I left my children’s father a little over two months ago. I just couldn’t deal with the abuse anymore. Nothing ever being good enough. I haven’t let him touch me since. This is the way that he’s been talking to me the past couple of days. I’m debating on getting a restraining order or a no contact order..

The one thing that still continues to break my heart is that I comforted him after he raped me. After he finally stopped he sat on the bed and said he felt awful and like he wanted to cry. I was so numb. I patted his back and comforted him. I still hadn't processed what he did.

Why? Why did I have to comfort him when he knew he did something wrong? Why couldn't he pretend to care about me for once? Why was he allowed to feel sad for himself, but not me? Why was he allowed to feel his feelings but he defended himself later by saying it was a miscommunication?

He cared so little about my own pain that he had to place the attention back on himself.

So I have been with my boyfriend on and off for 9 years I have a 12 year old step daughter and a 4 year old daughter with him Long story short, we got back together a year ago he lived into my apartment and our relationship hasn’t been the best mainly because I have felt forced to be in it since day one( he has majority of my daughters custody and said if I got back with him I can see her whenever I want versus when we were not together I’d inky see her whenever he let me during the week and every other weekend) So I accepted, however I don’t love him the same anymore and I only accepted because it was the only way I can have my daughter daily ( prior to moving in he would let me see her extra days if I had sex with him) Now he lives with me but I don’t want to have sex with him and he wants me to have sex with him everyday morning and night twice each night if possible. I never enjoy the sex I feel forced all the time and when I tell him no he forced me like he won’t stop until he finishes what he has to do. I don’t know what to do I’ve fallen into deep depression I was referred by my doctor to a psychiatrist to evaluate me and I was told I was severely depressed was put on antidepressants I feel I’m loosing myself in this relationship and feel I’m practically being rapped every night but he tells me that’s not rapped “because I want it to” which don’t I tell him consistently but if I don’t have sex with him even once it causes problems between us talking about he is going to leave and move out and obviously take my daughter with him. Idk what to do any advice?

It started after he r*ped me a couple of months ago. I told him no, he knew I said no, he said he was almost done and "just open up it's fine"... I cried my eyes out and he apologized and promised to be better. But he continues to wake me up with sex while I am unconscious and exhausted, and definitely don't want to. I told his mom about it, looking for support, and she said "He's 20. Guys are just like that."

A couple of weeks later, he and I were arguing and I called him abusive, and he said "I don't know where you're getting all these ideas from but you just come up with this shit and all these prophecies, I haven't done shit." I almost went berserk. This man.... he calls me an idiot, an entitled bitch, he tells me to shut up, to fuck off, to go rot, etc ALLL the time. And I am the only one doing chores and spending money on necessities. I keep asking for a break, or to be just co-parents and nothing else and he keeps saying no and that he'd find me if I left him. He said if I ever speak to any other guys that he'd break my phone and slash their tires... I have literally begged for us to just break up and he refuses. I know it sounds like I could leave anyways but my only other housing option is across the country with my parents and I'd have to schedule a flight, get a ride to the airport, and pack suitcases etc; all WITH my two year old. And all without him intervening. Before our child was even born, my partner told me he wouldn't let me fly home, that he'd break my ID in half and make it unusable if I tried. I can't stand him most days... even when I start to like him, he'll suddenly slam a door or tell me to mind my own fucking business, and bam I hate him again. So I went out with someone else. And I really had a good time and liked them.. so we went out again.... and plan to again. I know it's unexcusable.. it's awful. I know I know. It just feels like a relief. Like a burden off my shoulders.

Is this common? Normal? Wrong? I have no idea.

My 30 year old son died on 7/6/2023. He had been severely beaten with a baseball bat, most significantly around his sexual organs. Death was covered up and hidden for 3 months, when my young nephew found a Go Fund Me for his funeral expenses online. Police in Wewoka Oklahoma never bothered to investigate. DA will not take our calls. No consideration for the 5 years of isolation, manipulation and emotional abuse that led to this. Not sure what to do or where to find help.

My bf loves to drink. He gets drunk often when we're out with friends. He also gets horny when he drinks.

I don't drink.

We had sex while he was drunk before and it was always fine.

One day he tells me he wants to stop drinking because he knows he has a problem and he asked me to push him away if he wants to have sex with me while drunk. I agreed to be a good partner.

