(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 ❤️

The more I read, the more appalled I am.😞

I don't think therapy is necessarily the most helpful thing, if you're still in an abusive environment where you're being sexually coerced and raped in your sleep.

The trauma is ongoing and you're not in a safe environment. There's no healing when the wounds are still being inflicted.

this hasn’t happened for a while.
He is very convincing when he tells me he is trying to change his behaviour in this regard

I am trying therapy as I don’t know how else to process the feelings
I didn’t know until I posted on here that sex while asleep is not ok in a couple , although I knew I didn’t like it

@cucumber4745

💐💐💐I am very sorry for what happened to you when you were 12. It is a good thing you remembered and were able to gradually heal from it, though still with some recurring ptsd. I think older relatives ( is this what ‘pda’ meant?) account for a large amount of SA.

The rape may not have happened in a while OP but he is still being sexually coercive literally every day x

Nothing about the way he behaves to you sexually is OK, OP.

A normal man wouldn't be struggling not to rape you in your sleep.

You shouldn't have to plan sex with him to pre-empt him harassing you, sexually assaulting you or raping you. That's not true consent, it's coercive.

Sex is supposed to be joyous, not like this. 😢

I don’t know how to articulate this well so please excuse me if it comes out garbled.

the problem is that I feel it’s just too late for me to say I have a problem with our sex life. In one way or another it’s been building up to this for years. We’ve had so many conversations about how he feels he’s not getting enough and he uses porn to try and ‘give me a break’ but it’s not the same and it doesn’t work for him. The times when the SA’s have happened has been when we are going through a dry spell like when I was pregnant or young baby (but even then still at least a few times a month )

Lately (last year or so since the baby was older) it’s been gradually building up to roughly every other day and instead of make him happy this seems to spur him on even more and then he seems be trying it on daily and becoming even more sexually frustrated if I say no.

The big problem is that , because I love him and it’s a toxic cycle , that often I like having sex with him. I often find myself telling him how much I love him during it. So he then takes that as a great let’s do it daily /as much as possible. She loves it. He’s often saying that to me that he knows how much I want him. Or that I'm leading him on during the day by kissing him back or smiling when he says something a bit suggestive and then say no when we finally get some alone time. That makes him annoyed. And in a way I have been leading him on as I don’t even know how I feel myself.

How can I expect him to understand the complexity of what I'm feeling when I don’t even understand it myself?!

Sorry that may not make sense

I don’t know how to say this other than very bluntly OP.

He doesn’t care.

He literally doesn’t care if you enjoy it or not. He doesn’t care why you’re struggling with it. He doesn’t care that you’re spending so much of your day worrying about this. He doesn’t care about your pleasure or comfort.

If he cared about one single thing in that list he would have stopped behaving the way he does.

The apologies and crying are manipulative and performative. If he meant them he would have changed. He hasn’t.

You need to get your head around the fact that trying to work out how to make him understand how this all makes you feel is pointless. He is not going to change.

You cannot fix a relationship with an abusive rapist who emotionally and verbally abuses your kids and emotionally, verbally and sexually abuses you. That is a fact.

Your options aren’t stay with him and fix things OR leave him.

Your only options are stay with him and continue with everything the way it is OR leave him.

He will not change. Nothing you say or do can make him see reason. You cannot reason with someone unreasonable. You cannot love an abuser enough to make them stop abusing you.

What do you love about this beast of a man? I feel like I want to wash myself just reading about him. I mean, I love sex, but not in a LTR with a sex offender. I wouldn't want my DC growing up to have this type of man as an example of being a man or husband, then growing up to be just like him.

Some of your experiences, thought processes and desperation that you have shared on this thread resonate with me.
I hope you don't live your life/the rest of the best days of your youth hoping he will change, repeating your trauma on loop like it's groundhog day and not knowing where or how to draw the line with the excuses after excuses you give him.

Look up the 'Shark cage theory'. I hope you can find it in you to use your maternal instincts to protect your DC and your last thread of self worth to protect yourself. Abuse is insidious. It's escalation is sneaky. It will only get worse.

