(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 ❤️

Just wanted to say I’m glad you are here.
You have really educated me, and I’m not alone in that.
If I have been blunt in a previous post I do apologise and I sincerely promise that will never happen again. Ever.
You have been very, very brave to share and return to posting and I hope your posts continue to hold value for you as a diary and a place of reflection.
You have come so far and I hope your little one is feeling better soon.

Update is that I have continued to chat to my friend on message who now knows what’s going on. She is being very supportive and checking in with me.

And that things have been calm at home for now .

Don’t worry you are doing fine just as you are, having taken massive steps already.

May your daughter get well soon. Remember to get rest and food yourself if you can 💐

Also - someone asked me a while ago if I had any messages from him where he mentions the r**e a few years ago.

Last night as I was with DD all night but couldn’t sleep myself, I went back through my archives and I do have one he sent the next day saying how he is ashamed of himself for ‘what happened’ last night (not what he did) and that his mental health is the worst it’s ever been. He said if he could promise ‘it’ would never happen again can we please move past it? I said yes of course.

So I guess for myself I now have evidence that it definitely happened and I am not dramatising it in my head.

Keep that message and send a copy to your friend.

I’m just coming along with the bags here. This was a really brilliant thread that someone linked to. Just to remind ourselves that we are not mad…
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/698029-Right-listen-up-everybody?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Yes I read this ❤️
Thank you

Amazing how women support each other

That message is very interesting. So he did realise at the time that he had raped you. You'd previously been thinking that maybe he didn't hear you cry.

Also, the mental health excuse. So bizarre. Why is that considered an explanation?

"oh, I was anxious/depressed/whatever so I raped my heavily pregnant wife to feel better."

That so good you have that message, even if just to validate to yourself that it happened and he knew it was wrong.

@DropOfffArtiste @RS1987 although it felt weird to read it for the first time in all these years it did make me feel a little bit of peace as I know now that a) it happened b) I remembered the circumstances correctly and c) he knows it happened and the circumstances too

Its also strange to read me reply ‘yes we can’ (as in move past it) as I must have acknowledged and remembered it at the time and then just filed it away and wanted to 100% forgive and forget it. And was actually successful in that approach for 3 years

oh and by mental health I think he means stress. As I’ve said before sex (or lack of) is a huge contributing factor to his stress levels and when he has it it’s like a stress relief thing

Hi @PinkPoetAgaiin I’m new to your thread but have just spent my lunch reading through your posts from the last 2 threads. You’ve had some brilliant advice and have engaged so much, I have so much hope for you.
I noticed that you mentioned other posters had encouraged you to look into Claire’s law. Can I ask if you did this? I would really encourage you to.
Also how are you getting on with your therapist?
How much have you told your friend? I think the fact your husband doesn’t like her is pretty telling.
I do think the world is different now and age gaps are spoken about more in terms of life experience, but I’ve tried to drill into my teen girls that if older teen boys are interested in them it’s because the girls their own age think they are idiots, not trying to make light of an awful situation but I think our generation and ones before us just put up and shut up, the world is changing, which is why this incel/porn culture is on the rise because too many men want to keep women in their place.

You’ve got this op, keep posting x

The thing is, the mind is a clever thing. Sometimes too clever for its own good. So sometimes it alows itself to file things away because the present isnt a safe or sensible time to deal with things. Heavily pregnant and nursing are the two most vulnerable times for women, so it does not surprise me that you brain boxed that experience up and put it in the archives, only to bring it back out when you were physically and mentally ready to deal with it.

Your youngest is about 2-3?

Traditionally (or anthropologically for our naturally matrilina/focal species) that would be a time that a woman would stop breastfeeding and may, in less patriarchal societies, be looking for the next father of a child. It would be when her strength as a woman is coming back and if she has managed to raise her child to 2-3 years old, its likely to now survive to adulthood. So information about that mate is going to come forward - is he safe, was he a good provider. Is he who will be chosen to father the next one, or is there even going to be a next one. Will he hang around or be sent back to his own family clan.

Obviously we dont live in those kinds of societies now, but its still relevent that your brain will hide things until you are strong enough to deal with them. And Im really proud that you are dealing with them, and possibly also looking to deal with the assault that happened when you were a teenager which led you into this situations. Many people dont deal with the things, they dont take the hard path of therapy and unpeeling, and they try to push those boxes back down, with drink or drugs or p[rescribed medication.

I dont believe that hiding from the box of bad things is good for people. Whats in the box gets more terrifying the longer it is left, until the box itself becomes the problem. I think you have the box that contained what your husband did to you. And I think that in that box was another box with what happened at university, which although itself is a bad thing, its been built into a much bigger thing by him, and the fact that at a point when you could have looked at it and moved on, he has told you to pack it away and let him, in his big box, look after you instead.

