moongazinghedgehog

[moongazinghedgehog]

I tried to get my ex-husband to couples counselling and he refused outright. I also know someone else who tried to get their spouse to go. We were both desperate to save our relationships; to make them right. We can both see that our spouses were abusive and that they were afraid to face up to the facts of what they were doing and the impact that it was having. They were afraid that someone who knew what a healthy relationship should be like would tell them that they are doing it wrong. I’m glad that they refused to go as both myself and the other person are free now and able to be ourselves.

In fact, my primary abuser (my mum) has told me that she tried counselling once and it made her feel worse as it dragged it all up and made her feel upset. She prefers to hide from it and pretend that all is well. This is what they do. I think she was expecting the counsellor to tell her that everything is okay and that she did all the right stuff. Hah.

[moongazinghedgehog]

What a horrible thing to be told.

Are you able to ask your DV worker why she believes that?

Does she have contact with your son? Is it possible that he has told her things that she is meant not to share with anyone?

[moongazinghedgehog]

Hi Serenity

It is lovely to hear from you and see that you remember me too.

I am having counselling with my local Rape Crisis. I have not mentioned this to her. I’ve only said it out loud to the Samaritans once and this is only the second time that I have told anyone about it properly. My partner knows that something along these lines has happened to me and will never ask questions about any of the things that have happened to me; he just makes sure that I know that he is prepared to listen and support me with whatever it is along with all the rest. I feel that I have burdened him with too much of this kind of stuff already and don’t want to keep doing it. I worry that one day his ability to support me so well without it hurting him will run out. I don’t want to hurt him.

I hope you’re doing okay. I’ve not been on here for a long time, as you know, so I have no idea of what has been happening for anyone.

[moongazinghedgehog]

I feel really bad about myself at the moment and that I don’t deserve my lovely man, or that I shouldn’t be with him as he is so lovely and I cannot always be happy. I worry that when I am low, I will be destructive in our relationship and that I will upset him or hurt him, although this is something that I never want to do. I cannot live without him but I can’t live with the prospect of him keep having to deal with my lows as they impact on us both greatly.

[moongazinghedgehog]

I have a dilemma. I had forgotten about an occasion of oral sex between myself and my ex-husband until a friend recently told me of their own ordeal which was along similar lines.

I don’t know whether what happened to me that night (many years ago) was his wrongdoing or not. It is very frustrating because I can’t remember the whole thing clearly. I will recount it to you as best I can. I would really appreciate any feedback that could help me to make sense of it please.

It was the evening. We were in the bedroom. He wanted a blow job. I sat on the side of the bed, I think I was naked or nearly naked. I already knew that I didn’t like the taste of him or the experience of having him in my mouth so we must have done that before but I have no clear recollection of when. I opened my mouth a little and he pulled his foreskin back and put himself in. I hated the taste of him and the feel of him in my mouth, and the smell of his body in general was repulsive to me (still is). I did what I was prepared to do as best I could. He enjoyed it. I did it because I wanted to be attractive to him and please him. I wanted to be sexy. I didn’t do it because I enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy it and am sure that I could never do that for him for more than a few minutes. He wanted to go in further into my mouth. I didn’t want him to but I didn’t say so for the obvious reason. He asked to go in further and then pushed in further. I think his hand was on the top of my head. Eurgh. Disgusting. I most likely retched but can’t remember and don’t want to fill this gap with something imagined. I want to know what happened. Then I moved away and lay on the bed to do other things. I don’t know if it happened on this night or not, but he used to strangle me whilst I was on top of him – I had to prise his hands off me and when I asked him later on not to do it again, he had no recollection of it. He did it again. I know this was abuse but I don’t know about the oral sex.

Did he do anything wrong? Was it my fault that I endured this because I didn’t say no? I feel sure that he should have known that I didn’t like it but perhaps he didn’t.

At least now I know why I don’t like that side of the bed and why the smell of him makes me nauseous.

