AIBU? Boyfriends Christmas Night out

[Alessoutingname]

TW

I’ve been with my boyfriend over a year. Both mid thirties, own homes (although he seems incapable of spending any time away from me). Mostly happy relationship apart from the fact he’s very codependent.

I don’t know if I’m feeling this way because I’m at the point where I very much need a couple of nights and days away from him or if he’s massively overstepped a personal boundary. I fear the latter.

Backstory, I don’t really like being around drunk people (I do socially drink but rarely). Grew up with an alcoholic father so I’m always on edge and generally feel unsafe around drunk men in particular as a result of my childhood.

Boyfriend comes back to mine at around 1.30am, this is fine. He’s very drunk. Gets into bed and starts the usual drunk nonsense nonstop talking and repeating himself. Mildly annoying but ok. He says something along the lines of “you best not try have s€x with me tonight,” I reply jokingly “I doubt you’d be able to get it up anyway.” For context, I was in bed with just my pants on because I was warm.

The next part is what has shocked me. He proceeded to take his boxer shorts off and intimately touch me. I told him to stop and put his boxers back on. He didn’t. He kept going. He bit my shoulder and I had to be quite forceful and state “I am not consenting to this” to make it ABUNDANTLY clear to him. Not something I ever thought I’d have to nor wanted to do.

He only stopped because I made an excuse to go downstairs. When I returned to bed he had his boxers back on but was touching me again. I ended up shouting at him.

In the end I’ve felt so uncomfortable I’ve came to my guest bedroom.

I’m upset with myself for a number of reasons. Mainly that I didn’t ring him a taxi to send him home after he made me feel so uncomfortable but I’d worry he would come to some type of harm due to his level of intoxication. I’m upset that another person who I trusted has made me feel violated in my own home, in my own bed and that I’ve felt I need to sleep in another room while he snores loudly in my lovely king sized bed!

I do love him and I’m possibly overthinking/reacting but right now I don’t ever want to be around him when he’s drunk ever again. I feel like he’s royally f#cked up and irreparably ruined our relationship.

How do I approach this in the morning? I will certainly be addressing it with him and do not want to be around him. He will be unfit to drive for a considerable time. Currently I’m thinking that I’ll be leaving him home and telling him to arrange a lift to collect his car and belongings from my home.

AIBU to feel this way?

**do you ant them to fill
a consent form or apply on line? Don't be ridiculous. Real loving couple don't debate whether to have sex or not. We are humans and spontaneously showing attraction and lust is completely normal!

I want them to be sure I’ve consented either through the words and language I use, or my actions inviting them to have sex or my body language clearly responding positively to their advances. Spontaneous attraction and lust are obviously completely normal. Continuing to touch someone when they have clearly communicated they don’t want you to continue isn’t.

Women don’t owe men sex, they don’t need to continue with something they don’t want, and the whole “she said no but wanted it” is straight out of the rape apologist handbook.

Ah ok.

It makes sense now.

"Sometimes" you just hug instead? What about the other times? You say no repeatedly, he continues to try and eventually you stop saying no and have sex even though you didn't want to have sex?

That's sexual coercion.

I'm sorry that your partner is sexually coercive but it's depressing that due to that experience you are minimising and dismissing the sexual assault of someone else.

Maybe the bit where he repeatedly intimately touches her whilst she says no?
That is sexual assault.

You don't need a consent form to be clear about consent when someone, like the OP, has literally said, out loud, "I am not consenting to this."

Do you believe she consented to him touching her sexually despite her telling him she didn't?

Do you believe he continued to touch her sexually despite her telling him she didn't consent?

If the answer to both of those is yes (and it can't be anything else) then you agree he sexually assaulted her, by definition.

@possibleusername

That should have said:

If the answer to the first question is no and the second question is yes (and it can't be anything else) then you agree he sexually assaulted her, by definition.

Can the OP address the questions in my first message please?

