Not sure how to feel about this (trigger warning)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is important you tell one, trusted person. If you stay with him, and something happens down the road, then your credibility is heightened by a close-in-time outcry. Virginia is a fault divorce state. You may even want to screen capture your post here. However you handle this is valid and not wrong. Will be thinking of you.

I just went through a fault divorce (abuse) in VA. Telling a friend or screenshotting your DCUM post was not considered evidence. Pretty much the only thing the court accepts as evidence is a police report.

Counselling session clinical notes have been used as evidence in many, many cases.

[Anonymous]

OP, I hear you starting to blame yourself for not screaming, please don't. He is 100% responsible. Had you had a weapon, he still would be someone capable of doing this to his wife, and the mother of his children.

If you don't want to disclose to family at this time, have a cover story as they may well notice things seem off.

Does he have a history of trauma, especially in childhood? Not an excuse but something else that may need addressing. That experience often leads to a desire to misuse power I was told by professionals. Trauma can especially come up when kids are the same age as the experience.

Had I fully understood the above, I would never have had kids with someone with significant unresolved trauma. My ex also was able to compartmentalize or mask as a great guy until the mask slipped and blew up our marriage. Anger and a desire to victimize seemed to come out of nowhere and it was like a stranger who did things that scared me and the kids and brushed it off or blamed me.

One other thought - does your husband possibly have a porn addiction? The "norms" there can have a big spillover impact if overconsumed.

I wish you safety and peace. Do reach out to a hotline for support. Listen to your body as well, it knows that something profoundly wrong happened. I wish he had responded with genuine and profound remorse when you spoke with him, that seems to be rare, unfortunately.

Be gentle with yourself. One step at a time. Hour at a time if need be. You won't have clarity for a long time yet, re: steps forward or if he could possibly ever be trusted.

[Anonymous]

OP, some more resources here

https://www.womenslaw.org/about-abuse/forms-abuse/sexual-abuse-and-exploitation/marital-partner-rape/actions-you-can-take

On a practical note: is it possible, depending on the ages of the kids and if you are on leave, to stay with family for a while and have DH go home alone? Alternatively, could a relative come to stay for a bit to help with the kids and to serve as a buffer, even if you choose not to tell at this time? I'm concerned that things could escalate in unforeseen ways if you just go home with DH who has blown off responsibility for his actions, I'm not sure what he will do or how you could feel safe alone with him having not gotten help yet or decided what to do.

[Anonymous]

You guys are getting suckered in by this fake post? Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I worked with a very nice young woman once who had a baby then fell pregnant again two months after the birth because her husband who was a regular drinker would not respect her postpartum recovery at all. The unplanned baby wrecked her health - she developed a permanent thyroid condition among other issues doubtless from gestating a pregnancy in a body that was depleted and exhausted from having just completed the process a few weeks before conception of the next one.

There was a post from someone saying how they'd experienced this kind of rape with boyfriends more than once before and had put her off men altogether. Just want you to know that you're not alone, I experienced sexual assault by a partner more than once, guys who you would otherwise think were really great nice guys - there is a beast that resides it the heart of too many men, I think. Even a lot of otherwise nice-appearing men think of women's bodies as possessions, especially in the context of a relationship of some kind.

I lost my virginity this way at 14 and my last boyfriend at 40 did the same thing to me, having sex with my body when I was in a semiconscious state from cold medicine and illness and had refused him sex before asking to be left alone to sleep.

I'll never date another man I don't think. I'm 1000% heterosexual and at one time had a very high libido, but yet I find men repulsive and spent most of my adult life voluntarily celibate despite plentiful interest. Any time I let one in, they eventually showed they couldn't be trusted.

I read recently that scientists are working on a male contraceptive pill but they fear there would be little interest because of the modifying effects on testosterone levels. Personally I think we might achieve world peace if we could get all the men on such a pill.

PP, I’ve had similar experiences, and it’s just so disheartening. I had to break off a relationship because my partner would not let me sleep. Every night, it was groping, humping, grabbing, grinding until I’d fall off the bed or just give up and sleep on the couch. It didn’t matter how much sex we had. I had no peace. My body wasn’t my own. Another guy, I ran into him years after we’d broken up, and he kept grabbing my butt…why?…because we’d had sex in the past and that meant I couldn’t treat him as “a stranger” and he had every right to touch my body wherever he wanted. I only got him off of me by telling him I had a boyfriend, and of course he then respected that my body belonged to another man so he couldn’t touch me.
I don’t know what’s wrong with these men! Of course it’s not all of them, but it’s too damned many!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys are getting suckered in by this fake post? Wow.