Oh and the reason that porn “doesn’t work for him” is that this isn’t really about sex. It’s about power, dominance and control. Total control of you. Ownership. Having you on demand to service his sexual gratification.

This won’t be nice to hear but I feel I have to explain it to you this way, forgive me. The truth is that even a horrible, selfish man who didn’t feel he was having enough sex at home would cheat before they raped their pregnant wife. I promise you that.

He isn’t just horrible and selfish though, he is a rapist who enjoys sexually assaulting you. As he told you, he wants you more when you cry.

I so want you to find a new counsellor who can help you see all this.

The more I read, the more horrified I am, OP. He is now blaming you, saying you lead him on? That is not someone who is taking accountability and wanting to change. He will never change. He is a rapist and abuser and will continue to rape and abuse you. I'm so sorry OP.

Are you in the UK? If so, please check if New Pathways is available near you - they specialise in SA

OP you’re not ‘leading him on’ - this is about consent and his complete lack of regard for it. As PP have said his behaviour is controlling and not about sex.

You are completely allowed to kiss your husband, tell him that you love him without it having to lead to sex. You can say to him that you don’t always want sec and that your feelings about sex have been building to this for some time. Your love is not contingent on sex and you can have love without sex being a necessary outcome.

The challenge is whether he listens to this and respects it - history has shown he doesn’t. I agree you need a different therapist to help you understand and address this.

Your feelings are valid, the difficult part for you is that he doesn’t respect or value your feelings - only his, and, despite what he says, he isn’t willing to change.

So basically, you are giving in to him every other day so that he doesn't rape you in your sleep?

I understand that it's not as black and white as this because you have loving feelings towards him but I can understand why you are confused.

What is it that you want Pink poet?

How often do you really want to have sex with him factoring in how tired you are with 4 kids under 10 and work etc.

It seems that you are in a cycle that won't end unless he decides to end it. And why would he? He is getting sex every other day and by what you have written he doesn't seem to care whether you want it or not.

Why do his wants and needs matter more than what you want?

I imagine that you are not the first woman he has done this to? But you have been the most pliable and he has managed to mould you into a wife that is submissive and is prepared to push her own needs aside so he can dominate her.

He has also trapped you. It is not easy to walk away from someone with four other mouths to feed.

Those four babies are your reason to get away from this man. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your babies. Don't let them think that what he does is normal. He is not normal. Your relationship is not normal.

No, no relative - it was a boy at school. I meant pdf as in pedofile. I later found out I wasn’t the first.

But you are right, husbands, partners, siblings, step parents etc are usually the perpetrators. OP’s situation is incredibly common, because of the fine line between consent and coerced consent. This is even more complex when you take cultural dynamics into account (it doesn’t make it right, but it is more common in certain cultural in Europe and Asia)

I have read more of OP is comments and it sounds like she feels coerced into having sex, which is what happened to me. That is 💯 SA and rape, but it is very hard to accept and understand internally because of how media (and often the Western World) portrays it as this one off violent act. It can be that - but in the vast majority of cases is not, and starts very subtle coercion of “you owe me”

He is dressing this up like sex for him is a "need" that he's not in control of and it's not his fault if he does something bad because he "needs" it so much. He can't help but "need" sex and is essentially in a constant state of sexual desire.

I can't express enough that this is not normal. Most adult men in established relationships don't spend the entire day thinking about sex, wanting sex. It is not normal for a married couple to be unable to cuddle or kiss without that being seen a initiation of sex. These are choices he's making.

Sex is not a "need".

And OP as I said upthread, I promise you that even the most horrible of men would (if they felt they weren’t having enough sex at home) cheat on their wife before they’d even consider raping her. I promise you. It wouldn’t even be on their list of options of things to do. Unless they are someone who enjoys raping women, and I’m so sorry but that’s the man you’re married to. He said he wants you more when you cry. Please consider getting another therapist x

OP have you managed to speak to your best friend yet? You really need to speak to her. It will help.
Do you have siblings?