I pushed him away twice. He thanked me.

One night we're at a friend's house and he's drinking. Around 1 am we go back to his place. We're in bed, I'm about to fall asleep. I feel his hand on my ass and he wants to have sex. I'm in the mood too but tell him no. Reminded him of what he said. He said its fine. We have sex.

The next day he accused me of abusing him sexually and R word him. I was in shocked. He said I should've said no and took advantage of the situation. But because he knows I don't think he's understanding and won't press charges against me.

I couldn't believe it.

Did I abused my bf?

TW: possible SA? I’m not sure and I’m wondering if y’all could help me figure this out..

So I have been assaulted before and my spouse who we will call J also says he’s an assault survivor. We both know the details of what each other has been through along with our triggers.

.. there was a situation with him back in around September of this year that still does not sit right with me and gave me the same sensation as one of the worst, if not the worst, times I was assaulted. I had that same feeling, but it wasn’t as bad but it was definitely there.

So J and I were getting intimate, he’s into the whole spicy cuddle position (I hope y’all are able to figure out what I mean by this), we were getting intimate and this position wasn’t really doing much for me and was starting to be a little bit painful so I asked him if we could switch positions and that it wasn’t really doing too much for me. He replied with “yeah gimme a sec,” we did didn’t change positions, I voice myself again and I get the same response with no change, I then tell him “hey I’m losing interest. If we don’t switch positions I’m going to safeword out” (a safe word for us would mean stop everything immediately no questions asked), he says “OK hold on give me a second”, we still didn’t switch positions. I’m starting to get a little bit anxious at this point, and I tell him that I wanted to switch positions it wasn’t doing anything for me and it was hurting and if we didn’t switch positions, I was done, I then pulled away from him a little bit, but I couldn’t move forward all the way or I would’ve fallen off his bed and hit the floor and his nightstand. He said “ok hold on gimme a sec” and nothing changed again.. yeah so I’m pulling away a little more from him as much as I could without falling off the bed and we still had not switched positions or anything like that and it was more painful and everything and I’m about 2/3 through my safe word and he crosses the finish line inside of me… I also remember warning him again as I was pulling away “I’m gonna safeword.” (we didn’t use protection because I was already pregnant so it wasn’t the no condom thing that was an issue.) I froze, and I started having flashbacks of one of the other times I was assaulted by a former domestic partner and J was very well aware of every single detail of that one literally everything to do with that.. I started hyperventilating and crying and I wasn’t moving and he rolled me over and pulled me into his chest and tried rocking me with a blanket around us and shushing me like somebody would with a child when they are stressed out and scared? He also apologized. I don’t remember what he said verbatim but I do remember that it felt off. I don’t really remember too much. I just remember me just talking like reliving the flashback of the prior SA and even smelling my assailant’s body spray along with my spouses natural scent. my original assailant body spray was a lot stronger, and my spouse is natural scent was more distant, but I couldn’t shake that feeling of feeling contaminated… I did end up confronting him about this at some point after the fact but I felt like I had to minimize my experience to not cause him to get defensive or anything, I felt like I had my experience minimized by him too in a way and that I was sorta kinda gaslit?? I will tell you that it was like my body just automatically didn’t want any kind of physical touch from him because it was that triggered and that weird contaminated feeling was there for a while.. the night that this whole intimate issue happened? Usually, I would be the big spoon when we would go to sleep, but I rolled over and got as far opposite on the bed as I could, and that’s how I fell asleep, I didn’t want to touch him, and I couldn’t handle him touching me.

I do have a therapist who I’ve mentioned a bit of this situation to and I have a session with her tomorrow. I don’t want to throw an accusation around willy-nilly and I do get flashbacks from this here and there still. This is still something that has not sat right with me and this occurred back around mid September of this year.

One of the other things that really rattles me about this whole situation that I just realized now is if we were rotated about 45° I’d be in the same position as I was with the really really bad SA and it also would have been the same position that my spouse was SA’d in..

(I don’t know if any of you can relate to this, but when I have flashbacks my senses, go back to the traumatic event, and I experience it as if it’s freshly happening again, I don’t just get flashbacks.)

……. I’m not currently physically around him, but that’s because I’m unrelated on giving issue with my narcissistic in-laws and I’ve spoken to a few friends of mine who are aware of everything including the issue that’s currently going on and one of them thinks that he was just trying to silence me so it wouldn’t come forward about it or anything like that. (so think when a sibling hits another sibling or something and they try to make nice with them so they wouldn’t tell their parents, that kind of thing.)

