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.

[Joysmum]

The OP has clearly crossed the boundaries of that marriage and I can see how a husband might try to block out the rape and react as he has.

Unfortunately human emotions aren't always logical and both feel how they feel.

His feelings will not be top priority in this case and the worry is that they will fester when they will also need to be felt with for the sale of the marriage. He's not only got to cope with the thought that his marriage has been disrespected but also somehow ignore his own feelings and support the OP too.

I feel for him because in the normal course of things, if the rape hadn't occured, he'd have been quite right to be upset she went out with another man and could get angry/sad/feel betrayed and selected etc. because there's been a rape he can't.

He's fully entitled to be angry that she went out with another man and that action would make you distance yourself. However he's supposed to feel closer to the OP and support her.

You can't treat feelings like top trumps. Both people will be feeling dreadful.

Not an easy situation for either and I wish you the best of luck OP in getting through this.

[Guilianna]

I think he has been texting you to make it appear consensual, don't reply. Hope you are OK op, he sounds quite a practiced operator.

[Vivacia]

You can't treat feelings like top trumps. Both people will be feeling dreadful.

Really Joy? I'm fairly sure most of us, when we were raped, didn't think, "Oh, I feel dreadful" and when we read the OP we're not thinking, "Oh poor thing. Being disrespected like that... he must feel as though he's been raped".

[Tobyjugg]

Of course her DH shouldn't have blamed the OP, but there are TWO victims here.

The DH has seen the person he loves attacked in the vilest way possible and there was nothing he could do to protect her or prevent it. He's fuming and feeling impotent because he's unable to beat the guy to a piece of pulp.

[LadyLuck10]

Well said Joysmum

[FolkGirl]

I'm not sure why some people can't separate out the two elements of going out with a barman you met at a holiday hotel when you are drunk and the rape. I personally don't think she should have done the first, but that's a totally separate issue from the rape.

I don't think that the op deserved it or brought it on herself or that it was inevitable (op said that). Neither do I think it was a case of one thing leading to another, nor am I comparing rape to infidelity.

All I've tried to do is offer an alternative explanation for the husband's reaction, suggesting that he received some highly ddistressing information that he then tried to process and perhaps did so rather clumsily, rather than jumping to the conclusion that he was victim blaming. I would imagine he was trying to make sense of, and rationalise, something that must be very shocking to hear.

I think how he responds going forward will be the true indicator of his position on this.

[BathtimeFunkster]

there are TWO victims here.



NO! There are not.

There is one person who is a victim of rape and that is the person that has been raped.

Come on, toby, you know better than to claim a rape victim's husband should be considered a "victim" of his wife's rape!

The brings us right back to women as men's property, and rape devaluing them.

Although reading this thread it's clear we're not far beyond that for many people.

[FolkGirl]

Op, I doubt this is the first time this man has done this, please report it and make sure you get some rl support.

If your husband does turn out to be a complete bastard, well then you can deal with that then. I suppose I just don't want you to feel that he is a problem you have to deal with on top of this.

Don't blame yourself, it wasn't your fault.

What was your family's reaction to it?

[munchkin2902]

This is awful.

A similar thing happened to me some years ago. Went to see an old male friend for a night out, got hammered and was sick all over the place and woke up to him touching me. There was no rape but I still felt dirty and sick - and blamed myself. I basically threw on my clothes (he had undressed me )and ran out of his flat and then sat in my car for hours as knew I was still too drunk to drive.

The natural reaction is to blame yourself for getting so drunk. It might not be reasonable but there it is. I had been seeing my bf for about 5/6 months then (8 yrs now) but I've never told him because I felt so stupid and worried he wouldn't believe me or would blame me for being drunk.

I can only imagine how Simba must feel but I'm glad she told her husband instead of bottling it up. I know exactly what it's like to get hammered and want to have more fun while having no intention of doing anything inappropriate but it's hard to explain this to a partner when on the face of it it looks like a 'date' even though that was NEVER the intention.

Simba - do not blame yourself for this, please. You just got drunk - that's all - you didn't deserve to get raped because you were drunk. Hang on to that.

[Tyzer85]

It's not your fault, your husbands reaction is awful.

