(TW SA) Continuing support & sharing things…

[PinkPoetAgaiin]

Hi again everyone,

Making a new thread as some of the lovely ladies who have been supporting me for over a month now suggested I can continue to share my thoughts & feelings dealing with sexual & financial abuse (& other things) from my husband who I’ve been with since I was 18 (15 years).

Will be on and off for a bit as young DC is unwell at the moment and that’s taking all my energy.

I am not yet at the point of leaving - please don’t shout at me for being a bad mum. I did get a lot of criticism on my last thread for not getting them out immediately and I just can’t for reasons I explained.

Life feels heavy, but I’m focusing on DC at the moment ❤️

It’s just this type of book. It wouldn’t be worth the conversation. He would be all ‘you’re making me feel like a monster, we need to move past this not read books about trauma ‘ etc etc

Not bad thank you. Headache is a bit better and I took another day in bed!
Sick of thinking about things and wish I could turn my brain off.

He is not in a good mood after work today and it’s making me a bit jumpy . Stressful day I think. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He asked me what’s wrong with me (why I’m off sick) and i explained the headache and that my mental health wasn’t great as I’ve told him. He got annoyed and sulky and gaslight - I think that’s the term?

He basically said it’s not fair for me to keep living in the past and making him feel dreadfully guilty as it’s impacting on our marriage and what about his mental health too. He already feels like a monster and isn’t that enough, he can’t take it back. He feels guilty enough that he’s put me in therapy and it’s not fair that I keep making him feel worse. I thought about mentioning the things that have happened more recently but he seemed quite angry so I didn’t .

He said he’s under a lot of stress and pressure at work that I don’t understand. And also financially. I said I could understand it is I was on the account and he just rolled his eyes .

He also tried to blame my emotional state and headaches on pms when I told him I’d come on my period today. He’s secretly probably annoyed sex is not on the table today

Absolutely textbook DARVO - straight off the narcissists script.

How date you feel ill and the world isn’t revolving g round him for 5 minutes.

Everything in his mind is me me me me me me me

I'm so sorry, Poet. The utterly shocking thing is that HE is the one that is re-traumatising you, EVERY time he now sexual assaults you. Where is his accountability? As pp said it's straight out of the narcissists script. You have done NOTHING wrong! Please remember that. The body does indeed keep the score.

Textbook DARVO.
he has some bloody gall!
stay rock solid OP. Do NOT let him make you feel bad or guilty at all!
the irony to criticise your mental state impacting the marriage when it is HIM AND HIS BEHAVIOUR that is causing you to feel this way. Totally normal reaction to his behaviour.
do you see what he is trying to do there??
hold firm OP.
i am furious for you.
its TIME THE SHAME SWITCHES SIDES!!

He is so predictable and textbook poet. Here is some explanation of the DARVO behaviour people have correctly identified.

DARVO is a manipulative tactic used by abusers to evade accountability when confronted with their actions. An acronym for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender, it involves denying the abuse, attacking the victim for confronting them, and painting themselves as the true victim. This cycle confuses victims, causes them to doubt their reality, and shifts blame away from the perpetrator.

It is not funny because he is so dangerous and you are so scared of him, but I really look forward to one day you being safe and looking back and seeing the absolute absurdity of this man.

Also, how are you making him feel guilty or dragging anything up?! I think we all know you are extremely careful around him and you can’t even confront him about his continuing assaults on you. He can be in whatever mood he likes, making no effort to hide it, but you being unwell with migraines and struggling mentally is somehow an attack on him is it?

I know you feel like you love him, and I know you are exhausted with all of this, but there is no love or concern for you at all from him. None whatsoever.

I feel like he's going to punish you for being ill.

I feel like something is brewing 😔

Has he done this before OP?
can we help you think about how to manage and cope with his behaviour?

How can he think you are dragging up the past when hr only raped you a few nights ago? Absolute bastard.

He already feels like a monster and isn’t that enough

Had you asked him to feel like a monster, or had you asked him not to have unconsenting sex for a while?

Because that's his answer as to whether that's "enough"?

As pp have said said, I think he's working up something to punish you for, or preparing you for "bad news".

He's felt entitled to do exactly as he wants when he wants and by you questioning this even slightly, he's worried he might not be able to do that any more without making it so obvious.

"He already feels like a monster and isn’t that enough, he can’t take it back. He feels guilty enough that he’s put me in therapy and it’s not fair that I keep making him feel worse"

He could stop making it worse though, by not sexually assulting you and raping you every few days, and by not being financially, emotionally and physically controlling of you and your children.

But he won't.

I’m glad you were able to download the book, Poet. I hope that, while it might be a hard read, it will also give you the strength of self-understanding and clarity. Being able to see the truth of things, and understand the situation properly, is so powerful.

Before you were moving through life in a fog, gaslit and groomed, and not sure of reality – now you can see things for what they are, and while you’re still in a precarious position with him, now you’re aware of why, you know his tactics, and you can make informed decisions based on that. Knowledge is power.

Given he’s doing what he does to you deliberately, is remorseless, and debasing and subjugating you is what drives him, I’m not sure that trying to bring up his recent actions will achieve much, other than put him on alert and make him desperate to put you ‘back in your place’.

