Scarleteen

Hello! Its been tough because I don't know how I'll live with myself. I'll give a brief timeline

We are both in college and we started dating this year in April. We became official a week before school ended, in the first week of may.

Apparently she said that I was getting touchy in that last week and that I was moving fast. I didn't know it at the time but these things made her feel uncomfortable. I'll list every incident down:

One time we were in the car. I had my arm around her shoulder, and because I was stupid I thought that the best way to make a move to get to second base was to put my hand on her right boob and fondle it. After a bit she moved my hand away.

Another time we were cuddling at a lake. I didn't know it at the time, but I put my hand on her thigh but she later told me that is was in a "turn on" spot and that she felt uncomfortable.

The last time, we were kissing and I had apparently put my hand on her stomach. I dont remember this one, but later she told me that after she moved my hands away, I put them back.

I did something to upset her at the start of this school year, which led to us being in a difficult spot for almost 2 months now. She was processing for 3 weeks after and cold texting me, but after that she wanted to talk about everything.

Now before we were having these talks, I had no idea that the things above were bothering her, apart from the thing I did to upset her. Whenever I said she "told me later" above, it was during these talks (we ended up talking over the course of weeks.) And so we talked about those things and I explained what I was thinking, and we were starting to work through things.

At some point she seemed to be warming up a lot more and flirting.

But then things got tough, because she told me one day that she wants to talk and says that she read the definition of sexual assault. She said that it is was when someone was touched without explicit consent. I came to realize that my actions fit that definition and so I got super stressed. She's texted me that ever since she's had this realization she's sometimes cried and been upset, and I feel really bad.

The thing is, my therapist said that it wasn't because there was "extra context" that made it not sexual assault, and before I knew about this site I made a post to r/relationship_advice about how to help her heal but everyone overwhelmingly said it wasn't sexual assault, which kind of confuses me about whether it was or not.

I suggested to get couples therapy (it's free at our school) and she agreed, but the problem is that the next appointment is in December! I suggested her going to the free individual therapy because of this, since it should be a lot more available.

It's just really tough because even though she wants things to work out, I don't know if she'll be able to heal from this. I want her to heal from this and not to have trauma and I would hate it if she had trauma. And I really hate that I hurt her like this, especially when she's crying. I don't know how to move forward, especially if what I did was sexual assault.

Hi there, theman123.

So, I'm going to say some things that might sound obvious, but given some of what you have described, it doesn't sound like things that you know, or if you do, that really have resonated with you. This is going to be a lot, but know that I'm willing to stick in the discussion with you until we get to a point where you feel like you have what you need with this.

We aren't supposed to intentionally touch people's bodies without asking permission when we can avoid it.

There isn't a kind of relationship we can be in with someone -- like because someone is a spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend -- that makes it okay for us to touch someone's body, in any way, on any part, by default. By all means, sometimes, we will accidentally touch someone: finding our way to the back of the bus, for instance, or at a crowded concert. When that happens, we say excuse me or sorry. Sometimes we need to touch someone without asking for their own well-being: like if someone is overdosed and unconscious and we are a person with Narcan, for example. Sometimes we will touch someone without their persmission because we are doing that to defend ourselves from them. But by and large, in nearly any context, we are always supposed to ask first, especially the very first times we want to touch someone, and always until and unless someone makes it clear to us in clear, active communication of some kind (non-response isn't that) that we can touch them in certain ways or places without permission.

If and when someone touches someone without asking permission, and they do so from a place of their own sexual desires or out of a desire for power and control through sex, then yes, this is what we call sexual assault. I don't know why the people who told you this wasn't that did, because your partner is correct: in at least one of these instances you have reported here -- touching her breast without permission because you wanted to out of sexual curiosity -- that does meet the definition of assault.

But.

The only person we ever need to validate that something was or wasn't assault in their experience is from the person who feels they have been assaulted. I have a few things I am going to suggest you do and not do here, and the first is that you stop asking other people to tell you if this was or wasn't assault, because the fact is, you have already heard the answer from the only person whose option matters with this: your girlfriend.

I also think it's not sound to try and make yourself not feel bad. We shouldn't feel good about touching people without their permission, and when someone says we did that to them and it has done them harm, I think we should feel bad about it. Now, I don't think there is any good for anyone in staying just in that feeling-bad place, because that doesn't do anything for anyone. But I think recognizing that you probably feel bad for good reason, because you did some things by choice that caused someone distress and that were done without their consent, and then getting set to take some steps by there is actually important. I'd also avoid anyone right now who seems determined for you not to feel bad. Those people are probably not people with particularly healthy views around consent.

