- This topic has 10 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
Hi all, I’m out of the relationship now thank goodness and I know full well my ex was abusive- physical assaults, emotional abuse, criminal damage to my property. However, I would have never said he sexually abused me as he never full on raped me.
However, now I have a clear mind I am going through all the things he did and I just would like your opinions on whether I was abused sexually as I think I have repressed all this and don’t really know how to deal with this side of the abuse or if it even was abuse.
He had sex with me all the time even if I was tired, ill, said I didn’t want to. He would make me feel so bad until I let him. For example he would say “you need to have sex with me now or I will go elsewhere” or “all I do for you and you don’t even love me enough to have sex” etc.
He would always touch me inappropriately in public for example stand behind me and squeeze my down below even though he knew how reserved I was and how I told him how uncomfortable and upset it made me. He felt like he had the right to touch me wherever and whenever he wanted.
When I was pregnant I had really bad mental health problems and was hospitalized and out in a psychiatric ward. I was very very mentally vulnerable and extremely poorly in my mind. He would be there every day to look after me. However, I would be in my single bed in my room on the ward and he would come and cuddle me from behind when I was trying to get to sleep and would pull my pants down and have sex with me. At this point they were giving me sleeping tablets so I was very drowsy and told him no, because again I am very reserved on where I have sex it was a psychiatric hospital and I was very ill. He would do this a lot. He acted like because he was being there for me I had to do this for him even though I was in no mind set to even take a shower never mind have sex. It made me very uncomfortable.
Is this sexual abuse? I never thought I was sexually abused until looking back, or am I over reacting? Out of everything he did this is the part I’m struggling with the most.
-
What you describe is rape. You had neither the freedom nor the choice to consent. He penetrated you with his penis when you were ill and vulnerable and unable to consent in any meaningful way. Very rarely are women held at knife point in a dark alley when they are raped. Usually it is by someone they know, often under the circumstances you describe.
Well done for getting out. That is huge!
I am not clear in my mind whether I was raped by my husband or ‘just’ sexually assaulted. It can be a murky area. I am now on the waiting list for counselling through Rape Crisis which I hope will help to clarify. There’s an awful lot spinning around in my head and none of it makes much sense.
Please contact WA or Rape Crisis and you will find some fantastic support. They can advise you on how to move forward.
You are absolutely not over-reacting!
-
-
Thank you both for your reply. I never let myself think of it like that as the thought made me feel physically sick. I don’t know how to start to deal with this area of the abuse. I’m starting to come to terms with the rest of it and feel a bit better about myself but this has just been a major set back for me 🙁 sorry to hear you have been through something similar maddog, I kind of feel like now I’ve acknowledged this was abuse and possibly rape I wish I hadn’t let myself think about it 🙁 can’t eat can’t sleep
-
Rape Crisis is brilliant, and you would do well to start there, or with WA. Either way, they can help you process your thoughts and offer specialist counselling. They will also support you should you decide to report to the police. I was told I probably had PTSD. I’ve had so many things wrong with me from the results of c****y parents. And my husband always telling me he ‘wasn’t my father’, whatever that’s supposed to mean. I think he meant it as a way to shut me up. I’ve been living in a lie. I’ve been deceiving myself and that’s horrible. My husband used to tell me he’d never hurt me, and stop doing whatever he was doing if I said. He never smashed my belongings, but broke them anyway without apology. It was all gently, gently as though it wasn’t his fault. Latterly his rages have become more livid. Yes, it is a cycle, one that I didn’t see.
-
Hi Starsimdarkness,
So sorry honey, I know what you’re going through. I felt like you, couldn’t acknowledge that it could be sexual assault, coercion, rape etc. Mine too would say I didn’t love him, that he would go elsewhere, that it was my duty as his wife to satisfy his sexual needs. Then one night he told me he was sick of my lies and excuses, from then on he would be having sex regularly whether I liked it or not!
Something snapped inside me. I told him he could have sex every night of the week and twice on Sunday if he wanted but he was never touching me again. How dare he threaten to rape me!
He told me I was mentally deranged and a psycho. I never said that! He kept yelling at me. Well no he didn’t use those words but when I asked him what he did mean he stormed off to get drunk and denied everything in the morning.
All this wa because I had tried to talk to him again about sex being painful for me since I tore badly giving birth to our second child. He told me I was lying and if I was telling the truth I’d better ‘get myself fixed!)
I’ve never been so angry in my life at the way he spoke to me. I assume that’s why I finally stood up for myself and had a fit with him. It didn’t stop the coercion or assaults or verbal abuse, but I refused to have sex and eventually refused to sleep in his bed too. Very soon now I’ll be refusing to live with him or stay married to him! Can’t wait 😊
As for how you can face what happened and deal with it. Well everyone is different, but the way I’m dealing with it is to just keep telling myself it was just another cruel way to control me and it keeps my head clear when the fog starts descending. I guess it’s not exactly ‘dealing’ with it as using it as a motivational tool to help me leave. Maybe you could try something similar until you are ready to discuss it in rape counselling or something. Good luck -
What you are telling sounds so wrong and yet so familiar. only recently I start thinking it feels like sexual abuse….
