(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 ❤️

I get that feeling.

It reminds me of how I felt a few years ago when I had a niggling feeling that something was wrong with my child, but if I was right, then it would change everything. Obviously I got it checked out, and unfortunately I was right, I'm being vague here, but it was a form of cancer. There is a before, and an after in my life. My child required lifesaving surgery and years of recovery. I felt guilty for putting my child through that, because she hasn't seemed 'that' bad - I had to break my child to save her life. And it's been a long road till things have seemed better than 'before', but in reality there was no choice. There are still challenges now several years later, and we still aren't back to 'before', but only by removing the threat could she have the change to live and thrive.

You have a choice, but it's the same. There's something destructive and abusive within your relationship, that's going to eventually wear you down and stop you from living the life you should. Being at that crossroads is hard because it's so painful. From where you are though, you can't truly see how bad it is, and that makes it harder.

You could have the same feelings of love that you have, but without any fear. With being treated like an adult, respected, no worrying about what he might do. No placating. Though it might be better to live for YOU (and the kids) for a while.

Waking up when the kids wake you/you wake - not being woken for sex you don't want. Not having to give in because you know he'll rape you if you don't. Making your own spending decisions without questioning. Not worrying if he'll give you peace when you're ill, and rushing to get well before he ignores how you're feeling. Being able to go to bed with a migraine without someone nagging you to have sex despite how you feel. Then waking you up to rape you. None of that. It won't be easy, but you'll be free. You'll learn how to make your own decisions and live free as an adult for the first time ever. And then you'll flourish in a life without that fear. But getting there is painful.

I keep forgetting that you are in your twenties (Im not sure 23, that sounds a bit younger? 28?). That is so young. I had 4 'loves of my life' from 23 to the ripe old age I am. One very wise one told me 'someone may be one in a million, but that still means that there are another few hundred thousand of them out there',
You have a wise head there though, you are taking so much in and asking really good questions.

Can I ask a question - the place you were drinking when you were attacked, that wasnt your husbands bar was it? You mentioned that he owned a bar where lots of the students went, and also about him 'keeping other men away' when you were in there.

I'm not sure what value Clares Law has in this case, tbh.

If something comes back, then I guess that could help you feel more confident. But if it comes back with nothing, i think it could confuse things for you.

It wouldn't mean he isn't an abuser or rapist, it would just mean that prior victims either have been too scared to report or just wanted to forget about it, or didn't recognise it for what it was.

What matters is how he treats you now and in the past.

Oh yes, I think OP is 33, not 23 but still she has only been with him since the age of 18 so no other men to compare him to.

This is right. He was my first proper relationship so I don’t know any different really

I was in there that night (amongst other places) but I didn’t know him then and the attack actually happened outside I’m pretty sure. I had dirt on my clothes and hair etc . Friends confirmed I left with a boy I had been kissing earlier in the night and we ‘went home’ together. I still don’t have any memory of it though :(

We had been doing drinking games earlier on which i wasn’t used to .

I’m so sorry you and your child went through this. It sounds so tough and not something a child or parent should have to deal with. I really hope they are well now xx

I think you are right. It’s a good description. I’m so worried about what will happen if/when I take the next step.

But I am having another therapy session early next week and I will have a think about calling my local women’s aid and trying to do that .

yes , he would either start oral sex or touching me intimately and occasionally full sex while I am sleeping/ trying to sleep/ early in the morning . This is something I talked about in the previous thread. I have told him I don’t like it but he did it as recently as last week.

I feel like he doesn’t feel those things need a ‘yes’ in the same way as sex (not that he always waits for a yes anyway) because I’m his wife and it’s foreplay to get me in the mood for sex. And when he does this I often don’t feel like I can say no so it’s a pattern.

I have at a different time told him not to do it though. But he still thinks I ‘like it’ in the moment .

Sounds hideous when I write it out. I don’t like speaking about sex, with him or friends or anything - I find it embarrassing. Which is why I guess I never compared our sex life to friends to know it’s not normal.

and yes I have seen the cup of tea video! It’s very good and easy to understand. He’s so clever about it though. Majority of the time he gets consent from me , just it’s been years of me being a bit submissive I feel like it’s getting out of hand now and I can’t ask for any boundaries at all. He doesn’t listen/care . He pretends to care when I bring it up doesn’t take it on board.

Damn PinkPoet, he’s still doing it then. I’d hoped he was in the ‘playing nice’ phase. I’m sorry.l

He does need consent to start oral etc.

It is hideous.

Laying still or nodding isn’t consent though, the law requires “enthusiastic consent” - it has moved away from no means no to now being yes means yes. If you google enthusiastic consent you will see what this looks like. Sex needs enthusiastic consent from both parties.