I hope that you report this as the barman is a rapist.

[Vivacia]

there are TWO victims here

What is he a victim of? Seriously, I can't see it.

[Vivacia]

I'm not sure why some people can't separate out the two elements of going out with a barman you met at a holiday hotel when you are drunk and the rape. I personally don't think she should have done the first...

I keep nearly agreeing with this. But risk factors are an individual choice. I don't drink at all. Ever. For me, it's too much of a risk factor for all sorts of things. But I bet most people reading this would disagree with me, and do drink.

[Tobyjugg]

My point is not women as men's property, and rape devaluing them (a thought that never crossed my mind). My point is that an attack - any sort of attack - on the person you love most is, also an attack on you.

When I said two victims, let's make it three or even four as I don't imagine that the OP's Mother and her Partner will remember their wedding as the happy event it should have been.

Rape is not a crime with just ONE victim is my point. It affects those closest to the victim as well. Ask the family of the poor woman in the Evans case if you don't believe me.

It's this that is playing a large part in the DH's response, I believe.

[Tobyjugg]

I will admit that, not knowing the OP's DH, I could be reading him wrong and he is a total shit. However, I'd rather give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his reaction was caused by concern for the Op but expressed in the wrong way.

[badbaldingballerina123]

What's he a victim of ? Seriously ?

I agree very much with Toby. A member of my family was the victim of a horrific crime. It affected all of us terribly and we were all offered support from the police and victim support.

It's not a debate about feminism or men's property ffs.

[BathtimeFunkster]

No, toby, sorry but I think your TWO victims statement betrays where your thoughts (and those of many on this thread) were coming from.

Claiming that a woman's entire family becomes a victim of her rape doesn't actually improve things, does it?

That's the thinking behind honour killings. That what is done to a woman is done to her entire family.

Only one person was raped. She is the person deserving of sympathy and support.

How are women to be encouraged to report rapes if doing so turns everyone intimately connected with them into a victim?

The OP was raped. She is a person and it is enough that it happened to her.

There are lots of people who claim RCE is a victim of his rape.

People talk lots of shit about rape.

[Hoppinggreen]

I am so sorry OP that this happened - it is absolutely NOT your fault at all.
However, to be fair to your husband I think that if you had gone out with a man you had just met and not being raped do you think he still wouldn't have liked it? I know that if I told my husband I had decided to go partying with a barman I had recently met while on holiday without him he would be unhappy about it.
Having said that your DH should put this to one side and offer you the support you need, I don't know him so I have no idea if he is just a dickhead or has no idea how to process this. The focus should be on you and the help you need but he needs to deal with it as well and he might have no idea what to do.
Rather different I know but when I had a late mc everything was focused ( quite rightly) on me but DH had nobody to talk to or help him deal with his loss.
The point I am trying to make is if your DH is generally a supportive man who loves you give him a chance.
I hope you are getting the help you need from someone in any case and no matter what anyone, including your DH says this is all the fault of the rapist, and no one else.

[FolkGirl]

The op did agree to go to a club with a man she'd only just met, which does kind of look like something that would cross the boundaries of most marriages. But that is separate from the rape.

The fact that she did that doesn't justify the rape, but ther husband is probably processing how that decision impacts on their marriage aside from the rape. Which is different. His feelings about that will (hopefully!) be different.

Yes, I would rather give him the benefit of the doubt at this stage too.

[Vivacia]

However, to be fair to your husband I think that...

Look at her title. Read her opening post. She's already putting him first and taking the blame for being raped.

[Tobyjugg]

Bathtime I think you're overthinking this.

I do not understand the reasoning behind your remark How are women to be encouraged to report rapes if doing so turns everyone intimately connected with them into a victim? . Reporting a rape does not turn everyone intimately connected with them into a victim. The fact the rape took place did that.

Honour killings are a total red herring in this instance as, so far as I am aware, neither the OP nor any of her family come from a culture where such things shamefully exist.

I stand by my original point. Every crime against the person be it rape, GBH or whatever, affects those closest to the victim as well as the victim themselves and so, (to a lesser extent I agree) they can be considered victims as well.