I think my boyfriend assaulted me

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tw: SA?

last night me and my boyfriend were together and cuddling, i had music playing from my phone and i was comfortable with the situation. i didn’t want to do anything else but to be in his arms. but eventually K started to slide his hand under my shirt to touch my breasts and i didn’t like it. i told him i didn’t and he kept going. so i tried to pull his arm out and he squeezed harder. i stopped struggling to get it over with so things would go back to normal.

but then he started to try and undo my belt and then i sat up against my headboard to get away from K and he let his hands fall from my body. then he got closer to me and tried to put his hands between my legs. i told him to stop and K told me to “chill out.” and that “i would like it.” i didn’t. i really didn’t and i told him that. he said “you don’t?” and kept going and so i gave up fighting because i was scared. my words and actions obviously weren’t doing anything to make him stop so it didn’t matter. i was tired i just wanted to sleep and i wanted it to be over so i froze up and laid there. he made me touch his dick through his pants a few times and i didn’t want to do that either.

i hate myself for letting K do that. i love him but now i’m rejudging his character. he kept telling me he had a right to touch me there because i’m his girlfriend. we go to the same school but only have one class together. when i walk with him i feel disgusting. i can still feel what he did to me and it seems like he doesn’t even feel bad. i feel like everyone can see through me. like they can just look at me and see how i laid there and didn’t do anything.

im scared to tell anyone because i gave up fighting, i laid there like an idiot. i don’t know what to do. i feel so disgusted with myself. i need help. i have a therapist but im afraid she’s going to tell my mother about it.

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Nobody should ever force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.
Are you still dating him and have you been able to speak to him about boundaries, or is that something a bit too scary right now? It’s okay if it is, but your safety is important.
Right now it’s okay if you’re scared to tell your therapist, if you’d prefer, there’s a chat that is anonymous and they have great resources.
rainn.org
They are really wonderful there.

It’s hard to be mad to feel disgusting in your own body, but that was not your fault and will never be. No matter how he tries to justify it.

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Thank you for telling us. I know it’s unpleasant to talk about. Talking about it means it really happened, and if people know about it, they might judge you. Opening up here was a big step. I want to start out by saying you are not disgusting, or an idiot, or any less of a person than you were before this happened.

What he did was not okay. It was assault. There’s no “interpreting it as” here. No means no. Not fighting doesn’t mean yes, it means you were scared and didn’t know what to do, so you just wanted to get through it like you said. Only yes means yes. He doesn’t “have a right” to make you do anything you don’t want to do.

This was not your fault. You did nothing wrong. You said no, and he blatantly disregarded that. Of course you didn’t want to scream or fight. You weren’t getting brutalized by a stranger in an alley, you were in a “safe” place with a “trusted” person. That doesn’t make it okay. “Enduring” or “accepting” are not the same as consenting.

Things like that are often dismissed as teens being horny and not understanding the concept of boundaries.

The truth is, everyone else may see this as an inconvenient misunderstanding, but he violated your bodily autonomy. He took away your power of choice. That is something that never goes away. I know so many people who went through similar things. The lesson they took from it was that their bodily autonomy isn’t that important, that their bodies aren’t their own. They go on to feel devalued and subject themselves to whatever people want to do to them physically or emotionally, because they think all they’re good for is to be used.

Deciding what to do next will allow you to take power back for yourself. If you want to have a stern talk with him to say in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t okay, refusing to listen to his excuses, that’s a decision you can own. If you want to tell your therapist or your mom about it, that’s a decision you can own. If you want to report it to the police, that’s a decision you can own. Letting it fade away and trying to forget about it is a choice, but not so much one you take ownership of.

Your voice matters. You matter. You can’t change what happened, but you have the power to determine what happens next. You get to stand up for yourself and declare that this was not okay.

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Sometimes perspective comes from considering how you would feel towards someone else who was victimized as you were. In other words, if you knew of this happening to someone else, I don’t think you would hesitate to tell that person that she is entirely blameless.

