Trigger - husband SA. Why can’t I tell him and why do I feel guilty

[ByPinkPoet]

I posted this time last week when feelings/memories hit me like a ton of bricks about my husband having sex with me without my consent 3 years ago. I was pregnant, I cried and he didn’t stop. I clearly buried it until now and I am now an anxious, panicking mess. It’s occupying my mind constantly.

It was a one off. He has a high sex drive but he has not continued without consent since that night.

kind posters suggested r**e (still can’t write the word let alone say it) crisis charity and therapy. I am booked for therapy this week. RC suggested I talk to him about it in the meantime to try and alleviate the anxiety and see if he remembers/ accepts responsibility for it. I am not afraid of his reaction in the sense of my safety but I am frozen with feelings of guilt. Everytime I open my mouth to ask him to talk about it nothing comes out.

Guilt that the very mention of it will destroy him and how he feels about us

Guilt that it will impact our marriage and our 4 young children.

Guilt that I am being selfish and just need to let it be, he deserves another chance etc etc

Why is this?! Has anyone been in a similar situation and a Frank and honest conversation has helped you move forward in your relationships ? Has anyone come back from abuse is it possible?

I feel if I just knew why - why he thought that was ok on that particular occasion then I might be able to recover

I know it is very hard for some posters to understand why I don’t just up and leave but that is not an option at the moment. if you replied to my first thread and find it unbelievable that I’m asking for advice again and still not doing anything about it then I’m sorry. I am seeing a therapist this week so at least there’s that.

Please be kind I’m a fucking mess and feel like my life is crashing down around me

He doesn't want to be around you unless you're consenting you sex.

He's said that out loud.

I can't think of anything clearer tbh.

I think people need to understand that living in a situation like Poet is living in is extremely complex. The cycle of abuse that happens makes sure that you become extremely trauma bonded to your abuser.
You are conditioned, you become detached, and you completely separate the abusive behaviour from the abusive person, constantly believing that they can change. It's a survival instinct because doing otherwise is completely and utterly overwhelming and soul destroying especially if you're an empathetic person. You feel wholly responsible for keeping your family together.
Putting pressure on someone who is being abused like this just doesn't work. Everyone's posts will be landing with Poet but it’s a lot to take in, especially when you're at the beginning stages of realisation.
Poet has come so far already. She has posted on here, she has disclosed to a friend and she has begun counselling.
Please don't become impatient in your posting or support for Poet because she isn't leaving immediately. This can lead to disengagement and isolation through fear of being judged.
Poet you are strong and you are resilient and I know I keep saying it but you are on your way out, I truly believe it.

I don’t get what could be more violent than raping your pregnant wife from behind? If that isn’t DV I don’t know what is?

I’m not saying it isn’t. I know and when I think about it it does still scare me. I think he knows that now

I believe that particular incident will be a one off

All of this is absolutely correct , thank you so much for posting. I really feel like you understand.

especially the part about separating the person. I actually feel as if it was a different person that did it. And that’s how I’ve been coping with it I think

thank you for your kind words x

Agree with @MissMontague19 . These changes are not going to happen next week, next month or even next year. For now though I am glad that @ByPinkPoet0 doesn’t feel so alone with her struggle x

The things that he's saying/doing on a daily basis are 100% in keeping with his behaviour that night though. Yes he took it further that night, but he is still raping you frequently, putting sexual pressure on you daily, creating an atmosphere where he can't get daily sex not listening to you about sex, guilt tripping you, ignored your repeated request for space from sex and has literally told you that you being upset about this is a turn on to him. It's not like his behaviour that night was out of character. He was behaving exactly like him :-(

OP you are doing so incredibly well, as PPs have said in terms of posting here, undertaking counselling and telling your friend - that’s huge.
Very kindly, you say that incident will be a one off, but it hasn’t been - you’ve described incidents where you’ve woken up and ‘sex is already happening’, feeling like you have no choice but to give in to his pressure to have sex, when you don’t want to (which isn’t consent). There have been lots of incidents and he’s still pressuring you and sulking when you say no.
That incident wasn’t a one off.

My therapist recommended I write him a letter telling him the impact it’s having on me as she suggested, like posters do here, that when I speak to him verbally I talk around it and minimise it because I don’t want to upset him too much.

Has anyone heard of this before as an idea?

@Tootiredcantsleep I know, I don’t understand how me being upset can be a turn on, I still think about that comment a lot. And what he meant. Maybe he meant he’s trying to put it right by showing me I can trust him?

