Hello Everyone, I was wondering if I could get your opinion on something.

Two summers ago, I was sexually assaulted by my boyfriend—who’d been friends with me since 3rd grade. He knew, because I told him, that I had a dark childhood, involving molestation, and severe psychological abuse. He accepted this, and reassured me that he was a good guy—over and over again. And I, as a fool, believed him. I trusted him, hoping that he would be the one to offset all of my assumptions about men: that they were only out to invade my innocence. I thought, by being honest with him that I was protecting myself. Little did I know...that he would, in fact copy what my childhood abuser had done to me—infantilizing me, soothing me like a child, until I fell asleep—where he could do whatever he pleased. I’d woken up to his fingers inside of me, but I was frozen—I couldn’t move, or speak. And this little voice inside of me told me to let him keep doing it, that I deserved it. It hurt so much—I was shaking, swallowing bile, and I was only half asleep—I told him stop, stop please. To this day, I don’t know if he heard me. But, before I could speak I grabbed his hands away, and he just kept going back. To the point where he took my hand, and I thought maybe he was going to hold my hand. That this was when the nightmare ended. But, instead he held it down, firmly to the bed. He soon let go, as I began to writhe—and then I finally said, stop...please, stop—that hurts. And he did. But, instead he tried to do something else. Everything felt like a dream.

Is this rape? Did he know what he was doing? When I confronted him about it at first—he told me it was probably a PTSD reaction, that it was a nightmare. I believed him. But then, I got this aching feeling inside of me that it was real. And so then, I confronted him again, in a less-sweet manner. He then told me that I was lying, and how could I make up something a f’d up as that. I told him I trusted him. How could he do that to me. He then blocked me. Later that night he contacted me through another social media source, telling me he had a flashback of that night, and he felt so “shitty” because he thought I was lying. But that there was so much I misunderstood: he thought me breathing heavily meant I wanted it. He told me, that he’s only human—and he made mistakes. But, he acted like he forgot what he did.

Can someone do that? Or was this a lie?

And the greatest question I wanted to ask here is— should I press charges?