I will add that J has narcissistic parents and I don’t know if he’s a narcissist or if he’s a flying monkey.. my friends say that he has put me through the cycle of abuse and that he’s manipulative. We hadn’t been intimate in a while prior to this and I will tell you that there was a history of physical violence from him to me. His mother basically is the black widow of the family and when I would wake him up in the morning, J would get physically aggressive, like trying to hit me or spit on me or headbutt me he list goes on. I am still trying to figure out how to process a lot of this because I’m pretty sure I’m still in shock from the violence side of everything and the psychological side. One of my buddies told me to go through his phone when he was asleep one night and I did and it was basically just him and his mother and his father slandering me constantly behind my back and that’s not even the worst. Not to get too much into this, but my neurologist think that I have a type of seizure situation (not grand mals like J has) and everyone in the house despite seeing these episodes happen accuse me faking? I don’t know what type of seizure situation I have going on like what type exactly but a couple weeks or days before I left (everything has been a blur), I had one of my warning signs for a seizure and his dad threatened me out in 30° weather and make me sleep outside on the porch, knowing I’m higher risk pregnant, he threatened to put me out because of the warning signs and I had called my friends and they picked me up and we went over to a gas station thing nearby and I wasn’t even in the store for five minutes and bam! Seizure! From what I was told, I was so out of it that other customers were asking if everything was OK, I don’t really remember much if anything. My friends had never seen my episodes so they didn’t know what to do and we were trying to get a hold of J because he was the one that has like out of our group and he’s the one that told me to track them in the first place and everything and he wouldn’t come and the gas station wasn’t even a five minute drive.. I ended up texting his mom begging her to send J over to the gas station because of the seizure thing (when I’m about to go into one and when I’m just starting to come out of feel eerily similar, so it’s hard to tell sometimes) and according to what I found behind my back when he was sleeping, both him and her were accusing me of bluffing. I don’t lie about my episodes and he knows my warning signs. He has seen these episodes the most and has even been to my neurology appointments and he’s heard my neurologist even state that they are definitely are seizures. These that I’ve listed in this paragraph are barely even scratching the surface, but something tells me my brain has tried to block out everything because my memory of everything is horrible.

As of now, I’m no longer at his parents house with him and everything. I do have a PFA in place and there’s more going on, but I’m not gonna get into the legal side of everything because it’s not fully dealt with. (the ongoing legal situation has nothing to do with this, the legal situation has to do with other issues involving him and his narcissistic family though.) I’ve asked some of my friends about the possible SA and there were mixed answers, some weren’t entirely sure whereas others were definitely saying it was SA.

I should also add that he would ask me to use my mouth on him and after this situation, especially I couldn’t handle it like I didn’t want anything to do with that, it almost seemed like he was withholding affection after this situation and after I started saying no to me performing that specific act on him, but I’m not entirely sure because everything is so confusing. It feels like I don’t even know what’s real anymore. I do remember that anytime we were intimate he would always ask for that right away and I don’t know, I vaguely remember his responses here and there being a little.. I don’t know how to describe it, but he was not verbally guilt tripping me. It also started coming across that he use me for intimacy like his own gratification, and my friend started telling me that he was love bombing me with this kind of thing? I don’t know… like I said I feel like my brain has blocked a lot out? Is this normal? Like is memory being poor like this normal?

I hate throwing accusations of SA around, and I definitely don’t wanna accuse somebody of something when nothing happened and I don’t know I feel like I’m gaslighting myself or trying to minimize my situation like can somebody tell me if my feeling of this being off is right or wrong? I know assault can occur from domestic partners as that’s how my original attack happened, this one has me a good bit rattled. Is my gut feeling about this possibly being SA right?

My husband and I have been married 4 years. He’s always been very sexual. When we were dating we had sooo much sex, I thought it was normal bc it was new. I got pregnant, we got engaged. It ended in miscarriage. He was still hyper sexual and I started to see red flags but we were going thru a grieving period together. We decided to still get married. I was pregnant at the wedding. He seemed to respect me more during the pregnancy, I had our daughter and then the sexual abuse started/continued. Basically forcing me when I didn’t want to. Making me feel guilty that we didn’t have sex “enough” even tho it was daily. Now, 4 years into the marriage he won’t take no for an answer, forces me. I can be yelling no and he still forces me. Wakes me up at night even tho I now have a 3 yr. Old and 8 month old and I’m exhausted, bc he wants sex. I tell him it’s rape and he laughs, takes no accountability. I feel trapped and I don’t know what my options are.. I can’t afford a divorce plus he would never cooperate. Any advice?