I do think finding the strength to say ‘No’ and resist if he attempts to rape you would be valuable – if for no other reason that you would then know that you had the strength to try to protect yourself, and advocate for yourself – there’s more power in that than in submitting and trying to ‘control’ how it happens. It’s just my personal feelings, but I think that submitting to it really messes with your head, and makes you feel like it’s your own fault/you deserve it/this is how things should be.

Otherwise – and perhaps pp wiser than me might be able to weigh in, or perhaps this is redundant advice (given I haven’t read all of the past threads) – I wonder if perhaps you shouldn’t try to push the idea that in therapy, it’s become clear that the rape before you met him is driving a lot of your mental health issues, and the therapist has advised that you abstain from all sexual activity due to that, and the mental trauma its causing you, until you can work through those feelings in therapy.

If blaming him will only make him angrier and more determined to get you back under his thumb, perhaps directing it away from him might placate him for the time being?

Yes it’s like I’m not allowed to be upset about anything because of how it makes him feel and then it effects the mood of the whole house.

Ive also got a bit of a dread feeling. He is fuming and in very bad mood and seems very stressed/on edge. He says it’s work.
I just went to bed early last night as I said I wasn’t feeling well.

I’ve just got this sick feeling .

Not really punishment exactly but he gets cross/sulky if I use ‘headache’ as an excuse to not have sex. He says that’s the classic excuse women use and sex might make me feel better !

But he didn’t do this last night because of the period so that’s something. For a few days hopefully .

She tried that. He raped her again within a couple of days, sadly.

I don't think anything is going to stop that, honestly, until she leaves. I think the only thing OP can do is practice saying 'no' more and more strongly, not because it will stop him necessarily, but for herself. (Unless of course, she's worried that he might seriously hurt her.)

I do not believe he would hurt me. I don’t have a reason to believe he would as he never has - physically I mean. I do understand now he has caused great harm in other ways.

He tends to react to things that make him angry with stroppy/sulky/defensive and rude behaviour.

However I must admit I don’t often challenge him to the extent it would get into an argument so I don’t know 100% what his reaction would be if I started verbally outing him as a r*pist or whatever. And the times I have seen him really angry or not coping he has punched walls and thrown things and he’s much bigger than me so it is scary. so I guess I could never say with total certainty that he wouldn’t hurt me. But I don’t think so.

Can you put your finger on why you feel you can’t argue back - example being yesterday when you held back from pointing out he was still doing this to you - and why you don’t feel you can say no after he’s ignored your no, or to try to resist physically?

I know that might sound like victim blaming but for clarity I’m not saying it’s a good idea to do either of those things or that you are not doing enough, and sorry if my wording is clumsy. I’m thinking though it is useful to examine what you fear in these moments. Perhaps what you might subconsciously know vs what you say you know about him, even.

Punching walls isn’t “just letting off steam.” It’s violence. It’s a deliberate display of physical force designed to intimidate and create fear. When someone punches a wall in front of their partner, they’re demonstrating what they’re capable of physically. The message — whether spoken or not — is “this could be you.” That’s why domestic abuse specialists treat property damage as a serious warning sign, not a harmless outlet.

Abuse also tends to escalate, not improve. Many relationships follow a pattern: controlling behaviour and emotional abuse first, then intimidation (like punching walls or throwing things), then physical contact such as blocking exits, grabbing, or pushing, and eventually hitting. The fact that he is already emotionally abusive, financially controlling, blaming you for his anger, and having sex without consent means this is already a high-risk situation. The wall-punching isn’t an isolated behaviour — it’s part of a broader pattern of coercion and entitlement.

It’s also important to challenge the idea that he “loses control.” If he only punches walls, not colleagues, strangers, or his boss, then he is choosing where to direct his violence. That suggests control, not loss of it. And when someone feels entitled to control their partner’s money, emotions, and body, the step to physical violence becomes much smaller. He’s already crossing boundaries — repeatedly.

Many people who were eventually physically assaulted say they were certain it would never happen. They believed the wall-punching, the shouting, or the intimidation was the worst it would get — until one day it wasn’t. The presence of coercive control, non-consensual sex, and intimidation together significantly increases the risk of escalation. Even if he has never hit you before, the behaviours described are huge warning signs. I don’t think you realise the danger you are in.

What did Women's Aid say about the wall punching and holding your neck during the rapes as risk factors for further escalating violence?

I would also challenge the idea that he has never physically hurt you. You were sore and bruised after the rapes. You said he is very rough.

It’s a very good question. I have always not wanted to put too much ‘on his plate’ and ‘protect’him from too much stress or bad news for example. When something happens , let’s say I dinged the car door on something or something significant has broken in the house my first thought is always oh god what’s H going to say about that.

The times when he has launched things and scared me has always been when he’s been under a lot of stress from different angles , he can’t manage it and something like a kids tantrum or a minor comment from me sends him over the edge.

So to answer your question - I don’t know exactly. Partly I am scared of his reaction because it’s going to put the house in a horrid atmosphere, and partly because I feel like the answer will just be the same? And that maybe it’s better if I just shut up.

It doesn’t even occur to me to resist physically or make a fuss in the moment. it’s easier to just get on with it . And if I do insist on a no like I did the other day he wakes me up in the night halfway to sex anyway (or sometimes even full sex in the past) . And maybe part of me feels like he will feel better after he’s had sex and will be a bit nicer?

a lot of feelings basically !!!