In the wake of the leaked Supreme Court document, I was upset. I told my husband about a man forcing himself on me and the subsequent shaming that happened from a nurse and GP when I went to get Plan B. I was crying. I had never told him this. He just stood there and then further tried to explain why I shouldn’t be upset. I asked him to give me a minute to calm down. I went into the living room and he wanted to show me blend anything videos on YT. Last night I realized I probably need to make a plan to leave. I have no idea how to get through this.
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Don’t listen to people who try and shame you. Your husband did something fucked up. If you feel like you need to leave, you’re probably right.
First off, I’m sorry for what happened to you. Nobody should ever have to experience that. As far as not telling your husband, that’s not something you’re obligated to share with anyone unless you want to. So please don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, it’s your story and you get to choose when and who, period.
Instead of being kind and caring and compassionate he tried to downplay the situation and make it about him. It’s not about him and you deserve better.
Before you make a plan to leave, when you are able – talk to him again if you are able. You married this man for a reason. His initial reaction may be just that – a reaction. While it’s shitty, it’s not something he probably anticipated. If he wasn’t your husband I’d probably offer different advice, but I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt because he probably didn’t know how to react or what to say.
First, you have my sympathies. Your husband should have been more caring/supportive. Not trying to defend his behavior. A plan to leave just sounds extreme to me. You are willing to throw it all away over this?
I’m so sorry that this has been your experience. Sexual assault is one of the hardest things to survive, and we all carry scars for the rest of our life. Is it possible that your husband didn’t know how to process this with you? A big emotional moment like that can be hard for somebody who feels blindsided by it – not that that was your intention, at all – and he may have just reacted extremely poorly in the moment. If you think it will help, talk with his about how invalidated his reaction made you feel, and be clear with him what you expect from him to move through this moment. Sometimes the people that love us just freeze up at the worst time because they don’t know how to help. Sometimes they genuinely don’t care – you won’t know until you have that conversation with him. Make it clear that this is an “Emotions, Not Solutions” conversations – you need him to hear and validate you, not try to “solve the problem”. Either way it goes, you’ll know better what to do next.
Again, I’m so sorry this happened to you, and I’m sorry your husband wasn’t able or willing to validate your experience. You’ve survived worse than this, and I hope you come out the other side of this moment okay.
Your husband ignored you or wasn’t sensitive enough and now you planning to leave? Am I missing something? He likely didn’t know how to react. Did you tell him how you wanted him to react before dropping a bomb on him. How long have you been married? How long were you together before marriage? Any kids?
I’m assuming this is not the only time your husband has shown his true colors on being a sexist pig.
Probably the straw that broke the camels back.
I’m so sorry that you went through this. No one should ever have to deal with this. Have you received counselling at all to help process this?
Is it possible your husband just didn’t know how to react? Like this is something you’ve never told him and I assume the shock for him must be massive & he just doesn’t know how to support you properly/react?
I’m in no way defending his reaction but I know your feelings are extremely heightened at the moment & feel like you need to communicate before you make a plan to leave. This is brand new information for him to process and something you’ve been keeping inside for all these years. Possibly some couples counselling and some separate counselling for yourself. Unless there are other things that are mounting up to you feeling this way, you need an open and clear conversation no matter how uncomfortable it makes him (I’m very avoidant when I feel uncomfortable and this sounds like me when I don’t know what to do) he needs to remember this is something horrific that’s happened to you & you need his support. Don’t throw in the towel unless you are absolutely certain it’s what you want & not just a knee jerk reaction.
That is all around wrong. He basically disregarded some major feelings and hurt that you were sharing with him and he avoided it like a brick. Like he didn’t give 2 shits. That would be a red flag to me. I can’t deal with anyone who doesn’t show sympathy, especially when I’m clearly upset.
You guys would benefit from counseling about how to handle these situations. He is probably at a complete loss about what to do and even though you’ve talked about it, I still don’t think he knows how much it puts you off. Big generalization coming but men will mostly suck at empathy, part of it nature, part of it nurture. Usually when adolescence comes and a young guy looks for emotional support it leads to either mockery or “here, wear this helmet, get on the field and go hit something”. I know even my own mother would often tell me to “toughen up”. It’s been proven that even infant boys are on average let to cry longer than girls.
That’s not to excuse him, but he is probably wildly inept at doing what you need him to do.
I mean, it’s also possible that he just had no idea what to say or do in that moment?
I’m a woman, and if someone broke down and told me about a rape that happened to them I would have NO IDEA what to say or do.
I mean, it’s also possible that he just had no idea what to say or do in that moment?
I’m a woman, and if someone broke down and told me about a rape that happened to them I would have NO IDEA what to say or do.
I’m so sorry this happened to you and his reaction was terrible but for you to jump to divorce I’m guessing his lack of empathy is something you have been dealing with, none of us can tell you what to do because we aren’t in your relationship but you have to ask yourself is this what you want look at your relationship in whole and make a decision. Good luck 🙂
I’m a little confused, this came up in a discussion where you had concerns about losing the right to reproductive choices? Is he religious / pro life? Unfortunately my experience with those types is they have little empathy for anything surrounding reproductive choices. If they had more empathy, they wouldn’t be pro life.
I shared information with my husband when the #metoo movement started because he was taking things a little too lightly. He immediately shut up, listened and apologized. I was fortunate he understood and still understands. I’m sorry you’re going through this OP
You’re going to destroy your marriage because your husband was at a loss as to how to react to your revelation?
Wow. Ok. Guess being married didn’t mean that much to you.
