I left my ex DH 15 years ago. He was abusive and highly controlling. I met him in 1980. Some background for context. I came from a pretty religious community although I was secretly never religious myself. I grew up absorbing the messages about a woman’s role in marriage. I was told by the women in the family that it was a woman’s duty to keep her man happy in the bedroom as it’s his ‘entitlement’ in exchange for being ‘kept’. Whilst I outwardly didn’t agree with this, I clearly internalised it. My DF was an extremely violent alcoholic. I grew up in terror of his violence. When the blows came, I often thought ‘is this the day he’s going to kill me’. As soon as I met my then DH and he showed me kindness and promises to take care of me, I left home and moved in with him. I think it was to escape my DF. Out of the frying pan and into the fire 😔
From day one my DH he was a sex pest. I didn’t realise it at the time as I had no real experience of relationships before him. Just some minor dating. We were together 26 years and over the course of the marriage he became more and more sexually demanding and sexually aggressive. He wanted and demanded sex every night up to 6 times a night. Although there would sometimes be sex free days they were rare. He could not be in bed awake and not want to be having sex. He was never satisfied. He also demanded it during the day, anywhere in the house. If I tried to say no or push him away he just forced himself on me. I would be late for work or miss work altogether because he demanded sex on the spot. He would lock me in the bedroom. There was no marital rape laws until the nineties by which time I had children and was a sahm. He totally controlled the finances. I had no access to money. He would give me cash now and then, as and when he decided I needed it. There would be days when the children and I had no food in the house and he was uncontactable as he was self employed and didn’t have a mobile phone at the time. I didn’t have one myself until I went back to work in 1999. He sold my car (as we ‘couldn’t afford to run 2 cars’ and he needed the car for work), we lived quite rurally so without a car I was stuck. He moved us away from my family so I had no support. Looking back now I am out of the fog, I realise he was a classic narcissistic abuser. There are many aspects to his abuse that I struggle to get passed but the one thing I can’t move passed is the sex. I now see it for what it was. It was at best coercive sex and worst, rape, over and over. I eventually left him when I found out he had OW’s! As I was leaving him, I told him that what he’d done was rape and I was expecting him to act all indignant and deny it but he just grinned and said you never fought me off did you, so he knew full well what he was doing. Actually there were times I did try to physically fight him off but he was a huge muscular build so it was impossible. He would pin me down and I just submitted for all the reasons above. I have had years of counselling but maybe not the right type. I realise now that I probably have some form of PTSD or CPTSD although not formally diagnosed. I now have a wealthy, kind, loving and generous DH who is the complete opposite of my XDH which actually is exacerbating the problem because now I know what should have been. The invasive thoughts and flashbacks are getting worse over time not better. I actually tremble with fear when I’m triggered by memories. I have to put my teacup down as it’s rattling in my hand. I don’t have anyone irl I can talk to about it. I’ve tried to at times with trusted friends but they often inadvertently say the wrong things out of ignorance and I’ve ended up feeling worse and sometimes re-traumatised. I also hid it from my long term friends as I was so embarrassed. On the surface I appeared tough and strong while on the inside I was dying. I’m not one for ‘airing my dirty laundry’ in public as my DM would say but I also think everyone has there own problems, they don’t need mine!. Besides, I would feel a fraud telling them now. I don’t really know why I’ve posted. I think I just needed to get it all out and maybe someone can offer some constructive advice. Sorry it’s so long. Thank you if you got this far x