I have been very foolish

[Simbathecat]

I have just returned from a week abroad to attend my mums wedding to her partner, I went without my husband as he is working away.

I've had a lovely week with my mum and all of their friends and on my last night I was jokingly saying I'd been in bed by 10pm each night when the barman offered to take me to a club if I wanted. Mums partner has been coming to the island for 15+years and the general consensus was he was a "good guy". However I had had a lot to drink and no one thought it was a good idea for me to go. I was taken back to my room and made to promise to stay in. However very drunk and in the party mood all reason and common sense went out the window and I went anyway. I was not interested in this man whatsoever and naively thought he was my friend (him knowing my mums partner etc).

The inevitable happened and he had sex with me that wasn't consensual. I repeatedly said no, asked him to leave but he would not listen. I eventually left myself and got help from friends staying in the same building.

I have told my husband and he is devastated and very angry with me. He says that regardless of whether the rape happened or not my very act of meeting the man showed disrespect to myself, him and our marriage. He is of course correct.

He isn't home for another week and a half and I don't know how to fix this.

I can't believe I've been so foolish and naive to have put myself so obviously in danger and jeopardised my relationship.

Although there was evidence he had used protection I have taken emergency contraception and I will need to lie to work on Monday to make a humiliating visit to the health clinic.

Maybe the OP will also find it unforgivable. Or maybe they will work it out and she will accept his apologies for that comment.

I don't believe that going to a nightclub with someobe your step-parent introduced you to would be a trust issue in most relationships.

I'm very far from a Cool Wife, but I'm not seeing the major trust issue.

Certainly not to the point that the person who did it would feel they had jeopardised their relationship and it was something to be "worked through".

Unless you are extremely possessive to a not really acceptable extent, finding out that your partner went to a club with someone they just met and didn't fancy that knows their stepdad shouldn't occasion more than a raised eyebrow and maybe a mild rebuke.

The reaction of devastation and fury is just not warranted by the transgression, unless the relationship is pretty dysfunctional.

To find out about something so minor happening on the same night as a rape, and to make a big song and dance about your devastated feelings of betrayal is pretty fucked up.

As would be bringing it up later IMO

She went to a club with a man. She got raped.

The second sentence should totally eclipse the first for anyone who loves her.

To pretend to support her through her rape, all the time nursing a grievance about going to a place with a man when she is spoken for, would be pretty nasty.

Thanks lemisscared, I missed that.

OP... Do you have a friend who could go with you to the appointment for some support?

OP what would your reaction have been if your DH had been raped?

What if he had gone to a club with a gay barman and ended up getting raped? Would you have questioned him? Would you have blamed him - suggested he was disrespectful to your marriage?

What about the other rape apologists on the thread? How does that fit in with the OP wearing a party dress ffs, and daring to leave the confines of her room with a man she wasn't married to? What would your opinion of her husband be?

It's also interesting how many people seem to think marriage and "acting appropriately" will save you from rape. It certainly won't if your rapist is your husband.

It would be a trust issue for the OP, she said it would.

Really, House? You or your DH went clubbing alone with a man or woman you'd met that week and that the other one had never met or heard of? I'm not accusing you of lying, I know everybody is different. But I can't accept that this goes without comment in the majority of relationships.

OP, I'm so glad you've had a better conversation with your DH today. My advice to you and your DH would be now to focus on the fact that you have been raped and that alone.

When anything bad happens to a person there will always be the "what if's" and "if onlys", but they don't matter and don't change anything. If I went to the shop and got raped on the way, sure I'd wish I'd stayed in, so would my DH I'm sure, but the fact I chose to go out at that moment wouldn't make it my fault and wishing I hadn't would be pointless. Please don't expend any more energy wishing you'd done things differently.

You're just determined to make me a rape apologist. Your lesbian friend? OF COURSE you can party with her without breaching trust. She is your friend, you regularly go out together. The OP was not with a friend, she was with a man she'd only just met. And the fact he turned out to be a rapist was NOT HER FAULT and I have never effing well said it was! Sorry but I'm angry about having words and attitudes put in my mouth.

She was not in any way to blame for the rape. Not one bit. For the hundredth time.

@Bathtime - the second sentence should eclipse the first, for ANYONE.

MorrisZapp, you are not alone. None of us on this thread have blamed the OP at all, but we have had our posts twisted to meanings that were never there just to fit what other posters want to say. I have been told that clearly I would never support my husband if he were attacked because I was saying that in our relationship either of us visiting a nightclub with another of the opposite sex would cross the line. Apparently I am despicable. They have worked that out despite not knowing me and not knowing him either.

Nobody in their right mind blames a rape victim for the attack, and nobody here has done that.

I am relieved to read the OP's most recent update about progress talking with her husband. It sounds to me as though the initial shock is now subsiding and he is now realising that he didn't handle things well. He is coming round. He will probably get there. None of us are perfect. Vilifying him by calling him a cunt, twat, arsehole etc. for a normal human reaction and anger that was at first misdirected was not at all helpful to either of them in my opinion. After all, if anyone were to vilify my husband directly in front of me then their words would affect me too.

I wish both the OP and her husband well, and hope that they are able to work through this together from here onwards.

Everybody is different House. I guess we have different kinds of friendship circles. It's irrelevant though as OP said she wouldn't want her DH to do what she did.

Yes, Procrast, you'd think so, wouldn't you?

Lots of people have commented on it and criticised it. With swear words.

What about the other rape apologists on the thread?

There are no rape apologists on this thread.

Only people pointing out that her husband might be a little upset that his wife got drunk and went to a club with a man she didn't know.

It doesn't matter if going clubbing with another man would normally warrant comment in the relationship. It is about context. The OP had been raped. Anything else is irrelevant at that point. Even if you had both agreed that going out socialising with someone of the opposite sex was overstepping your boundaries it is not a conversation to be had at that point and probably not at all.

The OP has not cheated on her husband, she was attacked. She should therefore expect nothing but support from her husband and not have her motives questioned or asked if she was wearing her wedding ring. His first and only concern for his wife should be her welfare.

No, no rape apologists at all.

Just people who think it's a "normal human reaction" to be cruel to a woman who has just been raped and blame her for what happened to the point that she thinks her rape is something she needs to make amends for.

Well said, iwas.

I'm another one who has said I wouldn't be happy with DH going out with a woman he doesn't know when he's drunk. It's not a trust thing, I trust him completely, I just think it's a teeny bit (and I mean a teeny bit) disrespectful. Not to the extent I'd have an argument, just a "I'd prefer it if you didn't do that again" and FWIW my DH has lots of female friends, some I know well, some I don't.

The OP has said herself she feels the same.

The point is, IT DOESNT MATTER. The rape has eclipsed this minor relationship point, by a long long way and DH should have recognised this from the start.

However, (probably going to get flamed for this) not everyone is as enlightened as the women on this thread when it comes to victim blaming. The DH has a lot to take in when he's away from home. I'm not excusing it, not at all, it was wrong, but I've never been in his position. Surely it's better to allow the OP to imagine that actually her DH isn't the cunt of all cunts, that he needs to challenge his views and attitudes so that he can actually provide the OP with the support she really needs. Or would you prefer she LTB and deal with the fall out from the rape and a divorce at the same time? People aren't perfect, sometimes initial reactions aren't great, but if he can learn to challenge his attitudes surely that's one more person with the right attitude?