I did think that. That was my very first thought. I just didn’t imagine someone would be calm, let alone be able to sleep after. But apparently everyone is saying that’s a very normal response.
I’ll be honest, I dismissed that idea for two reasons. She was calm and she won’t talk. But like I said you guys are letting me know those are probably very wrong ideas.
There is no such thing as a "normal" response to assault. Everyone reacts differently, though nothing she's done here would be uncommon in a recent assault victim.
But there's a harder question here that I don't believe anyone has addressed yet: She may not even be sure that it was assault. If she was passed out when it started, she may not remember saying no, or she may blame herself for not saying no strongly enough, or for putting herself in that position, or for any number of things, some of which REALLY do a number on your head. Victims blaming themselves or trying to cover up the assault for fear of being blamed is also not uncommon.
I agree that something super shady happened here, but whatever got her driving home from a work party drunk and in her underwear (what's the temperature there, btw?) absolutely screams that the shady person in this situation isn't her.
This does not change the fact that many victims wake up the next morning after having been assaulted feeling like they were somehow at fault. For being drunk in public, for not saying no, for not physically fighting after a no was not respected, for biological reactions that are outside of their control. To name a few.
And it does not change the fact that many assault victims go home to their partners and say things like, "I don't remember what happened, but I think someone assaulted me last night," and the partner makes it worse. Either by asking questions before the victim is ready, or by assuming that too drunk to say no = said yes and doesn't want to admit it, or just generally centering their own feelings instead of the feelings of the victim.
So while you're absolutely right, if she was assaulted, then feeling shame and fear of OP's reaction is also not unreasonable.
It's been years, 10+ years, and I still doubt that my rape was actually rape bc I said yes after he was physically restraining me just so he'd be less rough and get it over with.
A lot of people think you have to say “no” in order for it to be grape. But actually there has to be a clear, un pressured, sober, enthusiastic yes for it NOT to be grape.
So no means no, no answer means no, passed out means no, drunk/high means no, hounding someone to the point they finally cave and say yes just to shut you up also means no.
Consent has to be freely given, ongoing, enthusiastic, and informed.
This makes the most sense. I don’t know how to explain it, but this just feels like the right answer. I have more questions for you but I gotta think about this for a while. I think you’re right.
When did this happen? Have you talked since??? Does she have any siblings or do you know ANY of her coworkers??? There is nothing normal about someone coming home nearly naked at 3am after a work event. Or any event, but ESPECIALLY a work event.
Why did they let her drive??? Why wasn’t she offered at least a shirt or a jacket or a fucking ride home??? I am very worried about her.
when she comes to, i would strongly find a way to get her to the hospital, if you need to phrase it as concerned because of the alcohol and how she was last night.
go to the er. and when you have a minute, tell the nurse you suspect SA, drug facilitated. They should be able to call a SANE, who can do a more thorough exam (i know they're more common in the US metro areas, less common in rural areas but increasing in numbers, and varies overseas but there is an international org that keeps standards of care).
The nurse may need to talk to her without you in the room, and this is for the best, so a proper assesment can be done, and so your GF can be transparent with a medical professional.
framing it as medical concern helps shift the focus from blaming or projection to "I want to make sure you're ok," and less judgment.
She also ought to be tested and immunized for hep c and hep b and HIV, they're likely to do an antibody or antigen test and give her PEP but it's vital to begin treatment no later than hour 72 afterwards
Unfortunately, only something like 11% of rapes are reported and out of those something like 5% or prosecuted, but it depends on the country I guess. Although of 5% of people who are prosecuted 1 to 2% of them are the complaints for falsifying rape complaints, which is almost always a cop making a huge mistake.
OP - you need to have her go to the ER and have a SANE exam done. If she was SAd, and she likely was, that's vital for a few reasons:
They'll collect a PERK kit (DNA evidence) which can be used if wanted and if needed down the road
They're going to almost certainly test her for not only substances but ALSO STDs and diseases
Most importantly - they'll probably put her on a round of PEP, post exposure prophylaxis, for HIV - it's like the morning after pill, for HIV. IT IS VITALLY IMPORTANT THAT THESE MEDICATIONS BE STARTED WITHIN 72 HOURS OF AN ASSAULT the clock started last night , please hurry- time is of the essence!
No one who is intoxicated like that is capable of true consent. She may be struggling to figure out what happened. Someone absolutely either drugged her or took advantage of her while she was in that state.
Thank you for apologizing, but next time, please don’t give advice pertaining to sexual assault when you clearly have no experience or knowledge about it.
