If you found out after many years of marriage that your dh had in the past sexually assaulted another woman...

[mosp]

...what would you do? Would you refuse to believe it? What if you found that on balance it was likely to be true, what would you do? If you had 3 children and you really thought your life was normal.

[Message from MNHQ. The OP has asked us to make posters aware that she is onomatophobic about a certain word, and unable to deal with seeing it written down. Please read the full thread before responding.]

Sorry OP. i'll ask for my post to be deleted however it maybe a while before it goes as it's night time. Will report it now. Sorry.

I'd want to know, if it were my husband. I mean, I wouldn't WANT to know, but I wouldn't want to live a lie either. However, your priority is what's best for you, not what is best for a woman you've never met.

By the way, I HIGHLY doubt that it's cultural.

I outed my abuser OP. Which meant his wife finding out. She stuck by him. Told me I was a liar. Out to cause trouble. That my family all hated me. Tried to pick faults in what I had to say and minimise it to kids being kids. Eventually blocked her.

Holy shit what a horrible, horrible person he is, saying you were making him feel sick. Awful, despicable man.

I'm so very, very sorry.

Save the messages, put them someplace you won't see them by accident (buried in computer file), then block him. He is not going to apologize. I'm sorry to say that.

Would you consider going and talking to someone now? You sound very strong and you must have been very strong to get through that and move on with your life. But you deserve a fully happy life. You deserve a chance to have your own sense of closure, entirely separate from him. I truly think a good therapist could help you get that for yourself

I'd want to know.

I have a friend whose last contact with the father of her oldest child was when he came to get some things from her, looked at her stomach, and said "huh...guess you really are pregnant."

She was 15.

She has been talking a lot about whether his now ife should know that her H has a child in his 20s whim he has never seen or helped with.

I told her I absolutely, 100% would want to know. I'm so sorry for what you went through.

Also, he may have abused his wife as well as the OP. If he's assaulted once, he'll do it again, and a wife is an easy ttarget. She may be thinking she's the only one he's done this to.

I outed the man who sexually assaulted me when I was 15. The Met didn't prosecute my case but a few years later he and two of his mates sexually assaulted another girl and went to prison for it. Many years later I stalked his FBook and found out he had a DP he was living with and she had a young DD from a previous relationship.

It didn't go well when i first told her. She had no idea he'd been inside and didn't believe me at first. Got wuite heated heated defending him. But she ended the relationship 2 months later. I also had to deal with threatening messages from him after he worked who'd blabbed to his GF about his time in prison and the reason he'd been inside. But it was 19 years later, I'd had lots of therapy about the assault and I was tough as nuclear nails. I just called the police.

I don't think OP is there yet, emotionally. OP, have you considered going for counselling? It really helped me process my assault and put it in the past. That's not a criticism, OP.

I think he is probably fine with his wife. The issue with me was that he just singled me out without asking me and it destroyed me because it was my first time. As long as she doesn't refuse him, she'll be fine.

I have had counselling and AD drugs and spoken at length to my lovely friend. I am still broken. This is not the kind of thing that I can personally ever recover from.

There is so much more to this story, I can't tell it all here. There have been other threads over the years.

So sorry for what you have been through mosp and it doesn't go away does it. Unfortunately I know.

As long as she doesn't refuse him, she'll be fine.

If she doesn't refuse when she wants to, then he's doing it to her too.

If it couldn't go wrong, what would you do with the knowledge you have?

Mosp, something similar happened to me about 13 years ago now. It was a part of a larger, abusive relationship. My feelings for him were very mixed up: on the one hand I hated him but I had loved him so much that it was all deeply confusing.

I didn't see him for more than three years after everything happened, and then one day I bumped into him on the street. I was so shocked and scared and flustered that when he spoke to me I actually engaged him and had to listen to his woes and how upset HE was, despite the fact that he had abused me, battered me and sexually abused me. I ended up apologising to him and as I walked away I knew I had to do something to help myself as he had abused me once again with that conversation.

