I am 36 and a rape survivor. I have spent ten years in therapy. What reminds me is my child. She’s nine. Her father is in her life because if not I wouldn’t get child support. He is controlling in that as long as I’m on support from him I can’t see another man, period. Her father wants to continue with a sexual relationship which I am unable to stop. He is the authority figure in my life and in my daughter’s life.
I have found out that rape has many definitions, and it is in most cases in the eyes of the beholder. If she is 13 and he is a 28 year old enemy soldier, it’s rape. If she is 23 and he is 28 and horny, it’s sex with persuasion. Both are rape. One you can send a man to death for, and the other you just pray that he will marry you, because you’ve been used and are not a virgin.
What saved me is that I was a virgin for him, even if when I got married I was no longer a virgin. I got married for the same reason that uncounted women get married, I was pregnant. But don’t kid yourself, it was rape. I didn’t want it, didn’t plan on it, wasn’t prepared for the consequences, I was very happy being a virgin. It was enough that he wanted it. As I say, sex with persuasion.
I do part time unpaid work with rape survivors. I find that most of them will not let you call their partner a rapist. A few, the ones dragged into an alley way and they can’t identify or describe the rapist, yes he’s a rapist. In fact they say ‘he’s my rapist’. Giving up sex under extreme persuasion gives the man lifetime rights, even if you want to convince yourself otherwise. So, I was counseled to marry him. Being married is not about cooking and cleaning, although I do that, it’s about who has the rights to you. He has life time rights to me. I know it, and he knows it. And my daughter knows it. And she defends him, don’t be that way with daddy.
I repeat myself, just because he didn’t hit you with a baseball bat doesn’t mean he didn’t rape you. What you do afterwards is part of your healing. Unfortunately a lot of what you do afterwards is hard wired in you. Don’t crawl, beg, offer to give him a bj. Stand your ground, get the ring, and the ceremony, before your belly is so big everyone knows you are not a virgin.
Being a virgin wasn’t that important to me. But when he took it, he stole it from me, I wanted it back, and the only way to get it back is wearing his rings, and cooking and cleaning. A much older woman told me it comes with the territory. How many times has he raped me? I lost count. He just does it.
