Help me process this distressing experience

In My Humble Opinion
1

Or: “WTF was this guy thinking?”

Setting: relaxed medium-sized party, mostly friends of my husband

99% of the party is chill, sitting around on the balcony having a few beers, fun but mellow.

Red Flag #1: Dude, who is a friend of a friend of the party host (my husband’s best friend), spends the evening trying to pick up the host’s two bull terriers, despite their very clear dislike of being man-handled.

Slightly off-topic Red Flag #2: Dude’s girlfriend (having heard me mention being Jewish to someone else), spends 10 minutes telling me about how much her extended family “doesn’t like Jews”…

Event: Late in the evening, everyone’s mildly buzzed but no one behaving as though they are outrageously drunk or anything. I’m standing toward one end of the balcony talking to Dude, Dude’s GF and a few others, my husband is no more than 10 feet away talking to the guy who brought Dude to the party.

Dude started in as if to hug me, which seems weird, but I don’t immediately reject the hug. Except, the hug suddenly turns into something else. He grabs me around the waist with one hand and puts his other hand on my thigh, starting to lift me upside down.

Did I mention this a few feet from the edge of a balcony, with a twenty-foot drop? He’s a 6-foot-plus guy, I’m a 5’3’" woman.

As soon as he grabbed my thigh and started to lift me, I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed, hard, and said, very loud, “No!”

He keeps lifting me, I push harder, and repeatedly say, in a louder voice, “No! No! No! Stop! What are you doing? Stop!” (I shouted “no” more than five times). My pressure on his shoulder means he stops lifting me up, but doesn’t let go.

After about fifteen seconds, my husband and Dude’s friend realize that something weird is going down and come over. Dude’s friend more or less pulls him away, he’s babbling something like “I just wanted to swing her around! I didn’t mean anything by it!”

My husband is a big guy, but not into being Alpha Male Guy, so he checks that I’m ok, I tell him I am but that I’m going downstairs (we were staying the night). As I leave, I hear Dude and my husband “having words” – Dude insisting that he didn’t know what my “problem” was, husband saying “You don’t touch my wife like that!” etc.

I went downstairs until the party was over.

Aftermath: my husband was very upset. He emphasized that he was not mad at me, but he really doesn’t like having to “gorilla out” like that, as he says, and is annoyed because the night is ruined.
Intellectually, I know he’s not mad at me, but it takes really, almost physical effort for me not to apologize to my husband (what for?).
I was shaken – I was genuinely afraid, I didn’t know what this guy was doing, I’ve been ‘manhandled’ like this several times in my life, and it’s just gross and unfun, and if this guy had wanted to, he could have even held me over the edge of the balcony. And I was angry. I couldn’t have been clearer about my own feelings, I’m never shy about saying “no!” or “don’t do that please”* but I still felt like shit, and like, somehow, I might be seen as being “hysterical” by my husband’s friends.

*As a small woman, sometimes people think it’s ‘super-cute’ and ‘fun’ to lift me up and swing me around without asking first. This is not cool! I have had to ask people to put me down so many times – as an adult!

After-aftermath: Dude’s friend apologized the next day to my husband, though not to me directly (but we aren’t FB friends nor does he have my phone #). The weirdest part was Friend said that Dude has ‘done this sort of thing all the time’ but that I was ‘the first person who ever objected’. WTF?

So, sorry for the novel, but I guess I just want some outside views on what happened.
A) anyone else have a similar experience? are my feelings about this irrational? were my actions reasonable?
B) Why did I feel such an urge to apologize to my husband?
C) Is there any way that literally no one has every objected to this guy’s behavior before?

PSA: Don’t lift, pick up, swing around small adults without asking! Thanks.

2

Your husband neither needs nor deserves an apology from you! And the man apologizing to your husband and not you is pretty typical; too many men only think we’re important if we Belong to someone.

Dude is lucky you didn’t pop him one in the eye. I suggest next time you do consider physical violence if someone is physically touching you and won’t stop. Ugh. There is no way that no one has objected before, he just never listened.

You are not irrational. Don’t touch people unless you know they want to be touched. Definitely don’t pick them up unless you are POSITIVE!

3

Thankfully, no. I’m closer in size to the clueless guy, and the idea of picking someone up seems pretty odd to me. She’d have to ask me and even then my first thought would be “What? Why?”

Your actions and feelings both seem perfectly reasonable.

This seems pretty natural. First, we apologize all the time for things that weren’t our fault. “I’m sorry it rained during your picnic” or “I’m sorry your husband died” and the like. Second, we would all love to be able to solve problems without help. If you’d been a 200-lb dude, you’d have smacked the other guy upside the head and continued the party. Everyone would have preferred that outcome, obviously.

Not that I’m saying you have anything to apologize for. Just that we apologize for all kinds of things regardless of fault.

I’m sure it’s come up. People are stupid. People and alcohol are stupider.

I’ll save the long story, but a friend of mine (demoted to acquaintance now) is simply not welcome around my family anymore because he has a drinking problem and also does totally inappropriate things while intoxicated. He’s been warned in the past by me and others, and I told him he doesn’t get a third strike around the people I care about.

4

You’re sorry because somewhere in the back of your mind you’re wondering if there’s something you could have done differently to avoid the situation altogether. This is irrational thinking, but that’s okay, because pretty much anyone who has been abused in such a manner does this. Especially women, because the are the ones who have to deal with victim blaming way more than men… “Why were you being flirty?”…“Why were you wearing that dress?”… Bleh… you get the picture.

You did nothing wrong. Dude was a straight up asshole/creep.

For future reference: People tend to let go of things when they are getting there eyes gouged out.

5

Your husband resents having to protect you? He’s upset the evening was ruined?