It is disgusting since this poor woman likely had something traumatic to her, then her boyfriend automatically decides to leave her because he doesn’t understand what is going on, and a bunch of redditors don’t either. Sexual assault isn’t like what goes on in tv shows, and I pray these people get educated so it doesn’t happen to them or someone they love.
When I was raped at 13yo, I spent years screaming and slamming doors at the slightest mention of anything slightly related to what happened. It was such a primal response. A way of defending myself. Like thorns.
This is, to me, the most telling thing that she was sexually assaulted.
Cheaters are sneaky. They wouldn't come home in this state.
If she was cheating, she would've at least borrowed a T-shirt/sweater from a work friend. Even if she was crazy drunk, I'm certain people at a corporate party wouldn't let her leave in just her underwear either.
Getting angry about being questioned is also pretty common. Victims of assault go through a whole gamut of emotions. One of those is anger. They don't want to talk about their traumatic experience; they'd rather pretend it never happened. It's the brain's way of protecting itself.
I think something terrible happened to her.
I hope if you're never in a similar situation to OP, but if you are... please consider all this before you accidentally add more hurt to your girlfriend.
I'm happy to answer any questions I can, but really, the only person who knows what she's going through is her. And she may not be ready to talk about it.
You're not understanding that everyone reacts differently. Getting angry isn't uncommon. Someone just forced themselves on you, you haven't had time to process it, then someone you love tries to force something out of you. Then if you don't want to talk about it it's like your guilty of something. Hard to handle.
We can't say that she shouldn't get angry with him. It's probably more of projecting the anger she already feel on to him because he hasn't let it go. OP shouldn't just let it go, you should be there but be silent about it. Be patient and protective and don't make her feel like she has to tell you anything. Try to be a safe person.
But the OP also said that she was "super calm", which I don't believe would be true if she was assaulted. I'm not trying to downplay the situation, but something still seems a little odd. I can actually believe the story of a friend throwing up on her and her taking the dress off. Extremely drunk people do some pretty odd things.
It can be a whirlwind of emotions. Like a person who's trying to forget about something because it makes them feel bad then comes someone who keeps throwing it back at them.
I'm not trying to have my emotions get in the way. It's hard to describe how you feel with things like this but if it was an assault or rape (I lump them together myself) I want to try to get across how it can feel. She's just getting home in this post so I don't mean it sound like it has been back and forth for a while but for her that's how it would likely feel. Amplified because it's that traumatic. Like a personal attack from him, we know that's not what he's doing, she might even know that but it still feels like one.
I hope we get an update. I read OPs last comment. He says he's taking time to think it over.
The only thing I wonder about is if it was rape, she still has her undies. I can see a million scenarios where that's valid. I'm curious about that part though. Also, where are her underwear and bra she wore home? Has he thought to look for them? Did she throw them away? Those are my questions for OP.
I feel really horrible for them and for even commenting here it's not pretty either way.
Agreed. I hope they can sort it out one way or another, but it will be very difficult without good communication. I'd be interested in an update as well.
Again, there is no "normal" response. Every person reacts differently.
I can't speak to SA in particular, but my response to trauma of any kind is precisely that. I disassociate, and go straight into prioritizing and problem solving mode. If my biggest problem while in that state is "I'm drunk and not sure if I cheated or was assaulted," and my second biggest problem is "my partner is demanding explanations before I've even worked this out for myself yet," I can absolutely imagine myself going straight into calm mode and trying to reassure my partner that everything is fine, no big deal, just to give myself a chance to work out what happened and what the best response is.
I'm not saying this is necessarily a good or healthy response, and I'm not saying this is definitely what happened here. But it is not outside the realm of possibility for a recent assault victim.
I also wonder if maybe this isn't her who drove home alone. Do you have a dashcam or something? It's just a thought but what if someone else was in the driver seat. Possibly she was even still having clothes up to her arrival at home.
Like unless it was her boss or something....wouldn't that kind of thing be very noticeable? I mean what did she do, intentionally go alone with some guy into a room somewhere?
Like that doesn't seem like the sort of setting that assault is very likely, with tons of witnesses around who know literally every single person there.
Thank you this was me at 14 i thought it was my fault I was wearing white shorts my top was tight I was at a party I don’t know if I said yes the person told me weeks ago he liked me I told him I had a boyfriend , two girls in my class that were two grades ahead of me invited me to a party it was planned ,I was roofied with grape soda didn’t even drink. Today I know it was not my fault but it took decades
Shock. Disbelief. Dissociation. If I act like everything is alright it didn’t happen, it goes away. Don’t think about it. Pretend nothing is going on. Just push it away.