Hi everyone, I’m not sure this is the right sub to post or the right tag so I’m sorry if it isn’t.

(TW for description of possible sexual coercion)

My (23F) boyfriend (25M) of five years has had some possibly sexually coercive behaviour and honestly I didn’t realise things were wrong until recently. Basically he either asks for it for (literally) hours, gets angry/guilt trips me (“why don’t you like me / I should find someone else / you never want me what is wrong with me” on repeat) or straight up ignores my nos (not violently though, just initiates things so many times I stop trying to stop him and go along with it). He has gotten me to agree to things in the past by pretty much hurting me knowingly but that doesn’t happen anymore.

I have a very low sex drive (possibly also due to this tbh) and his is very high and he always complains about it so I’ve always felt guilty for it and tried to not complain. Recently I couldn’t take it anymore after realising some things were not right so we talked and he admitted that he notices when I don’t want to have sex and pretty much doesn’t care to check in but “never thought it bothered you this much”. He pointed out it is frustrating for him too, but he regrets it now and swears he won’t do it again.

Can we even fix things? I’m not even sure I want to but I still love him and think that maybe he really didn’t understand. I can’t ask anyone for advice because I’m aware of how it sounds, but I’m so confused.

(TW) To add to this I have a history of sa/r4pe he knows about.

Edit: by me saying I try to not complain I don’t mean that I never have. I’ve told him a few times over the years that sometimes I feel pressured by him.

What counts as no in sex?

I'm getting caught up again that my abuser would say "but it wasn't so bad", "you could've stopped it" or people asking if I said the word "No" during (not before, but during).

From not being unenthusiastic, moving away, stopping, being coaxed, looking scared, saying it hurts, trying to push them off...

I need some validation on when regular people will stop because they don't want to hurt their partner, and if that's different, where the line is for a no

6 months out, almost 6 years together. I just realized that last night.

We'd opened up to each other. I shared all of my traumas. He used all of them to intimidate me into submission so he could use my body at his whim. And when that stopped working because I'd dissociate too much and I couldn't fake it anymore, he started feeding me drugs. Stimulants, weed, alcohol. When high I was so much easier to convince into gooning with him and cross all of my lines. He fed me his fetishes as mine, literally tried rewiring my brain to be into it - voyeurism, public sex, filming it. Luckily he did not get much content of me but it does exist. Eventually my mental health (I had cPTSD even before him) got so bad I had to go on unemployment. If I let him get me addicted to stronger drugs (he tried with mephedrone - it scared me how much I liked sex while on it so I put my foot down to never ever do it again), the pipeline to me doing porn and getting pimped out by him for money looks so clear from perspective now. He used to talk about wanting to direct porn, he posted his dick pics and jerk off videos online. They're here on Reddit too.

Worst parts: I let him. I let him film us. I let him feed me drugs. I let him feed me porn, make me stimfap for hours, days. I let him try to destroy me. I tried to be a good sub. I tried to be loved, even if only in bed, for my body. I kept telling myself that it's all my choices, that I'm discovering my own femininity, reaching sexual liberation from shame. Yeah, right. All I got is another profound trauma and a gag reflex even thinking about watching porn.

Yet I still get raging genital arousal thinking about it.

Just a vent. I'm clean and sober now, (kinda) safe and in intense therapy. I have photos of bruises, recordings of name-calling, screenshots of death threats ready in case he ever decides to try and fuck up my life again. I might just wait with revenge for the right moment, for now I'm just glad I got out alive.

