The Vine: February 23, 2011
I’m writing to you today about a very delicate situation. I’m totally lost as to what, if anything, I can do. I really need your help.
Here’s a little background: I have a sister who I am very, very close to. We’d been together our entire lives until she moved across the country to Big City for grad school back in 2009. I am currently living with my boyfriend, who I have been dating for two years.
Every summer and Christmas, Sister will fly down to visit me for a couple weeks at a time, when she has off school. We love seeing each other and these visits are the highlight of our whole year. She stays with Boyfriend and me at our tiny 2-room (plus bathroom) apartment. We usually get along well, although Sister and Boyfriend have gotten on each other’s nerves several times, just from all of us being cooped up together in such a small space.
Well, last summer, something horrible happened. Sister, Boyfriend, and I went out drinking with some friends. We all walked home, very, very drunk, and went to bed: Boyfriend and I in our bedroom, and Sister in the living room. I woke up the next day very hungover, and Sister was being unusually quiet. She told me later that, during the night, she woke up to Boyfriend touching her, and trying to undress her.
I immediately flew off the handle at Boyfriend and kicked him out. He was totally shocked, and told me he didn’t remember a single thing from the night before — it was all a blackout. He stayed at his parents’ for the rest of Sister’s visit, and after a couple weeks I took him back in, and forgave him.
Well, Christmas then rolled around, and Sister came back for her visit once again. She had managed to forgive Boyfriend and things were, hopefully, back to normal. New Year’s Eve arrives, we all go out drinking again, and I go to bed around 1 AM. Boyfriend, who is mostly sober, stays up to take care of Sister, who is very drunk and passing out.
Sister wakes me up at 4 AM. She tells me that Boyfriend was touching her again, and trying to undress her. I confront him and kick him out again, and he, fully sober at this point, is shocked, and tells me that nothing happened. I tell him to leave, and he goes.
Sister went back to Big City two days later, as previously scheduled, and I was left to figure out what the heck I was going to do.
Boyfriend maintains to this day that nothing happened on New Year’s Eve. He does not deny what happened over the summer, because he was blackout drunk and remembered nothing, but for New Year’s Eve, his story is this: she was very drunk and falling asleep on the couch. She stretched out with her legs over his lap, unbuttoned her jeans for comfort, and fell asleep for several hours. She woke up around 4 AM, went to the door, and told him, “Don’t you ever touch me again,” after which she woke me.
I have never been more confused and conflicted in my entire life. Boyfriend and I are still living together because, well, I’m still in love with him and I don’t know what to do. Sister is the most important person in my life. I can’t deny her side of the story, but I also can’t believe that Boyfriend would assault her for a second time, completely sober, after the first time almost destroyed our relationship.
Now I don’t know if Sister will ever want to stay with me again, as long as Boyfriend is here. I’ve dreamed for years of moving up to Big City to be with her, but bringing Boyfriend along feels like an impossibility now. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should leave him, even though I still love him, or what I could say to Sister to heal the situation. I feel that my relationship with Boyfriend has been tainted forever, and Sister will never be able to accept or forgive him, because of these awful things.
Please help. I need some advice, any advice.
Caught in a Tug of War
Dear War,
Okay, it’s possible that I have this all wrong, but my gut reaction? Something is hinky about this whole saga. I don’t know if I can put my finger on it, but I didn’t quite believe that the first touching/undressing incident happened, and by the time I got to the second one, I didn’t buy Sister’s story at all. I don’t want to blame the victim if something actually happened, on one or both occasions, and I understand that people do self-destructive and/or seemingly out-of-character things when they’re ripshit — but it’s just not adding up for me. Hear me out here.
First of all, if Boyfriend is blackout drunk, how likely is it that he went to bed with you, passed out, then got up again to fondle Sister? It’s possible, sure, but does that sound probable to you?
Second of all, since it evidently did sound probable to you, how exactly did you rationalize taking him back? He can’t rationalize it; he doesn’t remember it. What did you tell yourself in order to make it forgivable that he fondled a family member with you in the next room? Because the only rationale I can come up with is that he got confused in his drunken state and thought Sister was you…which is still pretty fuckin’ creepy. And on the one hand, he manned up and took responsibility for his alleged actions, which is good. On the other hand, that means that either 1) he thinks he could have done it, or 2) he realized he had no choice but to cop a plea, because you would never believe his version over Sister’s. Neither of these things is real healthy; I’m just saying.
Third of all, once you have taken him back, why on earth is Sister staying with the two of you again, and going out drinking with you again? Again, everyone deals with sexual assault in different ways, but going back to the tiny apartment where he still lives and tying one on? I don’t mean she’s asking for it, mind you; it’s just not a location I’d want to revisit, personally. Unless…I had an agenda.
I mean, there’s this: “Sister is the most important person in my life. I can’t deny her side of the story, but I also can’t believe that Boyfriend would assault her for a second time, completely sober, after the first time almost destroyed our relationship.” And then there’s this: “I’ve dreamed for years of moving up to Big City to be with her, but bringing Boyfriend along feels like an impossibility now.” The thing is, you can deny her side of the story; you just don’t want to, because the relationship has a power over you that, for whatever reason, consciously or unconsciously, perhaps she is leveraging. Like I’ve said, I don’t know what happened, I don’t know exactly what Sister said, et cetera and so on. But I think she knows that she was the most important person in your life, and may not be anymore…and that you would consider ending the relationship with Boyfriend based on her version of these incidents.
It’s possible that he tried to get on her once, and then the second time, she woke up and got disoriented and assumed he’d done it again. It’s possible that Boyfriend is a sociopath who has set up the situation so that her side of the story seems like bullshit, and he’s gaslighting you both. But I just…doubt it. I don’t know why Sister would make that shit up, or if she did it consciously, or what’s going on. There’s just something about all of it taken together that I don’t buy, not least that you wrote me a letter about it, which indicates that you don’t entirely buy it either.
As for what you should do, well, I think you should go with your gut as to whom you believe, and if it’s Boyfriend, you’ll have to tell Sister something along the lines of “Look, I can see how you might have misinterpreted what happened, but I believe Boyfriend’s account — and next year, for your visit, you should probably stay elsewhere so we can avoid another incident or misunderstanding.” I think you should also spend some time, on your own or with a therapist, looking at your closeness with Sister, and whether it’s not perhaps a bit unhealthy on one or both sides. You both may have some trouble separating from one another, which is normal, but you should look into it.
And I think the three of you need to find social things to do that do not involve getting butt-wasted, because that’s obviously not working out.
If you don’t believe Boyfriend, kick him out already and change the locks. But…I think you agree with me even though you’d reeeeeally rather not (and I don’t blame you).