I feel like some men (a lot probably) don’t know or ‘get’ this.
The thrill of the chase is not a phrase for no reason is it.
He was absolutely that guy when we first met. Have you heard about the book ‘the game’ ? He swore by it. I haven’t read it but I believe it’s tips to get women to want you.
I was ‘the one’ to put a stop to all that though, I genuinely don’t believe he is a player anymore or sleeps around
Not that that excuses his behaviour

DD is much better by the way :)

As I understand it, the "pick-up artists" are forerunners of Andrew Tate & his ilk and the manosphere.

Wikipedia quotes the Guardian: "A side effect of sarging (socializing with the intent of finding and seducing a woman) is that it can lower one's opinion of the opposite sex", though the reviewer noted, "And yet, as he has described it, the inverse is true: a low opinion of the opposite sex is a prerequisite for sarging."

You have to have a really low opinion of women to behave that way. He doesn't respect women.

I don't think you changed that about him. He doesn't respect you or your autonomy. He hasn't changed, it's just he can guarantee sex with you whenever he wants

It is alarming that he's raising girls. Because he doesn't really like women at all.

Glad DD is feeling better.

Honestly, this just gets worse. This "great guy" has been a pickup artist/predator on teen girls from the very start.

Clare's Law won't do anything to exonerate him and I would be absolutely astonished if you are the only woman he has raped with attitudes and behaviours like that.

No. Nearly all men are fully aware that no means no.

If a man tries to push for more when a woman says no, then 99 times out of a 100 he knows that he is trying to coerce her into doing something she doesn't want to do, he just doesn't care, and hopes that if he pushes her enough then she'll capitulate and submit rather than fight him and cause a scene (and risk being forcibly raped anyway).

A man who says 'no means yes' knows that he is committing rape and forcing a woman into doing things that she doesn't want to do, and he either doesn't care, or he gets off on forcing her to accept and excuse her own rape.

Sorry what is a pick-up artist ? Is this to do with the book? I haven’t read it but perhaps I should …

what is it about? He told me at the start he learnt everything about dating /girls etc from that book

Jesus Christ, OP, that would've been your first sign to run, run very far away, if only you'd known. This article summarises it nicely.

To quote this portion, on the book your husband 'swore by':

"The Game acts more as a how-to guide for pickup artistry, promising its readers the secret blueprint for interacting with women and successfully seducing them.
Strauss refers to women as “targets” and, in one passage, refers to a woman as “all holes: ears to listen to me, a mouth to talk to me and a vagina to squeeze orgasms out of me.”

The techniques offered in The Game range from bizarre to dangerous. These include “peacocking” (intentionally wearing something unusual and noticeable to attract interest), “negging” (insulting a woman to undermine her confidence and make her more vulnerable to advances), and “caveman-ing” (defined in the book’s glossary as “to directly and aggressively escalate physical contact”).

Readers are taught to ignore a woman’s social and verbal signals that she is uninterested. “You just fucking push, push, push, and it can’t not work,” Tyler Durden, a pseudonymous PUA, is quoted saying as he describes his efforts to overcome women’s resistance to his advances. “I’ll pummel their asses down.” According to the PUA ideology and its affiliated seduction tactics, women are sexual objects to be manipulated and whose protests should be ignored."

The thing is, whether they get it or not, it’s the law. Women are human beings. That book is awful - so misogynistic.
I’m so glad your daughter is feeling better, it’s awful when they’re ill!

The Game is a book about "pick-up artists", who had/have a sort of school for learning how to manipulate women for sex.

It's not really "dating tips". It's actually horrible and misogynistic. Not about treating women as equals or people, but how to exploit them.

It says a lot about his attitude to women.

Yes, the Game was a book about pick up artists. Early 2000s misogynists who shared tricks to manipulate women. A precursor to Andrew Tate and the manosphere culture now.

Things like negging, backhanded compliments to undermine and reduce women's self esteem. Sounds like exactly what he did to you, plying teenage girls with drinks to groom them.

All these hateful, misogynistic beliefs - women should be submissive, women say no when the mean yes, rape victims are liars saying it for attention, men "need" sex - these all stem from rape culture.

So he's basically gone from doing this -

Readers are taught to ignore a woman’s social and verbal signals that she is uninterested. “You just fucking push, push, push, and it can’t not work,”

to lots of women, to just doing it to you.

Oh my god.

Im speechless to be honest

I feel like a TOTAL idiot and very silly girl.
I felt so special when we started seeing each other . He probably learnt it in the book

He was always upfront about it. Never tried to hide his past or the fact he used techniques from the book. I just didn’t hear it/care/bother to look it up.

I never thought to look at the book it sat on our shelf for years before he donated it about 5 years ago!!!

Those quotes are … concerning

I'm so sorry, OP.

I suppose discovering these things might provide clarity to you, as it really highlights all the many ways in which he actively preyed on you from the very beginning, but it has to be such a shock and a sense of betrayal to know what he thinks of women.

As someone else mentions, given you have daughters the fact that he has pick-up artist beliefs is even more concerning - those sorts of men believe that women and girls are subhuman/inferior to men, and they don't exclude their daughters from that.