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I know that my husband used to sexually assault me. The amount of poking and prodding me with his erect penis is without doubt, and his use of my body as a masterbatory tool is also without doubt.
I have been reading the reasons why he wants a divorce. He said I berated his at the time wife. I seem to remember that he was upset because I had asked him if he thought he had ever raped her. He concealed his rage at the time, and I had no idea of how angry he was at being asked. I can’t remember why I wondered or if it was connected to the time he very nearly stuck his penis into a friend of mine and would have done had I not told him to stop.The last time he groped me I told him I hated it. I had been asleep and woken up to find his fingers fiddling with my vagina. He responded angrily that it was his way of showing affection and that I was his wife.
The divorce proceedings are taking their toll. I really couldn’t care less what he says about me, only that it is making me remember things that are really not very nice to remember.
I honestly couldn’t say whether or not he has raped me. He always said he wouldn’t hurt me and that he would stop if I wanted. At the moment everything is so muddled and fuzzy and his ideas of consent so utterly blurred. Consent has never been a strong point for him. His behaviour made our sex life awkward and difficult and sporadic. Of course there were plenty of times when I did consent. There were plenty of others when I woke up being prodded by his erect penis in my genital area. I have never considered his behaviour to be rape. Now I don’t know what to think. It was certainly manipulative and controlling, but he never used force.
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Hi
So glad you’ve posted. You are truly wise and strong in honouring your emotions.I think you know the answer already. Your post tells me so. But having been there (find my old posts) I get the confusion. If you took away his words what have your perceptions told you? Legal definitions are one thing. But what we feel are violations matters more. I have learnt to trust my perceptions over anyone else. It is how I learnt to honour my needs.
I hope you are supported. Here is great. But I found private confidential conversations with Women’s Aid and Rape crisis useful. You may too.
Your mental health is precious. Especially in a divorce. You are so strong but sound tired. Another reason perhaps to find someone safe to talk to.
You are in my thoughts. I admire your strength. Know people care.
With love
Reeds -
Thank you Reeds. No, I really don’t know. Last night I spoke to someone at Rape Crisis, really just saying I don’t know how or what to articulate. A long long time ago I was coerced into having sex in lieu for using equipment. At the time I was very, very vulnerable and breaking down. I was told that it was rape. So I thought I knew what it meant. I thought my husband was wonderful when we first met. The sex bit was always a bit off kilter but I thought there were enough good things and I could handle it. I thought I understood what consent meant.
I have been referred to MARAC and hopefully will hear something from WA rep in the next week or so. It has been a long time coming. -
Hi Maddog
I’m so glad you’re getting external support. There is more than one situation/style of rape (if that makes sense?). It takes time to unpick but you are doing that. I’m so proud of you.
It takes courage to fully understand this stuff. If we’re still being/feeling traumatised it’s no wonder it’s difficult to fathom let alone say. Be as gentle with yourself as you can.
It’s not uncommon to be unclear on things. But you will with time.
Know you’re not alone. You are in my thoughts. You have found yourself in a storm. The storm is blowing you about. But it WILL pass.
Sending love and support
Reeds -
Thank you Reeds. At the moment I feel an irrational fear of my husband. It’s the denial, the blame, the complaining, the lying. There were yawning gaps in our sex life, usually after a row when I told him I didn’t like being used as a sex doll/sperm receptacle/unpaid (detail removed by Moderator)…that I did’t like having sex done AT me. I often felt left out of our sex life and everything with him was always about genitals as though I was a matter of holes to be filled. He never forced himself on me and he never threatened me. But without the reassuring words… all very odd and hard to process.
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I have to listen to my gut, KIP as I have IBD! Luckily it hasn’t flared up enough to cripple me but maybe that’s all the other meds I’m on.
The PC said he’d call and let me know what is happening with my case. I haven’t heard and their shift patterns are in an alternative timescale. I have no idea what is going on. Does anyone know what NFA means on the ground?
At the moment I just
Want this man out of my life. It is as though a horror is unfolding and I can’t articulate it. I have nothing to say to my husband. He will use anything I say against me. It is also very hard defining boundaries with the children as He will wade in and yell at me. -
nfa – no further action
that is what happened with my hub
partly because I refused to give a statement
so they said it is all still on file, and not closed but will only sort of ‘appear’ again, if there at fresh accusations against him, or perhaps I guess if I decided to give a formal statement which I never wouldthinking of you
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Maddog
Hi again:-)
I support our sisters comments. Remember if you can, that abusive relationships change our thinking. Abusers deliberately undermine our belief in ourselves. They try to make us believe what we think and feel is wrong.
So they can control us and get their needs met.You are amazing. You’ve not lost your inner compass. You are fighting through the fog of abuse and connecting to your emotions. That’s brilliant and shows so much strength.
That is awesome in the circumstances. Hold on to that if you’d like.Your gut/instincts will never lie to you. An abuser will. Fear is a warning. It is an alert to something being wrong.
You know what you’ve experienced. Your feelings knew the truth. You’re understandably wobbly. After all the stress and abuse who wouldn’t?