Tags: boys (and girls) the fam
“Appalling”? Bring it down a notch. If I had the response to write again, I’d probably question the boyfriend’s actions in the second instance, but honestly, 1) the entire letter is so weird, and each person’s behavior so out of sync with various explanations for the behavior of the others’, that I don’t know if that’s any more accurate or helpful than what I wrote, and 2) I have known guys that clueless. She’s “family” of sorts, he thinks he’s supposed to take care of her…or, more likely, he’s trying to watch TV and she’s sprawled on him and he doesn’t want to move her…I mean, God knows what went through his head (or which one). I’m not his lawyer, believe me, but there’s approximately a novella of information we don’t have. I used Occam’s Razor to try to make sense of the rest; it’s not my opinion that the simplest explanation is that Boyfriend is a sexual predator.
@Krista: That version makes more sense. Not entire sense, but more. (Heh. Oy, this letter.) The more I think about it, the more I don’t understand why War and Sister didn’t take the bedroom and put Boyfriend on the couch for a few nights, especially under the circumstances.
I don’t understand the boyfriend’s behavior at all. It is possible that the sister and boyfriend hooked up the first time, and the sister called it assault out of guilt. It sounds more likely that your sister was assaulted the first time, tried to be okay with it, woke up to find your boyfriend hovering over her with her pants unzipped, and assumed she was being assaulted again. Or, you know, she WAS being assaulted again. Either way, there is the possibility that your boyfriend assaulted your sister TWICE.
Cut him loose.
Upon reread, the thing I find most bizarre, and disturbing, is Boyfriend’s defense in the second incident.
HE is the one who said that he stayed awake with Sister’s legs draped across him for hours and Sister unbuttoned her pants. He was also sober, according to all participants.
Okay: Even if it’s accepted that for whatever reason, these three people thought being in this situation was a good idea, or it “inevitably” ended up there, or whatever, why did Boyfriend volunteer to help out Sister? If War was too drunk to do it, why didn’t he tuck Sister and War into bed in the bedroom and sleep on the couch, or sit up in the bedroom if he was worried about Sister choking, or all three of them stay in the living room?
I just can’t grasp why he would agree to be alone with Sister under any circumstances, but this just seems like the worst idea ever, and he doesn’t have any “I was sloshed” reasoning behind it.
I’m with Katherine upthread. They’re hooking up drunk, and this is her way of confessing it. He’s not denying because he knows he’s in the wrong.
But nothing about this makes the least amount of sense. There’s no scenario where you’d go back to the site of your sexual assault. But there’s certainly one where you’d go back to the site of your ill-advised hook up, particularly if you had the tiniest little hope it might happen again.
I don’t get the suspicion of Sister. Yes, this is a weird situation. but nothing suggests that Sister is having some kind of jealous fit – Sister is in the big city and nothing in what Tug told us suggests that Sister feels lsone or abandoned. yes, it can be hard to have your twin be in a serious relationship first, but I can’t imagine that those feelings would have come up before hitting def-con 2 and accusations of assault by Boyfriend. That Tug and Sister are identical twins makes it possible Boy got confused the first night. But even wihtout that history, the couch sitting while the drunk twin is unbuttoning her pants is creepy. YOu will only have one twin. Dump him.
I think everyone suggesting that women would not return to the site of an assault or be in a similar situation where it could happen again really need to read Sigrid’s first post about being taught to disbelieve themselves. Revictimization is incredibly common. In fact one nationwide study of violence against women showed that on average women who were raped were victims three separate times in their life. Some women respond with extra vigilance, others respond by minimizing or normalizing the assault (this has been seen in the research literature on sexual assault). Certainly in this case we can see how it was at first not minimized (kicking boyfriend out), but then perhaps Sister felt invalidated when War took her boyfriend back. She may not have seen what happened anymore as a big deal or as assault since her surely her twin would not forgive the BF if it was in fact assault. Indeed, Sister may have gone back to try and preserve the relationship (as Sigrid said). I am not saying that he did assault Sister, but I think we need to not doubt Sister’s return to War’s apartment based on what is known in the sexual assault research literature.
In addition, BF was wasted during the first incident and that was the reason given for why he may have done it. If he was sober the night of the second incident then the twins’ concern about a repeat incident was probably non-existent since he was not drunk.
I do agree 1000% that BF explanation is WAY hinky. I would love to know more of his explanation about why he thought that was an okay thing to do.
1) If you have been accused, by your lover’s sister, of sexual assault, and your lover is convinced enough to “nearly destroy” the relationship over it, why on earth would you allow yourself to be in a situation where you might be falsely accused a second time? Or to phrase it differently, if Boyfriend was innocent and the first assault never took place, wouldn’t he be upset with Sister, or at least wary?
2) If you believe that a man assaulted your sister (twin or no), what could he possibly he say over the course of two weeks to convince you to “forgive” him and resume the relationship? (Since “forgive” implies that there was something to forgive; it’s not, “I decided that I couldn’t believe he had done anything.”)
3) If you believe it possible that a man assaulted your sister, regardless of what decision she might or might not take with regards to staying with the two of you, why would you get drunk while the possibility of the two of them alone together exists? Wouldn’t you want to stay sober to protect her? Or stay sober and awake so you can make sure he gets to the right bed?
War, I am sorry you are in this situation. I realize the above comments come off as insensitive; I’m hoping you can come back and put all of us in our place so we can be more helpful to you.
c8h10n4o2 got to it before I could – it seems entirely possible that Sister has some repressed memories going on which manifest themselves when in that situation. That was the first thing that letter made me think of. PTSD can take many forms and be triggered by something as simple as waking up with a guy in the room.
Wow. @Melissa, thank you for decontructing the sentence, “I can’t believe that Boyfriend would assault her for a second time, completely sober, after the first time almost destroyed our relationship” because that got right past me on the first read. So War thinks that it’s quite possible her BF assaulted her twin the first time but let it go b/c he was drunk? Ugh. Yanno, there are lots of people out there who NEVER sexually assault anyone, no matter how much they have had to drink.
The part that I can’t get past is that BF says Sister threw her legs across him and unbuttoned her pants. Now, if I were close to a friend’s partner in a brother/sister sort of way, I *might* fall asleep on him, but even then, I would be very self-conscious about unbuttoning my pants in front of him. Sister doesn’t really even get along with BF and he’s claiming she just flopped all over him and undid her pants? Yeah, I know she was drunk but …
I’m thinking BF probably did do something, mostly b/c his pants story makes no sense and b/c War did kind of say that she thinks he did it the first time.
War, if this is really what you meant, wake up. I don’t care how drunk he was the first time – do you really want to live with a guy who would sexually assault anyone – especially your beloved twin?
