Inappropriate Work Colleague

[FragglesRock]

I'm a fairly longtime lurker here but first time poster. I'll try and keep it brief but I'd appreciate some advice.

I work with a group of mainly men and a few women, all of whom are older than me. I've been working there about two years now. Most of us get together socially from time to time, usually having a few drinks round somebody's house or in a pub after work or the odd day out. There's only 14 of us in the office so we all know each other.

So that happens as normal tonight. Gradually people leave and it's left with me and one of the men left, we're at his house because his wife and one-year-old child are away. Bearing in mind I was (am) sober, I think I've had two drinks which normally doesn't make a dent in me (I'm Irish, haha), and I'd never had any reason to distrust him in the past. I've met his wife, and he knows I have a partner but has never met him.

He started hitting on me, so I told him I had a partner and so did he. He then started to talk about how he's fancied me ever since he's met me and started trying to kiss me. I said I felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave. He tried to persuade me to stay over, tried to feel me up and then when I stood up to leave the house he hugged me and I could actually feel his erection. I left the house very quickly and walked the 20 minutes or so home feeling fairly shaken.

He's text me asking if I got home safe, and I replied to say I had, and he's text me again but I think I'm going to ignore that. He doesn't work Fridays so I won't see him tomorrow but I'll have to see him next week. I'm not really sure what to do about it.

Sorry it's long.

I haven't shown him the thread no. I want to talk to him before the wedding we're going to at the weekend where colleague will also be. Mainly because I'm going to be fairly nervous about going and I don't know if I can deal with him being insecure and needy at the same time. Is that mean? I think it probably is.

I don't think it's mean to ask him to support you during the wedding. Whilst he's entitled to his feelings (although they strike me as rather shallow and unhelpful) that's an event where your needs need to take priority.

Will anyone else at the wedding know what happened?

My boss will be there so she will, other than that just me, DP and dick of a colleague. Everyone else I know going is from work, so my best friend won't be there as he doesn't work with me.

DP has always been a little bit insecure, I think this has made it worse. But yeah, I'm going to need support on the weekend whether it's convenient for him or not. My best friend will send me a few texts but it's not quite the same. I think I need to have a serious chat with DP tomorrow night about it.

I think you definitely need to talk to him about it. This is something that has happened to you and that he needs to be supportive about. There is no way in hell that you should have to deal with managing his feelings too. You were attacked, why should that make him feel insecure? The only way that makes sense is if he's having some very inappropriate responses to what happened.

You can always not go to the wedding of course. Life happens, people get sick, emergencies come up, I don't think you should go if it will be really horrible for you.

I'm not really sure why it's made it worse to be honest. Maybe I need to ask him that!

I want to go, partly because I've been looking forward to it but partly because I don't want my colleague to think I'm scared of him. I don't know if I'll stay that long, though, if it all gets too much I'm going to just leave.

Your DP's behaviour is shameful TBH. Unfortunately it sometimes takes a crisis to demonstrate that the man one is living with is actually profoundly selfish, which is true of this one; he's not able to give you any support in your perfectly reasonable distress because his universe is all about him.

Fraggles I am so glad that your boss has taken steps to deal with this so well. She sounds very supportive. Do you know what she said to him and what his response was?

Is it possible that your dp doesn't realise the seriousness of the incident because you have not told him exactly how you feel, possibly to spare his feelings?

I think you need a really frank discussion. Tell him that you were sexually assaulted and that you want his support. Tell him how you felt at the time (if you can bear to re-live it) and everything you have felt since from shock, to confusion, to anger, to fear, whatever. Lay it on thick. Make sure he is left in doubt that this was not your fault. You did nothing wrong.

I really hope you don't have to leave your job over this. That is so unfair. Can you give it bit more time do you think, before you make that decision?

Keep posting your thoughts and feelings if you want to, we are more than happy to listen and support you for as long as you need it x

SGB is right -- too often we explain things away as insecurity, etc.., that are actually just selfishness.

Even a really insecure person should be able to put aside their own feelings to be supportive in the case of something like this.

I admire your strength, in still being willing to go to the wedding -- it's good you have a Plan B to leave though. I hope it will go okay for you.

Fairenuff, I think Fraggles means leave the wedding if it gets too much, not her job. I hope I've read that right!

Fraggles, glad you came back to the thread and hope your talk with DP goes ok.

Oh yes, tribpot, that would make sense. I am relieved about that!

So your partner is seeing this as his own problem, is he? It's actually nothing to do with him - not that he shouldn't take an interest in what happens, but that it didn't happen to him. He should be supportive, angry at the guy for upsetting you and determined to make it clear to him if necessary.