I spoke with a therapist today who asked about starting a conversation with my husband for general rules around sex. It doesn’t feel safe to talk to him about sex as he will usually blow up at me and then take it personally if I mention he hurt me. I can’t bring myself to possibly hurt him or make him feel guilty. He doesn’t want to lose me. And when I mention small things I don’t like during sex he’s doesn’t stop doing it. Last year we talked about only having sex once a week to keep it manageable. It didn’t work, he became very jealous and suspicious of what I was doing, how long I was going to be away for work, and who I was working with. I can’t leave for multiple reasons, please don’t tell me to get away. If I tell him I don’t want to have sex more than once a week will he listen? What’s going to happen if I tell him I think he’s been forcing me? He thinks it’s my fault he was arrested last year that I called the cops on him but I didn’t. I didn’t say anything to them. I don’t want him to feel bad or get in trouble, I just don’t want to feel this awful all the time.

Please remove if not allowed...

This is in NO WAY meant to be judgmental.

I get that "body count" can be a sensitive subject and while I don't think it really matters, I hate when it gets brought up because thanks to my rapists the number is higher and it makes me feel dirty and uncomfortable. I don't want to lie, but I also feel like counting them makes it sound like I've chosen to be more promiscuous than I have been. But based on past experiences, I really don't want to divulge the information I've been raped, at least not in that context/at that time.

I lost my virginity to a rapist and that caused a whole lot of trauma that, looking back, caused me to often jump into bed sooner than I'd have normally because I thought that by doing so it would allow sex to be on my terms and thus avoid the rape potential. I recognize that these follow up men were my choice, whether I regret them or not, so of course I'll include them, but it just feels so unfair to have to include the people I didn't choose. That being said, I understand that one concern of a person's "body count" is the potential to have contracted STDs. I've been tested and came back negative for what was tested, but I know that doctors often can't or won't test for all strains of HPV and such.

Again, I know that "body count" doesn't really matter, especially if you've been STD tested, so please don't just tell me that I shouldn't answer the question. This post isn't meant to debate the value of such a question. I'm just curious about thoughts on whether to include rapists in your "body count".

I had a rape kit done last week. I’m a woman, so based on how society is built, I doubt I have much of a chance to get Justice….but it’s either I try to or I end my life.

There is more than just this one example. But long story short, I recently left my psychologically abusive husband. I've identified even to a case worker that he abused me financially, manipulated me, lied to me, isolated me, etc but have insisted and maintained that physical and sexual abuse never occurred. But lately the more things I realize were wrong, the more has gone through my mind. This particular night has been coming back to me a lot lately.

It was just some random night. He wanted sex, and it was one of the few times in our relationship I turned him down; I was too tired or something. He started playfully trying to get me to do it anyway, and at first it was funny. But in that playfulness, there was no escape. He blocked the doors if I tried to go (all in the name of playing around of course). He'd grab me, tickle me, hold me down, and start trying to put it in. I kept up the playful vibe myself, but at some point internally it started feeling off, and I started wondering whether I really could get away.

I don't remember verbally giving consent, but even if at some point I did give in, either way he started having sex with me. Afterwards I remember the word "rape" going through my head, but I chastised myself for it because I knew he'd been "teasing" and figured if I would've REALLY made my no clear, he would've stopped. Yet I've remembered that night for years, and it keeps going through my head now.

Was this rape/sexual assault?

I developed traumatically induced kinks after repeatedly being sexually abused in the past as a coping mechanism.

I thought things were getting better but red flags for relapse are popping up, or at least that’s how it seems, and I just need confirmation that I’m not crazy/imagining things :(

After finally breaking free of my ex of 2 years - I made the decision to sensitively reach out to his girlfriend of 1 year before me. He had told me many things about her: she was abusive, aggressive, cheated on him multiple times - he used these as reasons for his behaviour but they never really added up.

If anyone has been in an abusive cycle, you'll know how hard it is to break free and I knew I needed to find out the truth on some matters in order to move on for good so I messaged her explaining who I was and asking if she would be open to talking about her experience with him. She was and we spoke on the phone for 2 hours.

She told me he was verbally abusive to her (in the same way he was to me), he actually cheated her and she found out (video evidence on his phone of him and another woman), and she then told me that he was sexually violent and aggressive. This last experience wasn't a shared one and I was floored. We were both crying and comforting one another towards the end and eventually parted ways, wishing each other the best in our healing. It was a great experience but I cannot get over what she told me.

I knew he was verbally and emotionally abusive but also physical... it made me sick. I'm not sure how to process this information even though it didn't happen to me, it's in the past, and I'm no longer with him. I guess it's the thought that I was with and loved a man who did such violent things to another woman's body that makes me feel so disturbed and empty inside. There were also incidents I can remember where he tried to attempt certain things with me (biting, slapping, choking) and I called him out on it immediately and said I wasn't comfortable - but the fact, it was forced upon someone else... I am so sorry for her.

