Intimacy after rape

[cheergiver]

I have been married 7 years. 5 years ago, a friend's husband raped me.

 

Shortly after the rape, my husband asked if we could have sex. Feeling vulnerable and guilty that I couldn't please him, I eventually accepted. He never forced me or exerted pressure...but I still felt like it was something I should do. So I did it when I shouldn't have.

 

We would have sex, and I would feel more and more like I didn't want to do it. The longer it went on, the more I felt like it was happening all over again. I cried and hid my face and hoped he would hurry and finish so I could be done.

 

This went on for a year or so, and finally I went to get counseling. She put me through immersion therapy, basically saying that the more I do it, the less I will feel traumatized by it. I did my best with the therapy, and it got me past the crying and freaking out stage; however, I honestly still can't stand sex with him. I always feel guilty if I say no, so I never really can enjoy it. It's to the point to where I'm honestly not attracted to him, and I don't ever want to be intimate with him again.

 

In every other way he has been a good husband and father to my son, but he needs intimacy and I can't stand it. I want to separate because I can't take the pressure anymore. I don't blame him as I'm the one who said yes all these years, but I think it's in both our interests to move on and find someone who take care of our intimate needs in this evolved situation. Am I a horrible person for wanting this?

[greywolf]

Have you talked to your husband about how you feel about this?

[ferna3069]

first off i wanted to say sorry for what happened. and no your not a horrible person. if he saw you crying all this time why did he ask instead of waiting for u to go to therapy?

[cheergiver]

Greywolf- I absolutely have expressed my feelings...though most have only come out recently. He doesn't want me to leave, so I stay for now, though I do not want to be in this relationship anymore. He deserves to have someone who can happily enjoy intimacy (giving and receiving) and I feel that I deserve a pressure free life, to pursue intimacy at my own pace, if I choose to one day. He insisted I try therapy again. I don't want to go, as I don't feel it will help, but I will as a last attempt.

 

Ferna- I kept my emotions pretty under wraps when we had sex. I know he knows I didn't enjoy it, because he took forever to finish...but I guess he didn't know what to do. I don't know why he asked, I guess he didn't think the whole ordeal had that big of an impact on me. And I guess it's kind of catching him by surprise now. I wanted to help him-- I love him-- so I did my best to just do it for 5 years, and I've finally snapped. Wasn't smart of me, or best for our relationship, but what is done is done.

[ferna3069]

well if he knew it hurt you he shouldnt of asked. honestly. i never been threw this but i know how it feels to be pressured. and as a guy it doesnt feel so good.and you going threw what u whent threw i can just imagine how u feel. he should of thought about you more then he did about hes needs. when all of this happened. he should of just waited. yeah you didnt cry and u kept your emotions in. but its not right. you didnt like it and its just not right. feeling pressured is a real bad feeling.it feels liek they didnt even care about your feeling. just to make themselves feel better.so if you feel like u need to leave dont feel bad. i know i was going to do the same thing. one time. and i was guilted it into things agian. so be carefull. go to therapy for more if you need to.

[Oneironaut]

I've never been in your place, but I would seriously consider marriage counseling. If you're wanting to end this relationship as a way to escape intimacy because of what happened, you may be dooming yourself to years of doing without something that can be a very beautiful thing.

 

It may very well be that you two cannot be together because you were married to him when it happened, or even for other reasons, but if he truly is a wonderful father and a good husband, wouldn't it be worth a shot to see if it can be saved? For your sake, his sake, and the sake of the child or children involved?

 

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck. No one deserves what happened to you, and I hope you can get past it enough to have a healthy relationship someday.

[OptomisticGirl]

Your not a horrible person but I don't view your husband at fault either. I was sexually molested as a child and I went the opposite route - I became a very sexual person. Survivors of rape and abuse go 2 ways - too sexual or very anti intimacy. Sometimes you can find that middle ground but it's very hard. You def should not be in a relationship were you feel pressured but this has to be a lesson as well for the next one. If you aren't into it, especially as a rape survivor, you have to speak up. Because if you don't not only do you feel bad afterward but the person you are with does.