(I also want to say that it's important to remember that your girlfriend felt bad and still does. I suspect she even went looking for the definition of SA because in her guts she already knew because of how bad she felt, probably not just after, either, but also at the time. Her moving your hand off her body without saying anything suggests to me, though, that for whatever reason, she didn't feel able to say out loud that this wasn't okay, and that suggests to me, combined with your saying there were other issues before this, that there's more the matter in this relationship that just these incidents. But we can get to that later down the road.)

What can you do from here? For one, I do not think couples counseling is a good move. Couples counseling is mostly for when there are problems in a relationships between people based on both their behaviour. It is not typically advised by a sound therapist to address any kind of abuse (intended or no) inside relationships, at least not until well after both people in it have gotten their own SEPARATE care and help processing what happened. I would instead suggest you seek out help for yourself with this first, and she for herself, and I am glad that you also made that suggestion. I am happy to suggest some avenues for her with that if you'd like me to give them to you to pass on. I would also consider any counselor -- be it your therapist or a couples counselor -- who suggested they know better than someone who says they experienced SA if it was or wasn't to be disqualifying themselves from working with these issues. This is basic stuff and therapists should know better.

You have already taken an important step by coming somewhere to ask what you should do. I'm so glad you did that.

When we have done someone wrong, whatever the situation, there are usually some basic steps we can take to deal with that in emotionally healthy and responsible ways. That tends to be this:

• We first take full responsibility for our actions without any excuses or rationalizations. In your case, you can start by saying something like, "I am so sorry that I touched you so many times and moved ahead without even asking your permission. That was wrong of me, and I take full responsibility. I also believe you when you tell me that you experienced sexual assault through my actions."
• You next ask what they want and need of you: what limits and boundaries they want, if they want any time or space away from you, and if there is anything specific they would like you to do or start doing to try and rebuild trust and make amends.
• You commit yourself to changing the harmful behavior moving forward, and in a case like this, I'd say that should involve telling your girlfriend that out loud, like, "Know that I am going to make a point to work very hard to never touch you without asking and getting your express permission first again, until and unless you tell me it's okay to touch you in ways or places without asking. If I make a mistake with that I don't notice, I would appreciate it if you call me out on it so I can take responsibility and get better at this."

I hope you can see that these actionable things actually offer important things to the other person, but also to you. Like I said, while I certainly don't think you should feel good or even neutral about any of this, you just feeling bad doesn't offer either of you anything beneficial. You taking responsibility for your behavior (no matter what someone calls it or doesn't, the fact remains you did things without consent we need to seek consent for), then working to change it, make amends to the person it harmed, and do what they are open to you doing to support them in caring for themselves? That's how you help someone with healing , and that's also how you learn to change your behavior so you can know that this isn't going to happen again in the future because you aren't going to do the things that cause it.

Does all that make sense to you?

I am happy to dig in more with any of this, whether that's about explaining how we do active consenting, helping your girlfriend directly if she likes or offering resources for her, figuring out how to talk to her to work out what feels best for her right now per your relationship, or helping you find some more resources for yourself. Just let me know where you would like to take it from here.

I want to add one more thing here. I did go and look at your post on that subreddit, and it made me extra glad that you found your way here.

It's very clear by looking at the responses there that the vast majority of people who answered have no training or education in sexual assault, consent or healthy sexual relationships (this is also part of why trying to crowdsource this kind of information from random strangers in general forums is never a good idea). Some were outright awful, clearly showing things like the idea that people are entitled to the bodies of a girlfriend, or that because nonconsent is common, that makes it okay. There was an awful lot of rape culture reflected in that thread. I feel pretty confident saying that of everyone who posted in that thread, you were one of the rare people who was NOT really backwards or outright awful in their thinking about all of this.

Yes, it does make sense to me now and now I understand completely. For some reason before I thought that when people went to second base that they just did it, but I know now that that was not the right way to do it AT ALL. Right now we are on break for a week, but as soon as it ends this Saturday I'm going to tell her that I 100% believe it was sexual assault and that it's not her fault in the slightest, not that I thought it was before but I've done more reading about SA and they say that people can blame themselves for what happened which is messed up. The reason we are on break is because I really messed up, when she originally told me that I SA'd her, I freaked out and was stressed, but I agreed with her. But I showed her that post and told her that I was confused because my therapist (and even my mom, which is making me think that my mom might have some too old fashioned views about this stuff..) were saying that they didn't think it was sexual assualt. She asked to see some of the replies in that post and some of them made her so upset that she had to go to the bathroom to cry, people on there were really harsh. She wanted to go on break and wanted to have a talk afterwards about where we stand on the sexual assault issue, and now I think we'll be in agreement after this break ends.

