I am so sorry that you had these experiences, you absolutely did not deserve them and nor did you deserve such a blasé reaction from your partner.
You also don’t deserve people’s doubts on here! Maybe some posters are fortunate enough not to have had these experiences throughout their lives but it doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.
I’ve had similar experiences but one stands out. I’d just left uni, was jobless, and the head of my course asked if I’d like to work an event with his company that he had as a sideline. It was basically a VERY posh dinner at a stately home and guests had paid at least £200 a ticket to attend. My former tutor had asked several other students, all male and men that I considered decent guys, friends of mine even, to work the event.
As the night went on, I’d say around a dozen of the men in attendance became just awful. They were with their wives, girlfriends, mothers even but they didn’t give a fuck. As I’d go to check on tables, they’d get handsy or make crude sexual references to me, I’d feel hands wandering up my thigh etc. Several men started referring to me as “the slut”, “the whore”, “who did you fuck to get a job here etc”. One man repeatedly tried to kiss me.
I shouldn’t have to justify myself but I was pretty naive and timid, hadn’t partied through uni, embarrassingly was still a virgin, was wearing a suit jacket and dress appropriate for work etc...so I wasn’t “asking for it” or inviting anything. I was just a woman, the only woman, who was at work at a male dominated event.
I told my former tutor what was happening, my close male friend who I had SO much respect for. Several times, I explained how disgusting the behaviour was getting and that I felt afraid etc. It was laughed off. I was told “what do you expect? You ARE an attractive young woman and they’ve been drinking!” or just out and out not believed at all. That friend who I saw as one of the good guys just looked through me when I asked if he could keep an eye out around the man who kept trying to kiss me. One guy who had graduated the year before me did intervene at one point, stepping between me and a man who was trying to touch me and saying “come on, mate that’s not on.” and telling another who was saying “Oi, slut” not to talk to me like that. At one point, he grabbed my hand to lead me away from someone leery and he started getting abuse “ah so YOU’RE the one she must be fucking! I knew she was fucking someone”. Apart from him though, my tutor and male friends definitely were aware and ignored it or blamed me. I definitely had my eyes opened that night. I felt really horrible and humiliated afterwards. The saddest thing is realising you are powerless to change or stop it.
It can happen ANYWHERE to ANYONE. It’s a problem in society...sometimes just being a woman in a certain environment is a provocative act. I genuinely think the majority of men just do not get it because they don’t have to experience it. I wish I knew what the answer was but I don’t. Just the other day, I told my brother that a man in his 50s stopped in the street to leer at my teenage niece as she was getting in my car, having been at the beach. It was disgusting the way he was looking at her and visibly becoming aroused. My mother and I both intervened but when we told my brother he burst out laughing and blamed the fact she was wearing shorts and a crop top. I really despair!