Even after I admitted to myself that he was abusive financially, emotionally and then physically, I did think we had a good sex life. But there were so many times when
-I would feel so tired because I had to wake up early for work the next day and I told him I was too tired for sex and he still insisted. Or told me I could just lay since he did all the work himself. And if I did that he said it felt like he was raping me and then I felt bad for him and tried to be more enthusiastic. And I treasured the nights when he would listen to me being too tired.
-There was once when I was very drunk and for some reason could not stop crying. he thought that to have sex with me was a good way to calm me down. I didn’t care all I ask was not to (excuse the language) c*m inside (as around that time I kept asking to stop trying for a baby). He did not listen.
-He insisted on the kind of sex that I did not want. Even if we had done it before I never felt comfortable and on that occassion I said no and I insisted on my no over and over again. He agreed. But I paid a price. We had an argument started from sex and going back to all the relationship problems, while I was being called all names on earth, when I was crying and singing to stop hearing him talk and it lasted a whole weekend. I never said no for that again.
-Once I had a very bad pain in my belly. And he wanted to have sex with me. I said I am in pain but he kept begging me. And he chose a position which did require quite of my energy. And it lasted longer than usual. And I kept thinking has he done that on purpose.
-Sex after arguments. Quite many times I had tears in my eyes while doing that because that’s the last thing I felt like doing.
-Him not listening to me that I want to stop trying for a baby while we sort out our relationship. (I mentioned that to police officer and his response was – it is rape, which I never thought of that before). -
, it took me a while to see the cycle of abuse too, thank you for the recommendations of who to talk to, i feel like this revelation has just sent me right back to where I was 🙁
Freedom fighter- so sorry to hear you have been through similar. I’m glad you have had the strength to refuse that is a big step when we no longer let them make us give in. Are you still in the situation now? I hope you escape and find your peace soon if you are. I think acknowledging I was badly abused has been the worst step for me so far.
Anabela- your story is similar to mine. At one point it’s not like I didn’t want to have sex with him at all as I still thought I loved him it’s that he made me so it even when I didn’t want to. But because at that time he was my partner and it’s not like I was repulsed by him it’s like it wasn’t abuse. Even though it was because I did not want it and said NO.
I agree that when I was in hospital and drowsy from sleep medication I was in no situation to stop him as I didn’t have the energy to push him away or anything as I was sleep deprived and on sleeping tablets that made me extremely drowsy before I went to bed.
It’s just sickening to think he also abused me this way. I can deal with the punches, the constantly being made to feel worthless but he took away my choice and free will to say no and that I don’t think I will ever get over 🙁
-
Another thing is now I realize he never looked after me when I was in hospital because he wanted me to get better. He never wanted me to get better, he loved the power he had when I wAs at my most vulnerable he could come and look after me and act the hero to my family whilst constantly abusing me. He would use my mental illness as a way to control me and take what he wanted, because who would ever believe a mentally ill person right? I’m so full of anger
-
-
And you have every right to be angry Starsimdarkness, they promise to love us, be honest and faithful, take care of us and protect us. But they treat us like possessions, like slaves to do their bidding. Well that’s not love! They lie to us saying the act of making love is the proof that we love them, well it may prove we love them by putting aside our own wishes and needs to fulfil theirs. But what they do by crossing our boundaries, ignoring our wishes and needs is disrespectful, cruel and the opposite of love. It shows utter contempt for us. That’s what convinced me that my Jeckell and Hyde husband was in fact a cruel abuser.
It crushed me for a long time. I had convinced myself he was or had been a good man but stress and booze had changed him. I kept trying to appeal to his loving tender self. To realise that was just an illusion, a mask to confuse and control me was so devastating. He’d asked me very early on what my soulmate would be like, then pretended to be just that. It’s been a very hard and steep learning curve, but I’m getting there. I’m ready to leave and have my plans in place very soon. I have been trying for so long, but doubts and fears combined with practical obstacles have prevented me before. With all the support I have now I’m sure I can do this now. Soon I will be free and start the next chapter. I know he’s going to make it as hard as he can, but everyone assures me that will just prove my point that he’s controlling. It’s a leap of faith, but I have support this time. People believe in me which helps me believe in myself.
Use your anger positively is my advice. Don’t let it eat away at you, use it to motivate yourself like I’m doing. It feels good 😊
Good luck and well done for leaving, stay strong and positive. Be good to yourself and do what feels right. That might be ignoring the sexual abuse for now until you feel strong enough to deal with it or phoning the rape support helpline to talk or what ever feels right just give yourself time to process and be gentle with yourself. It takes time to undo all the pain and suffering they cause. Be patient, you will survive this just like you survived all the rest. Together we are stronger than any of these cruel undeserving men together we will not only survive but we will thrive and continue to help one another. Don’t let him mess with your head and heart. You survived and you’re free and safe now. Look after yourself and become the strong happy woman you were always meant to be ❤️
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
