# Sexual Harasser



## phoenixmountainman (Apr 5, 2012)

I've had my own issues with my wife, which I've outlined in a previous post, but she's thrown me a new curveball lately that I'm not sure how to respond to. 

We a both military on different continents for the next couple of months. Last fall, we were apart at our separate duty stations and she had been acting extremely distant and confrontational toward me for a number of weeks. One night she called me and started the conversation like this:

Her: Something happened at work last night, and you're not going to want to hear this
Me: What happened, is everything ok?

A loooooooonnnnnnnngggggg pause, then

Her: You think I cheated, don't you
Me: (a little thrown, and not knowing how to respond) It wasnt the first thing that crossed my mind, I'm just worried about you

She proceeded to blow up on me for "accusing" her of cheating. The she told me what happened. It turned out that she got assigned to drive some Major around for the day, and he made some EXTREMELY inappropriate comments to her. Then she found out he had done the same thing earlier that day to one of her young soldiers. She proceeded to spend the next week furious at me for accusing her of cheating. I felt pretty set up in the matter, that given the manner in which she led into things, any guy on earth would have had that cross his mind.

She looked into filing a formal complaint against the guy, but for reasons I don't know, backed away from it. Several weeks later, I was over there visiting her, and we were at lunch, when she said:

"Don't look, but the guy over at the salad bar is that Major."

I didn't do anything. I knew she had dropped pursuing the formal complaint against him, and I thought she just wanted to put it behind her and move on, and nothing more was said about it.

Fast forward 5 months to now and she's mad about something unrelated, and starts dropping bombs about how I wasn't a man and didn't stand up for her then when the guy was in the restaurant. Perhaps I should have confronted him. I'm not sure what I would have done or said, but perhaps I didn't respond appropriately thinking that she just wanted to put it all behind her. She continued to complain about this for several days lately, how she needs a man who will stand up for her, etc, etc. I get that, but felt like walking in two months after the incident actually happened, I wasn't really sure what to do. I thought about it some more this week and thought one thing that I was going to do was that I would call the Major's wife and tell her what he had been doing, thinking that she had a right to know that he was trying to proposition women for sex. I mentioned my intentions to my wife, and she got furious, saying that I'm a man and as a man, I should never go to the guy's wife. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Unhappy2011 (Dec 28, 2011)

Stand up and in a firm but calm voice tell your wife she is being an idiot.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tokn (Sep 9, 2011)

What did she want you to do? Go shove his face in the salad bowl?

I don't know how great that would be for your military career. And if you were to confront the guy without your wife's official complaint probably won't look well on you either.

Tell her she has a duty to file the complaint to not only protect her but for future women that may give in to his rank or pressure.


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## phoenixmountainman (Apr 5, 2012)

I completely agree she's acting like an idiot about it.

Should I go on my own and track down the Major's wife and let her know what has gone one, or should I just leave it be? My gut tells me to tell her, since if I was in her position, I'd want to know what my spouse has done.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tacoma (May 1, 2011)

You`re real problem is your wife.

She`s instigating something behind your back.
Somethings going on and she`s manipulating you for some reason.

Beware, do nothing, keep an eye on her.


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## bryanp (Aug 25, 2011)

I agree. You should stand up and file for divorce. Your wife clearly is wanting to bring you down for some reason. Time to move on and find someone else who truly loves and respects you because your wife does not. If you do not respect yourself then who will?


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## Gabriel (May 10, 2011)

bryanp said:


> I agree. You should stand up and file for divorce. Your wife clearly is wanting to bring you down for some reason. Time to move on and find someone else who truly loves and respects you because your wife does not. If you do not respect yourself then who will?


Dude, settle down. You can't be serious. While this is strange behavior that needs to be dealt with, slapping her with divorce papers over this is ludicrous. Is that your answer to everything? Geez.


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## t_hopper_2012 (Apr 17, 2012)

Is it possible to have a conversation with your wife regarding the actual course of action that she'd like you to take (call the guy, talk to him in person, complain to his commanding officer, file a formal complaint - her job, or something else) and the pros/cons of each? You could frame the conversation as "I do want to stand up for you and help you out with this jerk, but I don't want to do it in a way that will damage my career or yours"

If she won't work with you in this conversation and expects you to either magically figure out what she wants on your own (or to "just be a man and defend me"), you might want to remind her that the best course of action would have been filing the formal complaint - which she chose not to do.

Basically, I think this issue is a symptom - not the disease. My guess is that there is something else bothering your wife - perhaps something that she can't quite put her finger on. So, she voices her dissatisfaction by bringing up this one concrete issue.


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## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

Huge Red Flags here!! Always be aware of anyone who denies an action before anyone accuses them. It's a classic sign of deception and guilt. Secondly, any American service member knows full well the reporting procedures for sexual harassment. I expect the same is true for most other countries. Third, you notice she silently endured his alleged comments until she found out that he had made similar comments to a younger (probably lesser rank) soldier. Even then, his actions didn't strike her as significant enough to file the official complaint she was pretty much honor bound to file, but it was just problem enough to expect you to threaten or assault a commissioned officer. If she were a dependant, I might think differently, but you identified her as a service member. I assume she's familiar with military justice. I'm calling BS on her allegation. Even if by some miracle, there is some truth to her story, the appropriate response would be for her to file a formal complaint, through EEO, his commander, JAG, the MPs, or her congressman (assuming she's U.S. military). If this Major was crazy enough to proposition two subordinates in the same day, he should be easy to catch by audio recording. What's your wife's rank? A woman would get to question my manhood maybe once. Your's has questioned your's at least twice. The military is her profession and she is responsible for her own military business. It would be inappropriate for any soldier (sailor, marine, whatever) to expect their spouse to get in the middle of their military business. If I need to talk to my CDR, I talk to my CDR. I don't send my wife. I'm an NCO. Maybe I could ignore a breach of conduct directed at myself but never in hell could I hear of an officer propositioning one of my subordinates and then do nothing! He may or may not be guilty of sexual harassment, but I'd be guilty of dereliction of duty. If a soldier lacks the courage to report a serious criminal violation, what good would she be in combat? If the younger service member can't trust her to have her back when bullets aren't flying, how can they trust her when the crap really hits the fan?


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