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When my partner first told me he’d had sex with a woman on a night out three months ago, absolutely nothing made sense.

He told me the following:

He’d been out with friends and got way too drunk. More drunk than he’d ever been, due to stress from work etc.

There was a woman out with them, but at no point did anything happen between them - nothing was premeditated.

A load of them caught a taxi to their various homes, including her. When they got to his stop she asked if she could get a glass of water. He said yes. For context here, my partner has Asperger’s, so he took this literally.

Once inside the room, she ‘threw himself’ at him and they had sex.

He said it was horrible and like an out of body experience.

She left soon after, leaving him ashamed and traumatised.

Nothing he’s said changes from this account and believe me, I’ve tried from all angles.

Since he told me, he’s taken responsibility for what happened and has never once blamed anyone else. But as time moves on, I’m seeing things differently. If what happened that night happened to a woman then this would be a very different story. It would be rape.

I’ve said this to him, and he got very defensive and told me he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. We now don’t talk about it.

This is a very confusing and disorientating change in circumstances. There are so many layers to wrap my head around - both personal and societal.

Because he doesn’t want to talk about it, I feel very alone with my thoughts. Thoughts that twist and turn into what often feels madness. I’m still trying to make sense of it. Desperately wanting to know what is real and how to see him - a victim or a cheat.

What I do know is he’s always been a man of great integrity. He has strong values, works hard and has never once made me feel insecure.

Being neurodivergent, I know that he has to mask a lot. He also prepares for situations as best he can. So I can see how this night must have really thrown him.

I just don’t know what to think anymore

This feels like something he should address with a professional. Does he have a good therapist, and is he seeing them regularly? Admitting that you were sexually assaulted is very scary, especially if drugs (alcohol) were involved. There are plenty of women who have trouble accepting it. I imagine it's harder if you're ND and not a woman.

What a heartbreaking situation for you both. I think you might be onto something, though, based on your description of what happened and his reactions after. He might not have been equipped to know how to say no in that kind of situation. He might have been confused by his body's signals (sometimes your body reacts positively even if your mind is saying no). He might have been afraid to upset the woman by rejecting her advances.

Regardless, I think this goes beyond the relationship. I would urge him to discuss what happened with a therapist or psychologist.

I didn't have diagnosed ASD 1 but my son does, and there is strong indication I may simply be undiagnosed.

I can tell you with some level of certainty that if an attractive woman threw herself at me while I was very drunk (before being betrayed myself), I probably would have been shocked, but also just go with it. "Oh this is happening, I didn't expect this."

Women don't generally throw themselves at me, so I have little-to-no experience rejecting women. Then afterwards I would feel an immediate need to tell my wife what happened. I would understand if it ended the relationship and if I had lost trust at that point.

I would probably feel ashamed, not about the sex itself because it probably would feel very good, but about not rejecting the woman despite not really having the skills to do so. I would know what I was doing was wrong the whole time, and that would be the bad part.

Essentially I would be very upset at myself afterwards for not having the integrity to make the event stop.

It isn't really analogous to rape because I don't think she overpowered him or that he was so far gone he was unable to consent. More like took advantage of his lack of inhibition while drunk. If you were to ask him "if you were single would you have wanted to have sex with her?" The answer is probably yes. I doubt he would feel shame or trauma if he wasn't taken at the time of her throwing herself at him.

How quickly after it happened did he tell you?

She was drinking as well. Did he take advantage of that? When both are drunk, who's to say?

People who cheat..Lie. Maybe his version of that night makes no sense,because he's leaving key things out,nor adding in things go make himself look better.

Who is she? How did she happen to be there?

You no longer talk about it? Rugsweeping is a bad idea. It's impossible to heal.

Regretting the experience doesn't equal rape.

Gently,in your first post, you said he told you he went back to a hotel, with a woman, for sex.

That doesn't sound like she went up to his room, for water.

It's normal for a BS to try to twist things, to make their WS a victim. We see it a lot with new BH..they come here,and insist their poor wife was preyed upon,and she was just too weak to say no. Often, the bh comes to find,in time, that their ww was the one who pursued the OM.

Please don't rugsweep. I've read your posts. He's doing no work. And now you aren't even allowed to speak about it. He doesn't make you a priority.

You matter. If you have to rugsweep, to keep him happy, you will make yourself extremely unhappy. Your healing is necessary.

Your husband went to a strip club, got wasted, and brought another woman back to his hotel (EDIT: or his place-- the story keeps changing) for sex afterward. If he indeed felt ashamed and disgusted afterward, it was because he did a shameful and disgusting thing.

But even if this one-night stand was a drunken anomaly, he was certainly cold-stone sober when he made the calculated decision to lie to you about it and continue having sex with you after he found out he was infected with an STD.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 6:14 PM, Thursday, June 6th]

Based on other poster's replies I went back to your other threads.

I very quickly lose the sympathy expressed in my previous post because he didn't come clean to you immediately. If he felt so bad about it, I would expect him to tell you when he woke up the next day or as soon as he could see you in person. Hiding it from you deepens the loss of integrity and doesn't track very well with a momentary lapse in inhibition and low social skills. I'm in no way excusing the ONS or saying alcohol is an excuse. What I am saying is that a drunken ONS that you immediately come clean on is as close to "mistake" as anyone can get. Even that has plenty of decisions involved, and generally lowered inhibition.

I stand by him not having been sexually assaulted in a way that he didn't generally actually enjoy or would have enjoyed fully if he wasn't taken.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 6:44 PM, Thursday, June 6th]

I don't know if he was sexually violated or not - none of us were there. I do know that when I was the drunkest I've ever been - such that I would not have been able to appropriately consent, I absolutely would not have been able to remember enough to tell a story about it later. My memory would be patchy at best. I would not have been sober enough to meaningfully participate in sex, much less feel recollect feeling badly about it afterwards. I certainly would not have been confident to assure anyone of the details of what happened afterwards.

The fact that he lied about it afterwards does not mean that he was not violated. It does mean that he is willing to lie about it when it suits him and that you have good reason to be skeptical. It certainly doesn't speak to his integrity. Nor does the fact that he allowed you to have sex with him afterwards, knowing he could have been infected. There is a lot I'd need to know before I could make any real judgments. Who is this woman to him? Why were they out together? Why were they drinking so much? Had they been flirting previously in the night? Why was he staying in a hotel? Why couldn't she have gotten a drink of water at her own place? Have you spoken to her or the other people who he was out with to get a better idea of what happened? Is he pushing the narrative that he was violated, or is this a bargaining tactic on your behalf?

It is possible for him to have been drunk and for that to have lowered his inhibitions to a point where he made a choice he might not normally have made, and for him to have regretted that decision afterwards, without him having been 'sexually violated'.

I do think the fact that he is totally stonewalling you about it all now is a problem and is absolutely hindering your ability to heal and that that is intentional on his part to avoid accountability and sweep this under the rug. I know he is on the spectrum, but he's not a child. He should know it isn't appropriate for a woman to go to a married man's hotel room at night.

I personally think we are not qualified to give this assessment.

Not telling could be about shame, it could be about guilt.

I do not have a lot of understanding the the spectrum but if a person has a disability and mix it with alcohol I don’t know that person wasn’t assaulted.

I do think that a professional should be consulted. And regardless of it was assault or not there are other decisions that were questionable that should be discussed. I would not be cool with my husband going to a strip club, and after this he should understand that is a no.

You have a right to feel how you feel even if he wants to drown it out. This is a big event that needs to be looked at in order for you to feel safe moving forward.