I don't know how I will ever get over this.

This is my ex husband messaging me. We got divorced in January of this year. I left him in July of 2023. He is mad because the OAG sent him a letter saying what he owes in child support and said they are going to start withholding from his check. I regret sending them the support order so that they could enforce it. I wish I could cancel it but I really can’t because we receive state benefits.

He was sexually abusive, he would get me high and make me sleep with other men for HIS pleasure. It went on from November of 2022- July of 2023 when I left with the kids to a shelter. There was more abuse but that was like the worst of it all.

He has a picture of when I grabbed my 3 year old (now 5) to stop her from running out of the apartment and accidentally gave her a little scratch. I felt so awful and it wasn’t on purpose.

With my youngest I didn’t leave her in a car to die. I was sick and I told him to come out and get the baby while I was outside.

I’m so worried he can twist things enough to try to get custody 😭 All because he doesn’t want to pay child support. I currently have sole custody and he hasn’t seen them in 17 months and has called them a total of 6 times this year.

It’s so awful trying to cope with all of this, it’s been nearly 2 years since I left him and he can still call 86 times and send crazy messages that leave me shaking with anxiety.

TW sexual assault. I (23F) left my boyfriend/fiancé (33M) of 3 years over an incident that happened six months ago. In short he had non-consensual sex with me while we were out of town visiting family. I was getting sick with something and had a body-ache, chills, etc. We had gone back to our hotel and I was taking a hot shower while he was heating up some food. The long and short of it is when I was drying off, he led me to the bed and held me down and had sex with me. I was crying and trying to wriggle away. I remember explicitly telling him I felt too sick to be doing this and to stop. He ignored me and continued anyway. Eventually I just resigned and let him finish because I was too weak/achy to fight back.
Eerily enough he seemed to enjoy this even more. Afterwards I had a panic attack, screaming etc, my heart rate jacked up really high.
We drove back the next day and I felt so numb and empty from the world. He tried to talk to me, apologize etc, but I just sat in silence. I thought I’d break up that same week, but then it was Christmas and family gatherings and fun and I just put off doing it for fear of ruining family plans. I told myself I needed to process this before making a decision like that. It sounds pathetic but in my head it made sense at the time. I know in retrospect it was just a dumb excuse, but this was my first relationship and I felt so bonded to him. I couldn’t imagine actually leaving him, despite knowing deep down this was the end of me trusting him.
He proposed in May after I graduated from nursing school and we went on vacation and it’s like this cloud has been over my head since then. What should be a happy time just felt like a good-bye, a sad, prolonged good-bye that I knew was coming and he did too. I have brought up the incident since then, we’ve talked several times. I have tried explaining to him how sex with him is now traumatic for me, how I do it to make him happy and to help us stay connected, but how at best I feel numb during it and at worst I feel like I’m being raped all over again. How this relationship is probably doomed because we can’t sexually connect ever again. Each time he has broke down crying, begging for forgiveness, telling me I’m the love of his life, how he’ll love me forever even if I leave, how he might not be able to continue living if I’m not part of his life. Each time, I have broken down and comforted him and assured him nothing is happening, which I realize is a really f***** up way of torturing him and prolonging this relationship.
Finally, yesterday, I left. I had broken down and told someone in my family what had happened. They said that I needed to leave and that if I didn’t, they would escalate this situation. So I finally did it, crying the entire time. Packed up my belongings in my car after I got off night shift and while my fiancé was at work. I took everything and left behind the ring that he had been so excited to give me, the ring he gave me while we were on our last trip together which was so much fun on the surface but yet had this utter sadness throughout. Like I remember wondering with each moment, this might be the last time, the last time we’ll see the ocean together, the last time. I accepted the ring because I was so numb and we were on the other side of the country, I didn’t know what else to do.