Plenty of girls who grew up being assaulted by a father or stepfather – when the mother knew – go home to visit mother out of guilt, knowing dad/stepdad will be there.
War is capable of rationalizing awful behavior. She’s either doing it with sister or with boyfriend.
Nothing strikes me as fake about the first accusation. What strikes me as odd is that sis took the guy back after he decided he might have been capable of molesting her sister. Frankly I would threaten the guy with death if he ever contacted me again. My oldest sister is my best friend and she is not the type to make something up, much less about molestation.
Honestly, the second situation is so messed up I don’t know where to begin.
Leslie N.
Please don’t say things like this:
“There’s no scenario where you’d go back to the site of your sexual assault. But there’s certainly one where you’d go back to the site of your ill-advised hook up, particularly if you had the tiniest little hope it might happen again.”
There are hundreds of scenarios where people go back to the site of their sexual assault, and hundreds of different reasons. For example, I had to go back to mine because hey, it was my bed.
If Boyfriend assaulted Sister twice, then what you said is victim blaming. If he didn’t, you’re still sending the message (to victims and their families/friends/jurors/community) that there is One True Way in which victims behave, and that just isn’t true.
If Sister and Boyfriend actually hooked up and she came back looking for more, why in the world would she have been screaming at him not to touch her? Why not just boink him again and move on? If he refused, I can’t imagine that she’d make a scene and risk uncovering a previous hook up. Also, why wouldn’t Boyfriend have said “Whoa, hey, she came on to ME!” instead of saying he was too drunk to remember the first incident? Most men would (I hope) rather be accused of cheating then sexual assault.
If we believe Sister, maybe she went back because she’s blaming herself for the assault (because she was drunk). Maybe since War chose to stay with Boyfriend (even believing that he had assaulted Sister, which yes, WTF?) Sister was afraid to refuse to be around Boyfriend out of fear that War would choose Boyfriend over Sister and cut her out of her life.
Like I said, how people behave in real life =/= how people behave on TV and in the movies and how one person behaves =/= how all people behave.
I stand by my earlier position of DTMFA.
War, you only have one twin, but there are plenty of fish in the sea. Virtually all of them haven’t already assaulted your sister (drunk or not) and behaved off-the-charts suspiciously after the fact.
I cannot imagine a scenario where staying with Boyfriend will go well in the long run. Can you?
This letter is really The Vine’s Rashomon. – Word!
Ok, so after reading the letter and all these comments I can see how War can be confused… I mean, even the nation can’t figure out which story is true, how could someone so close to the situation decide?
If it were me: I would ask sister to elaborate (we don’t know if you’ve done this yet). Yes, it may be painful, but she’s your sister, you can get a better feel of wether or not she’s telling the truth (or if she even remembers the whole thing) by talking to her. I mean, I don’t have a sister, but I can smell a lie from one of my brothers a mile away. Granted, maybe they’re just crappy liars – or maybe I know them too well and can always tell, which I think would be the case with a sister that close. Unless she is a pathological liar, but again, if that’s the case, you’re probably aware of that fact.
Bf could be lying for any number of reasons. And even though you love him, if you believe your sister, there really isn’t a choice to be made here. Family is family. I think the only way that you should take him at his word is if you truly believe that your sister is lying for some reason. Again, only you would be able to know this. But if it were me, I’d rather lose a bf than a relationship with my sister.
On what actually happened: both stories seem plausible to me. Only bf should have been more careful. If he’s telling the truth, he has been really stupid and really shouldn’t be surprised if War doesn’t believe him. He should’ve known better. So should War for that matter. If she decides to stay with bf, I recommend NOT having your sister stay with you next time – for everyone’s sake. And I second the nanycam susgestion, but you know, I’m a little paranoid.
Sorry for postint twice in a row, but I went back to the letter and wanted to comment on a couple of things:
“I can’t deny her side of the story, but I also can’t believe that Boyfriend would assault her for a second time, completely sober, after the first time almost destroyed our relationship.”
This: if he did it intentionally the first time (not mistaken identity) it’s likely he did it the second time. It has nothing to do with how it affects your relationship, but with the kind of person he is (again, if he is guilty).
“Now I don’t know if Sister will ever want to stay with me again, as long as Boyfriend is here. I’ve dreamed for years of moving up to Big City to be with her, but bringing Boyfriend along feels like an impossibility now. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should leave him, even though I still love him, or what I could say to Sister to heal the situation. I feel that my relationship with Boyfriend has been tainted forever, and Sister will never be able to accept or forgive him, because of these awful things.”
This may be true regardless of what happened, which may be why you need to break up anyway. It’s really sad how this whole thing unfolded, but can you really trust him fully after this whole thing? In the end two things have to be right: your sister has to be kept safe from future assaults and you have to be with someone you can trust. Going back to my previous comment, unless you really believe she’s lying you need to act as if she’s telling the truth.
On second thoughts and reading the comments, Boyfriend’s actions do seem odder to me. Still, though, neither story really seems to me to fit completely. War, I wish you all the best, I really do, and hope you can take some space for yourself.
Like Brian, though, I wonder why you didn’t mention in your letter that you and your sister are identical twins. It seems entirely material; it helps explain your bond, and it might be relevant to the first alleged assault in terms of drunkenly mistaken identity. I could be totally off base here, but I’M wondering if you do subconsciously have some ambivalence, or concern, about the closeness of your bond with your sister.
I don’t think War or Sister did anything wrong–well, perhaps what War did wasn’t the smartest thing, but I don’t think that either of them should be blamed for it.
Because I think BF is a predator. And both War and Sister want to believe that he isn’t, and that’s normal and common. Sister wanted to believe that War wouldn’t have taken him back if he’d assaulted her, and probably explained away the first assault a number of different ways (it didn’t really really happen, he was drunk, he thought I was War, etc). Then she went back because it’s her sister’s house–an everyone thinking that nobody would do that is skeeving me out. My cousin got raped and proceeded to date the dude for 6 months, because she didn’t want to deal with the fact that he raped her, and she thought that if he was her boyfriend then the “sex” would somehow be ok. As far as I know she still hasn’t dealt with the fact that he raped her; she told me that he had sex with her even though she didn’t want to and she made it clear to him (and did so several times both through their friendship and on the evening he raped her) that she did not want to have sex with him, but he did it anyway. She told me about this on Christmas, was telling me about her boyfriend, and they’d been dating since September. So, you know, post-assault reactions are complex and this is especially true when it’s a family or pseudo-family member that did the assaulting.
War, you took back a guy who probably assaulted your sister, but again that’s explainable, and just like Sister did you could easily explain it away–drunk, twins, not a big deal, etc. But now that it’s happened a second time, I am concerned for your safety and your sister’s.