If boundaries are tough do what you can. For a short while it’ll be ok.One thing at a time. You’re working things out. That’s true smarts and strength.
Lean on the professionals you feel safe with. Keep posting here.
We are with you.
With sisterly love,
Reeds -
Thank you all for your wonderful and kind comments. Things are rattling in my head; all the rows, then when things got better with marriage counselling (ultimately a waste of time), then hit the rocks again, usually the same thing, then up again… on and on. We had one particular counsellor who blamed me along with my husband for being angry. The last one we saw insisted on seeing us together, knowing that by that time I’d been in touch with WA and the police. I still didn’t have the language to describe what was happening. It was only * years ago when I was told unequivocally that I was being sexually abused on an online forum. I used to wake up with my husbands hands where they absolutely should not have been and I asked him to at least make sure I was awake. He skulked off and one of us slept in the spare room. He was angry at me. At the time I didn’t recognise just how angry he was. I am staggered that I was forever in the wrong.
I still have no idea if or what the police might do.I have been told by a barrister friend that if they chose to go to court I should drop the charges as I have better things to do with my life, and frankly freedom is more important. I really don’t know what to think. Anyway nothing has happened, apart from divorce proceedings. My husband has told me I can start clearing the house to prepare it for the market.
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Hi Maddox
So much is happening so much to think about. You can work it out in digestible bits. At your pace. There is no time pressure for your heart.
Be gentle with yourself. The thoughts spinning can be a sign of extreme stress. But it will not always be how it is now.
Sending you so much strength
Reeds x
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Hi Maddox,
I can totally understand where you’re coming from with the spinning thoughts and trying to make sense of it all. My husband raped me as the final escaltion to his emotional abuse over a very very long time. I have been out of the relationship fo a while now and have been seeing a specialised couinsellor. It has helped enormously.
I am still struggling with the idea that he may have been raping me all along, at least in the later stages of our marriage. Sex was non-existent except for requests for blow jobs at stupidly inconvenient times (thus ensuring I felt obliged when it was a reasonbale time, having said “don’t be silly” so many times!). There was no signs of affection, he didn’t look at me during sex and there was no kissing during sex, or any other time for that matter. We would only ever have sex (on the rare occasion) when he woke me up for it in the middle of the night. I would be woken with his hand in me. Sometimes I would repsond and he would ‘joke’ afterwards that I had groped him in his sleep and the first he knew about it he was on top of me (lightening bolt: effectively accusing me of rape!! Ah there’s that mirroring agin!). Other times I would respond and he would (feigning sleep I’m now guessing) would roll over and go back to sleep and deny all knowledge in the morning! If I batted him away often enough he would give in and go back to sleep.
The mixed signals I got from him regarding sex – as a de-stressing ‘favour’ for him (blow jobs); the lack of affection – apart from random gropes and even rarer ‘passionate’ (now I recognise as aggressive!) kisses (another lightning bol+t: always in front of the children! OMG!), sex only initated while asleep; ‘jokes’ of meeting my boyfriend if my train was late; etc etc. It’s a wonder I recognised the excalated sexual assault at the end!
Over time I am processing this whole realtionship more clearly. The thoughts gets less spinny and the fog slowly gets thinner and starts to lift.
Hugs and take care,
Xx
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My husband thrives on mirroring. Not long ago everyone he didn’t like was a psychopath. Now his hot word is Abuse. When he rails against public figures he doesn’t like he sounds like he is talking about himself.
He rarely kissed me during sex. Pretty much genital contact only. How the hell did I consent to so much c**p sex? He told me once that I was rubbish at sex. In the end I didn’t want sex at all because it was just an act and I could only pretend I was with somebody nice for so long. He still groped me. Through the door but not through the house.
It’s difficult in real life. Horrible behaviour is normalised and minimised and not quite believed.
Every step of the way he has blamed me. Now my children blame me too. -
Hi Maddog (sorry for autocorrect earlier!)
Am definitely more aware of how he mirrored:
His sister and colleagues were n*********s
I was making him walk on eggshells
I was cranky all the timeI still wonder if he was unfaithful as this was often thrown at me. But he seemed so genuinely repulsed by sex that I can’t see it. He also seemed so ugly to me by the end. Not because he had let himself go (morbidly obese) but because his ugly insides were showing (like Roalf Dahl’s Mrs Twit). He also threw it in my face at the last row – “all those times I had sex thrown at me on my business trips I should have taken them up on their offers.”
I am sorry to hear your children are blaming you. X
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It sounds awful Iwiibeok. I am sorry you have endured such hideous abuse. What happened to your ex? My husband is prancing around like the cat who’s got the cream. He’s getting a bit old now and I expect his sex drive is less. He told me he paid for sex and had affairs when he was with his former wife. What a charmer. He told me that she lay in bed curled up in a tight ball. Now I understand. This is how I lay when he groped me. I froze. It didn’t put him off. I think I was afraid of him.
I truly thought he was better than a Master Masterbator. How wrong I was. -
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Oh I’m sure mine thinks he’s the innocent party ot least not the only one to blame – he forgave me for my part (!!?) of our marriage failing! Unfortunately I wasn’t supported by police to press charges – it wasn’t that they didnt believe me, it was a lack of evidence, my word against his, etc etc.