Im not sure that any of that makes sense. I guess what Im trying to say is that when you are able to really look at the teenage problem, and sit it side by side, looking at them both straight on, that you will see that not only have you been prevented healiong from the first issue, and you WILL be able to heal from that, but that its small fry compared to whats happening now.

That probably sounds scary, but you are doing it Poet. You are doing it. You are sneaking a peek inside. Yes you are running back to familiarity, but you ARE coming back. And you are taking initiative and steps to prove to yourself that this is not you. You are not crazy. You did not remember wrong. And that builds your strengtth and drives you forwards in careful steps.

I’m glad you are still around, still thinking and planning.

Ok so the message archives are VERY eye opening for me. I am sitting here looking through about 6 years of chat while poorly DD sleeps and … wow.

I searched ‘shag’ ‘fuck’ and ‘sorry’
sorry is the clear winner with over 500 sorry messages.

Sorry for shouting, do the kids forgive me, I know I have anger issues, I’m sorry for sulking, calling you that, I’m sorry I just get so angry I start shaking and I can’t control it. One message said I’m sorry I just struggle with having to share your attention ?? He must be talking about the kids.

a year ago - I’m sorry , I just woke up feeling so horny this morning and I had to do something about it - and a wink emoji - I have a feeling this was one of the sleep sex times.

Shag and fuck were equally as gross but less of them. Mainly him sending me a suggestive message on his way home in the evenjng and if I responded saying no or I was too tired messages like ‘I just need a fuck can you please help me/lay down in missionary’

and one in the morning ‘I don’t know why I get so angry when I want a shag…’

Even for me , who’s received all these over years, it seems a lot. I don’t know what to do with this new information but at least it goes some way to explaining (to myself) that my feelings are valid.

This does make a lot of sense and yes you are right with the age of youngest DC. It’s like coming out of the baby fog and starting to think about things ….

I’m glad you’ve been able to re read old messages OP. You’ve probably blocked a lot of it out so it’s good that you can refer back to it.

Nettletea always seems so insightful with their posts (along with many others on here. )

You are doing so well Pinkpoet, this must be such an overwhelming time.

Thankyou for coming back and sharing your thoughts, I think we all want to know you are ok. I hope your little girl feels better soon.

Keep working with your therapist and well done for sharing with your friend- all such hard work and draining but you are doing it.

Stay strong x

I really hope these messages give you confidence in your judgement as you’ve been so conflicted in all your threads on if you were making a big deal over nothing. The opposite is true and you know it in your gut ( and you always have) I hope it helps you, for now just process these messages. You don’t have to do anything else right now.

i hope your dd gets better soon. My oldest dd had croup till she was five so it involved multiple trips to A&E and she got the steroids too. Makes them sleep the next day 🥲
in the meantime please look after yourself, try and eat and drink even when it’s hard too. As mentally you are going through alot so it will affect your heath.

The message archive is really useful for you to recognise the patterns and understand the scale of the problem.

That sounds really difficult to read. I'm glad you have though, because it's very revealing.

It's good you have the messages as they show you you're being gaslit.

It also shows that you have raised each incident when it occured and he knows he did wrong.

This does make a lot of sense and yes you are right with the age of youngest DC. It’s like coming out of the baby fog and starting to think about things ….

It also might explain why he is floating the idea of having another baby.

Hi again Poet, I'm really glad you came back. I'll have to type in a rush as I'm with my children so apologies if this comes out sounding abrupt but I was so taken by two of the specific similarities between the behaviours of your husband and my colleague's husband so I wanted to message you now.

Firstly, he too tried to take her on a mini break after she had confronted him about the rapes but before she had left him. In her case he actually booked it as a surprise (including contacting her work without her knowledge to book time off and also refusing to tell her where they were going) so as someone else suggested do rehearse some phrases that might help you if your husband does the same and pressures you to leave with him immediately:

"I don't want to go away with you now. I am not getting in the car."

'You are not listening to what I have said at all. I have asked you for space and time to process things. A weekend away with you does not provide either of those things."

"I don't care how much you've spent on the break, it is the opposite to what I have asked for and that is on you, not me. You are refusing to give me what I have actually requested and an overblown gesture does not erase that."

I can see that a mini break might achieve several goals for the abuser - to try to sweep everything under the rug in your mind and the eyes of others ("everything must be okay because..."), to make you feel obliged to be grateful to him, to make you feel you "should" have sex, to get you alone and isolated.

I would be very, very suspicious of his motives and would absolutely refuse to go. (In my colleague's case, his behaviour escalated so much that she ended up leaving him before the date of the break. The escalation was very quick after he told her about it, I think he could sense he was losing control of her and he ramped everything up in response.)

Secondly, he also blamed the sexual abuse on stress, in his case because he lost his job. I have no idea why these men think that women should just put up with being raped multiple times in order to help them with their stress levels so as an excuse it didn't even really make any sense but there you go, apparently rapists often try to justify their assaults because "stress". (Of course, the logical conclusion is that they actually think their desires override your rights - they don't really think women are people with their own autonomy.)

