@LePetitMaman
yes I still do therapy. I really needed proper therapy much earlier, actual therapy not counselling. The self esteem issues and self loathing are really entrenched now.
I was gaslighted that my upset was abnormal in counselling (male counsellor) and actually also by those I told how I upset I was in real life too. The “all men look at other women/porn a lot, it’s perfectly healthy” type attitude has a lot to answer for. Yeah maybe they do, but they don’t ALL chose ‘teen’ porn or tiny young looking whippets. They don’t all do it when you’ve got a three month old baby and have done your best to lose your baby weight and get in shape (god forbid I be fatter for a few months) whilst managing two older kids and still breastfeeding (how disgustingly unsexy of me!) It’s like in societies excusing of men as somehow utterly normal for wanting to gaze at (and ultimately fantasise about access to) random women’s bodies it means we excuse ALL content and circumstances/timing, even when it’s a nearly 30 year old dad of three wanking to girls that look like they should be at a youth club. Our sex life resumed to very frequent within four weeks of the birth. He wasn’t sex starved. All I was left with was “my body isn’t good enough” so I don’t believe the narrative men do this shit because they aren’t getting enough attention/sex either. They do it because they can and noones allowed to be upset about it. We have to be Cool Wives right?
The one thing that DID help was saying fuck this, my life no longer revolves around you, and getting a career I was really proud of and really good at. One where what I looked like didn’t matter. The people I served in that vocation cared about kindness and competence and I got so much joy from being someone they’ll remember for the right reasons. But ultimately I feel I was punished for that too, getting my confidence back, being a fully grown adult woman, stopping the ‘pick me’ dance and just as I was drawing a line under my pain and becoming more confident, there was a stag do……
I was firmly reminded I’m nothing special and they think they deserve better physically than me if they have the opportunity. So many people we know saw him do it, the shame I felt was almost unbearable. My life utterly unravelled. His mates all clapped him on the back btw. Because they all think they deserve better bodies than thier wives too if it’s offered/available. Again I was made to feel it was no big deal, just men doing men stuff.
I have PTSD from that.
I’m slowly learning there’s fuck all wrong with me. There’s something wrong with him. His stray sexual energy and entitlement/greed has nothing to do with me but everything to do with him. It’s not my job to fix him or go off chopping and dicing my body up surgically to try and be the 17 year old he met.
Its a slow process and it would have been better to get this help right back when it all started. I’d have suffered less pain and I’d have subjected myself to less self hatred filled torture.
If OP a year on is still utterly tortured by what’s happened, it’s not going to fade away. It’s going to sit inside like a cancer growing and diseasing all the good parts of her till there’s so little of her left it’s really hard to salvage herself.
Don’t be me OP. Get therapy, proper therapy FOR YOU and save yourself mentally before you end up destroying yourself because you cannot be what he chooses when he has the money/opportunity to do so.