I feel so sick inside

[Hulme]

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.

 

Thanks! Yeah, it just bums me out that he thinks he has drag my name through the mud to get laid. I don't understand why he thinks he has to paint each ex he has as "evil" when he meets a new woman. I know he never had anything nice to say about his exes to me when we were together. I know being friends with me after the breakup was brand new for him; he's never had an ex stay friends with him before. Kind of makes sense now. He going to hospital for a bit, so I won't add to his stress right now. (Yup, that might make me a sucker, but just because he's an arse doesn't mean I have to be.) I will confront him though. No way am I letting this stand. I'm hoping when I do he "gets" why this was harmful. I mean, suppose he'd written to someone besides my friend and they'd wound up dating? Eventually, I'd meet her, because he and I are still friends. How would he explain who I was and why I was still in his life if I were so crazy and awful and had cheated on him? AWKWARD.

[Lee725]

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.

 

This is getting crazy.

How can anyone say that the way Hulme feels is flat out wrong?

Without a proper sit down conversation with a specialist with all parties present how can an assessment be made that she is flat out wrong?

 

I know that people all think differently, and that we will all have different takes on how we would feel if put into any given situation, but i really dont think that it is right that someone be told that they are flat out wrong when in a very upsetting situation as this.

 

SincereOnlineGuy; i do not mean to upset you at all, but unless you know Hulme personally or you are personally attached to this situation how can you be so sure?

I really hope that it has not happened to you to and you may be speaking from experience, that being the case, then i myself may be out of line.

 

I am perhaps wrong in posting this at all as i am sure that you SincereOnlineGuy are a great person who has great advice to give and help to offer.

 

I really dont want to upset anyone, this is not what this site is about, it is about helping each other, But i still stand by the statement that people are missing the points in Hulmes posts.

[Hulme]

This is getting crazy.

How can anyone say that the way Hulme feels is flat out wrong?

Without a proper sit down conversation with a specialist with all parties present how can an assessment be made that she is flat out wrong?

 

I know that people all think differently, and that we will all have different takes on how we would feel if put into any given situation, but i really dont think that it is right that someone be told that they are flat out wrong when in a very upsetting situation as this.

 

SincereOnlineGuy; i do not mean to upset you at all, but unless you know Hulme personally or you are personally attached to this situation how can you be so sure?

I really hope that it has not happened to you to and you may be speaking from experience, that being the case, then i myself may be out of line.

 

I am perhaps wrong in posting this at all as i am sure that you SincereOnlineGuy are a great person who has great advice to give and help to offer.

 

I really dont want to upset anyone, this is not what this site is about, it is about helping each other, But i still stand by the statement that people are missing the points in Hulmes posts.

 

Thank You!!!! And you were nicer about it than I was. (Sorry, but us rape "victims" tend to get pissy fast with others who attempt to define our experience for us because we're obviously such delicate fleurs we can't do it ourselves ) I appreciate your input and level-headedness. I think the issue is what I mentioned earlier--people hear the word "rape" and develop tunnel vision. They have no idea how to deal with it. (Funny how many people don't even notice that he also lied about me cheating on him and dumping him--kind of proves my "tunnel vision" point). The cheating thing bothers the hell out of me too. Never even looked at another man while I was with him, and HE broke up with ME. I don't get why he thinks he has to make up stories. Maybe it makes me a dope, but I really want to confront him for his sake as well as mine. Easiest thing for me to walk away--I know that none of his other exes are friends with him. But I really want NOT to let him off that easy--he should clean up this mess and figure out how to make things right with somebody you've done wrong. Might shake him up out of that black and white world he lives in where his current girlfriend is always some idealized angel but all his exes are evil shrews. Plus, with a couple of days thought under my belt, I've realized I'm tough enough to weather this and still invested enough in the friendship to want him to make it right.

[SincereOnlineGuy]

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.

 

 

Lets say your exact verbal twin, who graduated from your rival high school and is now whatever age you are, comes onto this very board speaking of having once confided to a now-EX bf about having been raped. Lets then imagine that she is asking for input from others about whether she has been violated by that EX-bf upon his having spoken, anonymously, and in the context of his recent relationship, about her having been raped.

 

Do we or do we not have the ethical right to cite anonymously your nearly exact same situation in our efforts to help HER?

 

Exactly when did I make any assumptions about your not having told anyone about your rape, (or wait, maybe the ex-BF was typing your first entry here - that must be it) or about your not having ever had any counseling for it, or that you must be ("completely") traumatized by it??

 

(you seem to have *told* others here, online, anonymously about your rape, and now write as if it doesn't count as really *telling* anyone, and yet you contend that your EX-bf actually *told* someone, even though by your own admission all he did was state anonymously, and online, that his EX-gf had been raped, and it "really messed up her head")

 

C'mon lady, our words are clearly written earlier in this thread. Quit making things up. I'm not making-up the FACT that you began by saying you'd been "exploited" and then did a 180-degree about-face and said that you had not been "exploited". Now which is it going to be?

