Shocked By Conversation With Wife

JustAThought

This is not the Leinster Rugby (found innocent) thread. I gave my opinion to the OP. We all knew girls who engaged in risky behaviour and were loose and free with their favours - this level of constant abuse certainly imo is not normL for non risktaking females. One has to winder why she kept going back and the carelessness in putting yourself in a position where it could happen again. He is not talking about a grope. My advice to the OP stands. I'm not getting into an argument about it.

rainbowtrout

JustAThought wrote: »

This is not the Leinster Rugby (found innocent) thread. I gave my opinion to the OP. We all knew girls who engaged in risky behaviour and were loose and free with their favours - this level of constant abuse certainly imo is not normL for non risktaking females. One has to winder why she kept going back and the carelessness in putting yourself in a position where it could happen again. He is not talking about a grope. My advice to the OP stands. I'm not getting into an argument about it.

It may not be your 'normal' but that doesn't mean it wasn't hers. Nor does it suggest she was promiscuous (like the OP alluded to) or taking risks like you're suggesting.

She was 16 and going into an over 18s pub/club. She was dealing with adult men. She discovered that her friends also had those experiences. She would have had nothing else to compare it to at that age and given that her friends had those experience, then it's quite easy to see that 16 year old could normalise this behaviour in an adult environment, even though she knew it was not right.

If every woman was to take your line on it 'why would you put yourself in a position where it could happen again' then no woman would ever enter a pub or nightclub. Maybe she had lots of normal nights in these pubs/clubs but a few incidents stick out for obvious reasons.

woodchuck

Mod warning:

@JustAThought, that's enough of the victim blaming.

LegacyUser

JustAThought wrote: »

I agree with not asking her more but not for.the same.reason. blow jobs and full finger penetration? This is not normal and not representative of what a night ourlt entails. No doubt your wife was unlucky in some.cases but more likely it came.from risky behaviour. Scream at me all.you will but this range and frequency is not typical -it happened so much and so.often at this extreme on / drinking nights out ? Absolutely not normal so.much,so extreme and so.often.. ypu are right OP yo.think is is not normal or righy,and would be best to leave the topic where your wife wants it -in the past.

Stop blaming women for the violent actions of others. Just fu*king stop. We have a right to live our lives freely. We shouldn't have to live like nuns to stop violence being visited upon us.

You and the OP are doubting his wife's statement, even after countless posts from other women confirming that this happens!! To too many women!! Still you doubt it.

You say it's not representative of what happens on a night out, yet how many stories here have told you otherwise? And it's not just on nights out, but as shown, using public transport, minding one's own business and going about one's day to day activities.

Rape is recognised as a weapon of war, it's that prevalent. Babies, 80 year old women, women who never drink, never go out, who are covered head to toe are raped, they are sexually abused/assaulted, so kindly stop your nonsense talk.

As for you, OP. Unless you are going to approach your wife with kindness and compassion, do not speak any further to her about this. You'll only do more damage.

Ursus Horribilis

OP, it's also worth remembering that this happened when your wife was 16. I think that bit has completely eluded you. She was still a kid, though I'm sure she thought she was very grown up at that age. 16 year old girls (and lads) aren't as clever or clued in as they think they are. They might have the bodies of young adults but they are naive as hell in some ways. And for many underage teens, getting into pubs and nightclubs is a bit of a rite of passage. And to be fair, getting the shift (or whatever is called these days) was part of the experimentation too. Did you never kiss girls you barely knew in nightclubs?

My guess is that this creep knew this venue was frequented by underage girls trying to pretend they were grown up. Naive girls who hadn't yet honed their creep detection skills or knew how to hold their drink. And he took advantage of her. He probably did it to other girls too. Are they promiscuous too?

qwerty13

This thread just makes me sad. I truly don’t understand how you can profess to love your wife OP, and yet seem to be searching for a way to find fault with her over something bad that happened to her in her teens. It’s really depressing.

Edit to add: people can be ‘promiscuous’ if they want to be. Male or female. That still doesn’t mean that anyone should be actively forced, or coerced through fear / embarrassment / pressure into doing something that they aren’t comfortable with. A woman - or man - could love having frequent sex with many different partners. That does not mean that it’s ok to expect or force or coerce a person into doing anything they don’t want to. I’m not sure you’re seeing that point OP.

leggo

Ah here, the overreactions are getting hysterical at this stage. Guys do you realise you’re also shaming the OP for shaming?

What’s happened here is the OP got sent into a tailspin of emotions after hearing something quite distressing happened to his wife that he didn’t know about. Natural. It’s not something he’d be familiar with (hence the woman who suffered these things marrying him, I’d venture to say), so he’s shocked. Natural. This tailspin is making him question everything and he’s so shocked he’s even wondering if it’s true, and he’s vomiting out all of those kind of thoughts that go through our heads before we cop ourselves on.

PI should be a safe space for people to be able to do that without being jumped on. It can be difficult to be the partner of someone who’s gone through something difficult or traumatic, when you care about a person so much and hear they’ve suffered, you want to take that away. So maybe let’s be a bit compassionate and allow someone some leeway to work through their thoughts. Remember, once again, the woman you’re defending here married this man and obviously thinks he’s alright...so maybe you’re not getting the full picture of him from posts made while processing something big and unpleasant.