As soon as I read that they were twins, it all made a lot more sense. If BF is attracted to War, and they’re identical, and close, then it makes sense that he’s attracted to Sister too. And even if his first groping was accidental–in fact, especially if that’s the case–then the lure of fantastical twin-sex would be planted in his brain, and he’s be interested in, I don’t know, something really creepy like having sex with both of them, either at the same porntastic time or to compare and contrast. Which is gross beyond words, really. And I’m concerned for your safety because even if he’s just interested in having sex with your sister, and not necessarily in to assaulting her, the truth is that he’s not too concerned about who he hurts to get what he wants. That is, he may not be a malicious rapist, but he’s negligent and selfish and therefore a rapist (or rapey).
I think that if you cut yourself off from your sister, or distance yourself in any way, you risk ruining the relationship for the rest of your life. If a dude groped me once possibly twice in the middle of the night and my sister didn’t believe me, I would probably be irrevocably hurt.
Katherine: that was certainly my take on it.
If this letter isn’t 100% made up, it seems like all the parties involved have been fitted with their own pairs of Bad Idea Jeans.
If the Boyfriend truly was innocent the first time around (or drunkenly mistook one twin for the other..) WHY ON EARTH would he put himself in a situation where that same twin who accused him of assault would be sleepy drunk, with her pants unbuttoned, legs splayed over his for HOURS? Is he a moron? Is he so dudley-do-right niave that he can’t possibly imagine how bad that looks?
If the Sister really was assaulted the first time around, why would she A)visit War who got back with her accused attacker B)not make arrangements to stay somewhere else during their visit C) not insist that the Boyfriend stay elsewhere during the visit D)not set groundrules about their interaction and behavior during the visit(like drinking to passout excess).
I think the Yoouuge gaps in the narrative of the orginal letter is allowing people to add their own twists to the story, either turing the sister into a modern day lolita, or the boyfriend into a mindless wanton sexual predator. I think the truth, if there is any, lies somewhere in between.
I had the same thought c8h10n4o2 did: could a (stupid but) innocent situation with Boyfriend have triggered a disturbing memory and made a very drunk person freak out?
Okay, so everybody agrees that the situation is strange; but what War asked is what to do about it. She even wrote in to the comments already and said she knew it was strange and doesn’t want to read the thread anymore because it’s too painful. Affurica, I totally disagree that she has to choose between Boyfriend and Sister. I think she needs to be on her own for a while. Everyone is right that she’s letting herself be maniuplated by Sister, and very likely by Boyfriend too. And did you catch that she met Boyfriend right beofre Sister moved away? She hasn’t had any time on her own, it seems. Well, now is the time. She can be BFF with Sister and she can date Boyfriend, but it’s time to move into her own apartment and just be with herself, as someone in her early twenties, to figure out who that is and how to strengthen it against manipulators. It would be painful, sure; it would be difficult at first, but I don’t see any downside to it in the long run.
@Sigrid: Shout out to a fellow decade-long Vine-reader, what what!
Ahem. Anywayz. I don’t think it’s fair in this instance to cast Sars as a rape apologist. She has been asked to assess a situation that is, by virtually all accounts, illogical and therefore likely untrue in some parts. An honest take on what she’s reading is key here and it *does* seem odd that a victim of a sexual assault would enter into the exact same situation with the same perpetrator.
If he did this to her, it’s not her fault. AT ALL. Whether she interacted in any manner with the same person, she got rip-roaring drunk, she decided to sleep over, whatever — it’s not her fault if he assaulted her, NO MATTER WHAT. But I don’t think Sars is disagreeing with that; I think, rather, she’s charged with discerning whether he really did touch her. It’s a horrible reality that a teeny, tiny percentage of people do lie about that. Those liars are the ones that are appalling and who undermine and essentially re-victimize the millions of real sexual assault victims, not the people who uncover the possible lies. I think Sars questions the veracity of the incident because it doesn’t make sense.
You’re right that an assault victim might do what Sister did in order to smooth things over, make it ‘OK’ in her own mind by way of denial, etc. But the thing is, *no one denied that the first incident happened.* Boyfriend didn’t deny it and War kicked him out. Knowing that, Sister’s return is a bit confusing.
That’s my two cents. P.S. one of the craziest things about this story is that War doesn’t seem to think it’s weird at all that her boyfriend, who previously sexually assaulted her sister when she was drunk, went to “help” her — alone, no less — as she passed out drunk.
I’m glad to see that a number of folks chimed in re. @Leslie N and the “There’s no scenario where you’d go back to the site of your sexual assault,” and of other people making that same assumption in the comments.
Even leaving aside the case of children sexually assaulted by parents/family… just so, so many assaults wind up with the victim “giving the guy another chance”, particularly when there’s family dynamics involved. And as others above me have explained eloquently, there is so much pressure (unconscious, societal) on the victim to be the one to have to normalize things afterwards.
And, I want to point out… I think we are all being careful to call this what it is, sexual assault. At the same time, what’s described in both cases doesn’t fit most people’s baseline image of sexual assault — it’s “just” (even in the first case?) that he… was getting started, for want of a better term. Starting to undress her. Starting to “touch her inappropriately”. I think that our using the flat term “sexual assault” is good because it recognizes the seriousness of any sort of unwanted sexual contact. But I also think it’s kind of making commenters here imagine this as, “well, he raped her, and why would she…?”
My point here is merely — when a woman is subjected to this kind of “short of rape” type of assault, in a way I think there is more (unconscious, societal) pressure on her to “get over it”. There is a kind of bias in which, if someone is raped, it’s “easier” for other people to accept the serious, terrible nature of what happened to her. But if someone “only” started to undress her, but it didn’t go farther than that?
Yes, that is still sexual assault. But unfortunately, that is news to some people. Including to some victims. In which case, good for Sister initially in protesting it, and good for War for kicking him out the first time. (Punish for the intent, not for how much or little actually “got done”.) However, it also makes it easier for me to believe that all parties, including Sister, were convinced over time to let it slide. Because that is another part of the insidious nature of the way our society deals with sexual assault.
And, it’s one reason (just one of many) that victims of a first assault like that become vulnerable to a repeat, with the same perpetrator. Because everything around them is telling them to diminish it in their own memory; and the fact that people around them are less likely to take what happened seriously contributes to that.
I’ve been in the situation of being “inappropriately touched” by someone who was a guest in my house. I didn’t make a big deal out of it. I went up to my partner’s bed, and told her of it. The next day we all (minus the guy in question) laughed about it, at his expense (because it made him look really dumbass). And subsequently to that, I did go stay at his house at least once. (The difference in my situation being, I just made sure ever after that I carefully avoided any situation that would put me alone with him or give him the mistaken notion that I was interested. Why would I even go stay at his house? For reasons that seemed sufficiently good to me at the time — because I felt in control, and I knew that everyone else knew what had happened and what my wishes were. I didn’t expect it to happen again. Fortunately, it never did.)