 

It doesn't matter what your friend "asked" of your EX-bf - this isn't a court of law and your friend probably isn't a lawyer.

 

Nowthen, as clearly as I can write... victims of rape, understandably, have loooooooooooots of unfathomable issues of trust and altered boundaries of personal violation and many other elements of which I cannot even imagine as I type right now.

 

Victims of rape tend to attract just the sorts of repeat-victimizers as dates and mates that they have been conditioned to be drawn to, in no small part by those past experiences.

 

So, the rest of us here are imagining just the sort of a guy that you probably list as an EX-bf, and we are thankful that this small indiscretion appears to be his greatest crime. We are NOT willing to socially persecute him given the "reasonable doubt" that anyone reading would have about whether his intent in outing your rape info wasn't both anonymous and non-malicious.

 

We have every reason to believe that things which would not affect the purely random woman of your age and in your town, are affecting you more personally because you have been victimized in the past. We reconize that as being misfortunate. However, you are not allowing for that to be the possible difference between what has hurt you so much, and what I am observing with impartiality.

 

True it is also unfortunate that your friend had to find out about your rape in this way, but it is simply wrong of you to land here and state that you were "exploited" by the EX-boyfriend.

 

I suggest that you drop the issue (with the BF, I mean, because I really don't care how long we volley it back and forth here) before your ability to make more trauma for yourself than the rest of us could make with the same exact ingredients, causes even more pain.

 

To wrap this up (er, to wrap up my post, at least) lets go back to your original post:

 

I can't begin to know what to do with this information. Should I confront him? Drop him without explanation? Please help!

 

No, you should not confront him on this topic ever. It will only serve to arm him with the understanding that he can hurt you more deeply.

 

 

The really good guys are out there, I promise you, and I will accept that those good guys are not as easily recognized by some, as by others.

[Hulme]

Exactly when did I make any assumptions about your not having told anyone about your rape, (or wait, maybe the ex-BF was typing your first entry here - that must be it) or about your not having ever had any counseling for it, or that you must be ("completely") traumatized by it??

 

(you seem to have *told* others here, online, anonymously about your rape, and now write as if it doesn't count as really *telling* anyone, and yet you contend that your EX-bf actually *told* someone, even though by your own admission all he did was state anonymously, and online, that his EX-gf had been raped, and it "really messed up her head")

 

C'mon lady, our words are clearly written earlier in this thread. Quit making things up. I'm not making-up the FACT that you began by saying you'd been "exploited" and then did a 180-degree about-face and said that you had not been "exploited". Now which is it going to be?

 

It doesn't matter what your friend "asked" of your EX-bf - this isn't a court of law and your friend probably isn't a lawyer.

 

Nowthen, as clearly as I can write... victims of rape, understandably, have loooooooooooots of unfathomable issues of trust and altered boundaries of personal violation and many other elements of which I cannot even imagine as I type right now.

 

Victims of rape tend to attract just the sorts of repeat-victimizers as dates and mates that they have been conditioned to be drawn to, in no small part by those past experiences.

 

So, the rest of us here are imagining just the sort of a guy that you probably list as an EX-bf, and we are thankful that this small indiscretion appears to be his greatest crime. We are NOT willing to socially persecute him given the "reasonable doubt" that anyone reading would have about whether his intent in outing your rape info wasn't both anonymous and non-malicious.

 

We have every reason to believe that things which would not affect the purely random woman of your age and in your town, are affecting you more personally because you have been victimized in the past. We reconize that as being misfortunate. However, you are not allowing for that to be the possible difference between what has hurt you so much, and what I am observing with impartiality.

 

True it is also unfortunate that your friend had to find out about your rape in this way, but it is simply wrong of you to land here and state that you were "exploited" by the EX-boyfriend.

 

I suggest that you drop the issue (with the BF, I mean, because I really don't care how long we volley it back and forth here) before your ability to make more trauma for yourself than the rest of us could make with the same exact ingredients, causes even more pain.

 

To wrap this up (er, to wrap up my post, at least) lets go back to your original post:

 

 

 

No, you should not confront him on this topic ever. It will only serve to arm him with the understanding that he can hurt you more deeply.

 

 

The really good guys are out there, I promise you, and I will accept that those good guys are not as easily recognized by some, as by others.

 

Okay, can you try one answer that doesn't involve some bizarre, unneccessarily convoluted hypothetical? They're boring and manipulative.

 

And yes, you did assume I'd never done anything about having been raped--12 years ago--when you suggested that I might now "dare to speak in confidence to [my friend] 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."

