DH friends want to discuss me, I want to be there, AIBU (TW)

I'm so sorry for what happened to you when you were younger and for this massive betrayal. Your husband should never have told them, he had no right to sit with a group and dicuss you. I would not entertain any further discussion and I wouldn't be able to forgive my husband either. You have worked so hard on yourself, do not settle for less than your worth, you are worth so much more 💕

This. A man decides to exploit OP using knowledge gained from OP’s husband. It was very weird and very inappropriate. OP’s husband doesn’t want to continue friendship. It has nothing to do with DH friends. OP should not be doing anything. OP should not engage with a group of men discussing her. It is not her problem to solve. No one can change DH friend’s ingrained attitude.

Sounds like your DH has some revolting friends and that your DH clearly knows this as he asked them to tone down their usual 'banter' while in your home because he was concerned you'd discover exactly what kind of men he spends time with.

Knowing this your husband still decided to share your intimate life with them.

Your husband has now been caught out and he's trying to distance himself from his friends by dropping the one who verbally traumatised you at the bar.

But that friend is not the only one in the group with that kind of attitude towards women. The other friends aren't appalled - they just want to smooth things over so their lives can go on as normal.

The only conclusion I can come to is your husband behaves very differently with his mates.

I'm so sorry. You don't deserve any of this. Instead of making yourself even more vulnerable in front of these men can you instead have a gatherings of close female friends around or ask your husband to pay for you - and whoever's company you prefer - to go and stay somewhere else for a few days.

You’ve got a massive dh problem. He’s totally betrayed your trust.

Have the meeting but be well prepared.
Know what your boundary is for the outcome.
Also make sure that DH knows your ideal outcome.
Consider what will make you most comfortable for the next ten years of friendship with these people.

For example ..

You need B to apologise.
If B can not understand that his communication was intrusive, you don't want to see him again. (Does B have a frontal lobe head injury? Soccer player, car accident etc?)

You need DH to apologise and to keep more things private.

You need all to never make jokes that good men and women would appose. And you would like them to have learnt something - that they can call out others when they see or hear bad behaviour or jokes.

You want no more discussion about your personal encounter, when you are in attendance and when you are not.

You would like to see strong leadership against violence to women from people with whom you associate.

You want inclusive, supportive and fun friendships with them all.

If you want them at your own home, then that is best. You do what YOU feel is best.

Show your DH this thread. If he doesn't already understand why he hasn't had your back and you need him to step up and protect you now then after reading it he might.

What the actual fuck. So many things wrong with this.

Another example of men fucking disregarding the actual lived trauma of women. As if your viewpoint and feelings about it aren’t relevant.

If you don’t want them discussing it, they shouldn’t be discussing it. End of. If you decide that it’s ok it should absolutely be on your terms. I don’t even really know what to say about the comment of the risk of the men feeling uncomfortable. WTAF.

Obviously your husband’s disloyalty is another issue. But hopefully he will have your back now.

sorry you are going through this OP.

I’m so sorry. This is not your mess. I’d be furious with your DH if I were you. How dare he tell anyone without your permission. This B person had grossly overstepped, in fact, downright trodden on your privacy. I’m just so sorry this has all been brought up and put back on you.

No "discussion" can make what B did any better or more excusable. I don’t think you should go through the trauma of such a meeting, where presumably B will try to defend himself, or others will try to defend him, and I don’t think your DH should agree to go to any such meeting, regardless of what his friends want.

I can see, though, that it’s a good idea for the other friends to know exactly how vile B's questions were, but there’s no "discussion" to be had. Your DH should refuse to ever be in B's company again.

Your DH screwed up when telling them.

B is an idiot.

The meeting isn't about you. The meeting is about how to make sure you and your feelings won't inconvenicence their group. It's about gaslighting your DH to just accept an apology or something like that.
If you feel up to it, making them feel a bit uncomfortable sounds fair enough to me.

I don't think you or your husband should meet with them, there's nothing to say because B behaved awfully towards you and your husband also betrayed your trust by telling them all as though its entertainment or gossip

There's something a bit pathetic about clinging onto school friends who stage interventions like this.
I dunno it all feels a bit public schoolboy.
I prefer my man to have friends hes actively made as an adult. Preferably ones who take rape seriously.

This would be a dealbreaker in my relationship

OP was raped by two men. She is now contemplating having to sit with a group of men while they essentially discuss her rape? I can’t express how wrong and retraumatising this all is. The meeting should not happen.

And I don’t know how OP can trust her husband again. This just all feel so exposing. I am sorry OP. Hope you are ok x

There should be no ‘meeting’. That is weird and gross.

There was also no need for your husband to divulge this. It is inexcusable.

OH MY GOD

I thought you said you were going to stop clogging up the thread. 😒 This is not about you!

@Anon8761 your husband is a bad man. He has formed a lifelong friendship with men who make rapey jokes. He is one of them. He only “allegedly” told them to stop making such jokes within your earshot. (Frankly I believe this is a lie.) Otherwise, he’s totally comfortable with that.

And now, he’s considering an intervention to salvage the friendship. They would choose perversion over discomfort. If his friends were decent, they would hold B accountable and all cut him off. But they’re not doing that because they already knew he was a perv and they’re okay with that. Men never rarely hold men accountable, and that is why abuse thrives and the male violence continues.

so sorry you had to go through that.

