I feel so sick inside

[Hulme]

A friend responded to a personal ad. The guy who answered turned out to be my ex/ still occasional FWB! He had all these truly awful, angry things to say about his ex (me), and shared incredibly personal details, such as saying he thought his ex's rape "really messed up her head". In essence, he's exploiting the worst thing that ever happened to me, something I tell almost no one about, so he can get into someone's pants. I can't eat, I can't sleep. I used to love this man. I thought he was my friend. I can't begin to know what to do with this information. Should I confront him? Drop him without explanation? Please help!

[Lucky555]

So, did your ad say anything that might give him the inclination that its you that i actually posting the ad?

Like location, your likes/dislikes, specifics. So he may be jealous and know its you and therefore hes trying to put you down. DO NOT worry about this whatever happened to you that you told him was private..obviously he does not care that much and hes a total loser! Keep your ad up take replies and a great guy will come along. You should delete the email and just dump his sorry butt without telling him why, he will probably never realize why you dumped him and who cares you know why. Oh yeah don't give this guy another chance EVER. You deserve someone wonderful!

[Hulme]

It wasn't my ad; it was a friend responding to his ad. I know he uses the personals alot. I'm really worried that he's told stuff about me before. When we met, he mentioned all his exes were "crazy" but that he'd grown up a lot and didn't go for crazy women anymore. Now he's painting a picture of ME being crazy. I feel like such an idiot; I can't believe I didn't realize that anyone who has only "crazy" exes is probably pretty messed up themselves.

[Krytie TV]

Is it at all possible that you're being sensitive to stuff because of your disposition? If he didn't name you by name, then maybe there's truth to what he said about the rape messing him up and that shouldn't be held against him. It didn't sound like he was attacking you. Not to discount your pain, but it would mess me up too. Maybe he was just being open with your friend and you are taking it too personally or are oversensitive to it?

[Star Gazer]

Is it at all possible that you're being sensitive to stuff because of your disposition? If he didn't name you by name, then maybe there's truth to what he said about the rape messing him up and that shouldn't be held against him. It didn't sound like he was attacking you. Not to discount your pain, but it would mess me up too. Maybe he was just being open with your friend and you are taking it too personally or are oversensitive to it?

 

You misread her post, K. He said the rape messed HER up in the head. In addition, he said angry hurtful things about her. Not cool.

 

I'd never disclose someone's rape to a third party - EVER. No matter what.

[Krytie TV]

Yeah, OK, I did misread it. Sorry OP. Did you get the details of the communication first-hand from reading his messages or from your friend?

[Hulme]

I read them first hand. He even said I "lied" about the rape. (Not true, it happened long before I met him and I told him about it when I felt comfortable with him). My friend who answered his ad didn't know I'd been raped. Now she does. And not by my choice. Says I was still seeing my ex while I was seeing him. Not true. My ex and I shared custody of our dog. I only saw/ spoke to him enough to deal with the dog, and stopped talking to him the day the dog died. And went home to cry in this bastard's arms. He's telling all this stuff about me to some anonymous email address. And he broke up with me! And at the time I thought it was quite civil. This is just beyond bizarre. I feel like I can't trust my instincts about anyone or anything right now.

[jcster]

First off, let me say that I'm so sorry that you are going through this, it must feel like such a betrayal.

 

There is not much you can do about your ex's behavior, though. I would urge you to just forget about him - he's going to say what he wants to - and let the buyer beware! Now you know what type of person you were dealing with - consider the source and move on. Take care of yourself, and focus on the good things in your life.

[Trialbyfire]

Did your friend not know it was your ex/occasional FWB? It sounds like the two got to know each other pretty well, if this progressed to poisonous discussions about an ex.

 

My first question is, what is your friend trying to accomplish?

[Hulme]

All of these disclosures happened within two emails. And my friend said she would never had told me if she didn't know I still had this person in my life. I want to confront him so badly. Let him know how twisted I think he is. Both for betraying my confidence, and for thinking that this behavior would actually make him more attractive to some women.

[Trialbyfire]

It sounds like he trusted her, like you are trusting her. She obviously knew that it was your ex and still continued contact with him. Why?

 

Consider another aspect of this. She maybe interested in him and is getting rid of the competition. Since I don't know her, I'm just guessing of course.

