhaps more often in child abuse cases and is why, often, people eventually step forward after years of fear - not just for themselves, but to protect others.

ginandbearit

Yes, but they need to stop it. The OP is not obligated to report what happened to her, but nor is anyone else empowered to rewrite laws to tell her what happened to her didn't happen, or was minor, etc.

Oh I agree completely ...but this illustrates the complex reasons many women don't report acts like this ...and this thread shows how people assess 'degrees of rape' in real life and the judgements that go with that.

ginandbearit

It is 100% up to the OP. She has been told to report the rape (not by me). She has been told it can't be rape unless it is something she is willing to report. People on both sides of this debate are guilty of forgetting that her next steps are hers to decide, no one else's. If she wants to report the fact that someone had sex with her without consent, she can, because this is a crime.

Possible consequences of reporting the rape:
End of marriage ..massive distress to children...financial hardship and moving house/downsizing ...family want to know what happened .." But that wasn't rape..that was him being clumsy selfish carried away".."you reported him to the police for THAT?!" .. " You've thrown away a good marriage because hardline feminists on mumsnet wanted to use you to prove a point?" ....etc etc ..
Just one scenario where op gets the full victim blaming thing ..I've seen something similar and years later the children really blamed their mother for their disrupted childhood and distraught father who minimised what happened . It's not so simple in real life sometimes .

You were raped. Report the rape.

What she shouldn't do is allow her DH to minimise what happened. I was very disturbed by his attitude of surprise that she was still upset by it. For me, that would spell the end of the relationship regardless of whether I reported it.

Agree 100%.

This is a betrayal.

I feel that calling it what it was and providing the definition will help clear the obfuscation the H has created here.

It's fine Lizzie, when my DD unfortunately had a similar thing happen, it meant I was able to understand, support her and confirm to her that she was raped and it wasn't 'kids being kids'.

I didn't report it to the police, I offered my childhood abuser the chance to speak to me, to apologise and understand what he put me through. He ignored me so I outed him to the whole family. He insisted on speaking to my dad as he claimed he 'didnt remember anything' and once again my father, the rape apologist, told him it was kids being kids'. My step mother immediately went to his FB page to ask him if he was okay. Suffice to say, I cut a lot of people off. Challenging him did a lot more for me that trying to get him prosecuted and as he was also a minor, I doubt a conviction would have been had.

Anyways, I still don't see anyone insisting the OP reports her rape. I have seen people say she could if she chooses to, but aside from that, no-one is trying to force her.

As said before, No means No, rape is rape and anyone that minimises it, dismisses it or tries to excuse it, is a rape apologist and should be ashamed of themselves. This is one issue where without a doubt, women should stand in solidarity with each other.