Rape/mothers reaction

[rosareine]

I posted about a situation on here before, asking if I was raped.

After I gave birth to my ds, my oh (now ex) tried to initiate sex around two weeks pp. I said no repeatedly and tried to push him away. The baby was on the bed next to me. He carried on and I froze. I was sobbing as he had (rough) sex with me.

I have been finding this very difficult to come to terms with recently. I was having a really down day and confided this in my mother. I was practically in tears when I told her.

Her response has really upset me and has me doubting that I was raped and that I'm just being silly. She started to say that she doesn't know why men are like this pp... and that most women have experienced this post birth. That's all I let her say, I put the phone down. I couldn't hear anymore of what she was going to say.

I feel even more confused and upset after this conversation. I expected her to be outraged and supportive... I'm really doubting myself.

I told her I said no, I told her I was torn and bleeding...

I feel so let down.

Please don't give your mum a second opportunity to dismiss and excuse you being raped. I'm so sorry he did this to you.

Oh OP I’m so sorry, because he raped you and because you don’t have the support you deserve from your mum.

My XH did this to me 3 days after DS1 was born and it took me a long time to understand that it was rape. Because it was rape, and it was awful and traumatic and horrific.

I hope you get some counselling and manage to come to terms with what’s happened. Are you still with him?

OP: your mother is minimizing perhaps as a way to deal with it herself and her own issues in dealing maybe with what happened to her in the past (that's an assumption but for her to say many men do it suggests to me, something similar might have happened to her, perhaps not with the rape, but agreeing to have sex with her husband post birth to keep him happy).

He raped you. My ex was a shit, but he never pressurised me to have sex post partum, not once. My exs dad was an alcoholic, a likeable one, over the years I found out stuff that happened with his mum throughout that time. My ex witnessed his dad forcefully having sex with his mum when he was 8. She had divorced him in the last 8 years before he died (they remained very close), but since he died, she seems to think he was a wonderful man and won't accept anything he did, she thinks her kids had a good childhood because "they got everything they wanted". No acknowledgement at all that their fathers alcoholism affected and still does affect them (both brothers have a problem with alochol abuse, part of why I left him). She loved him very much but I also think its her way of coping. To block stuff out. She also can't recognise how her son treated me was emotionally abusive, because she suffered much worse and put up with it. I actually doubt she ever thought it was abusive at the time in her relationship with his father. What I am trying to say is some people deny stuff so it makes it easier to deal with. Talk to people who you know will support you in the way you need. Avoid discussing this with your mum again for now. You don't need that.

I am pleased you left him , I hope you get access to counselling soon.

I am so sorry, and so angry on your behalf. This is why I'm getting so angry with men right now and their response to all this assault stuff in the press etc - they think that because they don't she the urge to hunt down a woman and rape her that they're not capable of assault, I bet my house that your husband doesn't consider what he's done to be rape. Certainly none of the men who raped or assaulted me thought they'd done anything wrong because they kept contacting me trying to get sex afterwards.

What's important here is that a) you understand and b) get the help you need. Are you still with him? Do you want to leave?