Coping strategies needed (probably tmi)

[Toastandstrawberryjam]

This isn't an easy subject to ask about and possibly some people will find it distasteful and for that I apologise.

I need coping strategies to help me get through having sex with my H. For reasons I can't go into leaving is not an option for a few years. It just isn't. I wholly wish it was.

But because we are not intimate with each other (my choice) tension is very high in the house. Intolerably so. The only answer to this (and I know because I know it's all that works) is for me to recommence relationships with a man who quite frankly makes my skin crawl. He is EA and has no respect for me, not exactly a turn on.

The last time I finally gave in after a month of demands, I felt ill and dirty for days afterwards. Is there anyway (other than getting very drunk) I can cope better with this? Meditation gets me through the act, so to speak but the thoughts afterwards are the problem.

I'm wondering if it's better done in the morning, hold it together and get the kids to school after then a very hot bath and try to blot it out. Sleeping afterwards never works.

I know it shouldn't be like this. I just need help getting the next few years out of the way. Any ideas?

[TheRobberBride]

OP. Pleaae listen. You must leave. You cannot truly believe that being raped by this man regularly will help to create a secure and loving home for your DCs. Surely? Because it won't.

I left my EA partner in June. It took me a year to make up my mind to leave and then a further year to plan my exit strategy. My ex told me he would take my childen if I left him. He said he would prove I was a bad mother. He said I would never survive without him. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

My DCs are so much happier. I thought I had managed to shield them from what was going on but I was kidding myself. My oldest no longer has temper tantrums. My youngest sleeps through the night.. I am slowly rebuilding my self esteem.

I thought I 'couldn't' leave. But I did and things are so much better. Staying with him would have destroyed me-and done untold damage to my children.

[ChangingWoman]

Without further information this request is impossible. It sounds as though you've been pushed so far over the edge that you can no longer think straight.

Most of us cannot believe that this is the best or only option. It would be morally wrong for us to advise you on a course of action which will do so much damage.

[LisaMedicus]

Can those who haven't walked the walk not talk the talk re having to do sex. Sometimes you just have to do stuff short term. You do what gets you through.

btw I respect the OP's wishes to remain confidential. They can choose later to post differently if they wish but bullying them to 'tell all' will not make them feel that it's safe to post here.

[willbelieveanything]

This doesn't make sense.
OP has no option but to have sex with H. Otherwise the tension this fearsome creature creates will hit the roof.
But this alpha male H who causes hell on earth if he doesn't get a shag will make do with it once a fortnight because he has a mediocre sex drive. He's even willing to use a condom by request. An accommodating rapist?
The OP gives him the freedom to have sex with any woman he wants, but he only wants sex with a woman whose skin crawls at his merest touch. So he's a nutcase then.
OP is willing to remain constantly unhappy living with him, and allow him sexual release once a fortnight for several years to come.
Friends, advisers, including a professional counsellor all agree it's the best and only thing she can do, considering the circumstances, which must be kept top secret. She is not under lock and chain.

I wonder what conversations are like at mealtimes in this household?

[dreamingbohemian]

But Lisa 2 years is not short term

I don't think anyone is bullying, I think people are desperate to help the OP figure out how to get out of this now. There are more options out there.

[Havea0]

op. You have forgotten your mental health in all of this.
You will need good mental health for when you do leave.

That is why I personally, am not saying about how best you can manage this situation. Because the more you manage it, and are helped to manage it, the worse it all gets for you and for your children.

[ageofgrandillusion]

OP - i think alcohol is probably the only way. Yes you mentioned the hangover but once every two weeks isnt that bad is it. Plus bear in mind that some drinks are worse than others for hangovers - red wine, dark spirits = bad, real ale, german lagers = good.

[Havea0]

willbelive "OP has no option".

Not true. Absolutely, not true. Everyone always has choices unless they are severely disabled.
They may not be very palatable, they may be choices that are not much better, or seem better, or necessarily better, but there are always choices. Oftenm several of them.

[Havea0]

You are not putting the childrens' needs first. You may think you are. But they will not thank you for it afterwards. Why would they? If you have brought them up well, and I suspect you havem take a look at them now. Are they really going to go yippee! My mum put herself through that, and did that for us, yippee! Really?

[Platinumstart]

This is absurd. There is simply no reason on earth why given a choice you would allow your children to suffer the emotional abuse that they are currently subjected too.

[Toastandstrawberryjam]

My children will never have to know. Why should they? It's temporary and will be far outweighed by the positives later on.

I'm sorry but I'm not going to give specifics. I understand it would be easier to give me advice on how to leave but believe me it is impossible right now. Or at least it would destroy my children's lives irrevocably.

And to the poster who asked about chat at mealtimes, if the children are there then it's the usual family chat. If it's just us it's silence.

[Havea0]

What state will you be in later on?
They need and will need for decades, a fully functioning mum. Please dont deny them that.

Children are more reslilient than you are giving them credit for.

Adults on the other hand, find it hard, sometimes very hard to bounce back from things.

[despite your denial, you sound exactly like a previous poster. If you are not her, then there is someone else in the country doing the exact same thing as you].

[clam]

I'm wondering if your h is in the public eye.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Dehumanising yourself further is not going to help either you or your children. Using alcohol as well in your case will likely give you a drink problem.

They see and hear far more than you perhaps care or want to realise.
Denial is a powerful force.

