Think our relationship is over. TW sexual assault

You need to kick the "partner" out, he is OK with his brother having assaulted your son, there is no coming back from that.

Get your son some counselling to ensure he is comfortable with his next steps around reporting this.

@Costacosta220 thank you for the extra info. I agree with you re police, convictions etc etc.
Your doing a brilliant job supporting your son.

I know you are not i tending it to come across this way but this sounds like you are minimising with each post. Regardless of your sons age this man sexually assaulted your son and your partner and his family are OK with continuing to socialise with him! Absolutely not, end the relationship, remove these people feom your life. Your son won't ask you to do this but I guarantee that he will feel better when you do. Should your son never attend family gatherings again because the brother may be there? That is the choice being made. Help your son move on by removing these people from his life. Your DPs excuses are ridiculous, sexual assault has little to do with sexuality, repressed gay men don't routinely abuse younger men, predatory men do!

As PP have said;
Of course your son should have control over who hears his story and who doesn’t, but he doesn’t get to control how you respond to it.

Either your partner cuts his brother off, or you cut your partner off. You can’t demand he cuts off his brother, and he’s already told you that he won’t/can’t.
SO, you have to get rid of him and cut him off, out of your life, forever. That’s it. Done.

It up to your son if he wants to report it or not. He's an adult. He's the victim. I wouldn't want to make him feel less in control. It's his choice. Although, I'd strongly encourage it because this could be a patten of predatory behaviour. This man has know your son since he was a pre teen.

When these things happen in families the do tend to be swept under the carpet. People don't want to damage the family relationship or the families reputation. However, your partner should be more concerned about your son who he's know since he was 12 than his relationship with his brother. His brother touched your son inappropriately. Itscnot an accident. It's not a joke. It not excusable. It can't be explained away. Your partner need to stop try to excuse it or talk it away. Realistically, i could continue a relationship with him because I couldn't look at him the same. He's meant to love, protect and priorities you. Going and having a jolly chat with his pervert brother isn't doing that. It's a message to the world IMO.

I am a victim of CSA. My parents tried to get me to invite my abuser to my wedding. My grandparents refuse to attend because he wasn't invited. There was a lot of " how will it look if you don't invite him". I said I don't give a fuck it's my day and I won't have him there and subject myself to him and also how will it look if I do invite him? Like it's okay?

OP, sharing this link on communities that enable abuse, which you might find interesting.

You have great instincts here. I hope you find the best way through for you and your son.

I have a 19 year old son too. He is still young and finding his way in life, still needing guidance though legally an adult. I’d be just as devastated by a sexual assault on him as if it happened to my daughter.

This will likely affect your DS for the rest of his life. He probably doesn’t want you and your partner to break up because he doesn’t want to be the reason you will then be alone without a partner and possibly unhappy because of that. So he is protecting everyone, including keeping the police out of it. This is such a difficult burden for a young person and your partner, being older, should step up and go no contact with this brother.

You are failing to take into consideration that the son really likes the partner, possibly even loves him. He will feel responsible and guilty for the breakdown of the relationship even though it's not his fault.

Black and white thinking rarely suits any real life situations.

And, to be honest, asking the masses, with their varying opinions, experiences, values, knee jerk responses and, truthfully, comprehension skills which range from excellent to scarily poor, isn't the best way to determine a course of action.

Everyone is in shock. Everyone is processing. A knee jerk response is rarely a good thing. Everyone involved needs time to work through the feelings that this bomb in their lives has caused. It doesn't happen overnight - it's very similar to the stages of grief, the first of which is denial.

Knowing someone you love did something horrific is one thing, it takes the brain time to catch up and process, because denial is the NATURAL response. But it's only one stage of the process. People who don't understand that are lucky, because it means they have no direct experience.

It also means they have no knowledge or right to be berating others or instructing them on what they should do, when they're going through it.

It's all too easy to be righteous when it's not your family.

OP - I'm sorry you're going through this, I would highly recommend you talk to professionals in this field, rather than the baying masses of Mumsnet.

Sending love and support to you all.

For those advocating telling the police, her son is an ADULT and doesn’t want to. His wishes come first here.
Secondly conviction rates are extremely low especially when it’s a crime of this nature so it won’t go anywhere in all likelihood.
On the relationship side though, it’s very tricky. It sounds like the family are taking it seriously but are not going to freeze him out.
The question is whether that’s enough for you or if you need to end this. Talking to a charity that deals with sexual abuse survivors may help you.
Sometimes it’s worth being clear in your mind what you’d like to see happen, what would be acceptable to you and where the red line of acceptability is.
Good luck OP. Not an easy situation.

