Hello fellow proctologists, thank you for your time and your help in figuring this one out. I’ve thought through it from a few different angles and can’t seem to find a satisfactory approach. 

Some backstory: A few years ago, on my birthday, I was targeted in a club and had my drink spiked. I was abducted by a pimp and delivered to two men who had paid for a prostitute. They raped me all night in their hotel room, and in the morning I stole some cash from one of them (my phone, wallet, etc were all missing at this point) and managed to pay for a cab ride home. I have not been back to this hotel since, except with police to identify the location. My birthday is the same week as Valentine’s Day, and I have just recently started “reclaiming” my birthday and celebrating again, so my boyfriend and I usually do a few fun things that weekend for the combined occasions. My boyfriend works in the entertainment industry, and in 2018 he started a small production company and produced his first short film. I am incredibly proud of him and excited to support him in his career aspirations. 

The situation at hand: My boyfriend’s film has been accepted to a festival screening that happens to be on Valentine’s Day. I’m thrilled for him, and excited to attend the screening with him. There is a networking event afterwards, which is a very big deal for his industry and would greatly benefit him career-wise. He is a little shy, and I am much better at schmoozy networking party conversation, so I was planning to attend this with him afterwards for moral support and to encourage him to be bold and really go for it. I just checked the afterparty information, and it is being held at the hotel where I was raped. I do not want to go there, ever, and I especially don’t want to go there so close to the anniversary of my trauma. He knows what happened to me, but he doesn’t know that this hotel is where it occurred. I’ve asked him if he would be okay with me going to the screening with him and then heading home while he goes to the afterparty with his director, but he said he really wants me to be with him the whole night. To me, it seems like there is no way to avoid being an asshole here. 

Option A: I refuse to go without giving any specific reason why -- “I just don’t want to.” In this case, I show a clear lack of support for him and his career goals. I also run the risk of him trying to skip the afterparty in favor of doing something else with me for Valentine’s Day, which I think would be a big mistake. 

Option B: I refuse to go but explain why, and tell him I really want him to go without me. In this case, I’m worried that he will not really take advantage of the networking opportunities and will be worrying about me instead. After I initially told him about my rape, he had trouble sleeping and was upset for weeks. He is deeply empathetic, and I don’t want to put any negative, distracting thoughts and images into his head during the event. I don’t want him thinking about what happened to me and getting the wind knocked out of his sails. 

Option C: I just suck it up and go to both the screening and the afterparty and do my best to act totally normal. I’m worried that even if I try my hardest to be my normal self, my boyfriend will be able to tell that something is “off,” and will get distracted trying to comfort me. Alternatively, I could pull off the facade and everything goes great. Then we go home, and it’s Valentine’s Day, and he wants to have sex while I’m on edge from re-living my trauma all night. He would have no idea why I wouldn’t want to be intimate and I would ruin our Valentine’s Day. 

So reddit, please help. Would I be the asshole if I pick any of the options above?

TL;DR Boyfriend has an important networking event at the hotel where I was raped, I want to support him but I also don’t want to go. 
