AIBU to expect husband to stop contacting a woman who once falsely accused him of rape?

[Chrissiemcghee]

Twelve years ago (4 yrs before he met me) my husband had a fling with a girl who accused him of rape when he ended the affair. She admitted to police next day she made it up. They stayed away from one another. I found out today they’ve been messaging each other. I’m livid. I feel she’s a dangerous person getting in the middle of a family, but he’s dismissing my concerns. AIBU asking him to stop contact?

There are two possibilities here. Either the OP's husband is telling the truth and in which case he has batshit crazy to be replying to his messages or he did rape her and she is the one who is batshit to be messaging him.

There is a third possibility. That husband and this girl have been having an affair the whole time and he has told his wife this story to make her think that there is no way in hell that her DH would be anywhere near this woman, thus throwing her off any scent. Therefore the whole 'she accused me of rape' was just a fairy story told to explain any mention of OWs name and to distract.

There is absolutely no way that the made-up rape case can be true if he's currently in touch with her.

Victims of rape often feel they have to drop the charges etc for various reasons. It's a red flag that anyone accused him of this. Don't get me wrong, false allegations do happen, but are very rare. If I heard this about someone/they told me this, I wouldn'tve continued the relationship.

And yes, as his wife, he shouldn't dismiss your concerns.

He sounds a dodgy character all round.

Yeah, this sounds like a crock of shit. If she did recant, it could well be due to pressure from police or others, due to fear, due to lack of evidence etc. I highly doubt she waltzed back into the police station, said ‘I made it all up’ and was allowed to trot off and carry on with her life. False accusations are vanishingly rare - if your DH was subject to one, why would he willingly be in contact with her? It sounds to me like she may have initiated contact, perhaps to finally confront him properly about what went on. I wouldn’t assume your DH has been telling the truth.

Tbh I would actually be questioning whether a rape accusation was even made at all.

True, it's a possibility he made it up, crazier things have happened at sea. 🤷‍♀️

To be honest, the idea that he made the whole thing up and never expected his lie to come back to haunt him? That makes more sense than anything else, although it boggles my mind that anyone would.

So I reverse myself; there are four types of people who say they have been falsely accused of rape.

@PicsInRed

Tbh I would actually be questioning whether a rape accusation was even made at all.

True, it's a possibility he made it up, crazier things have happened at sea. 🤷‍♀️

Of course when you have to compare a man to the extremes of sea, it's time to set sail 🚩🚩🚩

Of course when you have to compare a man to the extremes of sea, it's time to set sail 🚩🚩🚩

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be within 500 feet of someone accused of rape, let alone in a relationship with them.

There's a few separate issues here.

a) As @Iwalkinmyclothing, @everyp*@EveryPlanetHasAYorkshire and @Flittingabout* have said- there must be more to this story, as if it was a simple as he's said he wouldn't be back in touch with her. This happened before you met him. What else do you know besides what he has told you?

b) How did you find out? Did he tell you? Did you see it on his phone? Did someone else tell you? There is a huge difference between each of these scenarios.

c) The only way this makes sense is if he's generally a very forgiving, generous person who would be happy to hear from someone with an apology and happy to put this all behind him and be friends with someone he cares about. Is this him? Is he friends with many exes, and you have no issue with them? Has he ever given you reason to not trust him?

d) There's no point asking anyone to stop something more than once. It doesn't really matter how reasonable you're being. Either he recognises your concerns or he doesn't, and either he wants to stop or he doesn't. He won't stop doing it no matter what you say if he doesn't want to, eventually he'll just say he has and hide it from you further. He wants to talk to her, so he is doing that, and he will keep doing it as long as he wants to. If you think it's unreasonable (which you clearly do) or you don't trust him, then take action for yourself.

You only need to ask yourself this:

Why would you want to be in contact with someone who falsely accused you of ANYTHING?
It's simple, you wouldn't.
So first and foremost, the accusation can't ever have happened.
So you need to work out why he would say that it did. Seems to me he is trying to make out she's unhinged. Why would he need to do that, do you think?

Ding ding ding, alarm bells!

10 years ago, my friend (in the military) was repeatedly raped by her boss, at work in the office. Day in and day out. She was residing in a block with him, his wife and his children. She didn't the report the rapes straight away but has separate medical assessments for rape and repeatedly tried to move and relocate and work different shifts. She admitted she had been raped and evidence was taken at a medical exam but would not say who had raped her. She was tramatised and did not want it to effect her miliatary career. She moved out and away into a different block and for two years he sent thousands of messages professing his love for her and their "affair". Her wife sent her hundreds of messages calling her a C*T and a marriage wrecker etc. Two years later she reported the rapes -and they was a lot of evidence but a military invesitgation took other two years and they sacked him but that was it. The messages continued from both him and his wife. Literally 30/40 a day. When she started counselling the messages came out. Both him and his wife are now in prison -as the police dealt with it. But for the best part of 5-10 years his wife sent her daily texts calling her a B**h and telling her to stay away from her husband. She still believes to this day -despite him being in prison and herself in prison (she threatening to kill my friend repeatedly and continued sending her messages -thousands of them of a vile and disgusting nature) - that he is innocent. She believes my friend had an affair and then tried to get him into trouble.