So I just want to reiterate two things others here have already said.
First: I think anyone who fortunately has not gone through the experience likes to think that they know what they would do if it happened to them. But that is because, psychologically, we want to feel some control over what is a horrific thing to imagine. You don’t actually know what you would do, until you go through it.
Second: what one person does =/= what anyone else will do, even if they experience the same thing. So, if you were “smart” enough after being assaulted to arrange it so that you were never alone with the perpetrator again (even if he’s a family member), that’s great. But your experience is not universal.
Finally…
Sars wrote: “The more I think about it, the more I don’t understand why War and Sister didn’t take the bedroom and put Boyfriend on the couch for a few nights, especially under the circumstances.
And the thing is… that really WOULD have been the smart thing to do. But I also can’t help but think that it’s the type of idea that comes to people in retrospect, an “oh man, why didn’t we do that?” type of thing.
It would have been great if these folks had been logical enough to consult with each other beforehand so that everyone’s expectations were on the same page. It would have been great if they’d come up with a plan to implement after getting back in from a New Year’s Eve night of drinking where they had a good idea they’d get bombed, instead of seemingly making it up on the fly, while 2/3rds of them were drunk.
But it’s pretty realistic that they didn’t. Better ideas for how you could have done something come to you after the fact all the time.
(I also kind of agree with other commenters who have said that it appears that what the three learned from the first incident was “Boyfriend will remain sober this time”, and they seemed to have thought THAT would cover it. It didn’t, but it shows they were trying to think ahead. They just didn’t think of the things that would have been a lot more help, like “…and Boyfriend takes the couch.”)
I just wanted to comment (long-windedly) again because I feel like my earlier comments gave more of an impression that I was struggling to find Boyfriend innocent. Whereas, I was actually only trying to say that some of the stuff that had been striking commenters as impossibly unlikely (and thus THE sign of his guilt) actually weren’t necessarily that unlikely. Just, stupid; and stupidity really does happen.
I can certainly come up with scenarios to explain some of this weird, weird letter either way. But that’s an intellectual exercise. The truth is, as others including Sars have said, there’s so much we still don’t know that it’s really really hard for me to come to a firm conclusion.
The more I think about it, the less I’m inclined to believe there’s anything sketchy about this letter at all. If we believe that Sister told the truth the first time, then there’s really no reason to find fault with her subsequent actions at all. Because, if you believe her about the first incident, then everything she did makes sense: act weird and quiet, tell her sister, eventually come back after her sister figured out how to explain the assault without considering her boyfriend a rapey dude. And then the second incident makes a lot of sense, boyfriend’s behavior makes sense, and it makes sense that he’s lying.
Wouldn’t Occam’s Razor say to believe Sister, assume she’s telling the truth, and that BF did assault her? The only way her story doesn’t make sense is if you think it’s highly unlikely or weird for a victim to return to the scene of the crime, which, as has been pointed out before, is perfectly reasonable, all things considered.
@War – I hope you’re finding some help in these comments, as harsh as some may be. We all obviously want the best for you.
I just want to say that I think the reason Sister went back to scene with the same alleged perpetrator of the alleged assault is exactly what @petalfrog said: everyone responds differently to being assaulted. Everyone was drunk the first time, War took Boyfriend back, Sister doesn’t want to believe it happened or believe it will happen again or doesn’t want to cause a big stink because War has decided to keep BF around. It doesn’t really matter. She did go back, to her sister and beloved twin’s place, and it’s still not her fault.
My sister was sexually assaulted at the end of our block, waiting for the school bus. Guess who had to revisit the scene of the crime every day until she went off to college? Our mom still lives on that block.
I’m coming down on the side of Boyfriend’s behavior and story is hinky, and I think he might be a predator. War, please take some time to yourself, maybe get some therapy (not because you did something wrong, but because I think it might help to talk about it with a professional) and work through this all. It’s a lot to deal with, and I understand how confused and upset you must be.
The whole story sounds off on several points, but on the balance of probabilities, my feeling is it’s probably true, for two reasons.
Firstly, the fact that boyfriend just went when told to go. If it were (effectively) my home and I was accused of molesting a guest I wouldn’t be contrite, or shocked, I’d be goddamn furious.
Secondly, I know from experience that with some blokes alcohol brings out a nasty side. A few years ago there was an incident at my work where a male colleague did something very similar – a mixed group staying over, him drunk, girl passed out, he took advantage. So the story rings true.
I’m afraid I have to say that sister is probably telling the truth and boyfriend is a nasty piece of work. I’m sorry War, I know that’s a horrible thing to have to deal with, but I do think that’s the case.
Wow. I’ve got an identical twin sister and I’ve been trying to imagine a situation where my sister would accuse my boyfriend of assault, and I believed her enough to throw the boyfriend out, but DISbelieved her enough to take him back. And I can’t do it. The first time maybe (MAYBE); my sister’s boyfriend mistook me for her long enough to throw an arm around my shoulder (he jumped away like he’d been scalded as soon as he realized the mistake), and being drunk would complicate things a LOT. But to have the exact same thing happen AGAIN, with no excuse of drunkenly wandering to the wrong bed, and then take him back AGAIN…? No. War is right to be afraid of her sister’s reaction to that.
This is rough, this is an absolutely a sucky situation with no clear answer, but I think War needs to cut the boyfriend loose. What was the fallout from the first time? Getting taken back. What was the fallout from the second time? Getting taken back. War is sending him a crystal clear message that, whether he’s drunk, stupid, or evil, there will be NO lasting consequences to doing this again. And unfortunately cutting out the drinking and having sis stay at a hotel doesn’t really solve anything. She can’t have it both ways; she can’t treat them both as possibly guilty or possibly innocent, when the lies that the guilty party would have had to tell are pretty damn unforgivable.
War, I don’t know if you’ll come back to the thread to read this (and I’m sorry it felt so painful) but I have one thing to add anyway.
It sounds like one of the many things that you’re afraid of here is making the wrong choice, and believing the wrong person. It might be helpful to make that choice as if you ARE doing that, and see which mistake would be easier to live with: Sister is lying, and you break up with Boyfriend anyway, thus breaking his heart over something he didn’t do; Boyfriend assaulted Sister (twice), and you stay with Boyfriend anyway, thus telling Sister that she has to choose between her safety and her relationship with you, and perhaps putting her in harm’s way again.
Only the first is the mistake I could handle regretting.
