(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 ❤️

He can't 'take back' all the times he's raped you, been aggressive around you and your children, and scared you and your children.

If I wanted to do something I would say
'so and so has asked me to go to xxx for the weekend, so Im just wondering how we can sort the kids whiole Im away'

as opposed to 'Id like to go to xxx if thats ok'

@PinkPoetAgaiin Doesnt everyone need to ‘ask’ before organising a weekend away - I can’t believe that too unusual. With young kids?!

Of course not, we're adults, no? Of course you arrange things together in a way that work best for the kids/you/your partner, but it's in the form of a discussion, not asking permission.

You didn't "end up" anywhere. That's quite passive. You didn't both drift into this. He targeted you when you were vulnerable (being a woman makes you vulnerable anyway but you were also very young, had already been abused and told him so quickly), used tactics from a rape manual on you, and because of your past and social conditioning you thought he was rescuing you and the best man ever, at some point, probably from the beginning, he started abusing you and brainwashing you and now you feel trapped and won't leave. None of this just happened.

Anyone who regularly wakes up a mum of 4 young kids in the night for any reason other than say a house fire is a PIG.

Agree. This didn’t just happen. This abusive manipulator deliberately targeted a vulnerable young woman who was going through a lot of trauma to groom into his perfect Stepford Wife.

He's controlled the narrative from day one and stolen her youth.

It’s very telling how controlled groomed and gaslit the OP has been by the language she uses and her questioning every bit of abuse as ‘I thought it was normal’

This has been her life since she was a teenager and she’s been conditioned by this vile POS to have no idea how a healthy relationship works

He hugged me and he did not try it on afterwards . Progress?

Is it really progress? You've already said he doesn't enjoy sex while you're on the early days of your period. All he's let you off from is you having to give him a blowie/hand job. It's absolutely heartbreaking seeing your hope that he could be redeemed.

RAPE

I would need to look at the calendar together with DH to check we are sorted for childcare etc. I wouldn't need to ask permission.

I have my own bank account and money though, so that probably makes a difference. I know if I can afford whatever I'm planning, so it's just agreeing about childcare, lift to station, that sort of thing.

If you have to ask him for funds to do anything, I imagine that is very restricting.

You’ve just described a whole batch of other rapes, including while pregnant, here Pink Poet. That is absolutely horrendous that he did that. Significantly more risk there of physically harming you in doing so, too.

Ok,I think there's variation here, and so it's not something to get caught up on - when there are lots of areas which are unequivocally unreasonable.

We.do ask eachother - but that goes both ways, and we both try to make things work. But we have two quite tricky, complicated, insomniac children, so it is difficult having them alone for the weekend. Once, my husband going away for the night meant I got 20 minutes sleep the whole night due to the kids, so we ask, out of politeness to eachother. Equally, when we've taken on big things for hobbies that have meant we've been out a lot, we've run out part the other person - out of a courtesy because it'll have a big impact on them in terms of childcare etc. But the unspoken expectation is that we'll try to make things work if important to the other person.

So I don't think it's unreasonable that poet would need to discuss it with her (abusive and rapist) husband given there are 4 young kids involved. That's within the realms of normal. The financial control, emotional abuse and sexual abuse are not.

Discuss, yes, ask permission, no.

I am starting to come round to this idea and it makes me so so sad 😞

And while you try to soften or excuse his behaviour, the fact he has bragged about deliberately employing PUA techniques means he knows what he's doing.

He set out to learn how to manipulate women. To push them into unwanted non-consensual sex.

And by the way, most people aren’t up for anal so there is absolutely no way he thought your consensual activity was an automatic green light for that. He knew that would be a question he would have to ask, just as much as he knew your answer would most likely be no, so he skipped all of that.

So this has been going on since the start then , in one way or another ? :(

Again - it’s another thing I haven’t thought about for ages

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the "sex on the first date" wasn't entirely consensual either, given what we know about his predatory methods, you were drunk and don't remember the details and how traumatised you were from the original assault.

It has unfortunately but I think this is one of those things you are understandably finding hard to come to terms with. You often say things like ‘how did we end up here’ and ‘why did this happen to us’ but the circumstances are clearer to us from the outside that the basis of your relationship was exploitative and abusive from the outset.

Especially because she had already told him she did not like it.

By the time he ‘stopped’ doing it, he had already done it without asking. He could not have ‘stopped’ if he had not already completed the anal penetration, knowing full well she had previously told him she did not like it.

He had already been anally raping her, before he stopped the raping.

I just can’t get passed maybe he doesn’t realise what he’s doing is technically defined as re. I don’t believe he would know about ‘enthusiastic consent’ i didn’t . Or that he’s supposed to check I’m ok at every stage.

If you really think that then why are you so scared to ask him? If you think it's just an innocent misunderstanding then why on earth wouldn't you talk to him about it?

I do believe this is what’s happening now. It’s a vicious cycle because I never say no to him because I never want to go back to that night feeling like what the fuck he’s actually rping me and crying my eyes out (I do remember thinking that at the time) so I just agree and go along with whatever he wants and then he thinks I’m sex crazy, dirty wife of his dreams that is ‘always up for it’ even in the middle of the night and so we continue.

Again, if you truly believe that he is a good man who is just confused about what consent looks like, why don't you talk with him about it. Why don't you say I know you think I'm sex crazed but I'm not and I'd like to be able to say no to you.

When he's being Prince Charming and promising to change and work on the relationship, why don't you tell him that there is something he could do to improve.

Why aren't you having these conversations? I know the answer btw but I wonder if you have thought about that.

If he's open to change, what's stopping you from telling him he needs to ask for consent and respect your boundaries?

From what you've shared, it's very clear from an outside perspective that from the moment he met you, he targeted you as prey for his misogynistic, abusive tactics.

It's not easy to hear, but I would imagine he saw you were young, vulnerable, freshly traumatised, and without good boundaries, and so perfect material for him to groom, abuse, control, and subjugate.

This isn't something he's become – he was almost certainly a boundary pushing, abusive rapist for many years before he met you.

I'm rather worried tbh about what he did after he stopped. I can't see him stopping sex altogether, because that's not his style, but going back to vaginal (without a very very good clean first) would be dangerous - especially when pregnant.

Again, there's nothing wrong with any type of sex if it's consensual, and with your welfare as a top priority. This was neither.

Just in case you aren't aware, even if you are having consensual sex and you want to stop at any time, that is also ok. If he carries on, that's rape. If you are having consensual sex with a condom and he takes it off without your knowledge, that's rape. If you consent to one type of sex and he changes to a different kind of sex without checking with you first, that's rape. If he starts off whilst you are asleep and unable to consent, that's rape.

You own your body OP. It's yours and no-one else's. No-one has any right to touch you in any way without your express consent. You will have noticed through your pregnancy and birth experiences, that the medical profession always check for consent before they touch you. It's a normal part of life.

Sex should always be something you participate in with full consent and knowledge, not something that is just done to you.

I feel so sad for my 18yo old self. I really didn’t like that type of sex but I was so worried he would go off me for being inexperienced and have someone else instead.

God what a journey of realisation this is becoming .