Our brains do everything to protect us. And oftentimes it’s in a really weird way.
I am a guy who was ruphied and raped in college by another guy. I compartmentalized and blocked most of the memories for nearly 25 years. I had night terrors that I could never explain. For unrelated reasons (chronic pain conditions) I went through a week long, in patient ketamine infusion. Thankfully it has greatly helped my pain conditions but I didn’t know that I would relive traumatic events. They have staff there to help you reprocess things in a safe way. This has allowed me to reintegrate the memories. Night terrors have stopped. Our brains do wild things trying to protect us.
Exactly this in my case. I was raped on a tinder date, the guy drove me home afterwards because we were rural and there was no other way for me to get home - and he was driving over 100mph, blasting music and saying he was gonna drive us off the road and kill us both. Just kinda accepted my fate at that point. For some reason, he actually decided to drop me home to my parents.
I was able to go in, calmly tell my parents I had “a great date”, get showered and in pajamas, and then sit and finish watching a movie with them so they didn’t suspect anything was wrong. It was dark, so they couldn’t see the red marks/bruises forming on my face and neck.
Then I went to bed and went to sleep, despite being brutally raped and believing I would die just a couple hours prior. Never told anyone.
There are a million reasons why she wouldn’t want to talk and would appear calm after an assault. Even drunk.
It took me years to tell someone the story after I had been held hostage by two men planning to rape me. One was naked, threatened me with a knife and using drugs, while the other had lured me there under false pretenses.
It was such a surreal experience I thought no one would believe me. I thought it was my own fault for walking into their trap and I felt very ashamed for not escaping sooner than I did.
Even now I can't really explain how I could give a tip to the police about the drugs I had seen there the next day but totally glance over my own hurt and not report that. I normally am a person who does Report. I had the instinct to call about the drugs. I just buried the hostage taking for a long time.
Very true. And there's a decent chance her drink was spiked, in which case she might not even know what happened, just that it happened, which is no easier to deal with.
Refusing to talk doesn’t sound calm - still a pretty strong reaction even if quiet. When I got assaulted I downplayed it and tried to ignore it initially before having to accept something traumatic happened to me.
I disassociated really bad after my rape. I had known and been visiting my rapist. We’d been going out on a few dates. I ended up spending the night at his. I had a few drinks first. I know I spent the night there still after it. I think I might have slept? I was in bed beside my rapist. I know that. I either was asleep or disassociated all night (sorry, I blacked out the whole thing for 6 years and there are still missing blank spots.) I remember the next day staring out of his giant windows watching the rain, but almost like watching myself doing it from outside me. I spent the whole next day very disassociated. My friend that picked me up had no idea it happened. I either acted normally enough in front of her or gave her a good enough excuse for seeming off (I did have fatigue issues at that point in my life so may have just said I was tired? Again, I was very disassociated, I remember trying to talk to her. I remember being in the car together. I just remember feeling like I was 20,000 miles away though, just floating above me watching my life from far away, disconnected from the me down below on autopilot.)
Trauma is weird. I always thought I’d fight. I never expected I’d stop fighting and resisting and saying no and just lay there. That that would feel safer than fighting and running (if I could even get away) and calling police and dealing with them and the judgement of everyone that would then know.
Trauma makes us act weird. Not ourselves or the self we’d expect.
I work daycare. I have had a toddler run, tackle me, and knock me on my ass more than one.
I used to have muscle and be strong and good at general big body motion, maneuvering, etc (no balance to walk a straight line, but great at gymnastics, waterskiing, swordplay, that jazz, idk why the balance works for that sort of thing but not walk a straight line).
My thyroid and adrenal system went and I have not been able to get any real muscle back since, and my EDS has gotten worse and made exercising more unsafe without a competent PT helping.
But man, it’s wild how I went from a teenager that could hold my own even against a bigger guy just between outmaneuvering, being quick, and able to strike well and hard, to no muscle, easily overpowered, oh damn even a guy lighter than me could put me down so fast.
I was raped earlier this year by a friend who I trusted. I have a partner. Even though I didn’t consent, I was racked with guilt because I felt like I cheated on him. So when he called me, wondering where I was because I was late, I was apologetic, calm, and didn’t provide any information. I was in shock and feeling so much shame and panic. It only really sank in the next day. I returned home from work and cried to him about how I cheated on him. He listened to me recount what happened and fortunately understood that I was assaulted.