This was my first reaction too.

My second is how bizarre it is that when this type of story is told from the perspective of the woman about a man who is completely trashed out of his mind drunk doing something he cannot remember doing (while she tells him no but then “gives up” in her words and just “let’s him”) then he is the one who is responsible? How about the idea that she could have gotten up and poured cold water on him?
Also if the circumstances were that SHE had been the drunk one and had consented to sex in her drunken state and then regretted it the next day, this same DCUM crowd would be telling her that that’s rape too bc she wasn’t in any frame of mind to consent!

Sounds to me like DH is described as being waaaaay too drunk to respond rationally to her weak protests if he doesn’t even remember the incident the next day.

Also if I’m wrong and the post wasn’t a troll to begin with then yes it definitely sucks that this happened. But no I don’t think drunk husband is a rapist. And I also think he clearly needs to never drink again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are getting suckered in by this fake post? Wow.

This was my first reaction too.

My second is how bizarre it is that when this type of story is told from the perspective of the woman about a man who is completely trashed out of his mind drunk doing something he cannot remember doing (while she tells him no but then “gives up” in her words and just “let’s him”) then he is the one who is responsible? How about the idea that she could have gotten up and poured cold water on him?
Also if the circumstances were that SHE had been the drunk one and had consented to sex in her drunken state and then regretted it the next day, this same DCUM crowd would be telling her that that’s rape too bc she wasn’t in any frame of mind to consent!

Sounds to me like DH is described as being waaaaay too drunk to respond rationally to her weak protests if he doesn’t even remember the incident the next day.

Also if I’m wrong and the post wasn’t a troll to begin with then yes it definitely sucks that this happened. But no I don’t think drunk husband is a rapist. And I also think he clearly needs to never drink again.

Giving up and letting him after you’ve repeatedly said no doesn’t make it not rape. Women usually make the calculation that enduring it is safer than fighting, and they’re right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, in my experience, when your spouse has done some horrible things that they can’t take back:

1. Counselling will not initially make you feel better but you have to do it anyway. Individual and couples. In counselling you might realize there were signs of this behaviour that you missed. You might not have been as happy as you thought.

2. It is going to take a really, really long time for you to feel affection for him. Don’t even try at this point.

3. There is going to be a new normal. You will never feel the same way towards him. It isn’t intolerable or anything, but there’s been a breach of trust that he can’t take back, if you do indeed stay with him. You might love him again but it will be love informed by this terrible incident.

4. This is going to take time. Not days or weeks or even months, maybe years. All for something that took him just a few minutes to do.

5. Obviously no drinking ever again but I would all my conversations about this in the presence of a counselor.

Thank you for this, PP. This was really helpful to read

[Anonymous]

OP, how are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP this doesn’t sound like a one-time thing. It sounds like an escalation. Yes alcohol contributed but I don’t see how it won’t happen again. And you can’t just tell someone “don’t drink” and expect them to stop.

Like a prior poster said, drinking doesn’t cause you to do things that are totally against your nature. It amplifies things. I think your husband is dangerous.

I don’t think you should make any decisions now and you need time to just let yourself survive but I also think that if you try to stay, you’re going to be hounding him about AA and emotionally exhausting yourself in couples therapy and he might just do it again anyway. I know I personally couldn’t handle that, even for the sake of my children whom I adore more than anything.

Yes, you very much can! Reasonable people wouldn't even need to be told at this point. If your drinking/substance use/habitual behavior is causing harm, and you're not a total piece of 💩, you stop. Zero excuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have read a few cases where women allege this for custody. It does not end well for the women. Have you heard of the back-fire phenomenon in family court.

I am here to tell you it is real. It is alive and well. In many states judges are men. Men want to see their babies equal time. If they feel threatened they will ask for 100 percent time with their kids. You might get visitation

Do not listen to this person, who is wrong.

Lawyer here, any kind of abuse coming up in a family court proceeding can lead to surprising outcomes, quite the opposite of what one might expect. I'll leave it at that.

Can you give an example or 2 of how a true accusation can give an opposite outcome of what one might expect in family court? I understand the accusation may not have any bearing on the final judgment but can it work against you if it is true?

