Historic rape - DH doesn’t believe me

[BlazinglikeRebelDiamonds]

I posted a while ago about a bad experience I had many years ago which was starting to surface again and cause issues in everyday life. Previous thread here but basically I woke to find someone having sex with me. I’d always blamed myself and labelled it “bad sex” but on confessing to a friend they made me realise it might be more than that. The overwhelming opinion on my previous thread was that it was rape.

I’ve had six months (so far) of therapy to deal with this and other more historic issues that have come up, and that affected how I responded to this incident. There been a hell of a lot to deal with, and it’s a work in progress, but for this incident at least I had got to a point where I did see it as rape and not my fault.

DH has been slightly bemused by my going for therapy and I decided to confide in him about this. As I said in my previous thread, I had confessed to him afterwards but had said it was a one night stand which (blaming myself) was how I saw it at the time.

It went about as badly as it could have done. DH claimed not to remember me telling him before but said that if I had I was now changing my story. I tried to explain how I hadn’t seen it for what it was until I had started going back over it recently when I was affected by it but he wouldn’t believe me. Had a go at me about my behaviour afterwards (I went off the rails big time to be fair). Blamed therapy for “planting ideas”. Said if I was drunk I wouldn’t know whether I had said yes or not (but I was asleep? I couldn’t have said anything). I was trying to explain but couldn’t stop crying, I pointed out that I had just told him I had been raped and asked whether that bothered him at all - his response was that well, if that was what happened that was bad, but really I had invited it by getting drunk, missing my bus and staying over, and that I continued to invite the same now by going out after work and sometimes missing the bus. (I get myself back other ways or stay with safe friends now - I do not take the same sorts of risks as I did back then).

My head is in pieces and I don’t know what to think now. I had got to the point where I could see it for what it was, I didn’t blame myself and felt much better about it and now I just don’t know what’s right anymore. This was over 24 hours ago and we just haven’t mentioned it since and I don’t know what’s to think. I also have a horrible feeling he’s going to be difficult about me continuing therapy and socialising around work. Maybe he is right and I did deserve it, I don’t know, I feel terrible.

I’m not sure how to get past this.

Your ‘D’H is a bastard.
No woman can consent whilst unconscious.
No woman ‘asks for it’ by drinking.
I think you need to continue therapy and bring this up at your next appointment. He is very, very wrong, and his attitude towards women and rape, frankly, would concern me.

I am wondering if he has behaved like this towards a woman/women in the past and he doesn't like being reminded about it OP.

I honestly couldn't get 'past' this. His attitude is disgusting. You were upset and confiding about something that is so horrific it's caused you years of trauma.

Your husband is supposed to love and support you; to build you up when you need it and share in life's troubles. His reaction is abhorrent. I would be asking him for a divorce.

Have my first LTB.

So sorry for what you are going through. Keep up the therapy and ditch your POS husband.

That's terrible, I'm so sorry you're going through all this.

Don't let him rewrite your story to suit himself. He's trying to undermine you for whatever twisted reasons of his own - but you don't have to go along with it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8

Another arsehole that doesn't understand the concept of consent. Instead of supporting you hes blaming you. It's unforgivable.

This.

Very honestly i al not sure I'd be able to get past this he is failing you horribly here.

I don't think you SHOULD get past it tbh. What a cold bastard. I think you're better off without him, he certainly isn't acting like someone who loves you.

If you were either asleep OR drunk you were unable to consent. You were raped.

I agree with a previous poster that he has possibly done the same to a previous partner and doesn't want to accept that he too has committed rape.

If he hadn't then I still wouldn't be able to get past the fact that he wouldn't recognise this as rape.

Your "D" H is a bit of a shit really.

Or quite a lot of one tbh.

If you were too drunk to know if you said yes or no then you were too drunk to give consent anyway, so his stupid argument doesn't even stand up (even if you weren't asleep).
Could you go and stay with family, I really think you need to get out of there.

I am wondering if he has behaved like this towards a woman/women in the past and he doesn't like being reminded about it OP

I agree. He has revealed he has a rapists mentality himself by saying the op invited it.

If I had a husband who clearly believes raping a woman is okay in certain circumstances, I couldn't get past that.

DH claimed not to remember me telling him before

Your last thread mentioned you felt this was you 'cheating' on your husband at the time, before you realised it was rape (which it was). And that you never discussed the issue in the following 20 years.

Do you mean your husband doesn't remember you mentioning this incident at all, so he's saying this is the first time he know of this sexual encounter in its entirety?

Or that he knew about the incident but doesn't remember you telling him it was rape?

It's going to be extremely difficult to get past this, minimising what happened to you just causes you additional distress and pain from someone you thought had your back.