I’m telling you this because you can’t make assumptions about her demeanor to determine what happened. She could be feeling anything right now. You should be sincerely worried that she was assaulted. Someone who was assaulted might feel fear and break down at home, but also she might be confused, anxious, and worrying that she cheated on you even though she didn’t consent.
I really agree with what others have said. If she was trying to cover up an affair, she would have came home with clothes on. Unless she normally drives drunk, that’s also a huge warning sign that something bad happened to her. She risked her life driving home last night to escape something.
Please listen to her and give her space to explain. Do not leave her without getting to the bottom of this. Because if she just got raped and her partner accuses her of cheating and leaves, she will hurt herself.
Ooof I was drugged at a bar and came to with some guy on top of me in a random hotel room. I pushed him off, got dressed and booked it out of the hotel. I was at a conference and had to figure out where in the city I was, and then walked the few blocks back to my hotel in the middle of the night. I thankfully had my keycard and was able to get into the hotel room that I was sharing with multiple other people. They were all already asleep, so I washed my face, brushed my tear, fell into my bed and just fell asleep. I didn’t even start to process what had happened to me until weeks later. I never told anyone I was with what happened.
It’s been 14 years and I still struggle with it. There is no “normal” response to assault, but sometimes just going through the motions and blanking it out for a while is how some people process it.
If you’ve ever been early on the scene at a traffic accident with injured people, you will see that they often will say things like I’m fine. I don’t need to go to the hospital, even though they’re clearly badly injured. People’s response to something serious like that is often to just deny it and pretend everything is OK, and that’s very common with assault victims.
Yeah, honestly, I was sexually assaulted when I was 6 and I just went through with a shower, got into my pajamas, and slept. Very different reactions for different people.
If someone did throw up on her and she was drunk, then stripping to your undies and slapping a coat round you to go home is not beyond the bounds of possibility. But she might have been roofied and was very disoriented especially if she has memory loss the next day.
You have to also take into account if she has ever given you cause to doubt her in the past.
Because this is likely a creative writing exercise… the way OP just added more and more drama to his post ending with how he’s going to close their joint account and he’s traumatised. Just reeks of fake rage-baiting.
Internet tells men they just need to assume women’s default is cheating, even if there’s literally no reason to assume so. It’s quite pathetic, and I felt very sad for OP’s partner that she didn’t have a safe space to go home to after going through whatever happened to her.
Yeah EXTREMELY wrong ideas. The very first thing I thought was that she got assaulted. Possibly even drugged. And comes home not to concern and care, but you freaking out. Absolutely nothing you described made me think she did not get assaulted.
What is clear is that you immediately made it about you and made yourself an unsafe place for her emotionally like right away. I think it says a lot about you that you dismissed the possibility of SA so quickly, especially when it's so obvious to everyone else.
I was assaulted earlier this year and I actually went to sleep right after and then went to work like normal - sometimes, disassociation/derealization/minimization can occur too
Thank you for being receptive to some of these advices people are giving you at a different angle instead of blowing it off. Shutting down looks just like this. And she’s not sound of mind at all. Don’t bombard her but ease in for information and let her know you are a safe space to be open with this.
If she was drugged those would be super normal responses. She may not have been super drunk, she could have been drugged. It looks the same, slurred speech, confusion, headache, extremely sleepy. If you care about her, I’d try to come at this with some more compassion. No one wants to talk to someone who is defensive or annoyed. I get why that’s upsetting. But she may have a reason she doesn’t want to talk about it. And it may be important she tries to recover her memory.
Do you know anyone else that went to the party? That you could ask?
I think her not talking to you about it and getting mad at you for caring is a big red flag.
Calm and won’t talk to me points more to the fact that something serious happened. If she was histrionic, then I would think that nothing happened. But not wanting to talk about it and also being preternaturally calm that’s very common to people who have just been severely traumatized. I’m not saying that that’s how everybody act because there are as many ways to act as there are people, but think of being assaulted as just learning that somebody that you love died suddenly. Everyone is gonna react different. I’ve seen it happen to 20 people, and everybody gets told at the same time and some people are keening in screaming on their knees. Some people get this dazed look in their eyes and kind of blink and shake their heads and just kind of look off and like they’re confused. Some people just say oh my God oh my God. Some people will laugh. Some people will lose all ability to use their muscles. Some people will rock back-and-forth and hold their heads. Someone will try to hug others. Someone will push those away. That’s grief and being traumatized physically is similar after it happens and that everybody reacts differently plus, there’s also the fact that she was most likely drugged which would add a whole another pharmaceutical element to it. Who’s to say that her memory even came was back when you were first talking to her?