 

Additionally you write: "victims of rape, understandably, have loooooooooooots of unfathomable issues of trust and altered boundaries of personal violation and many other elements of which I cannot even imagine as I type right now.

 

Victims of rape tend to attract just the sorts of repeat-victimizers as dates and mates that they have been conditioned to be drawn to, in no small part by those past experiences." As a generality, this can sometimes be true. But that 's the problem, you've assumed I fit this generality and won't hear otherwise.

 

And THERE we have it. YOU are only able to categorize me as "victim", ergo you will not consider any other perspective. And once again you ignore the great big whopper my ex told my friend--in his FIRST response email-- (That I cheated on and dumped him) and additional info (he has nothing but nasty things to say about any of his exes) because it doesn't fit your preconceived theory of who I am. In any event, your continued ignoring of those facts proves my assertion that the word "rape" gives people tunnel vision, so I guess I should thank you for that In other words, you beg off of "guessing" what else my ex has done if it makes you so "uncomfortable"--even though you don't HAVE to guess, cause I'm telling outright--but you'll make guesses and assumptions about my motivations and psychology at will.

 

And yes, my ex telling some stranger about my rape AND the lie that I cheated on him to "get some" (I don't judge my friend, but it was a NSA sex type personal she answered) is categorically worse than me telling you folks. If you can't see that, God help you. And I don't feel "exploited", but he is "exploiting" (using for his own gain) this information-- to get laid. If he were on this board asking for help dealing with feelings about his ex-girlfriend having been raped, that would be okay. If were talking to a close friend for the same reason, that would be okay. If he were talking to an actual girlfriend about it to explain perspective he'd gained in relationships, that would be okay. Talking up some chick to get laid--NOT okay. There is a line. And I think it's more than reasonable for me to draw the damn line right there.

 

Additionally, only one other poster tried the "rape counseling" approach. And she respected me when I asked people to stop. If you read others' posts since then, you'll notice you're the only one who still doesnt "get" it.

 

Now, despite my anger, I am writing this next statement with nothing but the intention of getting you to understand how you REALLY comfort a rape survivor, should the opportunity arise: You LISTEN to her. You let HER tell you what the experience means to her and what it's done to her. You don't tell her she's too close to the situation to see it clearly. You don't indulge in armchair psychoanalysis (I don't dare do that in my volunteer work at a rape crisis center, and I have an MSW). You let HER call all the shots about what happens next. But mostly, and this point is worth repeating ad nauseum-- you shut up and LISTEN.

 

And if you've read my later posts, you'll realize that hell yes, I'm confronting him. Reasons are in the posts if you care to read them.

[Lee725]

Thank You!!!! And you were nicer about it than I was. (Sorry, but us rape "victims" tend to get pissy fast with others who attempt to define our experience for us because we're obviously such delicate fleurs we can't do it ourselves ) I appreciate your input and level-headedness. I think the issue is what I mentioned earlier--people hear the word "rape" and develop tunnel vision. They have no idea how to deal with it. (Funny how many people don't even notice that he also lied about me cheating on him and dumping him--kind of proves my "tunnel vision" point). The cheating thing bothers the hell out of me too. Never even looked at another man while I was with him, and HE broke up with ME. I don't get why he thinks he has to make up stories. Maybe it makes me a dope, but I really want to confront him for his sake as well as mine. Easiest thing for me to walk away--I know that none of his other exes are friends with him. But I really want NOT to let him off that easy--he should clean up this mess and figure out how to make things right with somebody you've done wrong. Might shake him up out of that black and white world he lives in where his current girlfriend is always some idealized angel but all his exes are evil shrews. Plus, with a couple of days thought under my belt, I've realized I'm tough enough to weather this and still invested enough in the friendship to want him to make it right.

 

Hulme, I hope that this does not come out wrong, but i have been following your thread and unfortunately it has become terribly clear that you may not get the input from varied members that you need because this thread has become overwhelmed with long posts that people are not going to read because toward the end to new people looking at the posts, it does appear that the thread context has changed.

 

I think that mayb if you might start a new one and as an experiment. (gosh i hope this comes out right ), change the wording slightly, mayb about what he has done (i am not sure how because as you have said this is your story to tell)... using your information for dating purposes, cheating on you, lying to you, you might be able to find some words which will be able to get you some useful advise without the tunnel vision which has been happening.

 

I am in NO WAY trying to detract from what has happened to you.

I hope that you can see from my previous posts that i really do care that you do get good advice because your situation certainly needs it.

 

I know that there isnt really another way to describe exactly what has happened with him, in regards to the information about you, But mayb with a new thread different views will come.

 

I would also like to add; another poster has made the point that you have come out on here with what has happened to you, therefore you must not care about it being kept confidential..... that is a load of you know what.

 

I would just like to say that you can write about what has happened to you on here untill "the cows come home", if you like, because it does not matter how many posts you make YOUR REAL NAME will never be revealed unless you want it to.