I would advise you don't do anything for the time being, think things through and process your thoughts and feelings. Whatever you decide you will be OK. Huge hug 💐

God, I'm so sorry. For everything. He's being absolutely fucking horrendous - would you ever dream of speaking to someone you love like that, after they'd gone through something like that? This man doesn't love you, I'm sorry. He might say he does, but when the chips are down, instead of being devastated something awful happened to his wife, and wanting to do everything in his power to support her, he blamed her and made her feel terrible about it. That's not how you treat people.

After you told him about it as "bad sex" and a one-night stand, has he held it against you since? Did it change the power dynamic between you?

It might be that changing the narrative from him being great (and possibly self-righteous) for forgiving you to one where you were actually the victim and he failed to protect you (even though he wasn't there) is one he really doesn't like the idea of.

Thank you so much for the replies - I’ll try to answer some…

I want to say I’m really shocked by his response but in all honesty the reason I hadn’t discussed it sooner was because I wasn’t sure what reaction I would get. I thought he would understand though. I actually don’t think he’s done anything like this before - I’ve known him since we were young and know his exes. As far as I know, there’s nothing there.

@LittleHangleton I meant he claimed not to remember me telling him at all. As I’d said on the previous thread, I did confess after the event but took the blame. I never said it was rape - I didn’t see it for that back then. He says he doesn’t remember that conversation at all and that he knew nothing about this.

@Gem359 I can’t stay anywhere else, family are miles away and I have kids and a full time job here. It’s ok, right now he’s just carrying on as though nothing’s happened, but I just feel shattered.

Whoever described it as “cold” - that was exactly how it felt. I don’t know what to think.

From what I understand on the other thread, you admitted to him a long time ago you cheated. Now you’ve thought again about the incident and realised it was a rape.

is that correct?

if so, perhaps he could be forgiven a bit for reacting badly to what must, to him, feel like revisiting being cheated on.

if I’ve misunderstood then apologies

I hope he doesn't have daughters op. Sorry but he is awful and I'm wondering if it's jogging his memory on someone?

I’m so sorry, he’s absolutely wrong and I think you might wish to seriously consider leaving him.

Yes that’s about it. I do understand it would have been a shock to him and I’ve been really reluctant to revisit it. Maybe I shouldn’t have done, it just felt like I was shutting him off from something that turned out to be a massive issue for me.

I probably should have kept quiet though. I have a history of repressing trauma which I know isn’t really healthy but I guess it serves its purpose sometimes!

@BlazinglikeRebelDiamonds
I don't think your husband had a helpful or supportive reaction to your revealing what had happened to you in the past, nor were his comments about choices you make about how you socialise now kind. In my opinion this is the thing which would have upset me the most.

This doesn't paint him in a positive light so I am not jumping to his defence in any way, but I do think that in all his nonsense there could be a grain of truth that we should be wary of analysing the past by present standards and applying how we might feel today about something when we didn't necessarily feel that way at the time.

I personally don't believe that 25 years ago, if a man and a woman were both drunk and willingly had sex then this was rape. The idea that being drunk and therefore making it impossible to consent, consequently meaning that this was rape had not yet been conceived.
We shouldn't judge our past actions based on present knowledge nor our present actions on future understanding.

In your case op, you were asleep so this is a completely different situation and your husband should have believed you when you explained the reasons why you might have explained the occurrence in a different way in the past.

I normally try and view things from the position of trying to make things work, try not to LTB is a relationship can be saved… but this is an awful position for you to be in and it’s a huge thing to come to terms with. Your H is being an absolute arsewipe. What an utterly dick thing to say to you. He is out of order and as a PP said I’d be concerned if you had a daughter. I don’t understand why he doesn’t understand that you only consent if you ar conscious and sober.

And ignore his opinion on therapy - I had some after years of issues and it was liberating and so helpful. It’s a positive step and I’m glad you’ve sought help. He’s clearly not emotionally aware of how trauma affects people.

What an absolute prick he is.

@knittedosocks yes I can see that point of view. And I’ve had (very) drunken sex when I was younger which I would still have classed as consensual.

This was different - I was asleep. It always felt “bad”
and wrong even though I never labelled or articulated it as rape back then - I knew I couldn’t have agreed but blamed myself for not shouting out or fighting back. I did let it happen. I think that’s where I struggled to see it clearly. And I still feel bad about that.

But even without a label it bothered me enough to cause panic attacks and flashbacks when certain similarities struck, and it was then that I wrote down what had happened and on reading it back realised it was worse than I had acknowledged before.

I’m not making excuses, I know I’ve handled it badly. And believe me if I could have kept it shut in a box in my head forever I would have done.

Make plans to divorce this tool.

Men who think that women "ask for it" are men who think that committing rape is sometimes OK. You do not want to be married to such a man.