Fraggles, how did it go with DP?

If he is struggling, ask him would he feel insecure if a work colleague had got drunk and grabbed you and shouted at you, maybe slapped you anf then you had to see her at a social event? This is the same thing. Him feeling protective would make sense; him feeling insecure, not so much.

Is your DP now treating you like damaged goods/like you are dirty?

You did NOTHING wrong and it seems to me your boyfriend (he isn't dear or acting like a partner) is trying to make this all about how he feels.

tangerine the thread has moved on quite a bit from there. OP did report to HR and he has been spoken to. His desk has been moved so that she does not have walk past him to get to the kitchen at work. He did continue to harrass her btw.

Good point Doctine about it being the same (sort of) as a physical assault by a female colleague. Still illlegal, still unacceptable, still shocking and upsetting. Fraggles your dp may not want to discuss this but I think it's important to keep talking until you are satisfied that he 'gets' it. You should walk into that wedding with your head held high.

Oh x post

Fairenuff Yeah, I meant leaving the wedding not my job. I love my job too much to leave over this. I don't know what my boss said to him exactly, as far as I know though she told him to stay away from me and if he tried anything on again it's be a disciplinary matter.

TheDoctrineOfEnnis Thanks, that's a really good point, I'm going to point that out to him.

My plan is to tell him that all I want from him is support. I kinda want to point out to him that if he's worried I might leave him for another man then surely this proves I'm not interested in that, but I doubt that will help the situation, really. How hard can it be to support me though? Just waiting for him to get home from work.

Actually Fraggles this has nothing to do with whether you would leave him. A man that you might be interested in would not be an entitled arse who thought he could just grab what he wanted.

Keep it simple. You were assaulted. You feel violated, angry and upset. You want your dp to acknowledge that. You did nothing wrong. You did not give out signals. You do not flirt. You told him you were not interested. You tried to leave.

The whole situation is made worse because you have to face this assailant every day. You are strong. You will cope but you need him to understand without a shred of doubt that this man is nothing to do with your relationship with your dp.

PS so glad you're not leaving your job.

+1 for what Fairenuff said re your DP. And you are entitled to ask for, and receive, some support from him, without having to prioritise his needs in regard to this matter.

• I rather like the sound of your male best friend Fraggles. :) Wishing you courage for the weekend.

Some men do feel that a sexual assault on their partner is an insult to them (actually, that's why the laws on rape and sexual assault are still such a mess; rape used to be perceived as a crime against property - the victim of the crime being the woman's owner not the woman herself and the seriousness of the attack being assessed on how much her 'value' as a breeding animal or boxfresh goods had been damaged.)

People can't always help how they feel, but decent people acknowledge that some of their feelings might be inappropriate, nuts, selfish or whatever and don't inflict them on others. Fraggle, your DP is an adult and if he hasn't got a grip by now, he's probably not going to get one, because he fundamentally believes that he matters more than you and he's never going to put you first.

We've had what I suspect is part 1 of the chat. I explained how I wanted support at the wedding and he said he "was never not going to be supportive". I said I hadn't been sure of that because of some of the things he said, and we talked a bit about how the assault actually made me feel and how I'd feel if he was assaulted. I think I'm getting somewhere. I'm hoping it was just him not realising how serious it is to me. He should have done but maybe I didn't do a very good job of showing that.

He's now gone to pick up the chinese we ordered (yum) and we're going to talk about it some more when he gets back.

Ok Fraggle, that sounds good. That is why I suggested the physical assault parallel because I thought he might have a touch of the possessiveness SGB mentions going on.

It's actually something I do anyway if I'm not sure about the acceptability of something (as I think women in general play down these infringements). So to help me clarify, I think : would it be acceptable if a male colleague did this to another male, or if the infringement was verbal or physical rather than sexual, or if the language used was, say, race related rather than gender related ( this last one doesn't really apply here, I guess). I have found this really helps if I am uncomfortable but not sure why.

Maybe he Just Doesn't Get It on the grounds of him being lowest-difficulty-setting ie an able-bodied heterosexual man. In which case he would be seeing it in terms of not really being able to imagine such a thing happening to him, and if he tried to imagine it, he'd be imagining a female colleague hitting on him and then rubbing herself all over him and for most men who have not been assaulted, the idea of a woman doing this to them is either funny or appealing and they don't get the fact that men are mostly bigger and stronger than women. Men don't generally fear being physically overpowered by a woman.

I hope he does come through and give you what you need, Fraggle. What happened to you was miserable, and it would be rotten if your partner compounded the misery by behaving like an arse.