Pinkpoet support thread (TW for SA)

[PinkPoetAgain1]

Just starting a new thread for those who are following/supporting

I’m all over the place mentally at the moment as I said in my last thread but I’m still listening xx

Have you forgotten that last week he referred to having previously raped you, threatened to rape you again, and did in fact rape you again? Or am I going mad and reading a completely different post?

Sorry yes , that did happen
i meant since then

I know it sounds extremely stupid

They'll end up in dangerous situations as teens AND adults, and possibly even still as children...ask me how I know 🙃

Yes, they are absorbing nothing good here and it will affect them long term.

And I am so sorry you went through that, and I hope life is better for you now. X

It’s good to hear from you Poet. The only thing I would say it’s been 2 weeks since he raped you so I think you are giving your therapist a false impression by saying that he is maintaining boundaries. This is perhaps making her suggest a couples session however I doubt she knows about the rape. I doubt she would suggest a couples session if she knew. Please be honest with her x

Sorry but the kids won’t hit their teens and this will still be going on. Poet will either be dead, had a breakdown or the kids have disclosed something that gets them removed before then.

Sorry to be blunt, but it’s true.

I actually just really feel for you and the kids. The mood swings you describe are destabilising for you all. I really hope one day you can break your trauma bond and be free. The summer holidays will intensify his resentment of the children and they will sadly hear it and feel it :(

Indeed.

How honestly are you being with your therapist Poet? As honest as you are being on here?

I really doubt anyone will remove the kids.

Only Poet is aware of their day-to-day life; no-one else will pick up on any of this.

No-one's going to swoop in and save anyone or make decisions for them. It'll just keep going, keep eroding everything.

I mean if they disclose something to another child at school/a teacher/another adult unintentionally. Like “my daddy threw an apple at me” or “my daddy makes my mummy cry” or “I woke up when my mummy and daddy were having sex in the same room as me”. Because any of those are possible. And then the option to safeguard them will be taken away from Poet.

I agree that I don’t think Poet is telling her therapist everything, otherwise I don’t think she would have recommended couples therapy.

To be honest, "hating his existence as a parent" is unusually strong language coming from you. If you pick up on it, so do the children.

I don't know how you define "stressy" but this doesn't sound nice.

His idea of couples therapy is telling; he thinks of you as his opponent backed by a biased referee; a hostile party.

When you're probably hoping it's something you can work on together with professional help.

Rather than wanting to make sex good for you again, he's decided he likes the current dynamic just fine because if required he can always take what he wants. That's what it boils down to.

Your guessing you're happy for the most part is not good enough for sex, especially after the point of no return that was him openly threatening to rape you.

Sexual consent has blown up as a legal and psychological concept in public discourse in recent years for this very reason.

Him not wanting couples counselling and your not wanting to tell your therapist just means IMO this has entered a new stage where it's getting harder to reconcile his behaviour with this image of a happy family you're intent on maintaining.

Yes, if Poet doesn't leave soon then she'll most likely just become more and more ground down, both by the rapes, and by his moods and anger. Constantly trying and failing to hold boundaries just isn't sustainable forever – eventually she'll run out of fight and give up, and just shrink her wants and her needs more and more, trying to placate him, her bar for 'acceptable behaviour' lowering as time goes on.

As the children get older they'll notice their parents' dynamic more acutely, and learn that's how a relationship should look – with a submissive woman fawning to an angry man – and will subconsciously seek to emulate it in their own lives even if they hate to see it in their parents.

In addition, as they get more independent and stroppy, their father will shout at them even more, becoming more verbally abusive and making their home an even less welcoming place to be.

If they're lucky, his moods will just motivate them to leave home as quickly as possible – if they're unlucky, they'll end up in abusive relationships and other dangerous situations while still teenagers (like @BuckChuckets said upthread, ask me how I know).

Hopefully Poet will be able to leave within the next few years, before this happens.

Hmmm OP, you honestly sound like you’re dissociating again. The things you say about your sex life being respectful in the last two weeks simply aren’t based in reality and it’s concerning me for your own wellbeing. How can you not freeze during sex when your husband, who is supposed to love, respect and cherish you, told you he would rape you and then raped you again only two weeks ago. How could anyone give free and enthusiastic ever again after the first time he did this to you? There is no amount of work you could do on yourself to ever make your body or mind feel safe ever again. You will never feel healed, happy, safe or content as long as you remain in your marriage. Having your therapist to talk to is still worthwhile but she is unable to make progress with you as you remain in the situation which is causing you immense emotional, physical and psychological pain.