[tiredofvampires]

I am not clear about what type of pressure he's putting on you.

 

How is he pressuring you?

 

Or is it YOU who is pressuring yourself because of how you feel responsible to him, and you're projecting this onto him?

[cheergiver]

I am not clear about what type of pressure he's putting on you.

 

How is he pressuring you?

 

Or is it YOU who is pressuring yourself because of how you feel responsible to him, and you're projecting this onto him?

 

I don't blame him. He's human with urges. I was confused, vulnerable, in denial that I had a problem. He asked, I accepted. Therein lies the pressure. I'm his wife, and I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to pretend that this didn't happen to me. I don't discard how I was responsible.

 

What do you do when you live with someone who needs fulfillment, and you are the person they call upon? I should have said no. But I didn't. It's a tough choice when there is such a heavy trauma.

 

And now it's created a giant scar.

 

Do you have any idea what this feels like, or are you just trying to stir the fire?

[OptomisticGirl]

I don't blame him. He's human with urges. I was confused, vulnerable, in denial that I had a problem. He asked, I accepted. Therein lies the pressure. I'm his wife, and I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to pretend that this didn't happen to me. I don't discard how I was responsible.

 

What do you do when you live with someone who needs fulfillment, and you are the person they call upon? I should have said no. But I didn't. It's a tough choice when there is such a heavy trauma.

 

And now it's created a giant scar.

 

Do you have any idea what this feels like, or are you just trying to stir the fire?

 

TOV made a excellent point though. A lot of the time with abuse survivors we project our own feelings into the closest people around us - including the whole pressure scenario. It's very easy to project that pressure onto the partner or it seem like there is pressure there which is what you basically described. You felt pressure as his wife to fulfil his intimacy needs - not an uncommon feeling in abuse survivors - but one that is of our creation, not neccesarily those around us.

 

I'm no therapist but to keep doing something that makes you uncomfortable... idk. Have you thought about regular consouneling? Even if you divorce counseling can be beneficial to YOU.

[Oneironaut]

Does your husband know what happened to you?

[cheergiver]

Does your husband know what happened to you?

 

I told him the night it happened.

[Oneironaut]

Well, you're certainly not a horrible person for the way you feel, but I stand by my original answer: I highly suggest marriage counseling. I believe that if you simply walk away from this marriage without giving it a chance, seeing as he is a good husband and father, you may regret it someday.

 

If you try counseling and you still want to leave, at least you can say you did everything you could to make it work.

 

I wish you the best of luck, whatever you decide.

[tiredofvampires]

I don't blame him. He's human with urges. I was confused, vulnerable, in denial that I had a problem. He asked, I accepted. Therein lies the pressure. I'm his wife, and I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to pretend that this didn't happen to me. I don't discard how I was responsible.

 

What do you do when you live with someone who needs fulfillment, and you are the person they call upon? I should have said no. But I didn't. It's a tough choice when there is such a heavy trauma.

 

And now it's created a giant scar.

 

Do you have any idea what this feels like, or are you just trying to stir the fire?

 

I wasn't implying that you're blaming him. It's not about blame. I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to get at.

 

What I'm saying is that he may be willing to give you all the time you need to feel ready for intimacy again...over time, gradually, as you heal further. He may prefer to be with you even with a compromised sex life than to live a life without you in it. These may be his true feelings. But because you are filled with a feeling of responsibility to him (that's what I meant by "responsible" -- that you feel responsible for giving him the sex YOU think he needs and wants), perhaps you are assuming he wants, feels and needs things from you when in fact that's not the case. It may be that because he loves you, he would prefer you stay with him and work through this at your pace, rather than throw the whole thing away, when you're otherwise good for eachother and have a family you wish to keep sharing.