I really hope you write back to let the Nation know how this turns out, because we’re all rooting for you.
this may be repeating the whole Nation but, to me, it is clear that drinking so much is the first problem. The 3 should never do this together again.
If boyfriend is staying over, Sis is not. If Sis stays over, boyfriend doesn’t.
It is possible to get a lie detector test for boyfriend, testing the second possible incident. Since Sis may have confounded dreams and the confusion of waking up, i don’t see any point in asking her to take a lie detector test.
Cora:
“She can be BFF with Sister and she can date Boyfriend, but it’s time to move into her own apartment and just be with herself, as someone in her early twenties, to figure out who that is and how to strengthen it against manipulators. It would be painful, sure; it would be difficult at first, but I don’t see any downside to it in the long run.”
I still think War needs to make a hard decision, here.
As long as she is still dating Boyfriend whether or not she lives with him is just geography.
If she believes Sister, she cannot possibly continue a romantic relationship with a man who sexually assaulted her sister. Actually, I would throw a wider net because I don’t think it’s a fantastic idea to have romantic relationships with people who commit sexual assault at all, period, full stop.
If she believes Boyfriend, then her sister is either a compulsive liar or has some other serious psychological problems that could potentially make it difficult, if not impossible, for War to maintain relationships with Boyfriend or anybody else in the future.
There’s just not a lot of middle ground, here. I agree that she should live on her own for a while, but it’s not going to change the dynamic if she keeps dating Boyfriend and maintaining contact with Sister. It also won’t erase the past.
If Sister was lying and War breaks up with Boyfriend, I would assume that Sister would do something outrageous to try to force War to break up with her NEXT boyfriend, too. If that happened, she would know that Boyfriend was innocent and Sister needs help.
If, however, Boyfriend was lying and War stays with him, alienatign her sister in the process, she’ll probably find out about the lying when he targets the next relative/friend/coworker/drinking buddy. Of course, by then the relationship with Sister might be permanently damaged.
You can’t just go out and get another sister.
Oh, War. Oh my word. None of this can be fun. I think it comes down to this: if it is a possibility in your mind that BF assaulted your sister–drunk, sober, or otherwise–then I don’t think you can be with him. Which is not an indictment of him, a decision on his guilt one way or the other, or somehow saying that you don’t love him. It’s just the way it is. Sad, and unpleasant, and I think the confusion in this letter comes from you wanting desperately to go back to a time when none of this had happened. But TARDISes are imaginary, more’s the pity, and this did happen.
And I don’t see a way out of this that includes you staying with him, b/c you have this doubt and it’s affecting every day of your relationship, and I just don’t think that’s going to go away.
I just wanted to chime in on the idea that victims of sexual assault probably rarely act the way we “expect” them to, based on my own experience. The second might really apply to War’s situation, and I hope my admitting to it will help.
1) My first sexual experience was an assault, due to my own extreme drunkeness, where I ended up in bed with a guy I barely knew, intending to make out, and saying no to sex but having it anyway, not once but three times, because I was to drunk to get out of the bed. And the next day, I romanticized the entire thing as my “first time!” and conveniently blocked out that I didn’t want it. It was years before I faced up to what had actually happened. Thankfully, I was visiting friends of friends in another city, and never had to see the guy again.
2) The following is the biggest regret of my entire life, and writing it out right now makes me feel horrific. I’m not sure I’ve ever admitted out loud my own fault in this. My sister, as a freshman in college while I was senior, was raped in the bushes by a casual male friend of mine, after I trusted him to walk her home from a small party where we got drunk together. My sister didn’t tell me what happened until a year later, after I graduated, because she didn’t want to “ruin my friendship” with this guy (who I was not at all close to). She was a mess that entire year, which I thought was due to adjustment to college, and didn’t understand until I found out about the assault. My biggest regrets in life are that I didn’t protect her the first time, and that I wasn’t able to help and support her afterwards.
In both of these cases, my sister and I did not react like “typical victims,” either because we didn’t want to admit what happened, or didn’t want to “rock the boat,” so it is very possible that something similar is happening with War’s sister.
Bev — Just a small point, but lie detector tests are not reliable against sociopaths and people who can control their bodily functions (breathing, etc.). The only benefit comes if the polygrapher is able to psych out the subject — i.e. freak them out enough that they spill everything. The little graphs on the paper aren’t actually meaningful. There are tons of reasons someone might be nervous that have nothing to do with guilt.
Other than correcting pseudoscience: What a terrible situation. :-(
@anon – Just wanted to tell you that you’ve been heard. What an awful burden to bear. I can’t imagine how flattened you must be by it. I hope you have since come to undestand that the rapist is the ONLY one responsible for hurting your sister. Not you. Not her. Only him. I am so deeply sorry for your pain, and your sister’s.
War, let anon’s story be a cautionary tale for you. Cut him loose, War. I agree with everything @afurrica has posted, especially this:
you can’t just go out and get another sister. It’s vastly more important to save your relationship with her than it is to ferret out the truth in this shitstorm.
You have to choose, War.
Please choose her.
I’m with Agnes here. The fallout of War picking a lying boyfriend’s version of the events over a lying sister’s version is much greater, and for that reason alone, I’d go with believing the sister.
War,
even if Sis forgives you for picking Boyfriend’s version of the events (over time, long after you break up with Boyfriend), the knowledge that you’d rather believe a boyfriend over her will mar your relationship with her for good, not to mention her relationship with any future boyfriends. OTOH, if you cut boyfriend loose and it turns out that sis made part and/or the whole thing up, you’ve (a) figured out that your sister has issues with you pairing off with a guy and (b) have a chance to work on that so you can have a successful relationship with a future boyfriend. The point being, no matter how in love with boyfriend you think you are, there are plenty of boyfriend-material guys out there, but you only have one twin sister.
Honestly, even if it’s a case of stupidity on all sides insofar as having alcohol be involved in this, Boyfriend comes out looking worse because if I were him I’d insist that NO ONE get shit-faced drunk, especially given how he was accused of assault because of that last time. If you were too drunk to care for your sister yourself, and she was too drunk to be left alone on the couch, and he had to be the go between… there’s something off about the situation, and even if it is incredibly poor judgment on his part, that’s enough to reconsider the relationship.
That is, do you really want to be with someone who’s got such poor judgment not to realize that his actions towards sis have to be 100% above board after the first incident? Is he worth destroying your bond with your sister? That’s really all you need to consider right now. Sorting out who was being truthful is something that can happen later.
War, I am so very sorry that you are in this situation.
However, as a mom, I have to tell you that this situation sounds terrifyingly like the MOs of predators in a book I recently read:
http://www.amazon.com/Predators-Pedophiles-Rapists-Other-Offenders/dp/0465071732/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1298659866&sr=8-7
I read passages of that book and was nauseated by how easily and competently predators spoke of convincing their victims’ families that the victims were misguided, confused, or crazy. I am sorry to sat that his behavior really rings a bell here.
