(TW SA) 2nd thread (support)…

[ByPinkPoet0]

First thread www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5497497-trigger-husband-sa-why-cant-i-tell-him-and-why-do-i-feel-guilty

Huge thank you to everyone who has supported me in this so far. If you’ve got this far I really appreciate it. I read all the advice even if it seems like I don’t take it on board straight away. It’s been a difficult time of realisation for me.

I am making another thread so I can continue to post.

This is such a helpful outlet for me I’m so grateful ❤️

Oh wow , you are a really good friend. You should be proud, I’m so glad.

I often think maybe I could speak to a colleague rather than a friend as he’s so enmeshed in all our friends lives and our local community. Everyone loves him.

There are a few girls at work I’m quite close to and sometimes they ask me if I’m ok, if I’ve had a tricky weekend I think they can tell. But it somehow feels so personal and vulnerable to talk to colleagues about sex things.

The ladies at work have recognised that you have something untoward going on. They probably know/suspect what it is. Tell them what you are able to at that time. Do not keep it to yourself. Secrets are doing more harm to you than you realise.

Pink poet, I have nothing further to add at this time except to say how deeply sorry I am that you are experiencing this and I hope you and the dc's get the support you need soon.

Pinkpoet the helpline chat closes at 10pm. Only the phone line is 24/7. I also saw advice that it’s easiest to get through to the helpline before 8am, if that’s possible.

Please send the link to this thread to your friend now as SaltyCara suggested. You need to protect yourself. This is extremely serious. Of course she will be shocked, but don’t delay with this. It is too high risk.

Remember the silent call option It’s 999 and 55 when prompted.

OP I just wanted to paste this again in case it’s handy for you to copy / use when you speak to someone:

“My husband has been sexually assaulting me in my sleep for a long time. He raped me when I was heavily pregnant. He is controlling and I’m frightened of his moods. When he is angry he scares me and the children with his explosive temper, name calling and driving dangerously and I need help. He sexually assaulted me again last night and I feel like his behaviour is escalating.”

Luckily tonight will be ok. He’s already said he needs a full nights sleep tonight (as if it’s my fault) as he’s tired and I mustn’t be waking him up in the night tonight! Jesus Christ .

I just don’t have the energy to argue back when he’s like this

Thank you this is helpful and a good summary x

Helps for someone outside the situation to write it down

He knows what happened and he’s trying to write his own narrative very firmly. I’m so very sorry he’s done this to you. Be kind to yourself and try rest x

Ah that will be why it’s so busy
it would be odd for me to go somewhere before 8am and the sneaking around gives me so much anxiety
will try

All schools have a DSL (Designated Safeguarding Lead). Alongside your GP or health visitor, they are another team of professionals who can help and support you.

Can you book a day off work next week discreetly, tell your boss it's an emergency or something (which it is). That gives you a day to make calls, go to the GP etc without any worry about him knowing.

Contact the police by email or phone tonight, if possible, whilst he is sleeping.

I’ve sent it to my friend . She may not see it until tomorrow now

Oh my goodness Poet, Im so proud of you for making that first real life disclosure.
Im sure 100% that your friend has spotted what kind of man he is. Why does she not like him - did she ever say?

I’m so sorry this is happening to you OP, you don’t deserve to live this way. As hard as this sounds, please remember this feeling when he turns on the charm again hoping that you get sucked back in. The perfect life that you thought you had wasn’t real and you can’t minimise what he is doing to both you and the children anymore.

I hope you manage to find a way out of this for your own peace xx

Do you think you can get to a chemist tomorrow? Maybe that UTI flared up really badly overnight, and you are too worried it will turn nasty if you have to wait til Monday to see the GP

I was wondering, and this is not me trying to ‘understand him’ but it popped into my head.

If I hadn’t told you guys about the first r**e that happened a few years ago, and you didn’t have that context, would you still think what happened last night was assault?

Im just thinking , one of the reasons it upsets me so much is because we’ve talked so much lately about him violating my boundaries the first time. However, we have had consensual sex since then, so maybe (in his head) he thinks that part is all forgiven now? And I am not still thinking about it?

So maybe what happened last night he wasn’t even considering I was still feeling vulnerable and he should be ‘extra’ careful to get full consent.

She did not like how he treated me in the early days. We had one time we had a bad split up, I left and he was really nasty. I told her everything and she said he was a nasty piece of work etc . Then (stupidly) we got back together the next week and she felt like she’d said all this bad stuff about him and then I ended up marrying him. But she did admit in recent years he’s proved himself a ‘goodhusband ‘

so it will be a shock for her

If today was the first time you posted, and the only thing you told us was what happened last night, I would say your husband raped you and it is not safe to be in a relationship with him.

If you followed up with a post sharing that he joked about last night in front of your friend as if you instigated you, I would have then posted again reiterating that and urging you to take action as soon as possible as he is dangerously cruel.

What happened last night would be enough to end a marriage over for most people, even if nothing else had ever happened (which isn’t the case for you as he has such a long history of being abusive). I promise you x

I’m really proud of you for telling your friend OP. Please do tell a professional as soon as you safely can though, you need professional support too x

Yes of course it is.

And kindly Poet, you need to stop thinking about what "counts" as a crime/something bad, against some kind of independent benchmark, to either give you external validation that you feel this isn't ok or that he is excused from knowing this isn't OK.

You don't like this. You don't want this. That, in itself, is enough to leave. Plenty of people leave marriages every day because of those simple reasons. And sadly it's significantly worse in your case,where you are being abused. But this is where he's got your head, you don't believe in your own thoughts enough to even trust that what you feel is correct and valid.

No, he has been raping you for years and playing with your mind. It was not and was never your mistake in giving him the wrong signals. It has not been about love and care, it is control, power, using you, and now increasing the violence so you are totally under his power and too scared to report him to the Authorities.

He is a rapist and as such is a criminal. You are not safe under any circumstances.

Yes I would, and I would also say the times you woke up to him doing this were rape too, because I came to the same conclusion when someone else disclosed that ‘just’ the sleep bit was happening to them.

Marital rape is still a crime, and without meaning to be glib it is one where you would be hard pressed to find victims who have not had consensual sex with the perpetrator, yes even after the offence(s) if they stayed in that situation.

Whether he knew you were feeling particularly vulnerable or not last night (and he knows PinkPoet) he knew you had said you were physically sore and needed a break - that you were warning him you didn’t want sex - and he ignored that.

I think what he did last night was quite high risk from his point of view given the current situation between you, and he’s completely aware of that. He has sought to gaslight you and control the narrative about it all day for that reason.

I don’t think him not understanding or realising how you feel comes into it. I don’t think he cares about your feelings outside of how they impact him.

Thank you guys,
I think I just need to hear it multiple times
it’s not ok

I can feel the doubt setting in
Maybe I did something , maybe in my sleep I moved or something to make him think I was awake and willing
Questioning myself a lot

What he did last night was absolutely not ok and more than enough to leave a relationship over. Even without all the abuse, rape and gaslighting you've already told us.