 

You will always be annonymous on here, so in some ways it is better to vent here about certain things than to "Real" people in our eveyday lives.

 

Some things of course need professional assistance in real life (GOSH... not going down that path )

 

Vent here untill your heart is content. Even If no-one else does i will read it and offer you as much help as my little brain can spare. LOL

[Hulme]

Hulme, I hope that this does not come out wrong, but i have been following your thread and unfortunately it has become terribly clear that you may not get the input from varied members that you need because this thread has become overwhelmed with long posts that people are not going to read because toward the end to new people looking at the posts, it does appear that the thread context has changed.

 

I think that mayb if you might start a new one and as an experiment. (gosh i hope this comes out right ), change the wording slightly, mayb about what he has done (i am not sure how because as you have said this is your story to tell)... using your information for dating purposes, cheating on you, lying to you, you might be able to find some words which will be able to get you some useful advise without the tunnel vision which has been happening.

 

I am in NO WAY trying to detract from what has happened to you.

I hope that you can see from my previous posts that i really do care that you do get good advice because your situation certainly needs it.

 

I know that there isnt really another way to describe exactly what has happened with him, in regards to the information about you, But mayb with a new thread different views will come.

 

I would also like to add; another poster has made the point that you have come out on here with what has happened to you, therefore you must not care about it being kept confidential..... that is a load of you know what.

 

I would just like to say that you can write about what has happened to you on here untill "the cows come home", if you like, because it does not matter how many posts you make YOUR REAL NAME will never be revealed unless you want it to.

 

You will always be annonymous on here, so in some ways it is better to vent here about certain things than to "Real" people in our eveyday lives.

 

Some things of course need professional assistance in real life (GOSH... not going down that path )

 

Vent here untill your heart is content. Even If no-one else does i will read it and offer you as much help as my little brain can spare. LOL

 

Thank you so much!!! You've been lovely. I appreciate how much you "get" it. And your criticism about the off-track and long posts is quite valid. Afraid I got caught up, particularly in the worry that a certain poster might one day accidentally wind up being the first person a rape survivor turns to, and how awful it would be for her to suffer such poor listening and get such misguided advice. So I just won't answer that poster anymore--perhaps getting the last word will be enough to satisfy him.

 

And maybe I'm crazy, but although I no longer see a future with this man with me, I DO want him to be happy. He says he wants a happy marriage and children someday, but his current poisonous attitudes towards women make that unlikely. Perhaps he thought the anonymous nature of his ad meant it was a "no-harm, no-foul". I sincerely hope so. Maybe he does just need a reality check on that. But, I've had a couple of days to go from hurt and bewildered to angry. And he's going to hear about it. It will be a nice AFGO for him (Another F_____Growth Opportunity).

[Trimmer]

First of all, this isn't about your rape. I respect your experience, but this element of your experience - while it's an example of a piece of information he used and twisted - is pretty clearly not the foundation or the focal point of your issue. Edit the rape issue completely out of this thread, and it all still reads the same - your feelings of betrayal and aggravation are still there, the issue still stands.

 

I'll admit, my first inclination was to not be very sympathetic to your point, as I had (at first) thought he was an ex that you were over and done with, moved on, etc... And my thought was, well, our exes are always going to twist their version of "our" story, and we have no control over them, no obligation to them, and really, we can expect no obligation from them. We're done.

 

We always take risks by sharing information with a partner during a relationship, by opening ourselves emotionally, by making ourselves vulnerable, but once he or she is "an ex" we're all on our own, and he or she is out there somewhere still carrying whatever part of us that we gave them. It may suck that he's done what he's done, but what leverage do you have over each other? And so on...

 

But then I saw this, and I must have missed this implication in your earlier posts: (and I'll admit I'm too lazy to go back and check now )

But I really want NOT to let him off that easy--he should clean up this mess and figure out how to make things right with somebody you've done wrong..... Plus, with a couple of days thought under my belt, I've realized I'm tough enough to weather this and still invested enough in the friendship to want him to make it right.

... and so it seems that you still consider him a friend (and I assume that you perceive that he believes the same.) And in consideration of that, my feeling is that, as friends, you do have some expectation of each other that you would not betray trusts, distort retellings of shared experiences for personal gain outside your friendship, etc. Friends watch each other's backs, and don't talk shiat about each other.

 

So I think it's fair for you to bring it up with him, if you want to continue being friends, because what he did is not how friends behave.

 

But realize that there are essentially two possible outcomes: (1) He sees the error of his ways and "makes things right" somehow to your satisfaction, and you move forward together on a path of being healthy "friends", or (2) he doesn't meet those goals. And if it turns out to be the latter, since you don't - and can't - control him, the only option that really is under your control is to jettison the friendship, which is what you do when you learn that a friend is a jerk beyond rehabilitation.