 

Didn't you marry eachother "for better or worse, in sickness and health"? Or did that come with the phrase, "...except in the event that something terrible happens and we can't have sex like usual"?

 

What I'm saying is, it sounds like you might be doing some of the thinking for him (that is to say, you feel unacceptable with this and therefore imagine he feels the same about it, whether he does or not). Of course as his partner, you would feel this way, it's only natural -- but I think it would be tragic for you to one-sidedly decide how BOTH of you feel about this, and make up his mind for him about his priorities, by leaving him.

 

He doesn't fully comprehend what you need because you haven't really been open with your feelings...you've hid them, so he is not able to see into your head. But the answer to this is not just asking for a divorce -- it's talking about how scarred you feel, how scared you are that you won't be a proper intimate partner anymore, how you feel this will wear on him, and then open the door for him to communicate how HE feels about it all, without your making assumptions that this has to end.

 

I also second Oneironaut that couples counseling would be a very good idea now. This would help you open the doors together more easily. It sounds like you don't really have many tools to open-heartedly bare your souls, but that's what will be needed, and as a result, your marriage could become stronger than ever. With sex as a long-range goal, but not something to feel pressured by, and to only enter back into when you've done more work on your own and together.

 

I recommend you seek out a type of therapy called Somatic Experiencing. It's something I've seen work, and I have wanted to try it myself, as it's geared specially for trauma releasing.

 

To answer your question, yes, I do have an idea what this feels like. I was not raped, but I have something else that has made me want to flee sexual intimacy and not reveal what happened/what's going on, and I still struggle with it. I've also learned over the years that what I think about myself is not necessarily what my partner thinks about me.

 

Shame has a way of stealing everyone else's eyes and painting your own self-reflection into them.

 

Healing can happen when you dissolve the shame, and shame can't be dissolved in silence.

[Sanesoul]

I think your therapist is a moron, sorry to say. If my therapist suggested immersion therapy for my rape, she would no longer be my therapist. You need to find a new strategy for working through what happened to you.

 

I still struggle, and I hate sex. My rape was 13 years ago.

[OptomisticGirl]

I think your therapist is a moron, sorry to say. If my therapist suggested immersion therapy for my rape, she would no longer be my therapist. You need to find a new strategy for working through what happened to you.

 

I still struggle, and I hate sex. My rape was 13 years ago.

 

Exactly. Should I Have kept getting abused sexually to get over it? PLease.

[tiredofvampires]

I think it's important to know that there are many schools of thought about trauma recovery. And what works for some may not work for others -- but that doesn't make the therapist a "moron."

 

Desensitization -- which is, repeated mental revisitation of a trauma -- has been used with great success in treating veterans with PTSD. I've watched programs about this, where the therapist simulates a combat environment using technology and exposes the patient repetitively. It's different from being actually IN combat again, in the sense that the patient is aware that this is a simulation and is in a safe environment. Interviews of patients afterwards included testimony like, "It helped me get my life back." That impressed me. It seems completely counterintuitive, and for some people this may not be the right route.

 

But it's considered a legit therapy by many researchers in the field.

 

It sounds like it did the OP some good, but the benefit is limited, which means something else is now needed.

[Sanesoul]

Sorry TOV, but I have to disagree. Rape isn't on the same pane of trauma as combat trauma. Rape destroys your soul. No amount of being forced to relive the rape through sex will make you heal from it. I wouldn't be speaking if I didn't have personal experience. 13 years of not being able to enjoy sex because of the horror I went through. My daughter was conceived during a moment of intense shame for me, even if it was with the man I love. How do you overcome that? Not especially through reliving it over and over again.

 

Studies don't mean a whole lot to me because you can't paint everyone with the brush of a study done by few.

[tiredofvampires]

I completely appreciate the gravity of what you've been through, Sanesoul. And I'm very sorry for everything you must deal with. Nothing I'm saying minimizes it.