She doesn’t owe you an answer, particularly when you’ve said she is over reacting to a man who is supposed to love her sexually assaulting her.

All things considered, I think you should ask him to leave today, take all his stuff and explain exactly why just as you have here - a factual account of what happened. Say you will be in contact when you are ready to talk. Then that's it, just give yourself a bit of time to process everything completely separate from him.

@possibleusername

I don't think you answered this previously, so asking again:

How many times does a man need to continue sexually touching his partner when she says no for you to consider it sexual assault?

He touches her.
She says no.
He continues.
She says no.
He continues.
She says no.
He continues.

Is that enough?

How many times constitutes sexual assault to you?

I'm on the fence tbh he did stop when you said I'm not consenting to this but his drunken state blurred his view before then with you saying I bet you can't get it up may have sounded like you wanted it and it was a come on.

I would have a serious conversation. Explain if he's been drinking he goes back to his own place. You also need nore time apart. You're virtually living together. Be this his lesson. You see him once or twice a week no sex until you decide where this is going if anywhere.
Quite a few red flags tbh

No he didn't stop when she said that. She physically removed herself from the room, and when she came back in he tried touching her again so she had to physically remove herself from the room again and is sleeping in another bedroom. Go back and read the OP.

OP: this man has sexually assaulted you. On top of that, with your updates it's clear that he is also trying to gaslight you into making yourself dependent on him, and is not respecting your physical boundaries in terms of you needing space in your own home. LTB.

Let's not be too harsh to @possibleusername because I think she is gradually realising she's been sexually coerced many times. I hope she gets some reflection time and answers and is able to process this. x

OP I'm sorry this happened to you. If a man gets so drunk he can't sort out what is consent or not, that's a bad consequence to his drunkenness and he must bear that consequence. He should think "Fucking hell, I was so pissed I did something awful to my girlfriend. She dumped me. I deserved it. I am ashamed. I'll make sure I take responsibility in future for never getting so drunk that I am a risk to anyone again."

Don't let him get away with minimising or saying it's somehow normal or your fault. Dump him straightaway. If you do crimes when drunk, it's on you to take the consequences and not get that drunk again.

As a PP cogently said, he could have thought in advance of going to his house so you didn't have to even SEE him drunk - let alone put you in the way of assault.

Really shocked at the minimising on this thread.

Would people think it was equally okay to sexually assault a stranger and blame it on drink, or is it only okay because she is his girlfriend?

This is not a nice bloke. He's bulldozed over every boundary you have ever tried to set.

He's tried to move himself in without any kind of discussion. You've pushed back against this - it hasn't stopped him.

He knows your history and that alcohol holds very unhappy memories for you. It doesn't stop him coming back to yours absolutely trollied. If he was considerate, he'd be staying elsewhere to sleep it off.

He's positioning himself as your saviour and you as someone weak in need of protection. Commenting that you wouldn't cope without him. This is not normal or healthy behaviour.

But the absolute red flag is that he assaulted you last night. He groped you and bit you and would not stop despite you clearly saying no. He continued to do this and you were forced to remove yourself from the room for your own safety.

This is not a nice bloke who is a sweet partner who would do anything for you. This is a nasty and manipulative man who is pushing his way into your life, and using whatever tools he has to hand to work his way in. But the mask occasionally drops - the negging comments about how you won't cope without him, the determined attempts to move in without discussion. And then last night you really saw the real him - the him that sees you as an object. The him that sees his needs as more important than yours.

Boot him out, change the locks, dump and block.

I think any sort of bite /sexual touching when you have expressly said No is assault surely?Coming into your home/bed blind drunk is completely unacceptable. Especially when you have childhood Trauma, caused by your Dads drunkenness as a child.Saying you wont manage without me, is classic abuse and being controlling.I would bin him and look into counselling for your low self esteem .You have your own home and job ,You will manage just fine .There was a thread earlier this week ,about a lady whose sister was getting married to a guy who constantly undermined her ,telling her to ssh at the dinner table! the sister had been to Uni and had a good job. Dont be like her and break for freedom .They say we look for someone like our own parents .your dad had an Alcohol issue ,dont be landed with a drunk husband as well

Jesus. I can't even answer this. Just needed to acknowledge it exists though.

