"A man cannot be expected to support his wife if she is raped." Discuss

[dollius]

This made me shake with rage

here

Who is this Lesley Garner?

why the inverted commas - that is not what is written in the piece you linked to. What it actually says is:

"Very few men are going to react well to the news that their wife has been raped. They may want to, but they are going to find it difficult. "

are you shaking with rage at this because you think it is true, or because you think it is not?

she doesnt say that though, does she?

she also makes a comment like "even a good, loving husband, who supports his wife", still not the same as the thread title IMO

Oh I don't blame you dollius I've just read it too and feel similar.

Not only is the advice shocking some of the comments are hideous as well, and from other women no less.

"Very few men are going to react well to the news that their wife has been raped. They may want to, but they are going to find it difficult. And even good and loving husbands who support a raped wife are going to be stunned at the revelation of a pregnancy resulting from the rape."

I don't think she was saying what the title of this thread said?

She doesn't say what the OP title says.

But...she says that this isn't rape:

"The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn't fight him."

That is rape to me.

What GhoulsAreLoud said.

She's basically saying 'don't be so silly, you weren't really raped'.

Horrible, corrosive attitude

yes, agree GAL, although tbh i got the impression she was just calling the woman a liar altogether
as in, implying there had been no force and it was 100 % consensual

She says lots of things to get about. You don't need to put words into her mouth. She didn't say what the thread title says.

It was this bit 'You decided to continue with the pregnancy in the absolutely unrealistic expectation that your husband would be happy to bring up the child of another man, his wife's rapist. This is a no-brainer, Eva. No man could contemplate this. He would have found your decision inexplicable.' That made me cross. I'm convinced there are men who would find the compassion to do this.

Do you think that many men could honestly contemplate raising a child that was conceived through rape? I really hope they would but I am not so sure. I think many people - male and female - would struggle to understand why a woman would choose to keep a baby conceived through violence and trauma?

To be brutally honest, I do not think I could love a child that DW gave birth to by another man. More especially not in the circumstances described in the story.

However, I wonder if the fact this woman had not had children before coloured her decision? Perhaps she thought her DH would think of the child as a kind of 'step child' or 'surrogate child' as many men obviously do have a loving relationship with step children and children born of IVF?

Not quite as black and white as the story is written.

I can understand why some women would feel that the child concieved was innocent and feel unable to abort. I honestly don't know what I would do if it was me tbh. I really don't think my dh would leave under such circumstances, but who knows unless you have been there. I think it is very difficult but I do think that there are men who would be able to raise another man's child as there own. Children don't choose their parents do they. It is not the child's fault that the rape happened, nor is it the mothers. In countries where abortion is forbidden or very difficult this must come up.

I did know a boy who was concieved in this way and his mother was unable to cope and really treated him very badly. It was heart-breaking.

She's got a website here

I've contacted her to let her know what I think of her advice.

She doesn't say that a though does she?

She makes the perfectly valid point that very few men are going to react well to the news that their wife has been raped. Hardly a revelation is it?!

Why would anyone expect their DH to react "well" to that news. I know mine would be utterly horrifed at what had happened to me, angry and distressed on my behalf an would probably want to kill the man involved. He would no doubt feel guilty (that he couldn't protect me) and sad about the way in which I and our relationship had been changed by the event.

Also not sure whether this is rape:

"The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn't fight him."

Of course if she said she didn't want to have sex it was BUT she doesn't really make that clear: "tried to push him away without upsetting him" is a bit gray for me.

I am pretty sure my DH would go on a violent rampage if I was raped and I certainly wouldn't expect him to love and raise a child conceived in that rape, I wouldn't do so either and would be booked at the clinic ASAP.

This doesn't make him a bad man or a bad husband, it makes him human.

I did think she had a point though in pointing out that the woman's story didn't hang together and that she hadn't quite told the truth to her husband. First it was rape, but towards the end of the question she says that "it wasn't quite rape". Must be quite hard for the husband not to know what was really going on, if she is as vague as this. She was clearly willing to carry on working with her rapist, so it wasn't just that she was so traumatised that she was unable to go to the police. She states quite clearly that she didn't want to upset her boss- it's going to be a bit hard for her husband to square that with the image of a woman who was forcibly raped. If she was not traumatised otoh but didn't want the baby, then one wonders why she didn't simply take the morning after pill.

If the woman did not say or do anything that might even upset her boss, and has carried on working for him, and did not attempt to do anything about post-coitum contraception, then it must be pretty hard for the boss, let alone the husband, to know that this was rape.

I believe my dh would be compassionate towards another man's child under more normal circumstances. But if I talked like she does, I'm not so sure. I am wondering if ABetaDadmight not have a point with the surrogate baby.

I think dh might be able to take compassion on the child and raise that. But he would never trust me again or want to live with me again, and understandably so.

Whilst there are men who whould have the compassion to raise a child that was born as a result of their wife being raped, I suspect that they are in a minority.
This is not a black and white case, her husband must be devastated by the fact that she didn't report this to the police and didn't take the morning after pill.

There is a book called "Startling Beauty" about a white woman who was raped in her bed by an intruder. She couldn't take the MAP because of her religion ( although she did consider it). She and her husband raised the mixed race baby girl she gave birth to. I think her husband is a truly amazing man... as is she an amazing woman. Truthfully though, how many of us could cope with that situation?

I agree with Wonderstuff. I don't think there are many (any?) men who would find it easy, but particularly if a man considered abortion immoral he could well feel he had to step up to the plate here and above all, to not punish his wife for something which wasn't her fault.
I hate the writer's casual generalisation that no men would do it.

Plus, of course it was rape. It's perfectly normal for women to downplay sexual violence and blame themselves for it.

It was clearly rape. What I object to is Lesley Garner's attitude about her not having an abortion. There are lots and lots of reasons a woman wouldn't be able to go through with one.

And the husband wouldn't accompany her to the doctor to discuss an abortion because he didn't want to hear about conception dates? Eh? So his delicate sensibilities were more important than his wife's need to be supported after a rape.

No wonder she didn't report it or go through with the abortion - she didn't get any support from her husband.

And no man could be expected to love a child which was not his own? That's ridiculous - men and women adopt children all the time.

I think this woman has been badly let down and Lesley Garner sounds as if she is blaming her for her situation.

I really think her advice is little short of dangerous.

I suspect on average men and women might react to this story in two distinct ways.

Women I think could imagine how another woman would 'bond' psychologically with a baby they were carrying and no matter what the circumstances. Being their own flesh and blood plus natural maternal hormones kicking in could overide all else. Men can never know that feeling so I find it hard to imagine how this might really feel for a woman to be in this situation.

Men have a very tenuous bond with a baby before it is born and any 'bond' they do have is really a love and respect of their preganant DW/DP. They only really properly bond through experiencing the child as a physically present living breathing entity. If the pre-natal bond to the DW/DP is severely tested/broken before the birth then it will be hard to bond with the baby once born.

I don't particularly like the tone of the "advice" and I am certainly not defending it but I disagree it was "clearly rape".

Woman often down play sexual violence but unfortunately some also claim rape when what they actually mean is "I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of having sex with him at that point, but making a fuss seemed silly and/or I was quite drunk so I never actually managed to vocalise my discomfort and instead let him get on with it" That is not rape.