TIFU by trying to relive my college frat years as a 32 year old man, making an inappropriate joke to a friend with a SA history and I almost lost everything.

Background

A few months back, I was going through a rough patch with pre-wedding and post-wedding burnout. We were the first of all our friends to get married and the wedding planning process was extreme stressful dealing with logistics, excruciating drama with different "friends" and relatives, in addition to so many twists and turns along the way. My wife was also going through a rough time with multiple major issues happening (family death, major car accident, workplace drama, wedding planning stress, etc) and I had some personal issues as well. We had also lost our 6 year old dog unexpectedly due to a relative killing him by neglect (heatstroke), who was like a child to us and been with us through very pivotal years of our lives, and it was completely devastating. She flew out to her bachelorette party the same day we had his funeral. And I spent my bachelor party on facetime with her every night crying with her. With so many issues running simultaneously and watching my wife mentally buckle was very painful.

After my wedding day, which was beautiful and fun, I was having some very serious post-wedding burnout. We had to cancel our honeymoon before the wedding, because my wife's boss, who is a manipulative and callous woman sabotaged our honeymoon for her own pleasure (long story), and we couldn't go. She isn't quitting her job either (another long story), so we both went back to work on the Monday after our wedding, while still mourning the loss of our baby, dealing with post-wedding tasks, dealing with insurance for her car accident, and a million other things.

I also work across the country due to my job forcing me to relocate and my wife is unwilling to move, and I am unable to move back due to the tech job market crashing, so it's been extra stressful for our marriage on top of 20 other issues going on.

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The Night I Went Full Regard

One month after my wedding, I (32) went with some much younger coworker friends (23-24yo) to a weekend getaway. They were nice people and flew out for our wedding. I decided I was going to get blacked out that weekend. I was sick and tired of everything in my life, and felt nothing but dysphoria from my work burnout, post-wedding burnout, marital problems, compassion fatigue supporting my wife through her dozens of problems, tired of grieving my lost child, etc. I just needed to get fucked up and party. So I made the decision to go all out with no limits that night and recreate the Hangover movie.

So I ended up downing half bottle of tequila, few glasses of wine, countless beers, a couple white claws, a couple mystery cups, and some other drinks. I chemically lobotomized myself enough to revert back to my college days. I ended up shirtless, acting like a dumbass and saying stupid shit. At first my stupidity was innocent and funny. Then it got worse when I rapped the n-word off the karaoke screen because I was unable to self censor. I was bragging about the size of my male body part, telling people I was man enough to get shot with a 22LR, making all sorts of juvenile jokes, etc. I willingly drank myself to the point where I was mentally an 18 year old again.

I had a now former friend there who was just trying to enjoy her night like a normal person. We all decided to go out to a bar and she said she was going to stay behind to talk to her boyfriend. In my drunken stupidity, I started obnoxiously saying in front of everyone "HAHAHAHA she's too busy flicking her bean to her man!!! HAHAHA she's gonna flick her bean to him HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

She went into a spiral after that. Turns out she has a history of being SA'd and also was shamed by peers for being SA'd in her past. It caused a lot of problems for her and her parents ended up sending her to some troubled teen rehab camp as a result of her trauma Basically I was that asshole who said some very triggering things. Additionally, she was going through a lot of issues with her family as well during that time, so obviously she was not in a good mindset.

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The Fallout

Next morning, she couldn't even look me in the eyes when I apologized to her and told her that it was completely fucked up of me to say what I did.

In the following week, the groupchat went dark and people began taking sides. A couple of the guys sided with me, the girls and the gay sided with her. Apparently they had some long heated discussions and screaming matches about this, because a couple of the guys kept insisting I fucked up. But the people supporting her kept insisting I was some sort of sexual predator. 5-6 year friendships were lost because of me.

At work, she told everybody what I did from her point of view and I became ostracized at work. At the same time, she began getting friendly with the people I was friendly with and I decided to just withdraw and avoid people. It got to a point where my bosses and mentors at work even found out. And the only time she spoke to me, she threatened to report me to HR and told me she had documentation and witnesses to back her up. Shit, I definitely deserved it for my fuck up.

Now this is where it gets interesting. Suddenly random people at work, who were rumored or known to be more conservative and non-woke began becoming really friendly and nice to me. Some other guy at work calls me regularly for talks about life and got really cool with me as well, and he sees me as a victim of wokeness who took the ultimate sacrifice for the "silent majority". My boss who I caught looking at Fox News on his computer suddenly got really nice and personable to me as well, and started having random meetings with me where he would talk about life, helping me out with some stuff, teach me woodworking, etc. And it turned out a couple awol friends in that group sided with me too, think I'm some "based" badass and they're blaming her for the issue, even though I'm insisting I fucked up because I chose alcohol to numb my pain.

Now it's become some political thing where one side thinks I'm some evil monster who preys on women and the other side thinks I'm a poor victim of wokeness. My wife meanwhile said I fucked up, but isn't mad at me, she's watching this play out like a D-grade reality show for her own amusement.

Honestly, I feel terrible that I made her feel the way she did just because I allowed myself to be consumed by alcohol. I am a grown functioning adult who should have decided to be careful with alcohol when I going through such a sensitive time in life, and I had multiple off ramps before and during that night before I went full stupid.

Anyways, I've been working with a therapist to get through my issues, stay consistent with my fitness and of course staying sober. I've been feeling better and been in a better state since I've completely quit alcohol. I just wish I never caused her that much pain.

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TL;DR: I chose to drink myself silly one night because I was tired of my life problems, made a vile joke to a former friend with SA history, lost a bunch of friends, destroyed other friendships, almost lost my job and then the conservatives at work began rallying around me like I'm some martyr. Now I'm sober and finding healthier ways to manage my emotions.