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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Cruel words from usually lovely husband of over 20 years. How to move on?

122 replies

userinterface34 · 05/12/2021 19:39

For context we’d had a few to drink . My DH has a stressful job and yesterday evening he was very emotional which is not usual. We spent a lot of time chatting about it and why his emotional outpouring was long overdue. Went to bed. He initiated sex that didn’t really go anywhere because we were both quite tipsy. After being asleep for a while I had a horrific nightmare. I used to have them and had counselling as a teen. I was raped as a teenager. I haven’t had bad nightmares for ages. According to DH I lept out of bed and cowered in the corner. A vase dropped off a cabinet and hit me on the head . I woke up confused. I’d been asleep and woke up scared and apparently snapped at him but he can’t recall what I said but he shouted to get to bed and stop acting like some silly rape victim. So having had a nightmare I’ve had a bash on the head and some what I consider venomous words that couldn’t have been crueller from the one person who I thought was my world. It’s like I’m looking at someone else. I feel sick. This man is / was my safe space. We’ve kids and grandkids. Maybe it’s raw but at the moment I feel sick to my stomach that I can’t get passed this but the thought of not being together is torture. I’m so conflicted.

OP posts:
ialreadydissociated · 05/12/2021 23:33

“Just move on” yeah why didn’t we think of moving on from that silly rape victim phase, so silly of us, all this silly trauma goshdarnit, so silly to expect a 20yr old partner to still put up with that silly rape victim they married who still has silly night terrors, how absolutely silly

Feedingthebirds1 · 06/12/2021 02:49

@DamnShesaSexyChick

Look I’m not being horrible but I’d go berserk if someone woke me up like that when I was asleep. He’s apologised, you’re not going to leave him so just move on.
So woken up and confused, his first thought was to remember that OP had been raped and call her silly? Not to ask if she was OK?
DBI78 · 06/12/2021 04:32

This is awful, it needs more than an apology. It needs acknowledgment of what he said that was wrong. Anyone can say sorry. I would struggle to move forward until this has happened. Stay strong xx

Sweetmotherofallthatisholyabov · 06/12/2021 05:05

It's the combination, if he said stop acting silly, or stop being silly that's one thing, or stop being silly, you're not a rape victim- it's one thing, but a silly rape victim - wtf is a silly rape victim when it's at home and that's the point id be drilling him over. Not the impact it had on me but what's in his head that he thinks any part of being a rape victim makes a person silly? Fair enough jumping out of bed the vase all that could be silly out of context so that's forgivable but I don't know why you'd ever call someone a silly rape victim.

EmmasMum12 · 06/12/2021 05:46

What this tells me is that he feels and has felt that because you still feel traumatised about the rape - you are silly.

For me it's pretty obvious that this is his truth

He doesn't understand why you continue to feel pain and PTSD from the rape

If you want the relationship to continue you both need counselling, together, so that he can be helped to understand

Thesummeriwas16 · 06/12/2021 06:49

@Bluntness100

"I won't lie to you, it all sounds overly dramatic and weird for a couple of middle aged to elderly people to be behaving like this!

WTF!!!! I've seen you been rude many times before Bluntness but this actually takes the biscuit!!!

user736728819 · 06/12/2021 08:46

Didn’t realise rape survivors are overly dramatic

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz · 06/12/2021 08:53

But being still drunk and having only been awake a few seconds it’s possible the ‘silly’ was more about her getting drunk and falling all over the place. He wouldn’t have had time to really assess the situation.

/////

I'd love to hear how the "rape victim" part of his attack could be justified.

And for those posters who seem to be focusing the need for counselling on the OPs side ... I've not been raped but sexually assaulted twice so I have a tiny inkling of how it would have felt being the OP in the scenario she's described. I'm 100% sure however that if your partner ever describes you in such a nasty way that's going to put your recovery back to square one.

Perhaps he needs to talk to someone to unearth where such misogynistic poison comes from.

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz · 06/12/2021 08:54

I mean, he didn't even really apologise, just seemed pissed of at her reaction to his pathetic attempt at one.