 

Might shake him up out of that black and white world he lives in where his current girlfriend is always some idealized angel but all his exes are evil shrews.

And I wonder how optimistic you are that this "shakeup" is possible... In the end, I wonder if this might this become the final piece you will need to bring your view of him fully into focus, and to understand that it's not worth being his friend after all? (I'm not stating a specific opinion that he's not worth it at this point, but one possible outcome of all this is that he will continue to fail to meet your expectations, and that this will become clear to you as time goes on...)

 

Incidentally, why bother being secretive about how you found out this information? If he sees the error of his ways, then he will certainly be chagrined, maybe will change for the better, and it shouldn't matter where you learned it. Hey, girlfriends are girlfriends, and she was clearly in your court there; that shouldn't be any surprise to a thinking person. Frankly, it's hard to imagine that he won't put it together somehow anyway.

 

On the other hand, if he "stays a jerk", and you end up dropping him as a friend, I would hope your girlfriend would continue to be a "real friend" and line up on your side anyway, so who cares if he knows that she came to you with it?

 

"Dude, that girl you were Emailing from your personal ad last week was Margie, and that was really lame, the stuff you said about me. We may not be a couple any more, but friends don't do that to each other. What's going on there?"

 

And then keep your eyes open and see what kind of guy he really is.

[Hulme]

Bingo with the above post! Yes, I consider this man a friend and thought he felt the same. We hang out, talk, go to movies, go hiking etc. Sometimes things get physical (when we're both single and in the right mood/ space), but mostly we're just friends. And as you say, friends don't do this stuff to each other. Time stamp on the emails shows he sent them 2 HOURS before he and I had dinner and spent the night together! Like you said, this friendship may not be worth saving. But I'll never know unless I try.

[SincereOnlineGuy]

Okay, can you try one answer that doesn't involve some bizarre, unneccessarily convoluted hypothetical? They're boring and manipulative.

 

And yes, you did assume I'd never done anything about having been raped--12 years ago--when you suggested that I might now "dare to speak in confidence to [my friend] 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."

 

Additionally you write: "victims of rape, understandably, have loooooooooooots of unfathomable issues of trust and altered boundaries of personal violation and many other elements of which I cannot even imagine as I type right now.

 

Victims of rape tend to attract just the sorts of repeat-victimizers as dates and mates that they have been conditioned to be drawn to, in no small part by those past experiences." As a generality, this can sometimes be true. But that 's the problem, you've assumed I fit this generality and won't hear otherwise.

 

And THERE we have it. YOU are only able to categorize me as "victim", ergo you will not consider any other perspective. And once again you ignore the great big whopper my ex told my friend--in his FIRST response email-- (That I cheated on and dumped him) and additional info (he has nothing but nasty things to say about any of his exes) because it doesn't fit your preconceived theory of who I am. In any event, your continued ignoring of those facts proves my assertion that the word "rape" gives people tunnel vision, so I guess I should thank you for that In other words, you beg off of "guessing" what else my ex has done if it makes you so "uncomfortable"--even though you don't HAVE to guess, cause I'm telling outright--but you'll make guesses and assumptions about my motivations and psychology at will.

 

And yes, my ex telling some stranger about my rape AND the lie that I cheated on him to "get some" (I don't judge my friend, but it was a NSA sex type personal she answered) is categorically worse than me telling you folks. If you can't see that, God help you. And I don't feel "exploited", but he is "exploiting" (using for his own gain) this information-- to get laid. If he were on this board asking for help dealing with feelings about his ex-girlfriend having been raped, that would be okay. If were talking to a close friend for the same reason, that would be okay. If he were talking to an actual girlfriend about it to explain perspective he'd gained in relationships, that would be okay. Talking up some chick to get laid--NOT okay. There is a line. And I think it's more than reasonable for me to draw the damn line right there.

 

Additionally, only one other poster tried the "rape counseling" approach. And she respected me when I asked people to stop. If you read others' posts since then, you'll notice you're the only one who still doesnt "get" it.

 

Now, despite my anger, I am writing this next statement with nothing but the intention of getting you to understand how you REALLY comfort a rape survivor, should the opportunity arise: You LISTEN to her. You let HER tell you what the experience means to her and what it's done to her. You don't tell her she's too close to the situation to see it clearly. You don't indulge in armchair psychoanalysis (I don't dare do that in my volunteer work at a rape crisis center, and I have an MSW). You let HER call all the shots about what happens next. But mostly, and this point is worth repeating ad nauseum-- you shut up and LISTEN.

 

And if you've read my later posts, you'll realize that hell yes, I'm confronting him. Reasons are in the posts if you care to read them.

 

 

Lady, you plainly, and clearly have not taken any significant steps toward recovering from having been victimized, in the past, by someone who is not your recent ex-boyfriend.