Dial Hard

leggo wrote:

Ah here, the overreactions are getting hysterical at this stage. Guys do you realise you’re also shaming the OP for shaming?

People are very understandably getting upset at the level of victim blaming going on. They are also trying to put themselves in the OP's shoes to try and understand the shock and anger and general distress he's feeling. But when that anger manifests itself as questioning his wife's - and other "females' " culpability in their sexual assaults, it's very, very difficult to read, particularly for those of us who have been through similar/identical experiences.

And for the record, I have no problem with your perceived "shaming" here. Certain behaviours deserve to be shamed. Perhaps if they had been called out more often and more openly we wouldn't have the litany of women on this thread sharing the experiences they've had.

Ursus Horribilis

Our OP has also had nearly a week to digest this revelation. It says a lot for his mindset that after several days, he has only made it as far questioning his wife's participation in the assault. A lot of women recounted the things that have happened to them but it looks like that was a waste of bandwith. That's what is infuriating here. I think this might be one of those cases where you have to be a woman to understand what it's like. Like just about every woman out there, I've been groped, had to fend off fellas with wandering hands, unwanted grinding, been propositioned etc. I could easily see my 16 year old self being victim of a sexual assault like the OP's wife suffered. Actually, I'm not sure how I'd handle it now. I'd argue that when it comes to a sexual assault of any sort, women find themselves questioning their role in how it happened. Did they do something to lead their attacker on? Did they bring it on themselves etc? I've no doubt that the OP's wife thought long and hard about that too. Our OP wants to ask her "many questions" which implies he doesn't believe her story. He thinks she's lying, that she somehow brought this on herself. He hasn't quite said that but that's where this is going.

qwerty13

I have to say that I think it’s entirely valid to point out that the OP should be shamed and ashamed of his views.

And that he should examine why he felt that his wife was a ‘goddess’, but now that he knows that she had an unwanted sexual encounter in her teens, well she must have been promiscuous. That is just horrifying to me.

ETA: I’d be shocked and so upset if a partner felt like that if I’d disclosed something so upsetting and personal. I couldn’t see the relationship lasting tbh.

zoe 3619

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PressRun

"Shaming the OP for shaming" - what??
I've heard it all now.

leggo

PressRun wrote: »

"Shaming the OP for shaming" - what??
I've heard it all now.

It’s like when people respond to bullying by bullying the initially bully because they now feel justified. Nothing is helped, no situation is better as a result of it, everyone involved is worse off, but it feels cathartic in the moment for people to do.

miamee

miamee wrote: »

In telling her partner years later, it's likely that all a woman wants is some empathy, comforting and a listening ear , not to look at her other half get riled up about how angry HE is. The anger is natural; allowing it to take precedence when your wife/oh has just told you something that is very personal, intimate and upsetting to her is a bit selfish.

The bolded part is something it took me years to work out. I think it's a fundamental difference in how a typical man views the world compared to a typical woman - caveat here that I know men and women that behave the opposite way but more typically this is how it plays out.

The woman thinks the anger is somehow a way of the man getting attention for himself while it is actually the last thing the man is looking for and his way of showing empathy to her. The kind of "isn't that terrible for you" conversations that many women have are just completely alien to many men. To my ears it just sounds completely insincere and almost condescending, but to my wife's it sounds caring. So now I tell her I am upset and the reasons why and not because I don't care or want to make it all about me.

Conversely she has eased off on the "isn't that terrible" type responses when I tell her something. It works well for us.

Again these are gut reactions. Not something that should play out over weeks or months.

Church on Tuesday

OP, it's pretty irrelevant right now as to what happened over twenty years ago.

Your wife seems like a very strong, together, resilient person. It would appear she told you this is a fairly off the cuff manner.

It is fairly understandable to be upset and angry over what happened to your wife as she was clearly taken advantage of, however, please do not equate this with promiscuity on her part because she had a life long before she met you and vice versa.

If she feels the need in the future to to bring the issue up again then just listen to what she has to say about it, ask her how she felt/feels about it now and leave it at that. In other words, just be there for her and listen to what she wants to say about it and comfort her if need be in a calm manner.

If not, then let this be it. It's in the past. Process the information, accept it for what it was and move on.

shesty

Ah jeez lads.We had a conversation like this in work recently, three women and one male, and the male was horrified.Horrified.We all work in a heavily male dominated industry and as women, we all had tales to tell (and we are in our mid-30s).I can't remember how it came up, but we were just chatting and the single man present was absolutely shocked that this crap was going on and he never noticed, or moreso, didn't realise that we have to think the way we do.For example,on work nights out-when enough drink is enough, who to steer clear of,who not to be left alone with, how to know when to draw the line and call time to go home...stuff we all took for granted.Never mind the crap we put up with over the years.We take it as part of life, he was angry and horrified on our behalf.

OP,your wife was 16, it was a particularly nasty experience, and that is it.Women are aware of these things.Doesn't make them right.But there is nothing you can do, and no reason why she "witheld" it from you-probably just never thought to discuss it-it's filed away in her head with all the nights being groped or propositioned in nightclubs, wolfwhistled at as she walked down a street, walking home in the dark with your keys clenched in her fist....that stuff.It's life as a woman, I'm afraid.