I don’t think you can fix a relationship with him. His behavior was very strong evidence of his character. There’s a good chance that he has done this to other women, and will continue to do it. Before there is any reasonable hope for love to exist, there must first be respect. He has proven he does not respect you. Not only that, but he wants to “own” you, and feels that your feelings and emotional well-being is less important than his.

I can’t say how your mom would react to hearing about this, but what you have experienced is so common that there’s a good chance something similar has happened to her or someone she knows. One thing she probably would have a problem with is if you continued seeing this guy.

You mentioned that you love this guy. Is that still true? Are you seeing who he really is, or who you hope he might be? Emotional craving may seem like love, but as I mentioned earlier, in the absence of mutual nurturing and respect, it isn’t a healthy kind of love, if it can be considered love at all.

Some things can’t be undone. You might heal, but you will probably still have scars. Even if he reforms and becomes a saint, he still doesn’t deserve another chance with you. Being given another chance is likely to trigger him to believe he can get away with treating you or other women the same way again.

If you don’t what your therapist to tell your mom, simply say that you don’t what your mom to hear about it. Therapists take patient confidentiality very seriously, as breaching it can end their careers. The only way a therapist can report what goes on in a session is if the patient is a significant danger to self or others.

I don’t think you should have anything to do with him. I think it would be better for you to tell him to stay away. It may also be a good idea to file a police report. It’s very unlikely that they would take action based on the report, but if the report is on file, and he date rapes someone else, your report will and credibility to the next victim’s report.

I’m really sorry this happened to you.

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thank you all so much for the kind words. thank you for making me feel less alone.

today K wasn’t at school because he had a doctor’s appointment, so i decided to text him how i felt about what he did to me and i don’t think i would have been able to tell that to his face/in-person because he can be really scary sometimes. i told him i wanted to take things slow (we’ve been together for almost a month) and he said that his last relationship was just ‘like that’, and that he isn’t used to the kind of relationship that i want to have with him but he’ll try.

he apologized but then got angry with me because i said he was acting like a weirdo when he did that to me. i asked if he would be present tomorrow and said he would, and that i should be grateful he’s even going because i ‘insulted’ him. K then said “i could have just said fuck you and not go but i’m not an asshole.” then after leaving him on read he texted me 20 min later to say he’s sorry because his mom made him feel shitty earlier.

i left him on read because he asked me if he could still touch me anyways… no fucking way. i don’t want him to touch me in a sexual manner - i didn’t even want him to in the first place - i like holding his hand and leaning on him but when i think about what he did to me i feel sick to my stomach. he also said “i bet when you look at me now, all you’ll think about is that exact moment” and how i should have “said no in a serious way”. i was moving away from him and everything though, telling him to stop it. i don’t get what he wants from me. :frowning:

i think i’ve made a mistake doing this over text. i’ll restate how he made me feel and that i don’t want him to touch me like that again in person. i don’t know; but i’ll see how it goes tomorrow. it was really hard to type out what he did to me in my first post. i haven’t told any of my friends about this. i’m scared they’ll think i’m lying because all they see is me and him being a ‘cute couple’ together but it hurts and makes me angry because they don’t know how he treated me. the next time i see my therapist is dec 16th, maybe by then i’ll be strong enough to tell her? thank you wings for letting me know that i have confidentiality in my meetings with her.

again, thank you all for answering to me :heart:

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He sounds dangerous. He’s still trying to excuse himself, and manipulate you. Now he’s blamed his mom for his behavior towards you.

That’s him blaming you for his behavior.

He wants you to give up and let him use you. Don’t let that happen. It looks as though he’s working towards “gaslighting” you in order to diminish your will to resist him.

Your safety, integrity and how you feel about yourself is way more important than the opinions of others who don’t know WTF is going on.

Has he been hooking up with other girls for a while? If so, he’s probably tried the same tactics on them. If you and several others report his behavior to the school counselor, then the school will have to take action. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’d go to jail, or be kicked out of school, but I’m pretty sure he’d be required to accept counseling. He’d also be on notice that he won’t get away with making unwanted sexual advances.

If you think you’re his only victim, then just stop having anything to do with him.

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