I had a non-mol order and went NC. I hear the odd things about him through the children – lo and behold he has a social life now (never went out, would rather be a hermit, detested ‘people’, only friends with people who served a ‘purpose’) – likely on the lookout for his next target. God help her.
Am going through divorce now. Wonder what games he’ll come up with?
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I am so sorry. Hopefully if he does it again it’ll all be on police record. It’s so difficult when it’s going on to be able to articulate what it is that’s happening. We are not taught about coercion or fear or obligation. I have heard of FOG but didn’t think it applied to me directly. How our perceptions change. I have read Lundy Bancroft. It is like an unfolding horror story.
It’s so difficult with the police. Criminal and civil law are different beasts. (detail removed by Moderator) Since the police live in an alternative time zone it’s very difficult to know when anyone is on duty. Hopefully I will be able to speak to WA advisor next week and hopefully my husband will get his act together for divorce proceedings. He’s dragging his feet and still eating the food I prepare. (detail removed by Moderator) -
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Today my husband blamed me for his behaviour saying divorce proceedings were my fault and how much he hated my being. I was cross with him for leaving shards of broken glass all over the floor and told him I was fed up with cleaning up after him.
Still nothing from the police. If they NFA this case he will gloat and rub it in my face. I just don’t know. Whatever happens next will probably be awful. -
The case has been NFA’d. The PC in charge has been fantastic. It seems as though for a prosecution they need a s***f movie and blood on the carpet. I now understand why people don’t bother reporting domestic abuse. I understand why women find it so hard to leave and the difficulties involved.
My husband has got away with sexual assault and coercive control.
Yet another statistic. -
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Mediation today(there are reasons). I just want to move on and now at least I can start clearing the house. This is a big move forward. I want to know how much mo ey my husband has spent on indulging himself. He has a longstanding habit of starting (expensive) projects which have no end in sight, nobody else involved, no prospects… Then he starts a new one.
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I am not surprised I never spoke about my sex life or total lack of it to my friends. I didn’t have the language or the ability to either acknowledge or articulate what was going on. It was such a slow burn. The arguments about it were always my fault. Marriage guidance at the beginning seemed to help although we were soon going round and round in circles. My husband maintained always his perfect family and ideal upbringing.
He used to say that he never wanted to divorce his first wife although he had been unfaithful to her and been paying for sex. What kind of effing mug am I? I must have been desperate and believed hope beyond hope that it would get better and maybe my feeli gs would be considered. I don’t know what it’s called when you are having sex done at you. Did I consent because I wanted more? I don’t even know what is the blurry line. I used to tell my husband that he frightened me. Of course he told me not to be stupid.
Many of my friends do not believe me. I think, as I was, there is no easy way to process it. -
I can hear your anger.
If only there was a rule book all women and men had, so we could look up in it a definitive answer as to whether a particular act counts as sexual abuse or rape. Instead, many of us end up wondering after the fact, perhaps for years until the penny finally drops. Logically thinking, if the question even arises in your mind then there’s definitely something wrong. But trying to use logic when your mind is in a fog and you’ve been brainwashed is more easily said than done. I too *think* I was raped but I go back and forth thinking that’s what it was/wasn’t.
In my case the sex life was certainly lacking affection, and I for one had no appetite for sex at all towards the end, but I obliged (thankfully not very often). On one occasion, intercourse was starting to hurt (probably because i wasn’t so keen/comfortable) and I asked him to stop so I could apply some lubricant. He looked at me and said that sometimes when I say stop he just wants to carry on anyway, and did exactly that until he was finished. I didn’t fight back, just stayed in bed to cry after he got up to wash. I didn’t leave him. In fact I didn’t leave him at all, a few months later he left me. I do remember thinking at the time that it was rape, but then put it out of my mind for a few years and focussed on getting from one day to the next when he was gone.
In that scenario, if I had left him (as I *** well should have done), or if he was a stranger, I would have no doubt that it was rape. But the way things turned out, the thought of having had that happen to me and just carrying on as usual is hard to bear. Even after all these years it’s less painful to think “oh, maybe it wasn’t really that bad”.
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I totally get the lack of affection, likevue. When I got angry with him, I told him I felt like a prostitute. I told him I didn’t like him doing sex at me. I told him I didn’t like being poked around in my genitals when I was asleep. I asked him nicely to make sure I was awake before he started poking around and masterbating against me.
There were so many things that made me feel uncomfortable. Somehow I felt I had to play his game or he would reject me. I was right about that.
I am angry.
It seizes you up. I used to curl up in a ball and hope he wouldn’t touch me. When he did, I froze.
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I never trusted my husband either now you mention it. I wanted to and I tried. So many alarm bells were ringing loud and clear right from the start. He groped a friend. I don’t know the details. He nearly stuck his penis into another friend. I shudder to think what he did at his previous wife. His behaviour towards me was revolting most of the time. He did sex AT me ad though I was a thing.
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