Hmmmm…that doesn’t sit right with me. I know Ivylad has my back, no matter what, and he’s in a damn wheelchair.

Dude is an ass. I would avoid further contact with him (as I’m sure you will.) My bigger red flag is with your husband. I hope you can have a good long talk with him.

6

You did absolutely nothing wrong, and your reaction is entirely reasonable.

7

I didn’t take it that the husband is upset about ‘having to protect’ the wife, nor do I get that he’s upset with the wife in any way. If some dude did this to my wife, I’d be pissed at him. And my evening may be very well ruined like hers was because of rude dude. I don’t think he ‘resents’ protecting the wife so much that he resents the dudes actions. It’s clear that he did have the wife’s back, based on the actions immediately afterwards.

If it happened to my wife and I, I sure as hell wouldn’t be happy, I’d be upset. To suggest I would be upset because I ‘had to protect my wife’ would be an incorrect assignment of my anger.

8

Punching him in the eye would be a completely inappropriate response!

What you want to do is gouge.

9

Is the friend who brought Dude socially clueless as well? Because I can’t help but imagine that someone who would be friends with a Dude that does stuff like this would have to be in order to maintain the friendship, and thus his assessment that “no one has ever objected before” is probably off. They probably have and he just couldn’t read the cues any more than Dude did.

Your reaction seems totally normal to me and I don’t see what you could have done differently. I might have panicked even more than you did and clawed or tried to kick him. Trying physically pick up other adults out of the blue without their consent is deeply weird. Unless there’s physical danger involved, I don’t even pick up my friends’ toddlers or young kids without an indication from the kid that it’s OK with them.

10

I think this is the right interpretation. Maybe with an extra dose of conflict-avoidance – my husband does care a lot about his friends’ opinion of him, but he made it very clear that he was not upset at all with me.

11

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I took this (from the OP)

as meaning he was uncomfortable intervening.

12

See, I thought I was getting physical – I was pushing on his shoulder really hard. Shoving, really. And screaming, trying to move away.

I guess it really didn’t occur to me to ‘go for the eyes’!

13

I think Friend might be a bit clueless, yeah.

ivylass, I don’t think my husband did like having to intevene. He is uncomfortable with physical violence – he said he was worried that he would have had to slug him if the guy wouldn’t back down. Ultimately, that didn’t happen. But he was right in there, defending me, in ‘gorilla mode’, even though it made him uncomfortable. I don’t think that means he resented me, though – but maybe that’s why I got the weird urge to apologize. It’s not a natural role for him, and I don’t like the feeling that Man had to intervene on Woman’s behalf…but that’s my hangup, too.

I did talk to my husband about it afterwards, and he said he was really angry, and almost did punch Dude, but that thankfully Friend got Dude to leave before that became necessary.

14

You did nothing wrong.

It’s a miracle that guy hasn’t had his ass handed to him numerous times for that sort of behaviour. Something tells me he’s developed selective memory loss about it.

15

The OP’s husband is allowed to be upset at the situation. Nobody likes acting out of character, especially when that means potentially getting into a violent situation. It’s good that you two talked it out and it’s even better that he was able to express why he is upset, and to parse those feelings in a healthy way.

His being upset does not marginalize DaphneBlack’s own feelings. They’re both allowed to be discomfited.

And DaphneBlack, of course you did nothing wrong, though do take note of the above-mentioned gouging advice for next time.

16

Yeah, I’m not big on the Brave Man Coming to the Rescue of the Hapless Maiden, but it does sound like he was upset that he was in that situation but still stepped up to put an end to the shenanigans. So I will withdraw my earlier comment. You and hubby go out for a nice dinner and put this nonsense behind you.

17

I agree with this as an explanation for why you felt apologetic. You’re probably playing back your reaction over and over in your head and labeling it an overreaction because he ultimately didn’t hurt you. But that’s hindsight talking; when he was grabbing you, there’s no way to know what he was going to do. Your instincts rightfully registered a threat and so you acted accordingly. Not that even really matters. His hands had no business on you at all.

Besides you and your husband, Dude’s GF should have been lined up to curse him out. The guy sounds about as intelligent as Lenny from Mice of Men.

18

Like your husband, I would be very uncomfortable having to intervene in a situation like that; I would be shaky afterward, and probably not able to really enjoy myself for the rest of the evening. And like your husband, I would not blame my wife at all for my distress; any blame from me would be directed entirely toward Dude.

I think “sorry” is a multipurpose word. In some contexts, it’s uttered as an apology for a transgression; it’s an admission that harm/damage was done and an expression of regret for that harm/damage. In other contexts (such as the examples you give), it’s offered as an expression of sympathy for someone else’s suffering, without necessarily conveying an acceptance of responsibility for that suffering.

If Dude did the same thing to my wife that he did to the OP, I’d probably say to her “I’m sorry that happened to you,” and it wouldn’t mean I feel responsible for the incident; it would just mean that I appreciate she’s been through an unpleasant experience. (I imagine my wife would say “I’m sorry” to me too, for the same reasons.)

OP might want to examine her feelings and see if she is apologizing to her husband because she feels responsible for what he went through, or merely sympathetic. Hopefully it’s the latter.

19

You did nothing wrong. YOU owe no one any apologies.

Host should apologize to you for his guest’s behavior.
I’d say Guest should apologize to you, but I don’t know if I’d want him around to get one.

Damn, if someone did that at my house, I’d grab him by the scruff of the neck and walk him to the door. “No, I don’t want to hear it now, you’re leaving, good bye.”

20

Perhaps your husband is feeling a bit conflicted? He doesn’t want you manhandled, but he doesn’t want his friends to think he’s a party pooper either? Toss in a load of conflict avoidance and you’re all set.