A happy childhood is not for them. It will be a miserable existence because their parents are engaged in their own private war with each other.

[OxfordBags]

I cannot think of any situation where parents splitting up would destroy their lives irrevocably. When one parent is being abused, THAT is the scenario that destroys their lives. The mental and emotional scars of being part of a family dynamic with abuse present, even if they don't know consciously about the sexual abuse aspect, will damage them - and Is damaging them, right now - far more than you splitting up could ever do so. Families split up all the time; it's sad, but it happens. I think you are so far into the mire, the fog of abuse that what are no doubt big hurdles to leaving seem impossible ones.

If you are billionaires and you would have to start again in poverty, that would not destroy their lives. If you would have to go live with a remote Amazonia tribe, that would not destroy their lives. Leaving their home, friends and school would not destroy their lives. There is absolutely not one single scenario where leaving would be impossible. Slaves escaped plantations. Inmates escaped from concentration camps. In the past, when women legally belonged to their husbands, they escaped them. However extreme you believe your situation to be, you are, at some level choosing to stay. Maybe it's because you grew up in abusive home and on some unconscious level, this feels normal, who knows.

Their lives are being destroyed right this second, and has been being destroyed, by living in a family with this abuse dynamic.

Their mother choosing to allow herself to be raped, and asking strangers for tips on how to survive it,because alcohol and dettol baths don't help enough anymore will destroy their lives more than just about anything imaginable. They might not know about the sex, or your coping mechanisms, but the atmosphere, your behaviour and mood, your Oh's behaviour and mood, the whole family dynamic will be insanely toxic and oppressive and scary and creepy and sad and so much more. You are deluding yourself if you believe any different and failing your children by doing so.

I would want to die if I knew my mother had done for me what you are doing. I would not feel I deserved to live. You are actually putting a digustingly huge burden on them, without them knowing it. Nothing you are doing protects them, you are actively exposing them to harm.

[fridayfridayfriday]

some people just love drama.

LEAVE.

[TSSDNCOP]

OK OP, you know this whole situation is crazy, but you've clearly made your mind up and whilst I wish one of these ladies could get you to change your mind I think they probably won't.

Some of the coping suggestions so far seem to be acceptable. Treating the sex as a transaction. Can you bring some unemotive calculation into your plan. 2 years is 52 weeks, once a fortnight means 52 times. Each time is one less and one closer to your own goal of leaving.

I'm sorry to the posters who rightly think OP should leave straight away. I believe you are right. Maybe one of you will get through, meantime OP needs help.

[BumgrapesofWrath]

Something I hope you pay attention to here.

My dad was not nice to my mum and us at points.

As an adult it is my mum I struggle to forgive, as I think it should have been her priority to shelter her and us, whereas I think he has some deep-rooted psychological issues.

So maybe bear that in mind when basing this decision on your children's happiness. They may be far happier without him.

[TheRobberBride]

Your children may not know the specifics but they will be aware that something isn't right.

I was confident that I had managed to shield my children from what was going on. I was utterly deluded. They obviously didn't understand the details but looking back they knew, deeply and instinctively, that something was wrong.

I'll give you an example. My youngest had sleep issues. She had never slept through and woke multiple times a night every night. I tried every sleep strategy out there. We attended sleep clinics. Nothing worked. 2 weeks after we left she slept through for the first time. Now she does so almost every night. It could be a coincidence of course but i think it's more likely that she, on some deep and instinctive level, felt unsafe in our old house.

[dreamingbohemian]

I'm sorry but I can't just 'believe you', I can't see how it is impossible to leave for 2 years. A few months maybe, but 2 years?

Unless your children would be physically endangered by your leaving, they will not be worse off. And I'm struggling to think of how that could be.

[MrsMinkBernardLundy]

Op you have not said if you have explored the avenue of having him removed from your house. if him leaving would solve the problem would him being made to leave not do the same?

[paulapantsdown]

At first reading, this made me very sad. Now I think it might be the most ridiculous thread I have ever read here.

You seriously expect people to give you advice on how to cope with this mild-mannered rapist who you have to stay living with?

Is this man is a high profile politician and you are waiting 2 years until after the next election.

Unless he has a gun to your head, of course you can leave you silly woman. Get some self respect, stop playing the bloody martyr and do what's right by your children.

[DropYourSword]

It's counter productive to keep badgering the OP to LTB. She's made it perfectly clear she will in her own time and is asking for coping strategies in the meantime. Stop asking her for details she clearly doesn't want to give. It's not helping her. And stop judging people who are providing her with the sort of coping strategies she is desperately looking for. It sound like she's in an awful situation that none of us can understand, but she also sounds like an intelligent person who is reaching out for help.

[dreamingbohemian]

Actually I think she sounds like someone with post-traumatic stress syndrome who is not thinking clearly at all. And I agree with whoever said it would be morally wrong to counsel her on how to cope with rape instead of helping her figure out how to escape. Giving coping tips is just firming up the delusion that she can't get out.

[OxfordBags]

DropYourSword, we ARE trying to give her help. It is the only help she needs and should take. What would you have us do, help a woman fond ways to tolerate being raped and in doing so, keep her children in a situation that will emotionally scar them for life?!

The help one needs is very rarely the help one wants, or asks for.

The only answer to this problem is to leave. That she won't do or is telling herself that she can't, doesn't change that. I, for one, am not prepared to help the way she wants - that is colluding in rape and abuse.