I’ve name changed for this because I just need to get this out somewhere. I can’t access counselling or therapy at the moment so I’m hoping taking a big deep breath and talking about it will help. It’s outing, I’ve fudged a few details, but if you’re someone I’d told you’d know it was me.
It's an essay I'm afraid...
In 2019 myself and my now-DH got engaged. My closest – male – friend started withdrawing from me, being standoffish etc. We had known each other for a number of years, pre-dating my knowing DH, and I was also friends with his wife. I went around to his house one evening to hang out, had what I thought was a nice time, and then the next day received an essay-length WhatsApp from him saying I wasn’t the same anymore, I never made time for/didn’t care about him, he felt neglected in favour of my relationship etc. (If that sounds familiar, I wrote a thread about it at the time.)
The whole thing stunk of jealousy, and his wife ended up sending him round to see me like a child to “make up”. The whole thing was utterly bizarre. I Have Issues from things that happened to me as a teen and found it all very upsetting – I have a deeply ingrained fear of being disliked/am terrified of people I care about being upset with me. It’s something I’m aware of and am working on, but at the time this incident completely blindsided me.
We were ostensibly still friends but didn’t speak anywhere near as often as we had before, but after the above incident I was okay with distancing a bit. The incident was around April. In December that year, he started texting me more again, wanting to hang out etc. I was pleased – I thought maybe he was wanting to get our friendship back to how it had been before, which I would have liked. Due to Christmas we couldn’t meet up until the New Year but it was nice speaking again, just texting about shared interests and our lives etc. I was reluctant to talk about DH so as not to set him off, which I look back on now and am so upset for myself walking on eggshells.
In the January we met at his house, his wife was out. He was touchy-feely in a way he had never been before – we had always kept a respectable physical distance. Joking about me sitting on his lap, playing a computer game that meant being cramped close to each other in close quarters etc.
At the end of the night he told me that he and his wife had opened their relationship. Before DH I, too, had been in open relationships, and he seemed to think I would jump at the chance to make our friendship physical. I said, probably overly nicely, that I wasn’t interested, and went home.
Over the next 2 weeks he assured me repeatedly that our friendship was the most important thing and he was totally happy that I’d said no.
We went out for a quiet drink at a pub – my suggestion, neutral and public ground – and had a lovely time. I thought it was Back To Normal. At the end of the evening we walked halfway home before each going our separate ways. We hugged goodbye (normal), but then he grabbed my bum and squeezed. As I pulled away, he also grabbed my breast. I kind of froze, tried to laugh it off, said goodnight and left.
From this point on it’s a mess. I was repeatedly raped as a teenager by an ex who acted in much the same way – seeming to prey on my inability to upset people and taking advantage of that. He told me he loved me and I didn’t want to hurt him; my friend was saying he loved me (platonically) now and I didn’t want to cause a drama or hurt anyone. I’ve had a lot of counselling in the past to deal with it, but I really wasn’t expecting to ever be in a similar situation again and it totally blindsided me.
My ‘friend’ invited me over (again a couple of weeks later) and I went, having told him again that I was in a monogamous relationship and not interested in more. He said again how being friends is most important etc. I didn’t want to lose him as a friend – we had been so close for a few years and nothing like this had ever happened before. I wanted to believe things would go back to normal and I would have my friend back. This friend knew about my history. Now, the cynic in me wonders if he used that playbook against me intentionally, knowing how I would likely react.
We were watching a movie together – normal activity for us – but when I went to get up to go to the loo he pulled me into his lap. He started touching me, kissing my boobs etc, and I just froze. I stared at the wall behind his head and froze. Eventually he stopped and I went to the loo and the night carried on like nothing had happened.
I knew deep down that I needed to leave and never see him again, but the pain of that loss combined with my existing trauma responses meant I was frozen. It felt like I was on autopilot. I didn’t want to let on that anything was wrong so I carried on as normal.
I went to his house one final time before lockdown, thinking it couldn’t possibly get worse than it already was and wanting things to be “fixed” and “normal” again. He did the same thing again, but this time kissed me. I let him. I felt 17 again, confused and hurt and betrayed and not wanting anyone to hate me. I was dying inside, but I let him. I know – believe me, I know – that my trauma response to this is beyond fucked up. I hate myself for it. He kept pushing for sex, and I just felt dead inside. I couldn’t leave to walk home, it was a long walk and late and dark, and I couldn’t call DH to collect me early because he would ask why. Most of all, I couldn’t handle the thought of the hurt and confrontation, I didn’t know what to do, so I basically played dead. I let him lay me down on the floor, where he raped me. I pretended everything was okay while inside I just curled up and died.
It was just like my ex when I was 17 – he was using it to claim ownership of me when he felt jealous. Exactly the same. I knew it deep down when it was happening but I didn’t want to believe it was true. I do know it fully now. It feels like it all played out in slow motion around me.
DH picked me up not long after, then lockdown happened. I spent the next 4 weeks a hollow shell, in so much pain, just broken. I kept acting like I was okay. ‘Friend’ kept texting to say how much fun he had had, I kept acting like things were fine, until one day I just couldn’t anymore. I went for a walk one evening and called my oldest friend and just broke down. I cried my eyes out to her in a field near my house. Then I went back and I told DH what had happened.
DH has been nothing short of unfailingly supportive; he knows my past and my issues, and I am so lucky to have him. I also confided in a couple of mutual friends who were also amazing. I told my ‘friend’ what had happened from my perspective and both he and his wife went apeshit. I didn’t use the word rape in my message but they knew that’s what I meant by how I felt and went on the defence in a huge way. I removed them both on my social media, blocked their numbers, and haven’t seen or spoken to them since.
But I just… can’t get over it. A lot of the time now I’m doing okay, until I’m not. I’m scared of being alone with men now, even colleagues, because I don’t trust what they might do even when they’ve been completely innocent up until that point.
It’s affecting how often I want to be intimate with DH; on bad days, I feel physically terrified of sex or even being kissed. I feel trapped and suffocated and like I can’t escape, just like I felt in that room. I feel like part of my mind is still there. I have flashbacks about it just like I have about the rapes when I was 17. Those have never gone away, but I’m numb to those ones now as it’s been so long (very long, we are all in our late 30s). These ones are so raw still.
I don’t want to keep talking to DH about it; we got married at the end of last year as planned (a tiny wedding within the restrictions) and he is so wonderful, I am so happy in my relationship and I don’t want him to have to deal with this burden, even though he is so understanding. I wish I could fast-forward to feeling numb about it like the other times. That just feels so far away right now.
TL;DR my friend raped me and I don’t know how to move on.
Please don't tell me how stupid I was to return to the situation after the first incident because believe me I know and I hate myself for it every day. I wish I was a strong person, the type that could have told him to fuck off and just walked away. Things in my past have broken me somewhat, and I though I was so much better but all it took was one incident and all that strength that was 15 years in the making just shattered instantly.
I don’t even know what I’m hoping to get out of this thread.
I guess I just needed to write it down.