I'm worried about her feeling trauma and I don't want her to feel any trauma at all because of me, she told me that she really wants things to work out because we go well together, but she doesn't know if she'll feel like she can trust me going forward. We like to call it the "decision" in quotes because she told me it's more about how she feels rather than her thinking that she doesn't want a relationship. She says that when she's going to therapy and figuring out what's next in her healing journey, is when she'll "decide" if she wants to stay in the relationship.

I should add that we came up with a way for her to build trust if things work out, she would initiate all physical touch and if she wanted me to touch her, or if for some reason I wanted to ask about our agreement or touch her, that I would communicate everything. Is this a good way to move forward?

I want to help her with her trauma as much as possible, so are there any ways I could help her directly? I was thinking I could do more nice things for her but I know that that probably wont get rid of the trauma, and I want to do everything I can to help her get rid of her trauma.

Can you send me those resources that can help her? I want to help her more options in case the individual therapy isn't working out for her. Thanks!

Heather wrote: ↑Tue Oct 22, 2024 12:44 pm I want to add one more thing here. I did go and look at your post on that subreddit, and it made me extra glad that you found your way here.

It's very clear by looking at the responses there that the vast majority of people who answered have no training or education in sexual assault, consent or healthy sexual relationships (this is also part of why trying to crowdsource this kind of information from random strangers in general forums is never a good idea). Some were outright awful, clearly showing things like the idea that people are entitled to the bodies of a girlfriend, or that because nonconsent is common, that makes it okay. There was an awful lot of rape culture reflected in that thread. I feel pretty confident saying that of everyone who posted in that thread, you were one of the rare people who was NOT really backwards or outright awful in their thinking about all of this.

Oh yeah, I really regret posting on there now especially seeing how it affected my girlfriend, it was a stupid idea and at the time I guess I thought that since the people there were in relationships that they would be give me a good perspective, but I had no idea so many people would have those harmful opinions. Someone even dm'ed me and said that they were SA'd and that they were "sorry I was going through this, and that "it wasn't SA." At the time I was confused because I thought that since this person was SA'd, that they were right about this, but now I know that just because they were SA'd doesn't mean they have a right view on consent. Im glad I got here too because now I'm not confused about if it was SA anymore

I had a terrible feeling when I saw those responses that your girlfriend might find that post and see them, and I am so sorry to hear that she did. She would have obviously felt terrible, because, as you know, people were being just awful and incredibly ignorant.

In terms of them, and maybe your therapist or even your Mom, you're right: a lot of people have antiquated ideas about sexual assault, or, sometimes more accurately, ideas about it that are solely based that only intercourse = sex, and so if intercourse or something like it wasn't involved, it wasn't assault. In other words, antiquated ideas about SA as well as about sex.

So, what trauma she experienced and what impacts it has on her from here are mostly not going to be within your control, and that's just something you are going to need to accept. You also can't "get rid of" someone else's trauma or their post-traumatic impacts. That's just not how trauma works. That is going to make you feel bad, because you clearly are not a monster, you know? And we can talk about what you can do with those feelings and what you can do to support her best in healing and to help be sure you don't *add* any more trauma to the mix, or make the impacts of the trauma she's experienced in the next couple of days if you like. I would be very glad to have that conversation with you. I also think you might benefit a lot from reading this excellent piece here on the site: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/relatio ... ced-trauma

I do think it is too soon to talk about how you might be sexual with her in the future, personally. By all means, let's talk some about how to do active consenting, period, because it's something everyone needs to know, but I think for right now, talking about how you might be sexual in the future with someone who is still processing things going so wrong (and this other internet rape culture-y yuck on top of it) is too soon, you know? I certainly think that you have to first have that conversation about that yes, what she is telling you she experienced as sexual assault is because that was her experience, before you talk about anything like that.

I think your next steps are best being in the working on your own stuff part, the giving her some space part, the talking about where she is and how she feels about what happened part, and the starting to make amends part.

I can gather some resources for her, absolutely, here on site and elsewhere. I'll do that for you both tomorrow. I would also like to offer to talk with her in our live chat, which is one-on-one, so completely private, if that's something she might want to do. If it helps her to know that I'm a survivor of multiple kinds of assault myself, please feel free to pass that on. But if she's not open to that, or isn't yet, I can still deliver a host of other kinds of support. I'll circle back tomorrow.

I want to sign off by just saying I think you are doing a good job with the taking responsibility part, and that is such a big deal. So is accepting that she needs time to decide what she wants to do about this relationship and giving her that time and space. A lack of communication has obviously been outright disastrous for you both before, so communicating the way you both have been strikes me as a really big deal for the both of you, too.

By the way, one thing you may be able to do quickly and easily to alleviate some of your girlfriend's pain is to remove that post on that subreddit. She doesn't need to know or see that people are still talking about this or see those responses again, and it certainly didn't offer you anything good.