His mother does believe him, and it is horrific. But reading it through the internet and living it in real life are two different matters. I’m not saying the op is 100% correct in how she’s dealing with her husband’s reaction, but in realtime this is still all extremely raw. The op is not just trying to support her son through an extremely traumatic event, she’s also looking at losing her husband/family unit as a fallout. Can you not see at all the desperation in trying to hold on to normality? It’s very easy to berate the op from behind a screen, saying they would instantly kick out their husband. People don’t respond naturally to hearing something so awful.

@Costacosta220 I also wish people would read what I have written.

Have we all missed the part where you've said you've ended the relationship and blocked the whole family, including your EX partner.

Because so far all I'm seeing is you making excuses for your partner,which is absolutely disgusting.

My partner wouldn’t have been around long enough to argue about this. He’d have been out the door straight away. Your poor son.

No. That response from him means it’s the end. Choose your son.

Fwiw my impartial take on it:
Your partner tries to come up with a rational excuse for what happened —- there is never a rational excuse for sexual assault.
His brother assaulted your son. If there are no consequences then it is positive reinforcement for brother to do it again to someone else.
If your partner wants to excuse this, make it go away, what else would he want to excuse away, disappear ? An assault on a younger person? A vulnerable person?

Your son might not want it reported to police now but he may in the future. That is his choice. For now I’d suggest he speak to someone outside the family, there are lots of organisations listed here https://rsvporg.co.uk/services/male-survivors/#:~:text=Male%20Survivors%20Partnership%20A%20central,to%20sexual%20violence%20and%20abuse.

Ask yourself do you want to be with a man whose first thought isn’t support of a victim of assault? If you were assaulted would he want to excuse that away?

Bullshit. I would believe my child. I wouldn’t socialise with their abuser and I wouldn’t support the people who did.
This is why sexual abuse victims have the triple whammy of being abused, not being believed and then watching friends and family support the abuser. It’s soul destroying for them.
There’s been enough cases where celebrities are known sexual predators, do it for years and have hundreds of victims and everyone says it’s can’t be true and they get richer and more famous. Imagine being a victim and watching the man who did it win awards.

Your son should report the incident.
Yes in theory but as a mum and someone who has seen how sexual assault victims are treated in the courts I can honestly say I am not sure I would want that for someone I love. They are completely retraumatised again, on trial effectively themselves and it is always extremely hard to convict. They can report to police but if they are not willing to press charges and go through the court system there s very little the police can do.

''@Totallytoti · Today 09:13 The entire post is my son is so important but but but,''

Exactly.

I am sorry OP but all your updates are just the same: excuses.The reality is that you are still with your partner although he took the side of the person who sexually assaulted your son.

Most people on this thread are rightly questioning why you are doing this.

Did your son give you permission to speak to the other brothers and the father?

Yes the relationship is over, thankfully your partner owns his own property. I suggest he moves out today to allow you and your son time to think and decide what works for you and him.

You are getting a hard time OP and a lot of people aren't reading your posts properly but I DO agree that in your shoes I couldn't even look at anyone minimising this mans behaviour let alone the man himself and that does include your partner.
Sounds like you don't live together or have kids together so leaving him shouldn't be too hard and of course your son will not encourage you too, he probably feels that he would be responsible for destroying your relationship but it is actually your partner who has done that.
MIL's partner SA a family member who was a young adult and the rest of the families reaction changed how I felt about them despite me and MIL being pretty close previously. I was never in the same postcode as him again and avoided the rest of them until MIL finally dumped him (for another reason).

The op and her son cannot be dictated to who they will see, if told that the brother will be at an event I’m sure they will make a decision whether to go. Her son is fully in his rights not to report but people here are being extremely righteous in their responses. If anyone here was told their brother/father/husband inappropriately touched a teen I bet most people would start mental gymnastics in those first few weeks as well. Because it’s never ‘our David’ who’s capable of it. I’m not saying that is the right response, I’m trying to point out that it’s a very difficult situation to take on board. It will take a long time for the family to come to terms with the fact that their closest relative abused a young man.

You are mad to even consider staying with this man. He knows his brother has abused your son & he doesn’t give a fuck

I would just ditch the partner and the whole disgusting lot of his family.

Not a chance they would be near my child minimising something so serious and deplorable.

Their reaction, or should I say lack of reaction would be a massive red flag that they knew about him before this was disclosed.

i hope your DS can move on with his life.

The brother has done something that makes him a risk to others. Is 18/19 a child or young adult or adult? It's people who are at risk...
The hobby involves people.
No one should be at risk from this brother.
Your son should report the incident. It's been a significant issue and may well continue to affect his life. Telling the police will be stressful.

Your relationship is another thing entirely. You are free to end things with someone at any time for any reason.
You could hope your partner will cut off the brother but he won't. Blood is thicker than water I'm afraid. The ties that bind us are annoyingly tough to break. In a years time your partner will have completely minimised this matter.
They will justify it as something trivial and not worthy of reporting it to the police.
This means your son will be more affected by it going forward than otherwise.

How tied to your partner are you? How could you ease away?