What I did was have a long course of therapy. It leaps out to me that you say you want him to apologise. My therapy made me realise that I was waiting for that too but that it was an unrealistic wish. He would never apologise and even if he did, it wouldn't undo it. Once I got past that and realised that an apology wouldn't solve anything, I was much more receptive to therapy. That was my breakthrough.

mosp, am I right in saying that you've posted in the past and have been diagnosed with complex PTSD as a result of what happened with this man and that you have struggled to find the right help?

I would suggest that the best thing for you would be to have no contact with this man or his wife or friend. You are only going to be picking a scab off old wounds, putting yourself through more misery, reliving everything again, in my experience.

I second everything that StaircaseAtTheUniversity says. There is nothing this man can do that will undo the harm he did.

I am going to PM you with the details of a specialist PTSD clinic that might be able to help you better than we can. They really helped me.

Stay strong. Sending you hugs. There is light at the end of the tunnel, I promise. You can move on from this.

hope you can get some help with this

I believe that the OP has issues with the R word and if someone has used it could they get their posts deleted so that she can come back?

OP, if you're still reading, perhaps you could get this thread deleted, and then repost specifying that you have issues with the R word. Then people will know not to use it when replying.

Good luck.

Sorry for your experience o.p, but this guy needs reporting and his wife needs to know what an evil guy she is living with. If this was my D.P I would want to know.
Here if you need us.
Love and support. x

I've reported my post to be deleted.

Probably best not to over share anyway

I am here.

Can mnhq edit my first post? Just to request that no one mentions that word.

I bet this phobia has also impeded my recovery. I can just not bear to hear it of see it. Writing or saying it myself is absolutely out of the question.

Is there anyone still reading?

This has been on my mind all day. I can't get out of my head how cruel he was to me and still is.

His words keep ringing in my ears. These are some if the comments he made:

• I should drop it because I am making him ill.
• It was only a drunken mistake we made.
• Everything that happened afterwards was because I fled and left no contact details.
• He is sorry he got in touch after 17 years but his intention was good.
• I should put the past behind me and move forward.

But the crux of it is that he only had one question for me when he contacted me. He says he knew I was pregnant when I ran away. What did I then do, and do I have his child? He has been looking at my pics on fb and 'liked' some of my dds. He clearly does think they are his.
I have to accept that he is not sorry. He is only selfish.
Should I or should I not work myself up to one day informing his wife???

Why does he have access to your fb-profile? How come he is in a position to like your photos?

I let him be fb friend last week when I was hoping for an apology. I can't bring myself to unfriend. Still hoping. If I block him now, I have lost my chance forever.
Plus, it also allows me to find out facts about him that could be useful if I ever want to take this further.
I have deleted loads of pics and I rarely post anything on fb anyway. I mainly use it to make contact with friends through instant messaging.

Agree, he's not sorry, just selfish. Perfectly summed up. Can't add more helpful words - hope someone comes along soon. Sorry that you have gone through all of this and are going through this. Hopefully the recent upheaval and events will enable you to achieve some closure and resolution.

mosp, forget about him saying you are making him ill, this is making you ill.

I think telling his wife may make things worse for you. If you were going to do anything, it would be better to press charges rather than approach his wife. At the moment, I suspect neither would be the right thing to do for you. You are already completely consumed by this and distraught. Don't do anything right now that will drag you in deeper.

Please block him on FB for now, go to the GP and ask for help. Get some more counselling, they can help you decide what you want to do.

Call @@@@crisis, if you can. They are open from 7-9.30 in the evening, 12-2.30 during the day. The number is 0808 802 9999 (so you don't have to look at the website and see the word). They can help you get the support you need.

If you can't do that, the Samaritans are amazing, if there is no one on here to talk to.

You won't get an apology as he's barely even human and certainly not like a normal man to have behaved the way he has. You need to block him and ignore him completely.

I agree with the suggestion to get therapy for yourself.

I know you are right. I'm getting sucked in again, just as I did all those years ago. Even though he doesn't speak to me now (since last wed) he still has a hold on me via his friend (who is nice to me but clearly has close contact with him. I'm sure he's put up to asking me things and telling me others).

I just can't drag myself from this. The spell he cast on me is back :(

When I ran from Portugal, I had to literally drag myself away because I had developed warped feelings for him. These are all still there. They never left me. I know it is only because he was my first.

I know I don't make any sense.