Was this oral rape?

I need to make sense of it. It is driving me mad. I was with my current partner recently and this is all that I could think of whilst he made love to me. I wasn’t making love to him back and cried my eyes out afterwards as I was so upset that I had let him and myself down. He is the most amazing and supportive person I can imagine. He is my rock and is so understanding of these issues that I have, I am so lucky. I don’t feel able to tell him about this incident in particular yet.

[moongazinghedgehog]

Hi ladies,

Thank you for your replies.

I do try my best to focus on the future and to remind myself of my strengths and of all the positive things in life but sometimes I find it very hard so have to keep reinforcing it. My lovely man is very understanding and I have told him almost everything that has happened to me.

When I was going through all the trauma, I made time to look at nature and enjoy the feelings of the weather on my skin, the way it sounds etc to try to teach myself that not everything is this world is bad or dangerous, and also so that I had something to focus on other than the negative stuff all the time.

How did I learn to trust again? I’m not really sure. Basically, I remember that although I felt utterly retched and distraught, I had this occasional overwhelming feeling of hope inside me that I would meet someone who was like me and understood me; someone who would accept me for everything that I am, see my strengths and encourage me to pursue my interest and hobbies – perhaps even join in with them. I am very stubborn and simply refused to allow the horrible things that have been done to me stop me from living my life. These are things that have happened to me or been done to me rather than things that I have done. This was a very important thing to remind myself of very often.

I pushed myself to do nice things, to be sociable and to partake in activities that related to my interests. By doing this in a safe way, I met lots of new people and became less fearful of people in general and started to make new friends (this was hard as I was convinced that they would turn nasty or just start to ignore me and I questioned whether they were really friends or just using me for their convenience – time was what it needed for me to trust these people). It was when I was in a good place in life, doing my own thing and happy doing it, that I met a truly kind and loving man. He treated me so kindly, gently and patiently. I’d tell him little bits/hints about what I’d been through and his responses showed me that he understood me in a way that only another survivor could. So, as time passed, we shared our stories with each other and helped each other to heal and move on in life. I cannot describe how we feel about each other, but I know that everything I feel for him is reflected back to me from him. It’s the most peaceful feeling I’ve ever had. I thought that it would take me many years to find someone nice but it was less than a year after everything came to a head in my life when I met him. It was a huge surprise. If it can happen to me then it can happen to anyone. But I feel that it won’t happen for real until we are all able to have complete respect and love for ourselves – if we don’t have this then how can we expect anyone else to respect or love us in the true sense? And how will we keep ourselves safe from those who don’t?

The physical aspect of the relationship progressed at its own pace, as and when we felt comfortable with things. We spoke a lot about how we were feeling, for instance, about things that had been done in the past and the resulting fears – because we communicated so well, we could work around such issues and overcome them together. It was hard at time to share details of the things that had happened to me and to hear of what had happened to him, but neither of us pressured the other to share anything and there were some things that took a long time to be spoken. Neither of us has ever judged the other and questions have been sensitive and we have allowed each other to answer in our own time and in our own way – or not at all.

I am incredibly lucky to have my lovely man, but I was happy before I met him too. I don’t want to go back to a time when I didn’t have him, but it is important to be happy by yourself and for yourself, to maintain and build friendships and to live your life – to love and respect yourself. Once you have this, you can be content and then you are in a position to know and decide what/who is a good addition to your life. It takes time and patience to get to this point – I used to (still do) think of myself as a child whom I care for – I put her needs first when I am feeling bad about life and gradually she becomes me, rather than a feature of me. I can switch back to this when I need to which is a hugely helpful thing for me to be able to do. Sometimes I talk to her to reassure her that I will take care of her, remind her of how kind and strong she is, and how beautiful the world is.

I hope that helps.

I really good book to read is Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. Lovely lady, lovely approach and a very kind and reassuringly written book.

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