I honestly don’t know how to begin. My husband said that it’s okay to post this, but I still feel awful,

I (38) and my husband (36M) both have big families. I have my mother, father, two sisters, one brother, and several aunties and uncles. My husband has several siblings and aunts and uncles who he keeps in contact with, but he cut his parents off after his mother tried to assault him. He had been in therapy for a long time, and was getting better, but not that long ago, we were hosting a family gathering, and it all went wrong.

For context, my younger sister (25) was the golden child of the family. Not in a ridiculous way, me and my siblings were still looked after and got stuff we wanted, but there was obvious favouritism in the family. My sister was occasionally a little bratty, and always wanted what me or my siblings got, but overall she’s never done anything that would ever tell us that she would do something like this.

The family gathering was going well, but my husband (who has severe anxiety) told me that he was going to go upstairs and calm down for a bit, but he didn’t come back down. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, he works long shifts everyday and I assumed he had just fallen asleep. But half way through the night, Leah came crying to us, saying that my husband had taken her upstairs, and assaulted her. My whole life stood still as I listened to her tell everyone what happened in realistic detail. I almost fell apart when my husband walked through the door after her.

Needless to say, the entire family went completely insane, and rightfully so. Everyone was screaming and hitting, my brother was close to beating him to a pulp, but I knew something was wrong. I knew his trauma, and I knew that he would never do that. I told everyone to go home, I gave my sister the biggest hug I could give, and told her I would ‘handle things.’ When everyone left, I turned back to my husband, who was curled up on the floor, his face in his hands.

I told him I would check the cameras in the bedroom, and if what my sister said was true, I would phone the police there and then and have him locked up for life. But when I checked the cameras (which my sister had no idea about) I almost cried. I saw my sister holding down and undressing my husband. My husband had that same face that he had the first time I tried to be intimate with him — pure mental shutdown. All that trauma from what his mother did to him was coming back. I turned off the camera, and bolted to give my husband the biggest hug. He sobbed for hours, several times shutting down completely, which is a coping mechanism for him.

He has stopped eating, stopped sleeping, he doesn’t go to work, and he barely talks. He looks dead. I have never felt more horrible. He says he doesn’t want to press charges, but I think he doesn’t want anyone to actually know about his trauma, especially since it would open a big court case.

I sent the video to my family group chat the same night I found out, and cussed out my sister for having the gall to assault my husband, who already has sexual related trauma. For some reason, my family actually defended her after she made some bullshit excuse about him giving her ‘bedroom eyes’ and about how he clearly didn’t fight back. They didn’t even scold her for lying about actual rape, they just told me that my sister had clearly been coerced by my husband. I left the group chat, and blocked all of them immediately. I refuse to let anyone tell me that I should forgive the woman who raped my husband. Absolutely not.

As for my husband, he is starting therapy again back at square one. I am furious at my family, and really am thinking about going to the police about this against my husband’s wishes.

My more extended family have been spamming me with messages saying how sorry my sister is, and that she really didn’t mean it. My parents have called me several times through different numbers crying, begging me to at least speak to them, but I refused. I told them about how my husband is in a worse state than what he was before he initially started therapy, and that I doubted he’d be the same again. I feel bad hearing my parents cry like that, but they deserve it if they’re going to defend my rapist sister. I’m standing my ground, but everyone in my family is saying that I should give my sister another chance. I’m not going to, I just want to know if I’m being an asshole to the rest of my family.