[Hulme]

No, please. I appreciate where you're coming from, but do NOT put the focus on my friend. She ceased contact and let me know ASAP. If anything, she's disturbed by this whole thing. This is not a "jealous girl" thing. She's appalled. She's HORRIFIED I brought this man to another friend's home and exposed her children to him. She only wrote the second email to confirm his identity. She's actually closed the email account he'd been writing to. Repeat: This is NOT about the women.

[Trialbyfire]

Have you seen the actual emails or was this discussion? If not, maybe she can forward the emails to you. At least this way, if you choose to confront your ex about them, you'll have a source of information to refer to.

[Hulme]

Yes, I HAVE seen the emails. Thing is, I'm assuming if he's this cavalier about disclosing such private details about me to a stranger, I can only assume he's done it before. I want to be more vague, allude to him writing a friend of mine at some undisclosed time. Mostly to prevent him from putting 2 and 2 together and somehow identifying/ targeting my friend.

[Trialbyfire]

If you want to put restrictions on yourself to protect your friend, I would personally tell him what an arsehole he is and walk away, not allowing him to get a word in edgewise and not explaining why. It will drive him nuts trying to figure out why.

 

As far as preventing him from divulging personal information, you can't control him. He will say whatever he wants to say. Of course there's a legal limit to what he can say about you but only the courts can define the difference between discussion and libel.

[Trialbyfire]

One thing hulme. There's no shame in being assaulted by someone who's bigger and stronger than you. While your logical mind agrees, sometimes it doesn't stop those bad feelings deep, down inside of you.

 

While I've never been raped, I have experienced an attempted rape but was lucky enough to get away before it went too far. What I found helped is to take action against the perp, the following day and even more helpful, was to discuss it with a number of people. The less of a secret it was, the less it had power over me.

[SincereOnlineGuy]

A friend responded to a personal ad. The guy who answered turned out to be my ex/ still occasional FWB! He had all these truly awful, angry things to say about his ex (me), and shared incredibly personal details, such as saying he thought his ex's rape "really messed up her head". In essence, he's exploiting the worst thing that ever happened to me, something I tell almost no one about, so he can get into someone's pants. I can't eat, I can't sleep. I used to love this man. I thought he was my friend. I can't begin to know what to do with this information. Should I confront him? Drop him without explanation? Please help!

 

Whoaaaaaaaaa...

 

I don't think that you're doing a fair and logical job of assessing the big picture here. I understand that this involves your ex BF, and a friend of yours, and the fact that you have been raped in the past.

 

BUT so far you are attempting to blame others for various things when it remains unclear to anyone who reads your posts whether any of the others have been unfair to you. (aside from the rapist, of course, who violated you without question)

 

Any EX of anybodys is perfectly free to write personal ads online or in the paper. Surely we all agree on that.

 

In the event that such an ad is answered by an interested woman, he is free to interact with her, and indeed discuss past relationships, particularly those only recently concluded (so much so that they include FWB).

 

Any friend of yours is perfectly free to answer said personal ads without needing any OK from anybody.

 

At such time as when an anonymous ad-placer is talking/e-mailing with an anonymous ad respondent, it IS perfectly OK for him to make non-identifiable reference to an ex having been raped in the past, ESPECIALLY IF that rape continues to plague her interpersonal relationships to this day.

 

It is one thing if the guy said: "My ex GF was the 3rd victim of the notorious South Hill Rapist at 8:20 pm behind her college dorm"... but quite another if it was entirely anonymous and somewhat vague.

 

SO IF these two interacted anonymously, and THEN came to realize that they already knew one another, and THEN your friend quickly ended the interactions (most certainly because of YOU)... I just don't think that any of the others did anything "exploitative" to you.

 

"Exploitation" is that along the lines of what Rick Salomon (sp?) did to Paris Hilton. This person did not bring up your rape in order to shine a light on you or your identity. As I understand you to be saying it, he mentioned your rape as a tangent to what may indeed have been a root cause to any problems that he encountered in his previous relationship. That is very fair, and actually very common, among humans.

 

The fact that your friend now knows of your long-ago rape is unfortunate in some ways, but in other ways it could be the very BEST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN FOR YOUR FUTURE.

 

NOW THAT SHE KNOWS... you can dare to speak in confidence to her about the subject, and it might start you on the path toward true recovery that just might be the thing that will open-up your future to the great one you want it to be.