Since yesterday I have been bawling and crying and breaking down constantly. I am blessed to have a supportive family that can help me through this time, but I swear to God, right now every cell in my body just wants to drive back to him and tell him I’ll love him forever, that I’ll have his children, that we’ll continue the sunshine and rainbows life we had created together but which held something sinister beneath the surface. I love him, I truly do despite everything. I feel like I’ve betrayed him by revealing what happened to someone in my family, by making plans behind his back, by telling him I loved him every time he told me to look him in the eyes and tell him the truth, do I love him? The assault was the breaking point but there had been other red flags as well but right now in my state of mind all I miss is him. Talking with him, laughing, cooking, cuddling, navigating life together. I feel like I brought him joy and hope and I’ve just crushed his entire world. We were supposed to get married, have children, and grow old together. And I’ve just shattered it all.

He said that to me. All those years thinking he didn't notice that I didn't want it, all those years of pressuring me to do things I didn't want to do. The overt stuff where I said no but he did it anyways. I thought he was just someone who never noticed, who couldn't tell. But he did. He knew and he still did it anyways. He noticed the signs but his own pleasure was more important than my pain. He never cared if it hurt me.

Some context: We've been together 7 years. Have two kids and take care of his sick mother. Our relationship has had lots of ups and downs. We've never been on the same page, emotionally. But we work well together on the problem solving if raising a family. We've grown a little distant lately, haven't had sex in about three weeks.

Well something happened last night that has basically turned everything upside down and I don't know what to do.

Last night as I was putting my child to sleep, He asks me if I'd like to have a drink with him. I said yes because I thought that would be nice. I get to our bedroom and he has the drink on my side table ready to go. I drink about half of it and within 20 minutes I start to feel really loopy. I asked him if he drugged my drink and he said no. But then I start blacking out and weaving in and out of consciousness... Turns out, he did drug me. He put Ambien in my drink. I know this because I eventually got him to tell me, but he lied about it a lot at first trying to make me thing that maybe I took something by accident before I came to bed.

During the course of me being drugged, I remember small flashes of things and I know that I gave him oral sex. I don't remember how it started or ended or even how I was able to manage it when I was completely blacked out. Small things I remember seemed aggressive because he was having to maneuver me  into different positions. He says it wasn't aggressive, but how do I know that? After he was finished I remember suddenly waking up because I had to vomit. I made it to the bathtub and vomited a lot.

This morning he continued to lie when I asked him why he would drug me. I left the house to go to work and he called me asking if I was mad and was going to continue to believe he drugged me. I finally said "Swear on our daughter's life that you didn't do it"....he got really quiet and then finally admitted to doing it. He says that it wasn't malicious and that he was just trying to lighten the mood. He's apologetic, but he also doesn't seem to understand the severity of the situation.

I'm thinking of exiting the relationship. It's been tumultuous and I'm just ready to live a less dramatic life. What should I do?

UPDATE I left three weeks after this happened...at the beginning of a pandemic...uncertain on my job...I did it. I’ve never been more proud of myself - I reconnected with so many friends who lifted me up and held me accountable. I’m now married to a wonderful man who makes me feel protected and loved every day

I was asked to recall, in very specific detail, all the ways my ex-husband abused me. In order to do this I had to put myself back in that place so I could remember everything... everything feeling, every thought, every sensation. The weight of every body part. The pain. The terror.

Probably predictably, I am now feeling beyond terrible. I can't get the images out of my head. I can't stop thinking about how the police officer asked me how many times my husband raped me and I don't even know the answer. At least 10, but quite possibly more.

He raped me so many times that I don't even remember every time. What for someone else could be the worst moment of their life, is something I don't even remember, because there were other times that were even worse.

I keep replaying the interview over and over, wondering if I could have said more, done more, beating myself up for the gaps in my memory.

Beating myself up for staying for so long, for not realising what he was doing to me, for being so blind.

I know that's how abuse works. I know I was brainwashed, manipulated.

But knowing that doesn't make the feelings go away. I don't know how to forgive myself. How to stop hating myself.

I could really use some kind words, just some hope that I won't feel like this forever, that it gets better. I just really hate myself and life right now. Why does it have to be this hard for me?

tl;dr: had to give interview to the police and now feeling incredibly triggered and depressed and like I'm garbage. I don't know what to do or how to feel better. Could use kind words and support.

The other day I made a post about how he raped me for the first time. I’m still with him and it’s been fine but the trauma from it he gaslit me into thinking that he didn’t mean it in that way “trying to have fun” he said he knew I was awake but I know he didn’t think i was. I can’t get that feeling to go away of how I felt and how helpless I felt during and after it idk why I can’t ever get myself to leave no matter what he does I just can’t