[Anonymous]

Op please see a professional therapist and stop listening to the crazies here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, how are you?

OP is gone because it’s not a real post

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, how are you?

Thank you for checking in. We are back home now and I’m having a hard time. Overall I just feel exhausted and frustrated and sad, mixed in with some moments of absolute anger. I tried to talk to him about it again, and while I’ll admit I’m not really sure what he could say that WOULD make me feel better, I left the convo feeling more upset. Notably, he said, “I wish I could remember what happened,” (to which I incredulously asked if he thought I was lying about this. He doesn’t; he just feels weird and “it bothers [him]” that he blacked out and can’t remember what happened. Which, to be clear, I do believe is probably the case), and he also said, “I made a MISTAKE.” This was mixed in with a lot of apologies and “I hate myself”s, but those two comments really bothered me. Enough that I find I’m avoiding talking about it (…which is surprisingly easy to do, as we have our 3 kids with us 24/7 currently), because deep down I don’t (at this point) want to blow up my family, and I think that if he says the wrong thing right now I may never be able to get over it. In general he’s just kind of just acting normal / like nothing happened - which to be fair right now mostly means just going about daily moment to moment life with the kids, but with us interacting pretty minimally. He also keeps asking what he can do, and I think it’s genuinely coming from the right place but I just feel like…ugh don’t put this on me; if I knew what needed to happen to make everything magically feel okay, I’d do it. I did tell him (re: “what can I do”): no drinking (he gets this and agrees), sleep in a different room (he doesn’t love this but gets it and didn’t fight it), take the kids out of the house so I can have a counseling appointment and not worry about them hearing anything, and to eventual couples’ counseling if/when it’s time. But beyond that I don’t know what to tell him to DO to fix it, because if I knew we wouldn’t be in this situation. I do think he feels genuine remorse and is almost having a hard time reconciling it mentally, because he definitely thinks of himself as an extraordinarily caring, good person - I don’t mean that to sound snipey, just saying that’s his genuine mental impression of who he is as a person (and, generally speaking, rightly so) so hearing that he’s done something like this changes it in a way that’s hard to reconcile. He keeps saying “I would NEVER in my right mind do something like this…” - I don’t even know if it makes me feel worse or better to hear that. I do feel a little of the anger subsiding when we talk and when he really seems to listen to what I’m saying and grasp how serious this is for me, but the disgust I feel is really strong. I also just feel, I don’t know….kind of detached? I guess I feel a sense of weird mourning, in a looking around and thinking wow this is all a sham, everything I thought I felt has changed way

The stuff people shared about custody / courts is scary to read (and, tbh, hard to understand) - that’s not really on my mind currently, I honestly can’t see divorcing, but it does make me nervous about talking to a counselor since a PP said counseling notes get shared in court all the time. It would take a LOT for me to want to subject my kids to a divorce, and honestly I can’t really picture it happening - but one worrisome scenario that’s lurking in the back of my mind is this: what if I can never allow myself to feel comfortable having sex with him again? At this time the thought literally REPULSES me; the idea of him touching me makes me see RED. I know this is the kind of thing counseling can hopefully help with, but what if it doesn’t…then I guess divorce is the option you’re left with, and the idea of counseling notes being admissible in court makes me nervous to talk to someone.

That said, I do have a doctors on demand (through employee benefits, hopefully they’re decent) appointment set up for tomorrow. Guessing I should probably try to set up a couples’ counseling thing too but I don’t know if I have it in me just yet. It’s hard for me to even hear his voice right now, the visceral reaction my body feels kind of scares me. I’m just holing up with my baby right now.

(As I side note, I literally do not have the mental energy to respond to accusations of me being fake, so I’m not going to. Think whatever you want; I don’t care. Not sure why on earth someone would make something like this up to post anonymously. Regardless, thanks to posters who have been so compassionate and supportive and helpful, I really need it and I appreciate all the good people here

[Anonymous]

I went through something similar with my Dh. Circumstances are a bit different so my outcome doesn’t much matter here.

You’re doing the right thing by taking time to process. It sounds like your Dh is agreeing to your requests and that’s positive. He may not appreciate just how long you may need to work out your feelings and emotions. That may be the biggest hurdle. Counseling for him may be worth considering.

I’m sorry OP. It’s a shock to the system, this trauma. You will heal from it, our minds are amazingly resilient, but it will take work and time.