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This might be a bit odd, but I could use your input.
My DA worker has made me question my definition of consent – something I was quite sure of until our conversation.
I said to her that my husband had wanted sex and although I didn’t want it, I basically let him get on with it. There was little or no real involvement on my part – but I feel as though I consented as I didn’t say I didn’t want sex. The truth is that I couldn’t deal with the questioning and the talking that would have happened if I had turned him down. And I realise that this has happened so many times over our relationship.She has said that consent isn’t just verbal, it’s active involvement. I lay there in bed with tears running down my face this last time because I just wanted it over (he couldn’t see this and I was silent).
What do you all think?
TTMO X
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Hi
This has hit a nerve I always cried towards the end and he blamed it on my emotional state – he never slept in the same room as me and only woke me in the morning if he wanted “to play” never inter course as I disgusted him but I loved him and thought if I didn’t say anything he would want me again WRONG!!! I never consented I was just too scared to say NO! I never thought I suffered sexual abuse now I think I didðŸ˜
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That’s an interesting topic and I am interested in other ladies replies. So many many times I was in this situation, as he rarely takes no for an answer, and even if I express I am too tired, or not feeling well, or if I have to wake up early for work and it is already late at night. he would just say you dont have to do anything, you can lay and sleep (he has said that so many times). And I would just think whatever, hopefully it would be quick. Even if I dont get how he would want to have sex with someone who is asleep.
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I never thought of what my ex abuser husband did as sexual abuse but I think differently now. He would initiate sex and if I didnt respond he would just carry on until I decided I might as well just let him ‘do it’. Otherwise there would be black moods from him or silent treatment or a row. It was horrible. He really thought it was his right. All the pestering and asking for sex is abuse too, isn’t it?
xx
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I always go back to how it was in the beginning. Both consensual. I probably instigated sex more than him in the early days. Fast forward 5 years and it was awful. Huge fights if I turned him down, hours of keeping me awake until I ‘consented’. Threatening to go elsewhere. Even trying while I had stitches after childbirth. Total lack of respect for my wishes. No wonder I kept turning him down. I still think part of it was that I said no. Because sometimes after hours of wearing me down to ‘consent’ he couldn’t perform anyway but was happy that he had ‘changed my mind’. Rape is about control and I’m just beginning to see this now. Rape crisis have a helpline which was great to talk to someone who understood. I would recommend that to anyone struggling X
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Its not consent if you can’t say ‘no’ without there being a consequence of some kind. So, if the ‘happiness’ of your day depends upon you saying yes to sex then its not consent. Rape doesn’t always leave bruises. That’s a myth. It’s the psychological damage that has to be contended with and like KIP has said, its about a statement of control by one person over another.
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Or you have to do what he likes other wise he’s horrendous big strop. I never realised this but it was that. To meet his needs. Numbing.
You get do used to doing what he wanted to make him happy then it’d be over with. Nothing connected with heart or love. Yet I felt I loved him believed it.
That makes me feel awful again. Programmed.
It’s strange this process. -
Hi HUn
Can releate to a lot of u ladies here, my ex too used to say comments like u dont have to do anything, just give it to me, drain me down till i gave it, ignore the tears if they are hurting us , and worst one is beat us till we give. Days liek this makes me greatful to be single and just let my body heal
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same, I often get woken up at 4-5am and he is stroppy if I say no….I’m asleep, then I get moaned at because I am grumpy after being woken up. I have also been diagnosed with cysts so it’s painful, all he said was but its not painful everytime is it….why don’t you want me? I will find it somewhere else if you don’t do it, there are lots of people who do want me….such a romantic! I cry too, don’t move, just lie there, don’t want it, feel like I am being violated. But I don’t say no, hardly ever, no matter how tired I am, worried about it hurting, just for a quiet life.
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The absence of “no” is not consent. I had a similar experience, sometimes I just wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t participate, just let him get on with it. Sometimes he was violent and physically forceful, alot of other times I just knew there was no point trying to say no. He’d sulk, give me the silent treatment, get angry, slam things around, like alot of the ladies on here I would just let him for an easy life. I remember crying into the pillow praying it was over soon. There was alot more to it in my case, but I can’t talk about the worst parts.
It was the police who first pointed out to me that that is rape. I described it as “laying back and thinking of England” to an officer once, (detail removed by moderator) days later they called me to spell it out.
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So many times I acquiesced just to keep the peace. It was easier to give in than face a tide of insults.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to wake up to find him touching me intimately in the early hours of the morning.I could never win though; if I didn’t want it I was fridgid and if I did, I was a wh*re.
I was an object to be utilised at his will.
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Exactly, we can never win. We can only be allowed sex when we don’t want it or can’t consent. If we dare initiate it they reject and insult us. I hate that I had no rights or control over my own body for so long. TTMO started her post saying the topic might be a bit odd, how sad that it’s not at all odd to any of us. It was normal, every day humiliation.
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Heartbreaking it happens to all of us, the control thing I guess. I thought it was normal not to always want sex but go along with it anyway no matter what you felt like…sadly this isn’t true, I didn’t even know you could say no I don’t feel like it. If I do I’m told I’m passionless, frigid, boring, and that he will find someone who will…so I give in, no tenderness kindness love or intimacy just the deed 😢 It’s not normal is it….