 

Of course you have no perspective to assure us that you are not "really messed-up" as the result of the rape, despite your claims to the contrary.

 

The references to who cheated, and to who dumped whom, are not relevant to the whole subject. They are merely the drama and the trauma which you perceive to surround you every day, and yet that same drama is imperceptible to those who share your life space, because they do not share the same past.

 

There simply can not be anyone within the arena of these words who can fathom a man expecting results that equate to easy sex with desirable women for simply bringing up his ex girlfriend's rape in the way of gaining an open invitation to same. Who else is buying into that as your ex boyfriend's motive for making mention of your rape, anonymously, on the internet?

 

Next, you are the one "assuming" when you pretend that anyone is here to "comfort a rape survivor" or to "let her tell what the experience means to her or what it has done to her". Nor are we here to "let you call all the shots". Where on earth do you get off making such assumptions?

 

Had you done so little as to read the little blurb at the bottom of this website, you'd have found the following:

 

"The suggestions and advice offered on this web site are opinions only and are not to be used in the place of professional psychological counseling"

 

 

It stands to reason that you will confront your ex-boyfriend, and that he in time will make you very sorry that you ever made such an ill-conceived decision. Most of what has recently surfaced to further complicate your life in this area has been of your own creation. For it is the drama which you now simply must bring with you wherever you go that continues to fuel such poor decisions.

 

The rest of us out here just do not have that drama, and the really bad guys can recognize it from a mile away.

 

Surely at your rape crisis center, people have come to the realization that rape is NOT the purely random occurrence that women like to pretend it is.

 

Instead there is an extremely high rate of repeat victimization, so much so that identical twins, dressed exactly the same, could be walking down opposite sides of the same street late at night, and the rapist would find the previously victimized sister far more than the purely random 50% of the time.

 

It is the self-created atmosphere which surrounds her, but not her genetic twin sister, that the rapist recognizes in a snap. Your every irrational statement, decision, and response are things which comprise that self-created atmosphere.

 

And no, the rest of us cannot relate to it, we just turn around and race away from that sort of drama, and we always will.

[Trimmer]

Of course you have no perspective to assure us...

 

There simply can not be anyone within the arena of these words who can fathom...

 

Who else is buying into that...

 

The rest of us out here....

 

And no, the rest of us cannot relate to it...

Please don't presume to speak for 'the rest of us.' You don't speak for me.

 

In your own words: Where on earth do you get off making such assumptions?

[Hulme]

Please don't presume to speak for 'the rest of us.' You don't speak for me.

 

In your own words: Where on earth do you get off making such assumptions?

 

No worries. Like I've said, I'm not not gonna answer him anymore. Think letting him have the last word might satisfy him. Besides, he's showing his own true icky colors now that he's venturing into blaming rape survivors-- "rape is NOT the purely random occurrence that women like to pretend it is". As they say in neighborhood I grew up in: "You done showed your ass now." (Never play cards with a man called Doc, never trust a guy who calls himself "sincere" ) Thanks tho!

 

In any event, kind of glad ex is going into hospital for a few days. Gives me a chance to think about exactly how I want to say this to him. (Cause I'm not doing it while he's on his sick bed--gonna make the hospital visits a little awkward tho! lol.). Gotten a couple of "script" suggestions from folks. Anyone else care to offer any?

[starlite]

sincereonlineguy- You are obnoxious and rude...if this post was titled "I got raped and am feeling messed up" then maybe you could be responding (even though I dont think a man will ever 'get it'...unless this man has in fact been raped.

 

Hulme- What your ex is doing is awful...if i were you, i would email or call him telling him to cut it out! Especially since you two were on good terms. He is using you to get sympathy from other girls (although he just sounds like he has lots of baggage).

 

Cut this guy outta your life. You cant guarentee he will stop spreading your story, but at least he wont have new ones.

[jcster]

Bingo with the above post! Yes, I consider this man a friend and thought he felt the same. We hang out, talk, go to movies, go hiking etc. Sometimes things get physical (when we're both single and in the right mood/ space), but mostly we're just friends. And as you say, friends don't do this stuff to each other. Time stamp on the emails shows he sent them 2 HOURS before he and I had dinner and spent the night together! Like you said, this friendship may not be worth saving. But I'll never know unless I try.

 

My question is...why? Why try? This guy sounds like a huge jerk. He's enjoyed your company and the FWB relationship that you had, and then turned around and talked major trash about you to get laid. Why would you waste any more time on him? You've heard what he really thinks...why would you ever put yourself back in that position again?

[Hulme]

My question is...why? Why try? This guy sounds like a huge jerk. He's enjoyed your company and the FWB relationship that you had, and then turned around and talked major trash about you to get laid. Why would you waste any more time on him? You've heard what he really thinks...why would you ever put yourself back in that position again?

