husband's denial??
This happened a while back but stills bothers me. I love my husband and I know he loves me too but this is what happened: We were sitting alone talking about some of the bad stuff of our childhood. I told him about the fact that I was raped, badly beaten and left for dead at the age of 7 by a 13 year old boy. My husband got this look of disgust on his face and I thought he was about to say what a horrible boy that must have been but instead he said that if he had known this he would never had married me. I was shaken down to my very soul, left the house, went to a coffee shop and stayed there for a good two hours till they closed. I felt like driving the car into a pole but didn't think I deserved that. When I came back, he was asleep. The next morning, he acted like nothing happened. I didn't say a word and acted like it never happened too. BUT when he watches documentaries about rape victims, he's full of compassion for them. His own sister was once raped and he was very compassionate toward her situation. I'm afraid to even ask him why he treated me like that. I don't know. I can't throw away almost 20 years of marriage over this but he really cut me to the quik. At that moment, I honestly felt like I needed to lunge at him and beat him to a pulp.
His head and brain reminded me of a dead log. I wanted to chop him up, find use for him at that moment. We're both aspie.
That's incredible that he actually said that. I too had a brief but gratifying image of the man being chopped with an ax when I read that line. I'm familiar with the experience of having someone close say something mind-bogglingly insensitive and my advice to you is to just let it go. If he has any insight he may at some point have realized what an atrocious response that was. On the other hand, some people seem to be immune to critical reflection. I would hesitate to reawaken this potential beast of an issue; the outcome is uncertain. You might be putting him in the position of having to defend his absurd loathing if it isn't already obvious to him why it is inappropriate. Would you be satisfied if he expressed remorse? He would certainly feel remorse if he understood. So give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's just a little dense.
It's better not to let such things rankle.
Last edited by wornlight on 15 Sep 2010, 4:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Would you feel like that if you were the victim?
You say you're 16. You have a lot of years ahead of you. Anything can happen. It's very common. I am sorry.
The problem with your assessment TechnicalPacifist is that she mentioned the husband was actually compassionate toward rape victims, just not her.
I would confront him, that's what I'm going to tell you. Don't do it in a way you know will offend him, but the next time you observe him being compassionate or talking compassionately about somebody who was raped, interject "Why didn't you have that sort of reaction when I told you I was raped? When you said you wouldn't have married me, it really hurt me."
You're stronger than I am. I would have thrown away 20 years of marriage for that comment. To me, AS or not, that's inexcusable to say.
I am so, so sorry for the response you got from him. You are absolutely right to be devasted by it. What a strong woman you are to be able to form a normal relationship after what happened to you as a child. Where do you go from here? Only you can decide that. Personally, I would want to talk about it and find out what's going on. Sometimes men can be idiots, especially in very emotional situations, they do or say really stupid things as a way of releasing the pressure. Add Asperger's into to that and you have a recipe for disaster.
There is more I want to say to you but not on a public forum. I'll send you a pm instead.
Hugs.