Hope your doing ok this am OP XX

Booklover3 · 06/12/2021 11:03

I hope you are okay OP Flowers

userinterface34 · 06/12/2021 11:54

Thank you all. I feel better for some time on my own. It won’t end my marriage but it has damaged it. I feel a bit differently about him now and that’s sad but the thought of everything with have together being no more is not an alternative in this situation.

OP posts:
Horseshoe5 · 06/12/2021 12:06

I feel that your husbands comments may be the straw that broke the camels back for you. I'm sorry for what happened you OP.

grapewine · 06/12/2021 12:53

@userinterface34

Thank you all. I feel better for some time on my own. It won’t end my marriage but it has damaged it. I feel a bit differently about him now and that’s sad but the thought of everything with have together being no more is not an alternative in this situation.
I'm really sorry this happened. Please take care of yourself.
SunflowerTed · 06/12/2021 15:27

@Missmissmiiiiiiiiisss

Sounds very hurtful, but I think I can’t imagine ending an otherwise happy marriage over something said when someone was drunk and just woken up. He probably didn’t mean to cut you so deeply. I’m not sure that his grumpy, just woken thoughts reflect his ‘true’ thoughts certainly not more than decades of previous actions.
Totally agree
SunflowerTed · 06/12/2021 15:36

@userinterface34

Thank you all. I feel better for some time on my own. It won’t end my marriage but it has damaged it. I feel a bit differently about him now and that’s sad but the thought of everything with have together being no more is not an alternative in this situation.
You take care of yourself and when he comes home maybe a really deep conversation about how he made you feel and how he has hurt you might make it easier to move forward xx
Colourmeclear · 06/12/2021 17:11

It depends on the quality of his apology. Anyone can say sorry but why are they saying sorry?

When we receive an apology we want understanding more than anything else. Saying sorry is the easy bit but putting ourselves in someone else's shoes in the hard bit.

If your husband could show understanding then I think in time things might improve but not if he thinks saying the words are enough.

PicsInRed · 06/12/2021 17:25

@userinterface34

Thank you all. I feel better for some time on my own. It won’t end my marriage but it has damaged it. I feel a bit differently about him now and that’s sad but the thought of everything with have together being no more is not an alternative in this situation.
FlowersFlowersFlowers
Branleuse · 06/12/2021 17:35

@grapewine

The amount of minimising on this thread is honestly disheartening.
Also the amount of catastrophising tbh. Plenty of people quite flippantly say they would end a happy 20yr marriage over some stupid mean drunken comment in the middle of the night.

It isnt a case of it being absolutely fine to say nor does it mean hes been cleverly hiding the fact hes an evil piece of shit for 20 years who can never be forgiven.

In the real world this would be reason for a really big talk more than a bloody divorce.

EKGEMS · 06/12/2021 19:11

Oh @userinterface34 I am so very sorry you had such a trauma while you were young and then to hear that callous remark from your husband? I'd never unhear that ever again.To be honest are you currently able to access counseling?
If it were me I'd prolly send him a text with"silly rape victim" nothing else every day he's gone and get a welcome home cake that read "silly rape victim" on it and a t shirt in his size emblazoned with "silly rape victim" and tell him "Well I'll never forgot the words you uttered to me that night so I don't want you to ever forget them either"

Allsortsofroses · 06/12/2021 19:27

He’s the usual typical man. Thoughtless sometimes lazy. Says you do it (it being housework hosting etc) so well that I don’t think to step up. Sometimes dismissive. When I point it out he says sorry does it again then when I point out his sorry means little because it’s not the first time he gets irked.

That's not the usual, typical man.

You've accepted the above because you think all men are like that.

He's not really a nice/good partner. What he said is not so out of character in light of the above.

EightWheelGirl · 06/12/2021 20:35

Not sure the typical man is lazy. I don't know a single house husband.

grapewine · 06/12/2021 22:20

In the real world this would be reason for a really big talk more than a bloody divorce.

That's fair enough that you feel that way. The OP does too, evidently, and many others. I do not.

No man who said that to me as a survivor was one I could trust with my trauma again, and so that would mean leaving. We all have different boundaries and limits.

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