 

Perhaps your ex could have done without some of the harshness of his critique, BUT MAYBE he does have some sort of a fair sense of what the rape experience has done to you. No, it was never your fault, but you simply neeeeeeed to put yourself around people in front of whom you feel comfortable unloading about the experience which changed your life. The most difficult hurdle in that tends to be first letting others know what happened.

 

Now that fate has affected you this way, take advantage of it and practice talking to that friend, and then set your goals to see a therapist and gradually become less and less a product of that terrible experience.

 

The good guys out here won't be phased by what happened to you in the past, but it is up to you to be daring enough to get emotionally close enough to find that out for yourself.

 

Rape's greatest consequence tends to be that it keeps victims from daring to continue to take deep emotional risks in front of loved ones. You've been given a chance to take one in front of your friend, so forget the EX and make use of this opportunity to take another step toward healing.

[Hulme]

Posters, please understand I have NO shame about having been raped. I KNOW I did nothing wrong. BUT, it is MY choice who is my life gets to know about it-no one else's. (Hell, most of us feel that way about our salaries!) Like it's anyone else's choice what private information they share about themselves with anyone else. And does my ex technically have a "free speech" pass to say whatever he wants? Sure. That doesn't mean he's not scum to drop my rape into a convo. with someone he thinks is a total stranger, especially to use it as a seduction technique! (His exact words were "that messed up bitch"--still think I'm overreacting?) And I don't think anyone who would do something like that is a fair judge of anything having to do with a healthy relationship. Remember, he also flat out lied about the circumstances of our breakup (implying he was "dumped" by heartless, cheating me) and lied that I was completely out of his life. So please, no rape counseling, I've had better , my outrage is about the violation of privacy here. Sorry, don't think it's my perspective that needs adjusting here. The disgust my friend also feels testifies to that. What I'm asking advice for here, is how to handle the information that a friend--my ex--has betrayed my confidence and is spreading lies about me.

[Hulme]

reminder again--

 

it was the angry, near violent TONE of the email that my friend found as off-putting as the content.

 

and plenty of people in my life know about my rape--the ones I want to know. Sorry sincereonlineguy, but your post REALLY pisses me off--the idea that a rape survivor is best helped by having control taken from her AGAIN? are you kidding me with that?

[Lee725]

Hi Hulme, i am not sure how you are going to be able to put a stop to him.

I have read through all the posts here on your thread and i think quite a few people are definately missing your point.

 

I can not begin to relate to what you have been thru.

Unfortunately short of some sort of legal route (which i am not sure that there is one) i really dont know that there is much you can do.

 

You could confront him, even with the evidence (emails) what is he going to say?

He will only make you feel worse and could even become hateful enough to throw the same comments at you in person and that will give you more pain you already have.

There is nothing he could say that will take your rightful sense of violation back.

There is nothing he can say to change what he has done. There is no apology for this.

 

He is a sick, sick puppy to be using such information in order to gain the attention/affections of a potential mate.

It goes to show that he does not have much of a personality and he has very poor values, if he needs to be using the information you trusted him with, like that. He literally must not have much to offer someone in the way of conversation if he is going to take the path of speaking about you and your pains in life.

 

I struggle to believe that people sink to these low levels, although it probably does happen a lot more than we realize.

It is only through sheer coincidence that your friend answered his personal ad, and you have been given the information by your friend of the verbal exchange that took place between them.

 

I am glad that your friend had the courage to bring it to you, it must have been hard for her too because she probably thought that you might blame her for it or wonder if she said something that made him say it. Good on you for believing in her and not throwing it back at her.

 

The only suggestion that i can give you is to distance yourself away as far as possible from him. (i know that you already have been trying to do this).

 

If you do decide to confront him, try to do it in a letter or something like that. It is an incredibly angry situation he has put you in and i doubt that you (or anyone else in your shoes for that matter), could possibly confront him without screaming/shouting/breaking his stupid neck ..................and as horrible as this sounds as much as he deserves it, if you did it, it will only fuel his statements.

 

You are better than him .....and you know that you are......please dont lower yourself to his level.

 

He is a scum bag who will never know real friends or have a real relationship again because he has nothing to offer except fragments of other peoples lives.

 

I hope you find some closure to this and i hope he gets his comeuppance.

please let us know how things go, and venting here is a great way to let it out.

[Hulme]

Hi Hulme, i am not sure how you are going to be able to put a stop to him.

I have read through all the posts here on your thread and i think quite a few people are definately missing your point.

 

I can not begin to relate to what you have been thru.