But you can't trust him. The very next day he is back to coercing, sulking and pushing your boundaries.

I would be very, very wary of your therapist's advice to write him a letter. What do you think that will achieve? He knows what he did. He knows how you feel about it. At worst, it will excite him further to know how upset you are. It doesn't seem likely it will make him want to change his behaviour. Your therapist seems very out of depth with the sexual abuse and coercive control you are dealing with.

If you write a letter stating plainly that he raped you, continues to rape you while you are sleeping, sexually assaults you, harrasses, manipulates and coerces you into sex you don't want because you are scared of his reaction - how exactly do you think he will react to that?

I think it is highly unlikely he will say, you are right, my bad and stop doing it. It seems a very dangerous strategy.

Sorry but I think this is appalling advice. As PP has said , what will this achieve? He’s not going to have sudden epiphany - he knows what he’s doing and I think it’s a very dangerous suggestion.

@ByPinkPoet

Have you told your therapist, without any minimising, that your husband raped you from behind while you cried when you were heavily pregnant and that he has repeatedly had sex with you while you are asleep?

I think it’s important to know if you told her that explicitly when we are responding to her suggestion of writing a letter to him.

yes I have told her this.
it is hard to know if I have minimised it without meaning to but I have definitely said that he continued after I said no , and I was crying . And it was when I was pregnant . I remember this because I was very upset when I spoke about it.

She was very sympathetic. She commented that perhaps writing a letter would help me process it and say everything I need to without missing any bits out.

she did say ‘sometimes people we love cross lines and do bad things’. She has encouraged me to ask him to go to therapy again

I mean obviously she has also said that he’s broken my trust and validated my feelings of upset and anxiety etc . She hasn’t defended him or what he did. Just to be clear

The letter was a suggestion in the most recent session when I said I was still struggling with feelings of guilt for ‘messing things up’ for us

I'm grasping at straws here but is it possible she meant to write the letter to express yourself as a thought exercise but not show it to him?

Otherwise I can only reiterate this is incredibly dangerous advice and she has not understood the ongoing abusive behaviour and threat level posed.

Did she mean to write a letter to him without giving it to him maybe? That’s quite a common technique to allow you to process your feelings. I agree that giving it to him would be pointless at best, dangerous at worst.

Same here. This is the only possible explanation in my head that would make any sense as otherwise what she’s asked OP to do is not just pointless, it’s dangerous.

Maybe . I’ll check I have another session next week. Ill make sure I check before I do it.

He’s said he will sleep on the sofa tonight

And I feel bad!! Crazy

Which is his intention.

He’s making himself into the victim, it is further manipulation.

Then if you go and beg him to come to bed, he sees it as a green light and so it begins again.

Why on earth is he sleeping on the sofa? Is this another attempt at manipulation m? Like he can’t possibly sleep in the same bad and not have sex? So you feel guilty, tell him to come to bed and he tries this as a green liggt that you’re up for sex.

He really is a vile piece of work

Because, he says he finds it hard to sleep next to me, he feels terrible, he doesn’t deserve me, he has a problem, so on . Probably to make me feel a bit sorry for him too. Who knows

I won’t ask him to come back tonight though

You are not crazy Poet I promise you that.
Is it normal to feel bad...no it's not normal at all for someone who isn't being abused. But for someone who is being coerced and manipulated daily it is a very common reaction.
I remember when I wanted to bring things up or talk about stuff with my husband I would feel terribly guilty because I knew that it would 'ruin the day' or 'ruin the moment'.
It's a very difficult and complex position to be in. You call out the abuse but in some ways make life more difficult for yourself so you start to just let things be for an "easier' life or you call it out and then feel bad or guilty and often end up comforting them when they (allegedly) become distressed at what they have done. That's coercion in action but it's very difficult to see it when you're in the thick of it.
He has spent years moulding you and coercing you into a state of codependency. You are NOT crazy! The fact that you're recognising that feeling bad for him isn't a normal reaction shows that your starting to challenge the version of reality that he has created xx

I really feel as if you totally understand what’s going on in my head. Thank you

I do get those feelings about ruining the day and quite often I say ‘sorry I know this will upset you but….’ When raising these tricky conversations

i think that’s why it’s taken literally years until I’m at the point of a breakdown to come to the surface too

It just feels so MUCH. Being a mum, work, juggling 4 young children, recent new house and renovation, miscarriage and now this on top of it all.