Predators aren’t easy to spot– if they were, and if victims were readily believed, rates of sexual assault would be much lower. We want to believe the best of people, and it’s much easier to believe that somethign off-the-wall happened instead of facing that something truly awful did, especially if it means the end of a relationship.
Let me ask you this: would you ever feel comfortable having a daughter with this man? With having a sleepover with multiple girls at your home?
I ask these questions not to make an accusation against your boyfriend, but to press you to consider that even if he is completely innocent, that a grain of mistrust exists in your relationship, and that it is unfair to continue to be with him if you cannot ever fully relax around him. Even if he is a wonderful man, and this is all a big misunderstanding, your relationship is likely too damaged to recover fully.
I want to hug you. I will keep you in my thoughts.
I don’t see any manipulation or fabrication on Sister’s part, unless she has a history of such things that we don’t know about.
The only options that seem plausible to me are:
1) Boyfriend is a skeeze and Sister’s version is entirely true.
2) The first incident was a drunken mistake on Boyfriend’s part, and the second was a misunderstanding all around.
I keep going around and around with the other options and they just don’t seem to fly.
Sorry for the double post, but this occured to me after further reflection:
One good strategy to get away with committing nefarious deeds is to make it seem so obvious that you did something wrong that people think you couldn’t possibly have done something wrong. It’s reverse psychology, sort of. I used to use this tactic for deceiving my parents and cheating on boyfriends. (I don’t do either anymore.)
Some commenters seem to doubt that boyfriend is a predator because 1) War threw him out after the first incident, so why would he risk that again? and 2) he was sober, so he couldn’t even use the Blackout Drunk Excuse.
It seems stupid that, if he intended to assault Sister again, he would have done so in such an obvious circumstance, when it seems like so much is at stake.
Well. That’s exactly why the strategy works. War has already taken him back once after a similar situation. He can’t claim to have blacked out again. The second time around, he would need to construct the situation such that, if Sister did wake up, he could make it seem like she was drunk/disoriented/lying and he was the sane, sober one, just trying to make sure she didn’t die in her sleep. He could say, “But I wasn’t even drunk this time! I know nothing happened!” and “I almost lost you once over something like this, why would I risk losing you again??” (I’ve used that latter one myself and heard it from manipulative partners.)
The whole situation is set up so that he can make those claims and cast doubt on Sister’s intentions/reliability (even retroactively, to the first instance), making himself look like the good-guy victim all the while.
In this scenario, he knew there’d be a good chance that War would be swayed by the sheer fact of the situation Not Making Any Sense, and would not break up with him. And he’d be right, because they are still together.
@Addy
Do I feel naive after reading that post…
My first instinct was to think that Sister was exaggerating or lying but the more I think about it the more I think Boyfriend is guilty of something. I just keep going back to the couch thing too. Has to take care of a sleeping drunk? I don’t think so. She unbuttons her pants and puts her legs on him? So he just sits there and snuggles with her? And why did she unbutton her pants? And all the while he is completely sober? Seriously sounds like a story to me.
The boyfriend’s account of the story doesn’t sound right to me, just for the record. Why would a woman unbutton her pants and stretch out her legs ON the person who sexually assaulted her six months earlier? I’m also wondering why boyfriend would basically let her sleep on him. How much “taking care” of her is needed in this situation?
That doesn’t mean he’s making it up, but if that is what happened, it’s very strange.
Maybe press sister for a blow-by-blow of what she remembers. It sounds like it degrades into “he tried to touch and undress me…” but I’d really like to hear a detailed version of both situations. Where did he touch her, how did he touch her, how soon was it after they went to bed, what happened before he started doing that, etc. Don’t believe her just because she’s your sister. If she’s making up a story, she probably won’t have a lot of prepared details or be able to “recall” it the way a normal person would. Calling your sister a liar over this kind of thing is a huge deal, but it is just as big of a deal to call your boyfriend an asshole cheater/attempted rapist. What a choice.
Having said all that, if it were me, I’d actually handle by saying to Sister that you know what she thinks happened, and you honor that, but that you think she might have been confused and impaired because of the drinking. Because you want to make sure she’s comfortable next time, so you won’t put her and boyfriend in that kind of situation again.
Breaking up with your boyfriend has to be your decision. If you don’t want to end things, you probably shouldn’t. (It’s when you love him so much that you can dismiss a sinking feeling that you’re making a horrible mistake that it actually is one. ;)
Unless your sister has proven herself to be a manipulative schemer in the past, you should side with her and dump boyfriend.
On its face taking time off from both seems “fair” but if my sister’s boyfriend assaulted me and she took time off from me because she didn’t believe me our relationship would never recover.
I think it’s also important to remember that there are a lot of rapists out there who don’t think they are rapists (after all, one in four women is assaulted in her life– that means a LOT of dudes are assaulting them)– it’s possible boyfriend is one, but that doesn’t mean you can stay with him.
There really are plenty of fish in the sea. Choose one you don’t have any doubts about.
Also, on the topic of Sars’s initial advice– it’s understandable, but I don’t love it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a sexual assault case where everyone was like, “Yep, that guy toooootally did it, no doubt about it!” Someone can always think of a reason to cast doubt on whether it happened, and it’s an instinct it’s good to train yourself out of. Sexism exists, and everyone is trained to reiterate it, it’s not unusual or shocking if you haven’t entirely trained yourself out of automatically taking the guy’s side, but it is worth examining why that happens.
War,
I suspect you aren’t still reading this thread, especially after so many people commented doubting your sister. Even so, I hope that you will come back to this thread, maybe in a few days, and read through it to my comment.
Because I think you know your sister is telling the truth.
I think that’s why you didn’t tell us, initially, that you and your sister are identical twins. You knew that would make your boyfriend look innocent in the first incident- he was drunk, and you two are identical, after all, right? And I think that in your heart, you know he isn’t innocent, and you were hoping Sars and the nation would confirm that, and let you cut him loose with a clear conscience.
You think your boyfriend wouldn’t risk assaulting your sister again, because of what it cost him the first time. But here’s the thing. It didn’t cost him ANYTHING. You didn’t leave him. He still lives with you. Your sister still comes to see you and sleeps in the apartment. You are still considering continuing the relationship. The first assault cost him NOTHING, and it cost your sister your trust. Why wouldn’t he assault her again? So far, it hasn’t cost him anything the second time, either.