Unfortunately short of some sort of legal route (which i am not sure that there is one) i really dont know that there is much you can do.

 

You could confront him, even with the evidence (emails) what is he going to say?

He will only make you feel worse and could even become hateful enough to throw the same comments at you in person and that will give you more pain you already have.

There is nothing he could say that will take your rightful sense of violation back.

There is nothing he can say to change what he has done. There is no apology for this.

 

He is a sick, sick puppy to be using such information in order to gain the attention/affections of a potential mate.

It goes to show that he does not have much of a personality and he has very poor values, if he needs to be using the information you trusted him with, like that. He literally must not have much to offer someone in the way of conversation if he is going to take the path of speaking about you and your pains in life.

 

I struggle to believe that people sink to these low levels, although it probably does happen a lot more than we realize.

It is only through sheer coincidence that your friend answered his personal ad, and you have been given the information by your friend of the verbal exchange that took place between them.

 

I am glad that your friend had the courage to bring it to you, it must have been hard for her too because she probably thought that you might blame her for it or wonder if she said something that made him say it. Good on you for believing in her and not throwing it back at her.

 

The only suggestion that i can give you is to distance yourself away as far as possible from him. (i know that you already have been trying to do this).

 

If you do decide to confront him, try to do it in a letter or something like that. It is an incredibly angry situation he has put you in and i doubt that you (or anyone else in your shoes for that matter), could possibly confront him without screaming/shouting/breaking his stupid neck ..................and as horrible as this sounds as much as he deserves it, if you did it, it will only fuel his statements.

 

You are better than him .....and you know that you are......please dont lower yourself to his level.

 

He is a scum bag who will never know real friends or have a real relationship again because he has nothing to offer except fragments of other peoples lives.

 

I hope you find some closure to this and i hope he gets his comeuppance.

please let us know how things go, and venting here is a great way to let it out.

 

First of all, THANK YOU for understanding EXACTLY what's bothering me. For too many people, the word "rape" is such a red flag that they lose sight of everything else once they see it--hence one of the above poster's assumptions that I must be unable to have perspective on my situation because of it (in other words, I must be a "hysterical" woman). THIS is why rape survivors are selective about who they tell--not because they're ashamed, but because we know OTHERS expect us to be ashamed, fearful, angry, etc. We tell the people who we know will hear us, not judge us (and yes, excessive, dripping sympathy that assumes ongoing trauma IS judging) and still see us as "real" people. Rape is part of me, it is NOT the Alpha and Omega of me. Got it folks?

 

So, having once been raped is not why I am upset.

 

If my ex were involved in a relationship with someone, I could understand how my rape might come up in conversation. That I can understand. That is NOT what happened here. My ex is using my rape--and a lie that I cheated on him and dumped him--as a PICKUP LINE! And that is scummy, no matter how you slice it. What I am experiencing is not a sense of "exploitation", but personal betrayal by a friend. And that is what I am asking for help with. Anyone have any advice on that? Thanks!

[sweetie7]

Wow, that is so horrible!! I'm sorry this is happening to you.

 

Honestly, if I were you I would just give him a call and say, "I'd appreciate it if you don't tell people who are complete strangers to you, or anyone for that matter, private details and lies about me. When I told you things, I told you them in confidentiality and now people who I didn't want to know, know things that are very private and personal to me. Please keep me out of your future dating life. Thanks."

 

If he has any sense at all, this will hit him and he will end up feeling realllly badly. He's probably just trying to get attention by talking about you and had no idea he would be talking to one of your friends. So, hopefully when he realizes it he will feel guilty/horrible and apologize, etc. What he's doing is super sucky and he needs to realize the impact it is having on you.

[SincereOnlineGuy]

my outrage is about the violation of privacy here.

 

 

You are flat out wrong.

 

And "the disgust your friend feels" is the AWKWARDNESS she now has around you, caused by you, for her having learned of your rape this way.

 

You imply that, were some young teen girl to land here at Loveshack.org and post a true story about her own father's ongoing sexual abuses of her, asking sincerely for advice and to draw strength from the words of others... that I or other posters shouldn't speak of people we've known anonymously in this vast internet world, who were also teen victims of ongoing sexual abuses at the hands of their own fathers.

 

You had better believe that we not only have the right, but also the responsibility to do whatever we can to give such a young victim all of the strength our words can offer. Now granted we shouldn't have cause to say that the person we knew of "lived on the south side of Lakeland, near the high school", because it isn't relevant to what this new person needs to hear. But you are flat out WRONG to suggest that your ex-boyfriend is forever sworn to complete silence about your having been raped.