No he didn't.

He sexually touched her.
She said no.
He continued sexually touching her and bit her.
She explicitly said 'I am not consenting to this' and left the room.
When she came back he continued sexually touching her.

Where on earth are you getting that 'he did stop when she said no'?!

But generally I am curious if many on here feel that every time their partner - considered his a loving man and act reasonably - try to initiate sex in bed while you are not in the mood, considered as rape?

If you say no and they try to carry on regardless then that’s sexual assault. If they actually have sex with you when you’re telling them to stop then that’s rape, yes.

@Alessoutingname I only now saw your response to me which was buried somewhere high up there in the chat, so was not aware of the additional details you have now provided.

I understand the bite situation better now, and your feelings and reactions to it are completely understandable and if this how you feel I completely believe you.

I think the boundaries on co-living could have been clearer and put in place much earlier on, before you started to see and feel he is invasive.

My comment at the end was only to say that it's not unreasonable for a man to feel attracted to his girlfriend in bed, let alone if she is close to him naked. It's a human nature.

This is not to say you shouldn't choose to be naked in your own bed of course, or that it's ok to 'jump' on you if you are, but the fact it happens - perhaps more pationatly that you were prepared for - was not surprising consider he was also a drunk.

Sorry this has come to your relationship breakdown and terrible dilemma, and that you felt violated and compromised. Tell him how you feel and what you would have expected of him. I wish you only the best.

@possibleusername

My comment at the end was only to say that it's not unreasonable for a man to feel attracted to his girlfriend in bed, let alone if she is close to him naked. It's a human nature.

Who has, at any point, said it's unreasonable to a man to feel attracted to his girlfriend in bed?

It's unreasonable to sexually touch her when she has explicitly said no. That is what people have said and that you disagree with, as you've said him doing so isn't sexual assault.

You haven't answered how many times a man needs to continue sexually touching his partner after she says no for it to be sexual assault in your eyes?

"Complaining" is a form of coercion.

Coercion is wrong and people who do it are angling to have intimacy without enthusiastic consent which makes them consent violators.

I don't think possibleusername will ever see a man sexually touching his girlfriend after she has said no as assault. It's quite clear men can do what they want with their partners, just waiting for the we should take it as a compliment comment.

Codependency is a huge factor in abusive relationships. I don't want to sound patronising but given what you said about your own childhood there could be a pattern here. He massively overstepped the boundary. He sexually assaulted you and your questioning if you've been unreasonable to feel the way you do when you have actually really under-reacted to this. I think you should leave this relationship and look at some info around healthy and abusive relationships.

Unbelievable isn't it. I can believe some of the victim blaming posts in here. My partner was abused as a child, mentally and physically and has a hard boundary on drunkenness. I was drunk one, about 5 years ago and we had a king frank conversation and I gave up drink for a year. It's creeping back in now and I know to stop at one glass of wine etc because I know the consequences will be him leaving me. If her boyfriend stops then maybe it's salvageable, but to be honest, the neediness would be enough for me to break to off.

@whathaveiforgotten surly it's a personal thing to say if I feel my partner is assaulting me. I never felt violated or needing to force my way out. I make it clear with body language and words I'm not in the mood and that is that. No repeated attempts mentioned so not sure where you got this from.

You have a wild imagination and you are incorrectly interpreting what people say. And you are also rude.

@Alessoutingname I hope you're OK and feeling a little better.
Any man trying to move in uninvited is a red flag, they're either needy and posessive or looking for someone else to pay their way in life. The SA was just that, no man has consent until you say so, even in marriage , and he is just a BF.
He's pushing your boundaries, you pushed back but he's still trying. Time to look long and hard at this relationship and do what's best for you