I think that you feel terribly guilty that you didn’t believe your sister the first time. I also think you feel embarrassed that you fell in love with a dude who assaulted your sister and lied about it. I think that’s why this is so painful for you: you feel like you should have known he was hinky from the start, you feel stupid for not seeing it sooner. YOU DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG. YOU DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO BE EMBARRASSED ABOUT. Guys who sexually assault women don’t wear big signs that say “DON’T TRUST ME.” Most of them don’t even think of themselves as guys who sexually assault women. They’re good at getting into relationships and maintaining them and diverting suspicion from themselves when they assault a woman. It’s practically a profession.
It’s okay to date the wrong guy. It’s okay to correct that mistake, too. Ditch this guy. Trust your sister. You have my permission. Do it. Do it today.
here’s my email: soxinc AT gmail DOT com Email me if you want to talk about this.
@JJ, you articulated the thoughts that have been going around in my head after reading this letter. WELL SAID.
Also, I’d like to add my voice to the chorus commenting that the set of potential romantic partners is much larger than the set of War’s (monozygotic twin) sisters.
I don’t know what actually happened in this situation or whom War should believe, but I think it’s worth mentioning that this “you only have one sister but there are other fish in the sea” argument is crap. The important thing is to find out who is the crazy-ass liar here. You don’t make the choice to just blindly believe someone based on their irreplaceability in your life.
“I’ve only got one twin so I guess I’ll believe her.” Not if she’s a psychotic liar!
And the thing is, this story only works if one of these people is a psychotic liar. There’s no way to make this a big misunderstanding. One of them is clearly nuts. You’ve got to figure out which one it is based on the facts and what you know of these people, not based on which one is genetically identical to you.
Allison,
I’m willing to bet that if Sister had proved herself to be a compulsive liar in the past, War probably would have mentioned it. Absent that, why shouldn’t she believe her sister?
Making choices based on irreplaceability isn’t blind. Like a lot of people (including me) have said, no matter who she picks, she’s going to eventually see either confirmation or nullification of that person’s honesty.
If she chooses wrong, she can always sever the relationship with Sister and find a new boyfriend (one who hasn’t even assaulted her sister ONCE), but she cannot go find a new sister as easily.
Oh, and congratulations having the highest use-of-mental-illness-terms-as-slurs to all-other-words ratio.
afurrica,
I’m sorry if I offended you. I wasn’t using the term psychotic as a slur, I was using it to mean what it actually means (delusional, out of touch with reality, etc.). Perhaps I should have just used the generic term “mentally ill.” Because I believe that one of these two people is mentally ill. To lie twice about being assaulted indicates mental illness. To assault someone, lie about it, assault her again, and then make her own sister believe she’s lying is fricking evil, but it also indicates mental illness.
I stand by my assertion that believing the Sister based solely on her irreplaceability is blindness. Consider it this way. Say Boyfriend is a sexual predator and he assaults his brother’s girlfriend. Should Brother then say to himself, “I only have one brother but there are lots of other potential girlfriends”? No! His brother is a rapist! He needs to figure that out and proceed accordingly.
Personally, if I was War I’d dump Boyfriend anyway, because if there is room in your mind to consider that he might be capable of this, he’s got to go. But she still needs to figure out the truth.
“Because I believe that one of these two people is mentally ill. To lie twice about being assaulted indicates mental illness. To assault someone, lie about it, assault her again, and then make her own sister believe she’s lying is fricking evil, but it also indicates mental illness”
I think afurrica is offended because you are throwing around these terms. Which mental illness do you think is indicates by these actions? What diagnostic method are you using? There is a difference between speculating that something might be wrong with the sister or the boyfriend, and calling them psychotic and saying they have mental illnesses.
I don’t think either person is necessarily mentally ill. But one of them is probably a liar.
Going around and around trying to figure out exactly what happened, and therefore who is at fault, is not a good use of anyone’s time. The three players who are actually IN IT don’t even know. You can shout, “oh, he KNEW what he was doing,” or “oh, she KNEW what she was doing,” but that Does. Not. Help. War wants help. Choosing one or the other does not help. Yes, Affurica, I do know, from experience thank you, that “you can’t just go out and get another sister,” but we’ve seen that Sister is just as manipulative as Boyfriend. Sister is the one who needs to realize that you can’t just go out a get another sister. War needs to get her head clear — which does NOT mean saying to Sister that she doesn’t believe her or doesn’t support her. It means that War can say, “I love you, and I’m sorry for what happened, but you don’t get to control whom I spend my time with.” Is Boyfriend a rapist? It’s entirely possible. There are also other explanations. Screaming at War that she needs to dump Boyfriend because we all somehow know, from only one message that was admittedly garbled, doesn’t help War. Let her stand up and make her own damn decision.
War, I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.
Assuming that you and your sister have parents, siblings, grandparents etc. I think you need to move out. If you stay with this boyfriend I assume you are running the risk of alienating your entire family. Which I think is a bad idea.
Frankly I’m suprised your sister hasn’t already started complaining to the rest of your family that you are living with an inappropirate guy. I’m not sayng you have to totally break up with him. But you need to move out & get some space. It will be interesting to tell people that this wierd thing happened & see what they say. Listen to them. I wonder if your co workers, friends, other sisters will say your boyfreind always made them un comfortable. Or if they will say your sister alwyas acts weird around their men, I don’t know & I wish you could fast forward through the next couple years & find out.
I also think this is a big memo from the universe that your new drink limit is two. Clearly very bad things happen when you drink a lot so lets just cut that out shall we?
Again, I’m sorry you have to deal with this, the whole thing is bizzare and seem somewhat unreal. But alienating your entire family over a guy at 25 is a bit too much. Good luck.
This was a letter that brought up some conflicting thoughts in me. The comments certainly added alot of confusion to me, so I cannot imgaine the confustion it brought to War.
I don’t want to add to the confusion, but I did want to express concern with how many people have come down on her drinking. May I ask what exactly War has done wrong because of the drinking? Yes, it has made the events fuzzy to everyone, but either A. her sister made up an assault for some reason to hurt War or B. her boyfriend is a predator who attacked her sister with War in the other room. Both of those, would be present even if they all never touched alchol. Yes, it may have affected the situation. The sister may have read the situation wrong more easily or the boyfriend may have acted more inappropriate then he would have. But being drunk does not change who you are, so eventually something else would have happened and she would have had to deal with the issue of either sister being a liar or boyfriend being a predator. Please let’s not blame the alcohol for someone’s bad behavior, because it means conversely we can let people get away with bad behavior using alcohol as an excuse, like War did the first time.
It also adds to the victimizing War and her sister more, like if they weren’t drunk, it wouldn’t have happened, so they are partially at fault. And they are not at fault at all! Please remember that War, you are not to blame for any of this. Yes, some choices could have been better, but that’s life. We can always look back and say we should have done something (anything!) different. Please do not think that.