 

Cause even if the friendship isn't salvageable, I need to ask "why". Even if there is no good answer. And I need him to know I know. It'll make me feel better, no matter what the outcome.

[Hulme]

Okay, so I thought it might help if I posted some of the text from his email to my friend to provide context. Background: my female friend was responding to a NSA sex personal ad that implied the poster had been cheated on and was looking to have some fun with someone in the same situation. She was in that same situation (her husband had just left her for another woman), and so replied something like "What's your story with your ex?" He wrote back:

 

"That messed up bitch made comfort her about her rape while the whole time she was still seeing her ex and lying to me about it. And she lied about the rape and didn't even tell me about it until we'd been together four months. Then she dumped me. You name it, she did it. Totally F'd up in the head." (I've edited out ONLY the details that identify him or me)

 

Well, I never "made" him comfort me about the rape, and I don't consider waiting until I knew him well enough to be comfortable telling him about the rape "lying". Furthermore, I NEVER cheated on him, and he broke up with me. And we've been friends--and sometimes more--since the day we broke up. I can't help but think he told this lie thinking it was an "angle" he could work with some woman angry at her cheating partner to get some easy sex. But honestly, I don't know WHY he would think this was a good approach for meeting women. And I don't know why he would divulge personal info about me and lie.

 

My most generous interpretation is that he assumed it was an anonymous "no-harm, no-foul" where I'd never find out about his lie, and never get hurt by it. My least generous is that he has a lot of anger at me that's he's never told me about, and this is how he "avenges" that anger without having to work things out with me directly. I know all the arguments for just dropping this guy out of my life without a word, but I still plan to confront him on things (once his medical crisis is past). As I've said, I need to ask "why", even if there's no good answer, and I need him to know I know. It will just make me feel better, no matter what the outcome. Any thoughts appreciated.

[Lunar Sonata]

I'm sorry it hurts. He's your ex for a reason.

 

Yes he's allowed to say anything he wants about his ex but not anything about [insert your legal name here].

 

No I don't condone what he's doing but you know what? His opinions are valid because they're his opinions. If he thinks your tragedy makes you messed up, he has every right to say that about his ex and not about [insert your legal name here].

 

He's an utter schmuck. Just be glad you found out how much more of a schmuck he is. You're now better prepared for next time (if you choose to be a next time).

 

Also I hope you can be certain that this guy is your ex because that would really suck if it's just coincidental. Wait, no. Any guy that does that kind of crap is bad news anyway.

[serial muse]

OK, I have to say I wasn't even going to write in to this thread because I didn't know if I could help in a way that others weren't, but then I read sincereonlineguy's posts and I had to respond. Let me assure you that SOG does NOT speak for all of us.

 

Dude. You wrote this:

 

Do we or do we not have the ethical right to cite anonymously your nearly exact same situation in our efforts to help HER?

 

which - wow. I realize that you think you have a point to make, and God knows you're sticking to it, but how can you have failed to acknowledge two key things?

 

1. He did not try to "cite her situation" as a way to explain why his last relationship failed to a new potential partner; he called her a "messed-up bitch".

 

There's just no way you can make that into something reasonable on his part. Even if they weren't "friends" anymore, it would be pretty indicative of the kind of person he is, for a start. That's not about her feeling victimized or needing to take steps. It's about him. Maybe he said it because he couldn't handle the fact that she was victimized, and this is how he's dealing with it. Maybe he said it (as it looks from the email Hulme posted) because it's a pretty effective tool to get someone into bed, and he didn't think she'd ever know about it. But it's a *****ty thing to say, NO MATTER WHAT. I'm angry on her behalf, and I've never been raped. Your argument just doesn't fit in this context.

 

2. He said she cheated and broke up with him, which she didn't. Um. Flat-out lie. Not sure how that's supposed to give a potential partner insight into his history of relationships, if it didn't happen. He was using her story on a web site for people who'd been cheated on, to take in another woman who'd already been taken in by a cheater, all in the hopes that he'd get some. Ew.

 

Seriously, SOG, it's not worth getting so invested in one's argument that one overlooks the most salient facts. Maybe you are trying to help, in your way, but it's hard to see how it's helpful to gloss over these points, which give insight into his mind. The guy did a crappy thing, and she's hurt about it because she trusted him. Rape (sorry Hulme, but I think you'll know what I mean) is kind of a red herring here. The point is, he lied about her and revealed stuff that's pretty darn personal to a stranger, and ANY friend would feel betrayed by that, whether an ex, a rape victim, or someone who just prefers that no one else knows they like to wear ladies' underwear and dance in the moonlight. It was told in confidence, and that makes him a big fat a$$ for selling her out.

 

My question to you, Hulme, is why you think this clearly toxic person is worth having as a friend??? I don't really see how this could be the first time he's done something so blatantly obnoxious; that's a character trait, not an aberration. Are there other indications that he's a cold, callous a$$? Because he sure sounds like one.