 

I don't think therapy for rape would ever involve forcing someone to suffer through sex in order to get over it. I would imagine it involves various talking strategies, which the OP's therapist employed in the office.

 

I also don't believe that any person is in the position to compare the trauma of another to themselves properly. Pain and suffering are very subjective and in the end, pain is pain. Each person is the only one who really knows what has happened to their soul.

[OptomisticGirl]

For me it, it sounded like her therapist told her to do immersion therapy, which by the definition of that is continue with what traumatized you. Even in a professional therapist office in the light of day, reliving a rape... I just can't see how that is suppose to make it better.

[tiredofvampires]

Well, the OP said it got her past the "crying and freaking out" -- so some of it was obviously helpful. I think there are deeper layers that have not been healed, and other methods would have to be used. I don't get the feeling that the OP was posting about her terrible experience with her therapy -- just that she's stagnated and still has much to resolve.

 

I'm not here to plug any specific method, and I myself am interested in the one I recommended here (Somatic Experiencing) which is very gentle in its approach. I've not had it done on me, but I've seen it done in workshops.

 

To me though, it does make sense that if we are trying to push something out of our minds because it's too horrific to face, there will always be an element of being unable to cope with it subconsciously, where it is stored and continues to sabotage emotional wellbeing, behavior, etc. The more something can be spoken of, referred to, seen without flinching and not cause a terribly aversive reaction, the more it can be ultimately overcome. It's like opening the closet and facing the demon and screaming at one another, instead of trying to force the image away -- that's kind of my own personal take on it.

 

As I said, there are many different approaches and schools of thought around this -- and I don't think it's one-size-fits-all. Some therapists believe it's counterproductive to visit the "scene of the crime" and feel that it "re-traumatizes" the person, and instead seek to just work with emotions that come up and steps one can take to move on (which is more cognitive behavioral therapy). Others say that is a band-aid, because unconsciously, it has not been fully processed and deactivated in some critical way. I am not a therapist, so I'm not steeped in different techniques, but I do know that success has been reached with many patients with all types of approaches.

 

I know for me personally, processing things to the extent that they can be, is necessary to get to a point of turn-around. Things that creep around in the dark, secret recesses of my mind are bad news. But I also believe in some unconventional things, like working with the mind-body connection, not just pure talk therapy. I think you have to be in a very safe environment to do whatever you're doing and if a can of worms is opened that feels traumatic, the therapist needs to be very skilled in handling that situation so it becomes manageable. For very traumatic issues, more than just regular talking is necessary, though, in my opinion -- obviously blocking out things that come up in nightmares and stay with you in waking recurrent memories require something in-depth and I'm not of the belief that therapy should necessarily be painless. But it should be a blend of careful incision and protective measures.

 

I do know women personally, in my own life (a couple of them very close to me, one in my immediate family) who have been raped and they are living normal lives, including sexually (and enjoy sex now), and have recovered fully (and I'll add, more than I have, with the trauma I've gone through). So it's possible and this is what I believe everyone should believe is available to them. Hope is to be had. And for that day and vision, I'm suggesting the OP not give up on her marriage.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[tiredofvampires]

And I'll just add (if the OP ever checks back here) that another eclectic method I've come accross is Thought Field Therapy -- which involves some non-verbal work with the therapist. This I HAVE personally experienced, but I was not able to afford more sessions than one (which she gave me pro bono). I'd need to find someone who does this who takes my insurance so I can see them more regularly.

 

This therapist I saw has published numerous papers on the effectiveness for patients she's treated in Darfur -- these people having gone through every horrific experience you can imagine as a result of genocide. Rape, murder of their family, torture, all of the above and she told me that many of them could return to virtually normal emotional life, in that they could function well again.

 

I believe that healing fully -- emotionally and spiritually -- is possible for every person and no one should give up.

[OptomisticGirl]

I don't doubt it works for some, and I think whatever someone can do to overcome it they should. But if my therapist had suggested something like that, I would have dropped counselling all together. It's def a way that has to be discussed.