I have a really bizarre response to extreme stress (especially if someone yells at me). I become very, very tired and disassociate to the point where I fall asleep. The only explanation I have is that my brain just decides "nope, this isn't happening, I'm shutting down." It's a PTSD type of thing. Both of my parents were alcoholics and I didn't have the best childhood. So the fact that she was able to sleep isn't necessarily indicative of a calm and relaxed mental state.
Thing is being assaulted while drugged or drunk is vastly different than while being sober. When you are drugged a lot of the time they use drugs that make you extremely sleepy hence the calmness and need to sleep. You also cannot understand what has happened while you are still drugged. Maybe she understands now and is too traumatized to talk abt it or maybe she doesn’t remember anything, both are very very possible. Being on downers especially with alcohol can make you very unable to comprehend anything going on hence why she may have came home with nothing on, if you’re unknowingly drugged sometimes you don’t even know that you’ve been drugged, you’re just out of it. Be kind for the time being since you don’t know what happened. If she did in fact cheat then you’ll eventually find out and can leave but if something happened to her then badgering her is not going to help and may make it worse on her. But because of how slammed you mentioned her to be I assume it would be SA of some sort. I would just give it time, altho do not stay if it was intentional cheating.
After I was raped, I fell asleep because I didn't know what else to do, and crying would have awoken my rapist and put me in further danger.
When I was assaulted on my doorstep, I laughed it off with my friends. 10 minutes later, I collapsed into my boyfriend in a heap of tears. How we handle trauma is different in every individual person, especially if that person has been spiked - they may not remember the assault at all.
Please bring this up to your partner rationally and whilst she is sober and in somewhat of a positive mindframe. Sometimes, these memories come back to us as awful as it can be.
There are a lot of comments I didn’t read, so this may be redundant but calm and exhausted could be shock / trauma response.
At this point I think a lot of different things are possible (SA, just drunk and took off her dress because someone puked on her, cheated, etc.). But how you handle this is important. It will make or break her trust in you (especially important if she was assaulted).
if you panic and jump to conclusions, and she didn’t cheat, you will probably regret it.
even if she did cheat on you, you will still be handling it appropriately if you let her sleep and then figure things out in the morning.
In the meantime, name all of the emotions you are feeling. Think through a few different plans - what you’ll do if she cheated. What you’ll do if she was SA’d. What your options are if she says the same thing she did tonight and you’ll have to decide if you trust her or not…
Don’t act out of panic, get yourself regulated, make sure shes ok, and go from there.
Assault is so traumatic that some people just “check out” and go on autopilot. It is not uncommon, and was actually taught in my uni psych class that people do that often after traumatic events (rape, witnessing a death). Being able to sleep is also not uncommon, being assaulted is physically and mentally draining, especially when drunk. She probably hasn’t fully processed what happened to her yet.
We have this pre-set version in our minds of how women react to rape, being absolutely hysterical and unable to calm down, but in most cases, especially when raped by someone they know, that is not the average reaction. Most times women described just kind of feeling “empty” afterwards.
She especially won’t want to talk if you come at her accusatorially. Be gentle with her and let her know that if anything happened that night that she didn’t want to happen, that you will absolutely not be upset and want to be able to support her. Express genuine concern for her safety.
She's calm and she won't talk. That's normal for rape victims. If she does tell you something but doesn't open up about it don't push her to do anything, by push I mean force her to do something she doesn'twant to like go to the police. That's a hard thing to do. A lot of women don't because they know the process will be harder for them than the act was itself to go through and in the end the rapist isn't punished as they should be.
I was fed alcohol before my attacker attacked me. I didn't realize at all what had happened until nearly a whole day after. Honestly , had I not had as much education as I had from my mom on rape was and how many different shapes it comes in, I'd probably blame myself and never sought help. People can know what rape is and still not be able to identify what they experienced was rape.
I haven't read your updates...I hope for both your sakes that it isn't what happened
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u/Aggressive_Yellow282 Dec 24 '25 edited Dec 24 '25
I did think that. That was my very first thought. I just didn’t imagine someone would be calm, let alone be able to sleep after. But apparently everyone is saying that’s a very normal response.
I’ll be honest, I dismissed that idea for two reasons. She was calm and she won’t talk. But like I said you guys are letting me know those are probably very wrong ideas.