petal_picking_poet
New Here
Hi all,
I'm a sophomore in college and was in an abusive relationship with someone who goes to my school for about 7 months. He sexually abused me (I think) and I am trying to decide whether to report him.
Long story short, I don't know that I can call what he did to me rape, but he was extremely coercive. I was coming to terms with a past assault when we started dating and wanted to wait to have sex. He apparently did not and employed a number of tactics to convince me to have sex. Some examples: He would punch the wall and storm out, etc. if I asked him to stop during any sort of sexual contact, and I always felt like he would hit me someday (even though he didn't). He would constantly tell me that I was a tease, I was using sex as a weapon, etc. He would make clear that he would leave me if I didn't get over it and have sex with him, etc. It got to the point where I was just afraid of him in general. I wasn't sure when he was going to snap and hit me or snap and kick me out (I was living with him but on no rent....) When I finally broke down and agreed to have sex with him, I sobbed the whole time. He did stop at one point and I told him he could keep going (after saying something like, "I feel like I'm under so much pressure), but only because I was terrified of what the result would be if I didn't let him finish. Things kind of went on like that for months.
Every time I'd bring up how I didn't like how he treated me, he'd bring up my past assault and say that I had a history of making things into something they weren't. (This is pretty weird since my first assailant admitted to assaulting me... it was DEFINITELY assault....) He'd basically talk me out of believing myself and I would stay and put up with it. Now that we're broken up, he's been harassing me when he sees me around and making fairly obvious attempts to intimidate me.
Basically, I don't think I would have a case if I reported to the police, but I feel almost certain that this would be a violation of my university's sexual misconduct policy. If I opened up a disciplinary board case against him and he was found guilty, he would be expelled. I'm trying to decide what to do in light of that.
Honestly, like I said, I don't even know that this is "real rape." Just someone being extremely abusive and coercive. With that in mind, the punishment my university would give seems pretty severe. I wish there were some "in-between" punishment, like making him move off campus and like take a semester off or something, but there isn't. It's all or nothing. I'm not sure what to do. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I'm a sophomore in college and was in an abusive relationship with someone who goes to my school for about 7 months. He sexually abused me (I think) and I am trying to decide whether to report him.
Long story short, I don't know that I can call what he did to me rape, but he was extremely coercive. I was coming to terms with a past assault when we started dating and wanted to wait to have sex. He apparently did not and employed a number of tactics to convince me to have sex. Some examples: He would punch the wall and storm out, etc. if I asked him to stop during any sort of sexual contact, and I always felt like he would hit me someday (even though he didn't). He would constantly tell me that I was a tease, I was using sex as a weapon, etc. He would make clear that he would leave me if I didn't get over it and have sex with him, etc. It got to the point where I was just afraid of him in general. I wasn't sure when he was going to snap and hit me or snap and kick me out (I was living with him but on no rent....) When I finally broke down and agreed to have sex with him, I sobbed the whole time. He did stop at one point and I told him he could keep going (after saying something like, "I feel like I'm under so much pressure), but only because I was terrified of what the result would be if I didn't let him finish. Things kind of went on like that for months.
Every time I'd bring up how I didn't like how he treated me, he'd bring up my past assault and say that I had a history of making things into something they weren't. (This is pretty weird since my first assailant admitted to assaulting me... it was DEFINITELY assault....) He'd basically talk me out of believing myself and I would stay and put up with it. Now that we're broken up, he's been harassing me when he sees me around and making fairly obvious attempts to intimidate me.
Basically, I don't think I would have a case if I reported to the police, but I feel almost certain that this would be a violation of my university's sexual misconduct policy. If I opened up a disciplinary board case against him and he was found guilty, he would be expelled. I'm trying to decide what to do in light of that.
Honestly, like I said, I don't even know that this is "real rape." Just someone being extremely abusive and coercive. With that in mind, the punishment my university would give seems pretty severe. I wish there were some "in-between" punishment, like making him move off campus and like take a semester off or something, but there isn't. It's all or nothing. I'm not sure what to do. Any thoughts would be appreciated.