OG Shaka Zulu
Member
My wife and I have been together for 13 years. We met young and had a rocky first few years. We had a major breakup back in 2006 and spent some time apart. Flash forward to today, we have 3 kids and have gotten over our issues and are doing fine.
This week she's told me something that has blindsided me. Back in '06 when we were off, she was out with a classmate and the classmate's group of friends at a bar. Her last memory is talking to this friend then she wakes up the next morning back in her bedroom naked, with a guys watch in her room and an illegible name and phone number scribbled on paper. She calls the number, he says he was drunk as hell and doesn't remember anything. She didn't press charges, she was too traumatized for it, and there was absolutely no recollection of anything between the bar and the next morning. She doesn't remember the guy at all, no recollection of his face, talking to him at the bar, nothing at the dorms, just nothing.
She processed everything by herself, knew there was no way for any answers and eventually blocked things out of her mind and moved on. The reason why this has resurfaced for her relatively recently is because of the Bill Cosby case and Chappelle's Netflix standup, where Dave thought rape was such hilarious material for comedy. Telling me has been on the tip of her tongue but she could not bring herself to say anything. We happened to be discussing another person we know who was raped and my wife's facial expression during the conversation tipped me off that something was not right and she told me everything.
Neither her nor I believe this was a situation where she had a wasted drunken hookup. My wife can hold her liquor, there was nothing remarkable about her consumption that night and she's had other nights where she's drank so much more yet can still remember bits and pieces of the night. I've had one night myself where I've drank so much I should have went to the hospital instead of home but I could remember things the following days. To add, she had absolutely no intentions of meeting anybody new. At that point in her life she was done with hookups and was conflicted with either getting serious with her new man or working things out and getting back with me. We've both concluded separately that she was probably drugged but we'll never know what happened. She said her body did not feel like she was penetrated (maybe he couldn't get it up and abandoned his plans?) but who knows, does that necesarily mean anything? There's no way of knowing what happened.
I understand that it seems strange for a rapist to leave their number behind. The only things I can think of is maybe this guy is just that brazen? Maybe my wife was drugged by a bartender or someone else and this other man took her home not knowing she was drugged? Or maybe this rapist's MO is to fake being wasted, always leaving his number behind, scribbling a gibberish name so that he can always fall back on plausible deniability when his victims call?
I have been very supportive of my wife since she's told me but she's done all the psychological heavy lifting years ago, and there's only so much I can help her with right now. I do not want to bother her too much because this happened to her and not me. Things have been settled in her head for years and I don't want to poke and pry to the point where she revisits things on a loop mentally. I am very upset about this and I am not handling things well, crying almost daily in secret so I won't bother her. I also feel guilty since if I weren't such a lousy partner then, we would have never broken up and would have been together that night. I am taking posters' advice of remaining sober and seeking therapy (i needed therapy before this anyway but this news has me going crazy). We are on vacation with some friends so I won't have access to any help for two weeks, which is why I made the thread.
Posters, please be respectful. My wife and I have worked hard to fix our relationship and have been brutally honest about past problems and indescretions on both our ends in order to get to where we are today. She did not cheat on this occasion nor is this some cheating cover up story, so please be respectful.
This week she's told me something that has blindsided me. Back in '06 when we were off, she was out with a classmate and the classmate's group of friends at a bar. Her last memory is talking to this friend then she wakes up the next morning back in her bedroom naked, with a guys watch in her room and an illegible name and phone number scribbled on paper. She calls the number, he says he was drunk as hell and doesn't remember anything. She didn't press charges, she was too traumatized for it, and there was absolutely no recollection of anything between the bar and the next morning. She doesn't remember the guy at all, no recollection of his face, talking to him at the bar, nothing at the dorms, just nothing.
She processed everything by herself, knew there was no way for any answers and eventually blocked things out of her mind and moved on. The reason why this has resurfaced for her relatively recently is because of the Bill Cosby case and Chappelle's Netflix standup, where Dave thought rape was such hilarious material for comedy. Telling me has been on the tip of her tongue but she could not bring herself to say anything. We happened to be discussing another person we know who was raped and my wife's facial expression during the conversation tipped me off that something was not right and she told me everything.
Neither her nor I believe this was a situation where she had a wasted drunken hookup. My wife can hold her liquor, there was nothing remarkable about her consumption that night and she's had other nights where she's drank so much more yet can still remember bits and pieces of the night. I've had one night myself where I've drank so much I should have went to the hospital instead of home but I could remember things the following days. To add, she had absolutely no intentions of meeting anybody new. At that point in her life she was done with hookups and was conflicted with either getting serious with her new man or working things out and getting back with me. We've both concluded separately that she was probably drugged but we'll never know what happened. She said her body did not feel like she was penetrated (maybe he couldn't get it up and abandoned his plans?) but who knows, does that necesarily mean anything? There's no way of knowing what happened.
I understand that it seems strange for a rapist to leave their number behind. The only things I can think of is maybe this guy is just that brazen? Maybe my wife was drugged by a bartender or someone else and this other man took her home not knowing she was drugged? Or maybe this rapist's MO is to fake being wasted, always leaving his number behind, scribbling a gibberish name so that he can always fall back on plausible deniability when his victims call?
I have been very supportive of my wife since she's told me but she's done all the psychological heavy lifting years ago, and there's only so much I can help her with right now. I do not want to bother her too much because this happened to her and not me. Things have been settled in her head for years and I don't want to poke and pry to the point where she revisits things on a loop mentally. I am very upset about this and I am not handling things well, crying almost daily in secret so I won't bother her. I also feel guilty since if I weren't such a lousy partner then, we would have never broken up and would have been together that night. I am taking posters' advice of remaining sober and seeking therapy (i needed therapy before this anyway but this news has me going crazy). We are on vacation with some friends so I won't have access to any help for two weeks, which is why I made the thread.
Posters, please be respectful. My wife and I have worked hard to fix our relationship and have been brutally honest about past problems and indescretions on both our ends in order to get to where we are today. She did not cheat on this occasion nor is this some cheating cover up story, so please be respectful.