If it makes you feel any better, I probably would have had a similar reaction re leaving. I get that “he’s your husband not just a boyfriend” and “you married him for a reason” but because you did marry him and he is your husband, you know him better than we do, and you know whether this fits into a bigger pattern of behavior better than we do. Your level-headed handling of the situation in the moment suggests to me that you’ve done it before (out of context I probably would have reacted with more of an “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??”). Lack of empathy around the topic of sexual assault may not be a deal breaker for everyone, but it is for me. Sounds like it is for you too.
Upon reading the initial post my initial thought, based on my experience as a husband, was that hearing that your wife/partner had been sexually assaulted previously can be quite a bit to process and maybe his response would be better at subsequent conversations. But follow up comments point to general male empathy deficit. It sounds like OP’s husband had his empathy/compassion so choked out of him growing up he doesn’t know how to experience it let alone express it.
OP, if your husband does not acknowledge his difficulty with expressing empathy and show a willingness to work on it through some sort of therapy, there is not much you can do about it.
I have experienced a lot of trauma in my life. I was molested as a child, physically and emotionally abused, watched my mom get abused by her husband, and that’s just a snapshot. I have to compartmentalize that trauma in order to get through my day without breaking down. I had experienced a lifetime of trauma before I was 10 years old.
This makes me particularly adverse to listening to others’ trauma at times, because it causes me to fall down the rabbit hole. My wife was struggling with the Supreme Court decision yesterday, and as much as I feel for her and I am also appalled and deeply disturbed by this news, I have to stay topical about the subject because I can not let myself wallow. I have a tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility as the sole breadwinner, and I have the tendency to avoid negative thoughts in order to keep a positive mental state. So I essentially shut her down and told her we can’t let this negatively impact our performance as parents, and that we need to stay strong and positive until the kids are asleep, and we can discuss it then.
Perhaps your husband is doing something similar, but isn’t emotionally aware enough to recognize it?
Now this isn’t to say I’m without empathy, but more that it requires the right timing. If the kids are still up, or I’m at work, before work, etc and I still have duties and responsibilities, I am unavailable in that respect(to hash out and discuss trauma or negative subjects). But after the work is done and I’m sitting down in the evening, I’m very open and receptive at most times. It would be worthwhile to consider the time and place you brought these things up.
It’s important to remember that even if your husband hasn’t told you about trauma, that 1/5 boys are sexually abused as children here in the US, and those numbers are conservative. It could be much higher. Many of these go unreported, and there’s a possibility your husband has a similar aversion to these subjects as I do due to trauma he might have experienced. Most people are not as emotionally aware and self analytic as I am, and it’s not fair to expect them to be.
All that being said, you’ve given us a narrow window into your marriage and I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but from this isolated incident, you speaking about running for the hills seems like an extreme response.
I think it’s men’s nature to find a solution to a problem and you never speaking to him about this surely got him by surprise. I am in no mean taking his defence but maybe a 2nd talk about it could help and tell him how you feel about the whole thing?
You drop a bomb on the guy otta nowhere and you want to get a divorce because you didn’t like his reaction? 🙄
Good grief woman!!
You want to ditch a marriage because you didn’t like your husband ‘s response !!!??
ALL marriage counsellors state that Lack of Communication is one of the primary reasons for the high divorce rate
Your post left me shocked and aghast
I was raped in my early 20’s and didn’t tell anyone because I felt ashamed about how the course of events took place (and ultimately I blamed myself for it). I kept it quiet because I feared more judgement on me than I was already putting on myself.
I met my husband a few years later and informed him I had been raped previously. He was didn’t respond, I got the feeling he just didn’t know what to say. I also think the topic scared him somewhat. I think he felt like he assumed blame being that he was male and felt shame, even though I did not assign blame to him or to all men in general.
Many older women and men have not been taught how to properly talk and process these conversations. There has been a big turn in the last 20 years about how this is viewed and women have become more vocal and brave in discussing these issues.
I have two boys and I am discussing these matters with them so that they do not shy away, so that the topic is familiar because I don’t want them to feel like they have nothing to offer someone who confides in them with these details because the topic scares them.
Maybe your husband does not know how to offer comfort or sympathy because he just doesn’t know this topic well enough. He certainly needs to acknowledge it though and I think he needs this explained to him. It does not seem to come naturally to them. Men don’t seem have a lot of knowledge when it comes to the female perspective and body, putting this clearly on display now with SCOTUS. We are the ruling majority so I do think we also need to teach future men (our kids) that these topics are real and they need to be able to deal with them as much as women do. Educating is key. Instead of teaching abstinence in school, we should be teaching men and women how to respect not only their own body but the body of others.
He might use distraction as a coping mechanism and thought that was what would work for you. I’m so sorry you went through that. Do you want to work on the marriage and tell him where he went wrong? Either way I hope you have a support system and wish you luck.
His first move should have been to comfort you, especially as a husband. However, the shock of it may have also had an effect on him. I’m sorry to say that I had that happen to me and I also failed to properly respond. While it was not as traumatic as what happened to you, it did have a long term effect on my wife. Took some time for me but was able to do the right thing. There is no manual on being a good spouse, you have to learn. Please talk to him prior to doing anything rash, however if he fails to be sympathetic I would truly question your partner
Love how the women on here are all saying “Leave him”. Please don’t take internet advice literally lady
Yes leaving someone over a disagreement is a little crazy
My husband gets upset hearing about the abuse I went through as a kid and teenager. He says he couldn’t save me and can’t do anything now so it’s hard to know what to do. He listens and sometimes stays quiet – but after further discussion it came to light that he feels like I want to be heard. Maybe your man doesn’t know what to do or how you need him when you tell him things this way?