You don’t have to justify your choices. You need to move out, even if temporary although I am nearly 💯 that if you removed yourself and sought treatment then, you will not come back.

The more I read, the more your story resonates with me. His needs ain’t your problem, you do not owe him sex or your body BUT you are struggling to internalise this belief because 1. You are married and 2. You have consented before. This is very likely original from your original SA. It is clear you did not deal with that at the time, and that initial experience with your husband triggered the trauma because your body remembers. The fact that you didn’t think that him having sex with you while asleep is a rape, until you posted, reaffirms this. THIS is direct repeat of your original SA at university when you were unconscious! Your brain and body survived by normalising this, and the fact it is not normal is causing cognitive dissonance.

It is very common for SA victims to have multiple perpetrators and relationships that mimic the original abuse, because it feels normal. It happened to me too. In retrospect the relationships/dating situations I was in between 2015 and 2019 were sexually abusive or going this way through coercion. One ended with police in my house following stalking, and death threats, which is what got me cPTSD “diagnosis” and got referred to New Pathways.

Like you, I minimised and tried to explain it all away. The length of time they kept me in therapy was indicative of the seriousness of the trauma regardless of how my life looked on the outside. Your therapist cannot tell u to leave, but she also won’t agree with your situation is healthy which is why it may seem she is not “understanding you”. She probably is, but you are in survival mode.

As someone else said, therapy won’t be effective when the abuse is ongoing. Your environment is not safe ams that includes emotional and psychological safety. You are enduring and I am sorry to say but you cannot process or recover when your body feels unsafe. You need to move out or ask him to mo e out.

If he is that great, loving, understanding husband you say he is - he will understand and will. Give him your blessing to have sex with someone else.

Honestly OP you may have technically been an adult when you met him but everything you say sounds like this much older man groomed a vulnerable young woman and has manipulated into thinking being raped and abused is normal because you knew no different.

I guarantee a woman his own age would not have tolerated his bullshit.

Im horrified that you think kissing him or even smiling means you have to have sex otherwise you’re leading him on. Thats so far from normal in a relationship.
He uses sex to dominate and control you and because he’s groomed you form the start, you have no idea of normality.

You’re still a very young woman - do you want a lifetime of being raped and abused daily?

I don’t know what I want to be honest. I vomit my thoughts out here because when I speak to my therapist it doesn’t seem to come out right. I will think about trying someone else.

it’s just a lot of effort and research and it feels like… a lot . At the moment

I’m just trying to come to terms with all this still. It took me 3 years to build up the courage to talk to anyone at all

And you are being really brave OP to face up to this x

@shoppingred54 i haven’t , I told her I need to chat to her but it just feels like a hard thing to say over the phone.

the thought of telling anyone I know is still very difficult . could never tell my siblings

@throwawayimplantchat this has crossed my mind - he’s never given me a reason to suspect he’s looking elsewhere. I think that’s what’s made me think it’s normal all these years - that we just have an ‘intense’ relationship . He doesn’t want anyone else , it’s only me , I’ve felt lucky . Even though it’s been rocky.

and thank you - you are lovely x

Sorry to clarify OP but my point wasn’t to make it cross your mind that he could have been cheating.

My point was to explain to you that even an awful, horrible man would rather cheat than rape his wife. Because rape is about power and dominance.

Your husband doesn’t sexually assault and rape you because he wants sex, he does it because he wants total control of you and your body on demand.

99.9% of husbands who aren’t satisfied with their sex lives would rather cheat than rape their wife. It wouldn’t even be something they’d consider. Literally wouldn’t even be on the list of options.

Your husband doesn’t sexually assault you because he ‘needs’ sex. He sexually assaults you because he enjoys sexually assaulting you. I know how hard that is to hear and I’m sorry.

OP is being careful about the specifics. Please stop trying to piece together and question her timeline. It's unnecessary and unhelpful. She's being intentionally vague.