All of this, and while you are not being open with your therapist. Did you tell her about him saying the word rape and admitting he'd done it and would do it again? As I think her advice would be different. At the moment it seems that you are paying lip service to therapy as she can't help if she doesn't know the truth.

I know this is hard to hear.

I agree because her suggestion of couples therapy made my blood boil because it’s so inappropriate but if she doesn’t have accurate information then that’s probably why.

I mean to say free and enthusiastic consent OP. Your dynamic and your husbands rape and abuse of you means that your consent can’t ever really be freely and enthusiastically given because you know what happens when you don’t give it.

I am absolutely floored that a therapist would be told that a man threatened rape, then followed through and under 2 weeks later the therapist then suggests couples counselling. They need reporting for this, im sorry but thats batshit.

The fact they suggested this means they are either an awful therapist or they do not know the truth, and either way therapy is not going to work. If you arent telling them the truth then you cant get good advice and if you are telling the truth and thats honestly what they suggested, they are a terrible therapist.

Therapy will never work, The op quite obviously isn't telling them the whole story. This thread is so completely frustrating. I'm not sure I can be bothered with it anymore.

Absolutely this. He will not deal well at all with teenagers. That will be so much worse.

but also with regards to the rapes and his general treatment of you. They will observe and soak this in more and more.

that will be catastrophic for all of them. Both for girls and boys.

Absolutely.

make no mistake OP, you are still very much in the gripping CYCLE of an extremely abusive relationship.

this will damage you and especially your children year on year on year. Irreparably.

he cannot change.

couples therapy or bringing him into sessions is not just unethical and inappropriate it can be DANGEROUS.

I highly doubt she would’ve phrased it like this. A therapist would NEVER then advise a couples session. Any clinician would be reporting that to social services without questions.

I highly doubt the children will ever be removed. Because even if one of them discloses anything from their home life, I feel certain that Poet would not be honest with any social workers or services and would deny deny deny that any abuse was occurring and would defend and lie for her despicable H.

Yes, Poet is going through an awful time but there are 4 children also living in this horrific abusive household. And no one is putting them first or on their side.

I'm sure I'll get shot down for saying this, but their really is no evidence throughout any of these multiple threads that she is recognising that her dc's are also being abused or that she has any plans to ever protect them from it

I think you're right. But I also think Poet is refusing to think about the children, as if she does, she'll crack. Which actually I think would be a good step forward, but she clearly thinks she cannot do as they are better with an abusive rapist dad than without one. Which I don't understand.

And the cycle begins again.

OP, I really hope you are not still there in 10 years time but I can honestly see it happening. This cycle chips away at you (and your children, whether you choose to believe that or not) each and every time it happens.

Your husband has actually verbally threatened to rape you, followed through with that threat in someone else’s house and is now treating you ALL with contempt, whilst still pestering you for sex most mornings and successfully sweet talking you round.

There really is no red line here. Anything he does, he will get away with. Which makes this all the more horrifying as this behaviour will escalate, purely because there is literally no consequence for him.

Aside from sex I just feel so sad that he says we are the lights of his life but then on the weekends he is stressy and just seems like he hates his existence being a parent

Can you see how what he SAYS (you're the lights of my life , I love you, I can the without you) are in complete conflict with what he DOES?

I felt so sad reading this paragraph. Good men, good husbands, good fathers do not behave like this. My husband has a massively pressurised job (surgeon). He works long hours under stressful circumstances and often sees people on the worst day of their lives. He is also still getting up once a night usually with our three year old who needs a wee around 3am.

Today he has taken our older child to karate, walking them there instead of driving so that they have some time to talk on the way. After lunch he took both of the kids for a scoot to the local park. Then when they got home he baked cupcakes with the three year old simply because he asked to bake with Daddy. So Daddy looked in the cupboards and worked out what they could bake with what we had. This is a pretty normal weekend for us (I'm a SAHP and am generally doing chores alone on the weekends while he has quality time with the kids, we had lunch together and so on but pretty much when he's not at work he wants to hang out with them).

We can’t win . I feel like a can’t catch a breath sometimes

This is a deliberate tactic on his part. It keeps you from having enough headspace to properly realise that this is completely shit and is never going to change and that your best move is to leave to protect yourself and the kids. Despite his best efforts, though, you ARE realising all of this and are currently in the "desperately trying to bury your head in the sand" stage. But that stage will pass, and things will come to a head. I pray that at that moment you will make the decision to leave, the alternatives have already been suggested up thread. Please try to leave before things become (more) critical. What did your mum say when you told her you were going back?