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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not want someone in my house who sexually assaulted my friend at school.

67 replies

greencattis · 19/06/2017 20:55

DH and I have been together since school and had the same friendship group in sixth form. One of the boys in the group sexually assaulted my friend when we were all 17. It was incredibly traumatic for her and really changed her personality, clothing and behaviour afterwards. She never reported it to the police or school. She told me and one other friend and asked us to explain to the others in the friendship group that she just didn’t want to be around this boy again. She did not tell anyone else but this boy told a lot of people in our sixth form pre-emptively that they had been involved but she had now invented an assault and that she was a liar/ fantasist/ drama queen. A lot of random people then started saying horrible things to her/ giving her dirty looks etc. It was absolutely horrible and I remember how furious I was for her but she just wanted to keep her head down and get through it.

Over 10 years later and we have moved back to the area we went to school. I still count the girl as a friend although we have drifted over the years due to geography and I only tend to see her at weddings etc. DH has got back in touch with many of our former school friends and started seeing them regularly as a group. He feels he is able to be polite to the boy (man now) and just doesn’t think about what happened.

This group regularly go around to each other’s houses and hubby would like to have them around here but I just cannot stand the thought of him setting foot in our house, meeting our DS or even seeing him at all. I feel he never admitted what he did or how he made it so much worse by calling her a liar (when nobody even knew!) and got away with temporarily ruining her life. I know the other men in the group are a mixture of thinking it was all so long ago that it doesn’t matter or believe that she really did make it up in the first place – which makes me additionally angry! I would like to see these old friends again and want DH to be able to have his friends over but it seems impossible to do this and exclude this man as it would become a big, divisive drama and not fair on DH. I also don’t know if I could look my friend in the face if she ever found out I had welcomed him into my home. DH is being really lovely and saying he completely understands if I don’t want this man here but I know this friendship group is very important to him. AIBU not to want this man in the house when what he did was a decade ago?

OP posts:

HildaOg · 19/06/2017 23:01

Yanbu. I'd want to know if someone like this was in my house and around my daughter. The female partners should be aware. Just in case.

Chloe84 · 19/06/2017 23:09

I know the other men in the group are a mixture of thinking it was all so long ago that it doesn’t matter or believe that she really did make it up in the first place – which makes me additionally angry! I would like to see these old friends again

I wouldnt want the men who minimise the assault in my home, let alone the attacker. How can your DH bear to socialise with him?

SirVixofVixHall · 19/06/2017 23:17

I agree with the pp who asked whether your DH would be so tolerant of this man's past if it was you he'd assaulted? Just luck it wasn't, as pp said. Your DH needs to get some empathy, and YADNBU. Who on God's earth would willingly invite someone into their home who sexually assaulted someone? Even if that someone wasn't someone you knew?

emmyrose2000 · 20/06/2017 08:51

YANBU

If my DH wanted to associate with a rapist he'd find himself out on the street quick smart. I'd have to question the morals and mental health of anyone who thought it was okay to hang out with a sexual predator. Why does your DH want to subject his wife and child to that sort of thing? There's something seriously wrong with him for wanting to do that.

Once a sexual predator, always a sexual predator. I'd be surprised if your friend is the only one he's done this to. Or, if he hasn't done it to someone else yet, it's only a matter of time. So your not-DH is okay with it possibly being you or your child?

If anyone asked why he isn't allowed in your home, tell them the exact reason. It'll be easy to see who else not to invite into your home after that by who stands by him, as opposed to those who have the morals to dump him.

AVY1 · 20/06/2017 09:05

YANBU. I was assaulted by a 'friend' when I was at school. My last year of sixth form was horrendous because my friends only half believed me but the school did know and were very supportive. Eventually I wrote an anonymous piece about it for and my closest friends became supportive when they realised that it was me UNTIL during our first summer back from uni when my then best friend decided to invite him to a BBQ she was having. There was no reason at all why he needed to be there. I left immediately and I have never been able to quite recover the friendship with the hostess.