 

I know you've said you want to salvage a friendship; I'm just not sure what's in it for you. He's not a supportive friend, he's not a loving friend, he's not a reliable friend. What does he bring to the table?

 

I do think you should call him on it, once and for all - and then dump him as a friend. sweetie7 suggested this in her earlier post:

 

"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"

 

Short and sweet. I know you want to give him a chance to explain himself - I think you're right that it was either a "no harm, no foul" assumption, or that he has buried anger and is working it out indirectly in a way he thinks you'll never know about. You can ask him for an explanation, and he'll likely give you one of these.

 

But what then? Is either really forgiveable? Because you're right, it's highly unlikely this is the first time. He's not a nice guy; he's taking cheap shots at you either for personal gain or because he's too chicken***** to tell you to your face. I guess I'm wondering what, really, could he say to make this okay?

 

I don't blame you one bit for wanting him to tell you why. I just don't think there's much point in being friends with someone like this, someone who you know you could never really trust.

[Hulme]

OK, I have to say I wasn't even going to write in to this thread because I didn't know if I could help in a way that others weren't, but then I read sincereonlineguy's posts and I had to respond. Let me assure you that SOG does NOT speak for all of us.

 

Dude. You wrote this:

 

 

 

which - wow. I realize that you think you have a point to make, and God knows you're sticking to it, but how can you have failed to acknowledge two key things?

 

1. He did not try to "cite her situation" as a way to explain why his last relationship failed to a new potential partner; he called her a "messed-up bitch".

 

There's just no way you can make that into something reasonable on his part. Even if they weren't "friends" anymore, it would be pretty indicative of the kind of person he is, for a start. That's not about her feeling victimized or needing to take steps. It's about him. Maybe he said it because he couldn't handle the fact that she was victimized, and this is how he's dealing with it. Maybe he said it (as it looks from the email Hulme posted) because it's a pretty effective tool to get someone into bed, and he didn't think she'd ever know about it. But it's a *****ty thing to say, NO MATTER WHAT. I'm angry on her behalf, and I've never been raped. Your argument just doesn't fit in this context.

 

2. He said she cheated and broke up with him, which she didn't. Um. Flat-out lie. Not sure how that's supposed to give a potential partner insight into his history of relationships, if it didn't happen. He was using her story on a web site for people who'd been cheated on, to take in another woman who'd already been taken in by a cheater, all in the hopes that he'd get some. Ew.

 

Seriously, SOG, it's not worth getting so invested in one's argument that one overlooks the most salient facts. Maybe you are trying to help, in your way, but it's hard to see how it's helpful to gloss over these points, which give insight into his mind. The guy did a crappy thing, and she's hurt about it because she trusted him. Rape (sorry Hulme, but I think you'll know what I mean) is kind of a red herring here. The point is, he lied about her and revealed stuff that's pretty darn personal to a stranger, and ANY friend would feel betrayed by that, whether an ex, a rape victim, or someone who just prefers that no one else knows they like to wear ladies' underwear and dance in the moonlight. It was told in confidence, and that makes him a big fat a$$ for selling her out.

 

My question to you, Hulme, is why you think this clearly toxic person is worth having as a friend??? I don't really see how this could be the first time he's done something so blatantly obnoxious; that's a character trait, not an aberration. Are there other indications that he's a cold, callous a$$? Because he sure sounds like one.

 

 

Trust me, I know what you mean about rape being a "red herring". You could substitute any other private information about an ex (a parent's death, a bout with cancer, what have you) and have him claim it "messed that ex up in the head" and it's still a scummy, cheap shot thing to do. Rape just happens to be the secret he has about me. So no worries there. You recognizing that rape is just the metaissue, and not the issue, shows you "get" it.

 

And yeah, the friendship may not be salvageable. It's just such a surreal thing to try and wrap my head around the sweet, funny guy I know in "real life", the same guy who was there for me through the death of a friend, who loves kids and animals, etc. and the writer of that email being the same person (although I know for sure they are). I'm still going to confront him tho, because I need to ask him what he could have possibly been thinking in his tiny little brain that makes this okay.

[Lee725]

Hi Hulme, I just wanted to check in and see how you are doing.

I am really glad that you are getting more replies now that could be helpful to you.

 

How are you feeling today?

I hope that you are feeling a little better.

 

Take care, Lee725

[Hulme]

I'm lovely Lee725, thank you.

 

Strange little development. Ex asked me for the names of good mental health professionals (since I'm in the field). Says he's realized he has some "things" to work out, but wouldn't be specific. (My unspoken response to this realization of his---"Ya think!?!?!?!" ) As I'm still holding off confronting him until after surgery, I haven't brought my issue up with him just yet. When I do, I will certainly update. Thank you!