;;blink, blink::
My husband and I have been married eight years. He works with his brother—they’re pretty close, although they’ve drifted apart over the years thanks to his brother’s hard-partying lifestyle (my husband and I have a family). Before we got married, my husband and I had an on-again/off-again relationship. During one of those times, his brother and I remained good friends, and he set me up with a co-worker of his. This co-worker ended up drugging and raping me. It took me a long time to accept that this happened, and I never filed charges. We had been dating for a few months; I’d met his mom and daughter, we’d been intimate many times. It just didn’t make sense.
Now, years later, my husband tells me he overheard his brother bragging to guys on their crew about how his friend would date a girl, then drug her and videotape himself raping her to show others. He also informs me he’d seen this tape of his previous assaults many years ago (his brother had a copy) and never told me. For years I wanted to believe my brother-in-law didn’t know his friend was going to hurt me. Now knowing he practically orchestrated it is tearing me up. The fact that my husband saw this video years ago and never told me has been a crushing blow.
I want to confront my brother-in-law so much and being around him at get-togethers is painful. The problem is he has spiraled in these years from playboy to drug addict and is increasingly self-destructive. If by confronting him I tip him into an overdose, not only would that cause me more pain, I don’t know what would happen between my husband and me. That’s my other problem. This puts my husband in a very tangled middle. I want him to do something but then I don’t know what to expect from him. He carries on like nothing has happened and when I told him it makes me feel worthless that someone can do this to me and not even be confronted, he responds that I’m not going to put a wedge between him and his brother. What should I do?
—Not So Secret
Re: ;;blink, blink::
I got nothing. My heart is just breaking.
Even if her husband and/or BIL didn't see the video of this fuck head raping her and/or whether they knew that he did it TO her....her BIL (and potentially her H) are accomplices to rape. Like multiple, premeditated, calculated, disgusting rapes.
And she has a FAMILY? Girl GTFO. If not only for yourself for your children.
This is pretty much how I feel.
I could almost, maybe, forgive the H for not saying something sooner. There could be good-hearted, though wrong, reasons for that. Like he didn't want to remind her about it and bring up the pain again. As if she's ever forgotten, but he could just be a clueless ignoramus on that.
But the fact that he is taking his brother's side is horrific. They should both cut off all contact with the brother and tell him exactly why. Because, let's fully review the bro's character.
- He finds the fact that his previous buddy drugged and raped women as a funny lark.
- He set up his friend, who was also his brother's on/off again g/f, to be this buddy's victim.
- He not only watched his friend/bro's g/f being raped. But he also SHOWED that video...to his brother!
I'm really hoping this is a fake letter. There are just so many pieces of tragedy.Fuck him. Fuck him and get a lawyer and see how much a wedge he can possibly afford.
I'm not one to want to seek a divorce but if I thought that my husband knew that I was raped and didn't see the problem in it, he wouldn't be my husband. I wouldn't be able to sleep in the same house, forget the same bed, as someone who felt that his relationship with the brother was the priority.
That doesn't mean I think it's worth confronting the drug addict brother. It's not. I would write off the brother. But the husband is a dick.
This feels like LW has been away from decent people for so long she doesn't recognize how outrageously horrendous everyone involved has acted.
Here's hoping LW gets the therapy she deserves.
Leave. Leave leave leave leave leave. I don't understand how she isn't tempted to fucking stab her husband and his brother in the face at this point. I'll do it for her, if she wants.
My thoughts exactly! LW needs to GTFO.
My my heart is breaking for LW. Fuck the BiL, fuck the husband, and fuck the crew of cretins who think this is cool and fun behavior. I would be getting a lawyer, taking the kids, and reporting all of those shit heads to the authorities. Even if my statute had run out, this guy is a serial rapist. There has to be a ton of unsolved cases that can put this pathetic excuse of a human away.
Oh, and get a therapist. Because the mind fuck of not only being drugged and raped, but then having your husband watch it and brush it off has to be devastating.
This is one of the most fucked up letters I have ever read on DP. All three of those fucks should be in jail.
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."
This happened 8+ years ago and was committed by someone whom she knew and had a sexual relationship with. All of these things are going to factor into how the police choose to handle the investigation, and they've been shown to work against the victim's believability. Maybe going to the police gives LW an immense amount of closure, or maybe it tears open old wounds, and revictimizes her all over again by putting her actions under the microscope.
Also, does anyone else feel that this was a setup to get back at LW somehow?
I 100% agree with you, however still recommend reporting him if she mentally/emotionally can. Recommending reporting a crime =/= condemnation for not doing so.
She also needs to lawyer up and leave that H of hers. His brother was complicit in luring victims for his rapist friend and one of those victims was his wife and he's worried about his relationship with his brother? Boy bye.
And once she can do that....burn the fucker down. Report all the things, divorce and sue his ass for every penny until he is a broken man, go after the brother, go after the rapist, start trumpeting all their names all over social media...burn it all down.
That made me sad also. Like, she's been so emotionally beaten down she's actually worried about upsetting her H. When he's the one who should be on his knees begging for her forgiveness, for the rest of his natural life.
1. LW should divorce her husband. The fact that he values his rotten brother more than he values his wife means that he does not value his wife at all. He doesn't want a wedge between him & his brother, but he doesn't care that there is already a massive wedge between him & his wife.
2. LW should enter therapy to work through this trauma. I don't know that she would find any healing in confronting the brother. I'd defer to a counsellor for advice there.
As a victim of acquaintance rape who has never reported it because it was not in my best interest, I know what you're saying. And I fully agree with you that rape is WAYYYY under reported because it's not safe to report, burden of proof is difficult, and victim blaming is real.
However, she doesn't have to say she's a victim at all to report this. She can, but she doesn't have to. Whether she is a victim or not, she can still tell the police what she knows about the serial rapist and the crimes he's committing. If she decides to further provide evidence of it because of her own experience, that makes it pretty compelling.
I am so sorry that you have been assaulted and betrayed by not one but three men you believed you could trust. Your husband is not in the “very tangled middle” of anything. He and his brother have both known for years that the man who drugged and raped you is a habitual, unrepentant predator who makes a habit of recording and boasting about his crimes, and neither of them have done anything either to protect you or to prevent him from raping again. That he would accuse you now of trying to drive a wedge in between him and his brother by objecting to his continued silence beggars belief. Moreover, if you spoke to your brother-in-law you would not be in any way responsible if he were to later overdose. What your husband and his brother have done is so far beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior that any sort of reconciliation is not only impossible, it’s undesirable. You should not have to spend another night in the same house as a man who saw a video of your rapist’s assaults, knows the same thing later happened to you, and said nothing until now. Your husband is not a good man. His brother is not a good man. Neither one of them deserve your love or your trust. They are not the men you thought they were.
I imagine that right now you must feel disoriented and completely without support. Please consider seeing a therapist who specializes in sexual assault and trauma. You deserve the chance to talk about this with someone who doesn’t try to convince you to “get over it” or keep the peace in the family. Then, at some point you can decide if and how you’d like to contact any authorities (it’s possible you would not be the first to say something, should you choose to). If you need to speak to someone now, or anytime, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-HOPE)—it’s free and confidential.