Sorry, this is extremely long and i'm so worried about posting. It has been therapeutic to put it down in words though, and thank you so much if you get to the end.
I am a very long time lurker and occasional poster but have NC for this post. There is so much to say.. I guess I will start with what happened this weekend just gone and fill in from there to give a more detailed picture of the situation I have found myself in. This has been going on, on and off, for four, nearly five years.
On Friday I went away with ‘him’, for 2 nights at a b&b to “spend some time together”. We’re not ‘together’ and haven’t been for years as it has been really on and off, he is nice for a bit then does something awful and I am hurt and back away then he swears he’s changed…god it’s such a cliché.
Anyway, we went for a pub meal, I had one glass of wine, we went back to the hotel and I changed into pyjamas and got into bed. I kissed him, said I had enjoyed spending time with him and that I was shattered, turned over and went to sleep, drowsy with it being late- when I am tired its almost like a physical shutdown, I just crash out and can be asleep within a minute of my head hitting the pillow.
I was aware of him sort of trying it on as I drifted off, and said no, leave me alone, he stopped and I was able to get to sleep. Woke up I don’t know how long afterwards with a sharp pain as he was pushing his penis into me. I exclaimed ow! , said stop!, and he muttered sorry, I put my hand over myself ( my vagina) and must have fallen back into sleep.
Woken again by him pulling my shorts down and trying to touch and push his fingers into my vagina and bum (I’m sorry for TMI but don’t know how else to explain it). I pushed his hands off and said stop it, but he kept going back, wouldn’t stop, I was so tired. I crawled out of bed onto the floor to get away from him and he was like, look, I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone, get back into bed. This happened once more and he got angry and said fine I’ll fucking sleep on the floor.
Around 4am I woke up and my bits were on fire, I had to get up and hold a cold wet towel on them in the bathroom. He moaned that I was waking him up (he was on the floor with spare blankets).
The next morning I was still sore and he was acting all nice as pie talking about what we were going to do that day. I was in the shower and sort of had a bit of a panic, as I was sexually abused and raped by older boys when I was 13 and as I got older and in my mind I was in the shower trying to soothe my sore bits and feeling about 13.
He was in the room between the bathroom and the door to get out and I felt a bit panicky.
No one knows this, but he knows something happened like that in my past. I told him I was having a bit of a panic and he was like “Why??”
I came out of the shower and told him I wasn’t happy about how he’d acted last night. I explained how sore I was. He said “I’ve already said I’m sorry, what more do you want me to do?”. I said that he has said sorry so many times before that it has lost meaning for me. I am sick of him always thinking he can take what he wants from me. He went completely mental saying oh are you calling me a rapist then?? I said no, but it wasn’t exactly consent if I was asleep is it? He said “ that’s it, here we go I’m such a bastard” etc etc. I asked him to take me home and he got really angry and drove dangerously and aggressively.
I have been in this situation so many times I have lost count. It feels normal. Since then I’ve had the usual messages ranging from I’m sorry, I’ll change, to “we’re obviously sexually incompatible” and “you just can’t handle my desire”.
History part: (I will try and be as concise as possible, as I say this has been going on for years and a lot has happened)
*10 months after I broke up with DS(now 6)’ dad, I was asked out for a drink by ‘him’. Had known of him and met him a few times over previous 5 yrs as had mutual friends. Friends actively encouraged me to meet with him. Went out and looking back he tried it on first night we met but I rebuffed him as I just personally can’t do sexual things with people I don’t know and care for.
*We started dating and 4 months in at his Bday drinks he got really drunk and this girl he knows was all over him, touching his chest, he ignored me all night despite me trying to join conversation, I went out to beer garden for less than 15 mins while a friend smoked and he went mental and got angry cause I’d apparently “fucked off”. I thought I’d better take him home, we stopped for food and this girl popped up and they were literally touching each others faces for about 40 mins while I stood there with a cold pizza and only stopped when I got in a taxi to leave.
Next day all apologies and swore he’d not have contact with her – FF to him leaving his fb message open on my laptop where he was asking her when she was next free for a drink. Lied to my face, then sorry. (Sounds so teenage, no?)
*The whole time he has accused me of sleeping with my son’s dad because I put myself out to facilitate contact and promote his relationship with DS.
*Accuses me of sleeping with male friend I’ve known since I was 17.
*When I bumped into old housemate I haven’t seen for a decade he threw a tantrum cause I was ‘ignoring him and taking the piss’, was rude to said friend and stormed off. When we got home he ranted for FOUR HOURS about how I was taking the piss and I don’t care about him, when I asked him to stop shouting at me he screamed “ This isn’t shouting THIS IS FUUUUUCKING SHOUUUUUTINGGGGG!!!!” Poor kids next door. Then refused to let me leave his house or sleep in a different room to me and slept practically ‘guarding’ me all night on the floor next to the sofa I slept on cause I wouldn’t go to bed with him. Oh and he threw sofa cushions around with such force they snapped his solid wood blinds. Again next day he’s “sorry” and he’ll change.
*Threw strops about me wanting to go to college to get into uni and why won’t I move in and have kids with him. Accused me of sleeping with every male on said college course.
*When I actually got confidence from going to college and met new friends and broke up with him (very carefully) he waged a campaign against me with 100’s of abusive texts a day, emails, letters, and actually standing outside my window and looking into my basement flat where he saw a male friend I was actually telling how scared I was he would do something awful and going completely mental that I’d been “fucking”(ugh) this guy all along and I’m a lying bitch etc etc. I hadn’t, of course.
*Around this time he purposefully got in contact with a girl I had been very close friends with but she had dumped me with no explanation while my son (then 2) was seriously ill in hospital at xmas, and repeatedly slept with her then told me all about it. Why it had to be her I still don’t understand as it was heartbreaking. He told me how they sat there and said I didn’t deserve him.
*Every time I was so hurt I felt I couldn’t take any more and broke up with him, he was so relentless and alternately vicious and horrible about me or telling me what a princess I am, banging on my door, phonecalls etc I am ashamed to say it was just easier to see him.
*Over all these years I have done things like: Had sex with him to get him to stop hurting and pawing/poking/prodding at me. Cried as he had sex with me. Given him hand relief to get him to leave me alone.
*Since I have completed college at distinction, gained a place at an excellent uni and moved cities on my own with DS, he has said things like “I bet you tell everyone at Uni you’re a poor old single mum an no one loves you so that they feel sorry for you”. I’m alternately a bitch, a “fucking little pikey cunt”(?!) and a lovely woman, a princess.
I would like to point out that DS has actually only witnessed one incident where there was low level arguing out of the room and he then called me a bitch in front of him which was unacceptable. The rest has been messages, emails, phonecalls, and when DS has not been there. Everyone thinks he is a good looking charming man. The above are just a few examples of a lot of things that have happened.
Outwardly, I must seem capable, I am bringing up a son, I’m full time at uni on a professional course, I am getting good marks, excellent feedback on placement. Part of me is just indifferent about this whole thing, that I might as well accept I’ll never be free of him, the harassment, the declarations of love, I might as well just have his kids and do what he wants. Why do I go back? I just can’t answer that. Maybe part of me wants to be loved. I feel dismayed that this has taken five years of my life, but part of me feels I probably deserve it.
Reading this back I sound like a spineless victim and I’m ashamed at the reality of it. Please can you be honest with me about what this situation is, and how best, practically and emotionally, to get out of it? I am in another cycle of apologies and promises of change from him at the moment, he is not listening to what I am saying.
Thank you so much for reading.