I’m sorry I just get so angry I start shaking and I can’t control it. One message said I’m sorry I just struggle with having to share your attention ?? He must be talking about the kids.

So he admits he can't control his anger. That's bloody terrifying. Abuse often escalates after children are born because abusers wants to be a god to you, your absolute priority, and anything that disproves that is the case is a threat to them. That's one of the reasons we are all very concerned about your kids: you keep saying he would never hurt them (even though he already has), but here he actually confesses that he is resentful of them. I think you have made amazing progress in a short space of time, even your ability to describe his actions accurately as abuse in you opening post here is phenomenal. Well done and keep on keeping on.

Sorry if this is all a bit of a muddle, I am being pestered for smoothie now so I can't edit :-)

I’m glad you’re ok PinkPoet. I think those messages, much like your posts here, are a useful record for you that you are not going mad. They are also useful I hope in taking a bit of fear away from what would happen if you left him one day; these all support your version of what goes on in the marriage.

Hi Poet

I wanted to push back a little on this message from the last thread. Because I think there's a piece missing. I'll post what you wrote and what I thought.

Thank you ❤️ I may start a new thread in a bit but I get anxious no one will want to hear me whining anymore

Belittling yourself and making yourself small, as you've been trained. Very normal for someone living with abuse. But also, a really good way to deflect a difficult truth. Posters haven't been saying you're whining, they've been expressing worry for your kids, worry for you, and stating the facts of what is actually happening. If when that expression happens you close down and leave, my concern is that the truth is so huge, you can't see it. If other posters stay in the lie that this is just a bit wrong, just a bit damaging, so that you stay on here, my worry is that you are less likely to leave.

you’ve all been such a support to me

Lovely, and I hope it is. But a worry of mine is that we're acting as a very bad counsellor. Making the session nice for you, which takes the edge off, which makes is less likely you'll make changes. Basically emotionally supporting you to stay in a dangerous, abusive place. Support is great. It is. But so is challenging your dissonance, pushing on who he is, asking about small plans and changes so you move in a direction to help you and the kids. Just so you are aware going into it, the specialised counselling will be hard. All good therapy is hard. Because change is hard. If it's easy, it's not working.

Now, we aren't counsellors. But if you are abused repeatedly, almost daily, feel horrible, come on here, feel better, go back to your life... we're just enabling. We're keeping you there by sharing your lie that it isn't that bad.

Shes doing well now but we were in hospital last night as needed steroids.

Thank goodness!

Times like this DH really steps up and sorts all the others out without me having to tell him what to do. One redeeming feature

Of COURSE he does. He needs the force field of Good Dad for many reasons. To name a few:

So you believe he's good and it outweighs and abuse.
So the children are confused and stay compliant.
So you think other people will believe him.
So he can believe himself he's good with one flaw.
So you stay...

… and no one jump down my throat for being an abuser supporter please!!!

You are an apologist for your own abuse. That is completely normal, totally typical and a symptom of what you're going through. If abusers were 100% dreadful all the time they wouldn't have anyone to abuse. You'd leave in the first ten minutes. And we've all met the easy to spot ones. It's the complicated, manipulative ones that get us.

And he's your husband, it's natural to defend him. We all defend the little flaws in the people we love. We justify them and minimise them and try to ignore them. And that's normal. But you have to hold two completely opposite truths in your head. He's a man who helps you when bad things happen. He also rapes you and coerces you into unwanted sex and is angry and dangerous. The anxiety and feelings of wanting to avoid the threads come from this tension.

You aren't an abuser supporter but you are in denial. Which is normal. But if you discount and blame the posters who point this out, to try to square the circle of your relationship, you're blaming the wrong people for the feelings. They might be clumsy, but they are speaking truth. Your husband isn't.

I'm trying very hard to keep the things I'm saying bite-sized. Because I know it's hard. I have probably failed. But I promise what I say comes from the very best hopes for you. That you will post in 5 years saying we were right, you left, you're safe, you're happy, everyone is in therapy and doing well, the kids are thriving, and you want to tell other women the truth too. Hard as that is.

"looking through about 6 years of chat while poorly DD sleeps and … wow.
I searched ‘shag’ ‘fuck’ and ‘sorry’
sorry is the clear winner with over 500 sorry messages."

So, if we assume he said "sorry" twice per message, that's 50 incidents where he has said "sorry" per year over the last 6 years. That's 4 incidents every month. One incident per week.

That's a LOT of bad behaviour. You're basically being bombarded every week with dreadful tension-inducing behaviour from him, behaviour that you can't reflect on and digest properly because the next attack has already arrived.

How are you still standing?! You must be in numb survival mode. This can't be sustained. This level of attack and its effects on your psyche will eat at your physical health. Chronic stress is a major trigger of autoimmune disease, not to mention other illnesses.