#X-Men has been woke since the first time they were created; that's their who premise

[siixkiing]

Can I just say...the sheer hilarity of some people calling the new X-Men Cartoon 'woke' like fam what did you THINK X-Men has always been?

[life-as-an-evolving-journey]

Sexual Abuse in Marriage

We’ll start hard and heavy, because this is the easiest way to weed out those who cannot handle certain topics, and that is ok. This story will include abortion and, you guessed it, sexual abuse. It is not an easy read for those who have experienced any kind of abuse, so TRIGGER WARNING. Prep yourself, get yourself in the right mood before reading this in its entirety.

I want to preface this conversation by reminding everyone that abuse is seen on both sides of the gender lines, so as I use my gender terms (so unnecessary), please do not believe that this situation could only happen to a woman. I also want you to understand that any anger I once felt towards my x-husband has subsided into more of an indifference at this point, and there is no need for nasty comments towards him or myself. We all do the best that we can with the tools we had at the time. I will do my best to explain the circumstances from both angles as much as I can, but it is not possible to have every bit of information for his side since I have never spoken with him about this situation.

This is a long one, and I tend to ramble, so please forgive me for the length in advance.

In May of 2013, my x-husband and I decided, mutually, to have an abortion when I got pregnant unexpectedly. In the long run, it was the right decision, but in the moment it did not feel like it. See, I used to be a strong pro-life advocate, with a keen sense of why women should not have abortions. So, having an abortion myself seemed a little bit like nonsense to me, but I agreed to it because my opinions were changing, and it genuinely felt like the right thing to do. My past belief system was not as accepting. In the beginnings of my journey after my abortion, I had to find a way to convince myself that I was doing the right thing, not for myself, but for the people who would have been most impacted by us having another child. That would have been my x-Mother-in-law at the time, as she watched our child while we worked. Between her husband’s business, and my first child, she had a lot on her plate, and weighing her down with helping us with another child would have been difficult for her. So I built this foundation to move forward based on that premise and that premise alone: It would have been hard for her. Then in August that year, her husband quit his private practice and suddenly she had a lot of extra free time. Free time that would not have complicated her life if we had asked her to help care for our toddler, and this potential newborn that we would have had. This completely crumbled the foundation I had built for myself.

Why is this important to the topic of sexual abuse in a marriage? Well, let me explain. After my abortion I was so frightened at the thought of having sex again because I did not want to get pregnant again and be forced to make the same decision. So I avoided it at all costs. This left my x-husband feeling lonely and dissatisfied. At the same time I felt like he was distant and cold when it came to talking about my emotions regarding my abortion. So once my foundation crumbled,I felt I could not “bother” him with my problems, so I built a new foundation based on the worst things possible. I convinced myself that I had murdered my child, that I was undeserving of any kind of love from anyone because I was a murderer. I would have nightmares constantly about different ways I had murdered my potential child, I would fall down in the middle of public spaces when I would hear a baby crying. My legs would just suddenly decide to stop working entirely, and I would fall. (That’s a sign of shock caused by trauma, as I would later learn.) This sequence of thoughts started soon after my previous foundation had crumbled, so around August. By October I had decided that I could not do it on my own anymore, and I went to the one person I believed I could trust whole-heartedly, to create a safe judgement-free zone for me, my x-husband. Well, you can guess that is not what he created, hence the x before husband. I told him about my troubles, and all he had to say was “you need to get over it, and see a therapist” Now, mind you, he is sexually pent up and feeling frustrated towards me because of it, and it is probably what caused him to respond that way. This, however, should not excuse his next response to his vulnerable, emotionally unstable wife.

Well, you stuck around with me this far. This is where it gets difficult for me to even type about. About two weeks after his cold response to my troubles, he comes to me requesting, nay demanding, sex. He says “I need it, I deserve it. Think about all of the sacrifices I ever made for you.” (Last statement is another story for a different time.) Lording my past mistakes over me like I owed him for the sacrifices he willingly chose to make. Dear, that is where sacrifice becomes debt, not sacrifice. But this, this is what he says to me. I respond with “no, I’m sorry, I’m just not ready yet.” through a river of tears as I feel awful that I am leaving him out to dry sexually. Instead of leaving it where it lies, he continually pesters me 3 or 4 times a day for the next week. Same argument, same response. He is relentless, and I feel trapped in a corner. If I don’t give it to him he will never leave me alone on the topic, never. So the, approximately, 21st to 28th time he asked, I agreed to it. To cope in the middle of it, I disconnected myself entirely from the situation, basically numbing myself, and thought about my dead child the entire time. He finished what he was doing, went back to playing his video games, and I cried myself to sleep on that lonely bedroom floor. I woke up feeling different, but not knowing what it was exactly, because in my head, at the time, it was not sexual abuse. He was justified in asking for it, and I had agreed. Little life lesson, that does not mean it was not sexual abuse. A partner emotionally manipulating you into giving them something they want that you do not that oversteps a personal boundary, ESPECIALLY a sexual boundary (something very sacred in a marriage), should always be respected, period. That is what makes this sexual abuse,because he did not respect my boundary. What makes this far worse, is that Physical Touch is my secondary love language, behind Quality Time, and this hit deeper than I could ever explain.  It has affected my life in numerous ways. I, to this day, have difficulty trusting straight men because I am so frightened that they are staring at me sexually. They don’t even have to act on it, they just need to be staring at me that way. I no longer want to feel pretty, because that would only entice a man. I haven’t had the pleasure (dripping sarcasm) to be in the same room alone with my x-husband since we got divorced in 2016, but when I think about it i tense up in ways I wish I didn’t have to experience. 

This instance, unfortunately, was not an isolated incident for the two of us. I began to see him differently, in ways I did not entirely understand back then. I started to feel ashamed of my body around him. I wanted to hide it so he could never touch it again. I explained this to myself by saying that I was just protecting myself from getting pregnant again. It’s not him that is the problem, it is sex. So he responded to getting sex from me using the same emotional manipulation tactic for the next 3 years before I left him. He would also get me drunk to get me to do things that I wouldn’t normally do. I only know this because he openly admitted that to me once.Sex eventually became a scheduled event for us. I attempted to compromise with him, but his version to compromise was to have sex 4 times a week, and it was unreasonable, but he refused any other offer. He said that I just need to do that for him for a couple of weeks, and then he would be satisfied for a while, but never defined how long “a while” was. Even after I left him, about 2 weeks later, I agreed to meet him at Starbucks. He got the wrong impression about why I agreed to it, and once he realized that, he changed the topic immediately to getting sex from me one last time using the same emotional manipulation tactic statement I mentioned before. Thus proving to me that there was no limit for him when it came to crossing my boundary expectations on sex. During all of this I eventually convinced myself that I could never do anything correctly, and I would never amount to anything special. This type of thinking is what made me excuse a lot of his abuse over the years. 

To sum all of this up, I wouldn’t post something so personal so publicly if I did not think that telling my story wouldn’t help someone on their own personal journey with something similar. You are not alone if you are sexually abused by your partner. Marriage does not make sex obligatory or a requirement, and never let someone convince you otherwise.