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Hi everyone,
Thank you for all of the replies.
I am struggling, and in a bad place with all of this. I’m so sad that so many of us have been in similar positions, none of us deserve this treatment.My abuse worker has gone into it all in more depth and I am now sure that what he has been doing is rape – not that he would ever see it like that.
I feel a shadow of my former self and have asked myself what I could possibly have done to deserve all of this. The truth is that nothing I could ever have done would deserve this, ever.
I need to do as my name suggests and fine a time to move on.
Much love to you all,
TTMO X
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I didn’t think what he did to me was sexual abuse, but now know it definitely was. He was absolutely vile, I did exactly the same, always had to give in to him or I would be punished & I knew It. I Would just lay there & will it over. I once dislocated my knee & had a dreadful back ache & had also been physically sick, that’s how ill he had made me, to a point his controlling had made me physically be sick, but feeling so ill & so in pain I had said no, He persisted & I knew if I did not give in his anger would over rule me, However much pain I was on did not matter to him, so long as he had his satisfaction, How can any man get a sexual thrill knowing you are in physical pain & yet he carries on regardless. It is consent by force. I am away now but I will never be able to forget how sexually vile he was, at other times he would expose himself & say (detail removed by Moderator) By this point years into the relationship & his scolding controlling & daily onslaughts I didn’t want him near me, But still felt like I had to comply, I so desperately feel whoever thinks this isn’t rape is completely wrong because it Is, My abuser made me feel like a scared child, exactly how I had felt as a child when I was sexually abused x
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Same for me. Like you I never considered it to be nonconsenual but reading the posts on here Make me think that maybe it was? Usually we would have a big fight which of course was always 100% my fault. For some reason this always puts him ‘in the mood’ (never understood this) and he would tell me it was my responsibility to make him feel better, which translates as I have to have sex with him. Sex is literally the last thing I feel like doing after having a big fight with him but I have to do it every time in order to keep the peace.
Or times when we weren’t even fighting and I just wasn’t in the mood- he would whine and get sulky until I gave in.
Love to you all 🙂
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I went away, I didn’t miss him when I spoke to him he was verbally abusive to me, horrid. That night I’m expected to have sex, because i haven’t seen him for a while. I say no but give in to keep the peace, I lie there crying. There is no tenderness no passion or love just the basic necessity for him. It’s horrid, I hate it.
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..hi Ladies…sex was a control tool after a while I could see that consent or not, I was expected to have sex or totally ignored when I wanted sex…or worse sex would be initiated, regardless of my needs feelings …I didn’t want to row and have to be confrontational bed,feeling so vulnerable..then he would ‘switch off’ and I would have to say it’s ok etc etc though I was the one left feeling rejected and unbelievably emotionally hurt…zero consideration for me…what a awful place to be in a non loving mature (sometimes non consenting) relationship, just used on every level.
Cx
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I did think that maybe if I had actually said a strong no, he would understand and leave me alone. And it was just that i never said that strong no and gave in too quickly.
But what just happened recently. He wanted a kind of sex that was a strict no for me. I said it nicely, he thought i dont meant it or i would change my mind. But I got so furious inside and decided to stick to my opinion no matter at what price, and the price was quite high. the argument escalated. from being blamed at how I cannot give my consent, to blame me from everything wrong that happened in our relationship etc etc etc. For hours. the difference this time was that I did not apologize. I did not beg to be forgiven, to be loved. I am exhausted after all that argument though….. but i think that this topic and reading other women’s posts gave me that strength to stand for my body. -
I refused last night, was told well I have no choice then do I…I asked what and he replied, you will find out soon enough! We have sex every day, yesterday I was tired as had been up the previous night – so I said no, I don’t want to. He said he’d go somewhere else to get it upped and left to sleep in the spare room. I stuck to my guns but then was riddled with anxiety and couldn’t sleep, he is so mean, last night though I couldn’t just lie back, why can’t he take no for an answer….
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I talked to the police about this. Giving in because you know what the consequences will be, is not consent. We should be allowed to say no – because we’re tired/ in pain/ not well/ not in the mood. Sex is not a right.
I think KIP once mentioned something called ‘fight – flight – freeze – friend – flop’ as a coping mechanism. Sometimes you have to just flop because it’s the easiest way to distance yourself from what is happening to you.
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Anabela your situation sounds exactly like mine. I stuck to my guys and knew there would be repercusions. A long lectures on how im not thinking of his needs and its all about me. Thing is we split up ages ago but i have only just managed to get out. Although that hasnt stopped the pestering. I dont understand how anyone would want Sex when they can clear see you dont want it. I dont believe they cant see that, they choose not to see it so they feel its ok. X
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Livingonaprayer, they are so selfish, aren’t they, and yet we are being called selfish.
In that last argument he was even boasting, how he accepts when I say NO, referring to the last time I said no and how he accepted it and did not proceed. Honestly, I had no clue what he was talking about. As I can count on my fingers how many times in a long term relationship I said no and he respected that.
He acted like a child who was not given a promised toy. I almost felt sorry for him!!! And to make things worse, he was having (removed by moderator)Â or whatever that is and my insensitivity caused him pain.
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