Thank your DH for his support and say you cannot have that man in your house.

corythatwas · 20/06/2017 09:09

Gemini69 Mon 19-Jun-17 21:50:44

"however... I do not agree you have the right to share such controversial unsubstantiated damaging information about someone who has not had right of reply in a Court of Law... "

Pity that didn't stop him. From the OP:

"She did not tell anyone else but this boy told a lot of people in our sixth form pre-emptively that they had been involved but she had now invented an assault and that she was a liar/ fantasist/ drama queen. A lot of random people then started saying horrible things to her/ giving her dirty looks etc."

And yes, before you ask, I have a 17yo. I know they are not adults. But if that had been my son, I would want him to be paying the price, not the girl he assaulted.

MiddleEnglandLives · 20/06/2017 09:44

FreddyStarHamster the number of what?? Do you mean the number of women who lie about sexual crime? Or the amount of it? If the former, there was a comment from the Greater Manchester police fairly recently about once they stopped assuming that all women lie only 3% of reports were made up.

And yes,as you say, that is reports. Most assaults are indeed not reported - hell, we can't even get them to take rape seriously and domestic violence deaths are still often accompanied by comments about the poor nice man being driven to it, so who's going to bother reporting lesser crimes when all you get is more shit. So the true proportion of made-up assaults will be lower still. I base my understanding on the amount of shit I had from men, which started back when I was 8 or 9 yrs old and became pretty much normal in my teens, and the fact that all the women whom I've spoken to about such matters have all had their own story to tell. Men want women and girls, quite simply, and are constantly told by our culture that they are entitled to whatever they want. Women accordingly never need to lie about men being shits because it is so common.

Freddystarshamster · 20/06/2017 10:43

And yes,as you say, that is reports. Most assaults are indeed not reported - hell, we can't even get them to take rape seriously and domestic violence

Who do you mean by them?

Freddystarshamster · 20/06/2017 10:45

Women accordingly never need to lie about men being shits because it is so common

If that was the case, the 3% would be 0% surely?

MiddleEnglandLives · 20/06/2017 11:41

'Them' in first quote is police as should be obvious from the context. I don't really have time or energy to answer any more nitpicking from a random on the internet without their agenda being stated.

Freddystarshamster · 20/06/2017 12:28

So you've reported offences to all 43 police forces in the UK? You must be incredibly unlucky.

Lweji · 20/06/2017 12:31

DH is being really lovely and saying he completely understands if I don’t want this man here but I know this friendship group is very important to him. AIBU not to want this man in the house when what he did was a decade ago?

Surely, you are more important to him.
I'd take him up on his offer. I would expect no less from a partner.

Would he be friends with this man if he had sexually assaulted you, though?

SmileEachDay · 20/06/2017 19:28

So you've reported offences to all 43 police forces in the UK? You must be incredibly unlucky.

What's your point? It'd be more helpful to discussion if you'd just say what you mean rather than being all PA.

Floggingmolly · 20/06/2017 19:34

Of course you're not. I'd be further creeped out by your DH being happy to have him around

ohfourfoxache · 20/06/2017 19:43

It would be a very very cold day in hell indeed before he crossed my threshold.

And I wouldn't be holding back if anyone asked why.

WinchestersInATardis · 20/06/2017 19:59

God no. I wouldn't want him in the house either.
Most of us don't like to make a fuss and create tension when everyone else in the group is getting on just fine.
And that kind of social awkwardness is exactly what sexual predators rely on to keep everyone quiet

AristotlesTrousers · 20/06/2017 20:18

Gosh, another one here who could have been your friend twenty years ago.

YANBU at all OP, and I wish I'd had more friends like you when I was in sixth form. I never even told anybody at the time, because the backlash started first and I was already branded crazy, a liar, unstable etc before I even got to the point of telling anyone. I knew nobody would believe me.

Twenty years later, I still feel so much hatred for the guy who assaulted me, and if I was ever in the situation you're in I could never entertain such a person. So please, please stay true to your friend and to yourself. It sounds like you've been so supportive though, and like I said, I wish I'd had more friends like you.

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