This is disgusting they all know and now insisting on some kind of meet up to discuss it. You absolutely should be there. The man in question deserves to be made to feel uncomfortable, and your DH is totally out of order.

The "friends" want a mediation?

They want you and your husband to shut up and not make them confront their own lack of morality, which, btw, they want you to make them feel better about.

Do not go to any meeting. There shouldn't be one. The friends aren't authorities in your lives. Your husband should be looking very closely at this group and he shouldn't like what he sees.
If B continues to be part of this group then your husband knows he isn't respected and neither are you.

So that everyone is clear on what happened, I would write it all out, exactly what he said, and send it to them and their wives and ask how they can defend this, why they want you to forgive and forget and how they'd feel if it was one of their wives.

These men want to talk about your being raped and how they get to talk about it, who the fuck cares if they feel uncomfortable? You should invite all their mums and sisters and wives and daughters too and that’s the only way they are allowed to have this conversation.
obviously that’s a terrible idea as it’s about your trauma, but nothing is worse than their veiw they have a right to have this conversation. Dh should take the most vocal one to a bar and loudly ask if the doctor said anything could be done about his micro penis and if his marriage is salvageable after he heard his wife laughing about it with her girlfriends. LOUDLY.

Dont go to the meeting, it will do you no good.

However given the betrayal by your DH (even if well intentioned) there shouldn’t be a meeting. He should be entitled to say that he is cutting B off as he has hurt his wife. They just want to railroad him into getting over it. It’s unforgivable and your DH should have your back here and say no to reconciling with B and let that be the end of it. The others will have to deal with the uncomfortable fall out.

Oh and B is definitely a pervert.

They should ostracise B from the group for being a nasty perv. Certainly your DH shouldn’t see him again.

There is nothing to be gained by a group discussion - its only purpose can be to find an excuse for keeping B in the group with your DH, essentially ‘bros before hos’. That’s not possible, their friends have to choose. Your DH can make this very clear.

Your DH should never have told them. What’s so hard about telling them to stop telling sick jokes in your home simply because they’re unpleasant? Because telling misogynistic jokes in the home he shares with the woman he loves is disrespectful and disgusting. Or, you know, doing this anywhere.

The bar scenario is weird. You rescued B socially and brought him into your group - was he there alone? Why? Why did you need to consult your DH about this? Yet your Dh views him as being available to help you? You were already with friends.

There’s already a very odd code of male behaviour going on in this group. An understanding of ‘sleazy jokes but not in front of the ladies’ (if given a ‘good enough reason’). Switch from bar shark to chivalrous on command (except he didn’t). Or was he just there incidentally and bored?

He responded by digging into your personal history. Sounds like he was in there with one thing on his mind and no social skills or decency at all.

That gives you a sense of what this group tolerates - of what it really is.

I think you should go. You should state explicitly that he interrogated you about your sexual satisfaction, etc… Even without your trauma this is inappropriate and unacceptable. Tell them that it felt like he was weaponising your trauma to keep you trapped in that conversation.

In my experience, the look is generally one of pity. It's well meant, but incredibly unwelcome.

It's not a conspiracy of silence for me, either, although I'm sure that could be an aspect for many women. It also has nothing to do with protecting men.
It's just that I don't want to expose my past pain and trauma to every person I meet. I'm a reserved person, and my trauma is private - and just as importantly, not relevant to most people.

I'm happy to talk to other women about it face-to-face, if the subject comes up and it's hinted that they have suffered similar, or are well-informed on the topic, but I don't see why people should be expected to want to walk around advertising that they were CSA or rape victims.

People are curious and ghoulish, and I don't want casual acquaintances I interact with on a daily basis to be wondering what exactly my stepfather did to me (for example), and pitying me.

To be fair I think a conversation does need to happen. The men in this friendship group need to realise how extremely out of line Friend B was. They need to realise that men need to hold other men accountable. They need to realise that men who sexually gratify sexual assault are perverts who damage the psychological safety of victims, that they contribute to false ideas that negatively impact the criminal justice system.

I also think men need to realise that if your friend acts like a dick then rightly so the friendship group needs to realise the behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you support. (There is a good saying about this sentiment that I can’t remember).

PS Personally, I think they should kick B out of the group. But I've found men are really cowards when it comes to doing things like that. And after all to many of them, you know, it's 'bros before hos'. 🤮

Your post keeps coming back to me, it's made me think. Considering how many of us have been raped, this is crazy, isn't it? In my experience, the 'certain look' is something like disgust, or dissociation at best.

What it's crystallised for me is that this is part of a societal conspiracy of silence. We know it happens - to one in four of us, averaging out the estimates - and we prefer not to acknowledge it, even when we ourselves are raped. We are silently instructed to shut up about it. Millions of women, surviving the unsayable.

Why? The only possible answer must be to protect men, mustn't it? To protect rapists. To protect the rapists' friends, who've noticed rapey characteristics but honour male omerta. To protect masculine pride which, at some level, must include the right to rape without criticism.

OP's experience is a live example of this in action. It's atrocious.

I'm happy to notice this is gradually changing amongst younger men. Not fast enough; it needs a push!