 

You have yet to confirm that his disclosure that way was in anything less than a fully-anonymous-at-the-time setting, and until you do, you are completely wrong.

 

Think about that the next time you inquire about a new beau's sexual or relationship history. Why should some now-single guy suffer a black-eye on his relationship record because you had been a rape victim in your past? You seem to have reached the point where you are firmly in agreement that the rape wasn't your fault, and that's good. But it wasn't your EX b/f's fault either, and he has already had to pay an emotional price for it.

 

"... well why did you break up with your last girlfriend? "

 

"uh, well, it was, uh, she, uhhhh... that isn't any of your business"

 

(that is like having a gap in your work resume which you can't explain)

[SincereOnlineGuy]

he's exploiting the worst thing that ever happened to me,

 

 

What I am experiencing is not a sense of "exploitation", but personal betrayal by a friend.

 

 

Oh how the story keeps changing.

 

 

Now if you really want advice about how to "handle" what the ex-boyfriend does with information you gave him.

 

Say nothing, and do nothing to ever let-on that you are aware that he alluded to your having been raped when engaged in personal-ads communication. If the friend didn't know you'd been raped in the past, then the ex-bf may still allow that she was too proper to bring it up to you.

 

The last thing you want to do in front of the ex-bf, is to arm him with the understanding that you've been hurt yet again. And if you do this in a confrontational manner, he will give you more headache than you can right now fathom.

 

You certainly have no legal recourse, but at the same time the EX-bf has no incentive to really drag your name through the mud ~ unless you offer him some.

 

So in brief, don't respond to his actions one bit.

 

 

I've already gone over, earlier, what gains you can know from this unfortunate disclosure, and of course they're all up to you to realize.

[Hulme]

You are flat out wrong.

 

And "the disgust your friend feels" is the AWKWARDNESS she now has around you, caused by you, for her having learned of your rape this way.

 

You imply that, were some young teen girl to land here at Loveshack.org and post a true story about her own father's ongoing sexual abuses of her, asking sincerely for advice and to draw strength from the words of others... that I or other posters shouldn't speak of people we've known anonymously in this vast internet world, who were also teen victims of ongoing sexual abuses at the hands of their own fathers.

 

You had better believe that we not only have the right, but also the responsibility to do whatever we can to give such a young victim all of the strength our words can offer. Now granted we shouldn't have cause to say that the person we knew of "lived on the south side of Lakeland, near the high school", because it isn't relevant to what this new person needs to hear. But you are flat out WRONG to suggest that your ex-boyfriend is forever sworn to complete silence about your having been raped.

 

You have yet to confirm that his disclosure that way was in anything less than a fully-anonymous-at-the-time setting, and until you do, you are completely wrong.

 

Think about that the next time you inquire about a new beau's sexual or relationship history. Why should some now-single guy suffer a black-eye on his relationship record because you had been a rape victim in your past? You seem to have reached the point where you are firmly in agreement that the rape wasn't your fault, and that's good. But it wasn't your EX b/f's fault either, and he has already had to pay an emotional price for it.

 

"... well why did you break up with your last girlfriend? "

 

"uh, well, it was, uh, she, uhhhh... that isn't any of your business"

 

(that is like having a gap in your work resume which you can't explain)

 

Completely redonkulous. If some young girl asked for advice on how to deal with feelings of being raped, of course I'd expect folks to help. HOWEVER, I am not a young girl, and that is NOT what I asked for advice with. Straw man argument there. So all I was doing was clarifying what advice I was seeking. You made broad assumptions (that I'd never told anyone about my rape, or sought counseling for it, must be completely traumatized and unable to assess things clearly) and ran with them. And you're ignoring the parts of my posts that don't match your theories. My friend NEVER asked why he broke up with me---he volunteered my rape AND the LIE that I cheated on him and dumped him apropos of NOTHING. And he called me a "messed up bitch". Hardly sounds like he was giving an objective perspective or just trying to explain why things didn't work out for us. And it's pretty arrogant/ presumptuous of you to assume you know how my female friend feels. I'm sure she does feel awkward knowing something like this about me. Doesn't mean she doesn't also feel disgust towards my ex. But suppose I should know better than to read any post that invokes Paris Hilton as part of it's argument.