If someone accused me of attacking them and I hadn't. I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

This isn't a red flag it's a banner.

Op, if I'd have been accused of rape, I'm not sure I'd want to make eye contact with anyone, let alone conversing with the person who made the allegation. I'd agree with op's who are saying something isn't right about this.

Therefore the whole 'she accused me of rape' was just a fairy story told to explain any mention of OWs name and to distract.

And it re-emptively covers his arse if she ever decides to contact his wife and spill the beans because then he can pull the shocked innocent face "oh my God! Now she's lying about us having an affair too! This is just like that time she falsley accused me of rape..."

Only around 2-4% of rape allegations are suspected to be false. The number that are actually false will be even lower. Just sayin'.

Vulnerable women do sometimes stay in touch with men who abuse/have abused them.

Maybe he enjoyed the attention, sex, and rape and that's why he's in touch with her, thinking there'll be further opportunities to make use of her.

These are all plausible scenarios. And in none of them does he emerge well, to be honest.

@SoulofanAggron

Vulnerable women do sometimes stay in touch with men who abuse/have abused them.

Maybe he enjoyed the attention, sex, and rape and that's why he's in touch with her, thinking there'll be further opportunities to make use of her.

If those were the case, then why the hell would SHE want to be in touch with HIM?

@Zaphodsotherhead

There are two possibilities here. Either the OP's husband is telling the truth and in which case he has batshit crazy to be replying to his messages or he did rape her and she is the one who is batshit to be messaging him.

There is a third possibility. That husband and this girl have been having an affair the whole time and he has told his wife this story to make her think that there is no way in hell that her DH would be anywhere near this woman, thus throwing her off any scent. Therefore the whole 'she accused me of rape' was just a fairy story told to explain any mention of OWs name and to distract.

There is absolutely no way that the made-up rape case can be true if he's currently in touch with her.

If that's the case then somehow I doubt she'll be impressed with the story he's fed his wife about her.

If those were the case, then why the hell would SHE want to be in touch with HIM?

Fear. Obligation. Guilt. Emotional blackmail. Manipulation. Emotional abuse. To name but a few reasons.

Taking what he said at face value, I think it's a bad idea to be in contact. It's not impossible that someone might make an accusation like that in real anger and then think better of it. I don't think that's as rare as stats around "official" false allegations are.

Sometimes years later after some thing like that no longer so emotional, people do want to clear things up though - ask for an explanation, or give an apology. Nt just to do with assault buy relationships gone really wrong. But it's also the case that a person like that could be some kind of fantasist.

It is also possible that the story could be made up, or he might have raped her but she decided not to go ahead with pursuing it, or something could have happened where it was unclear to one or both whether or not the law had been broken.

I think it depends on the situation really. Who contacted who, why was contact made etc. I try to think that people can change but I do agree it’s a bit odd when no contact for many years and the issue she created before.

@BankofNook

If those were the case, then why the hell would SHE want to be in touch with HIM?

Fear. Obligation. Guilt. Emotional blackmail. Manipulation. Emotional abuse. To name but a few reasons.

But if she's just got in touch after four years, surely none of those come into play? Unless he has been in touch with her during those intervening years, and lied about it?

@Zaphodsotherhead Sometimes women minimalize what happened to themselves. Or trauma bonding/ not having many other people in their lives, etc.

There was a bloke who was kind of coercive to me (one of several 'lol,') but I still saw him as an authority on some things so a while back I messaged him and asked his opinion on some stuff.

It's only recently that I've fully realized what he was like.

One of my exes was rapey to me but we're best friends now!

I am amazed like people like your partner actually manage to survive on a day to day basis, he sounds completely and utterly thick as pig shit. What bloody idiot! He clearly wants something from the female, and is probably looking to hook up with her again. He is a completer loser.

But if she's just got in touch after four years, surely none of those come into play?

@Zaphodsotherhead We all know how long it can take women to 'get over' (well, that just isn't a thing really probably) the feelings instilled by trauma bonding, abusive relationships etc. As soon as I realized what my most recent ex was like, all the love was gone, but I've heard so many women say they still love their abuser, they have to fight not to message them etc.

Actually, an important question: you said they’ve been messaging, but what has been said? What do they talk about? Would your H let you see these messages? I’d bet money he wouldn’t, or if he did they’d be edited through deletions.