Thread: today
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Old 8th May 2006, 10:21 PM   #34
Helen
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Re: today

Lovey,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it does help. I will try the 'I feel like this when you do this' statements should such a situation arise in the future. But I doubt it will. My husband had some serious emotional and self-esteem issues. He could never support me emotionally. It turned out that he had a rough upbringing - his dad used to beat him a lot, apparently and if he showed pain that made things worse. As a consequence, he showed little emotion. He managed to hide this from me while we were courting and in the early days of our marriage. Then our real problems started. Without going into too much detail, I used to wake up and find my husband violating me. Unsurprisingly, I felt like I had been molested and like he had no respect for me. He treated me like a possession - like one of those inflated dolls. My issue was that he never talked to me about doing it. He had no permission. Even worse, despite me telling him it made me uncomfortable and asking him to stop, he kept on doing it and dismissed my complaints. This made me feel used and abused.

Strangely enough, we never really talked about it. I shut it out because it was too painful to deal with. But it lead to sexual problems between us. I found myself freezing every time he touched me. Where we had a lusty sex life in the past, I rarely initiated sex after that. I started covering up more. He saw all of this as a rejection of him but he wasn't willing to acknowledge his role in any of it. I should add that I was abused twice as a child. Indecently assaulted. When my husband did these things to me, it brought a lot of my feelings from that time to the surface and I spent a number of years suffering from clinical depression.

All of this said, because I shut it out, I never blamed my ex even though now, with hindsight, it was his fault that a lot of things happened. He knew my history and yet he still felt able to violate me - worse, in my sleep; a time when we are all vulnerable. That was bad enough but what really hurt was the fact that he would not acknowledge my feelings or the hurt he had caused.

When we had our discussions, it was more about current events on my part but on his, it was about stuff that belonged in the past. He complained about the fact that he felt rejected sexually. Because I had shut it out, I could not pinpoint why I felt the way I did about him but I admitted that yes, I was having a hard time having sex with him. He viewed this lack of desire for him as a rejection. Not once did he consider his own role in the whole sorry affair. On the other hand, I talked about things like the fact that we did not seem to be able to talk without arguing and, as a consequence, we could not resolve anything. I also talked about the emotional chasm between us. I felt that the reason I found sex so difficult was because we had no relationship outside the bedroom. No intimacy, no conversation. I admitted I felt like a prostitute because he expected me to have sex with him yet he treated me like a stranger. Of course, it was my problem again (according to him) yet I felt it was a serious issue.

Sorry to witter on! I have put it all on the table, despite saying I wouldn't. Part of the reason why I am not seriously looking for a man at the moment is because I am afraid the same thing will happen again. I don't feel frigid but the truth is, for the last 2 years of our marriage, we did not have sex at all. That wasn't because I didn't feel desire. I did. I just didn't want to have sex with him. He said there was something wrong with me. Is there?


Helen
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