AM I BEING ABUSED
This blog may contain graphic descriptions of all types of abuse, mental, physical or sexual, if you are under 18 or likely to be offended please do not go on. It may be though that you are under 18 and suspect you may be being abused in that case this site may help you.
This letter appeared in The Daily Telegraph on June 5th 2007, under Lesley Garners column.
I am writing to you on my Wedding Anniversary. I am in my early forties, educated, attractive, in good shape. I am intelligent, sophisticated and very well travelled. I cook, clean and run my own business.
I fell in love with my husband 14 years ago and we have two sons, 11 and 13. He is a very intelligent, well-educated man who was in a good job when I met him, but our lives have changed. When the children were small I started up a business and he began to get involved, but he also began to be very controlling, not just of my business decisions but of everything I did.
At the time, I wondered whether to leave him. I saw it as a choice between doing things his way or leaving altogether - but I decided to stick it out for the sake of the children. Besides I am not English, and my family live in Spain. So I tried to make the marriage it work.
Not only did this mean giving in to my husband in the business, but it meant complying with him sexually in ways that I didn’t enjoy or want. I think I am a tactile, affectionate person, but my husband never kisses touches me and when I try to say what I want he turns a deaf ear.
I am very active in the business and am away from home occasionally; he has gradually usurped my parenting role as well, taking the children out without me, which hurts a lot. I feel increasingly ostracised within the family.
Then, one day I woke up and found I had stopped caring. That was the day my marriage died. I don’t love my husband and yet I don’t want to leave him. If I did I would probably have to go back to Spain, and maybe even leave my children. I feel utterly trapped.
Do I risk going and losing everything ? Do I take a lover to find the love I am denied ? Or do I try to make the marriage work again ? This would be the best solution, but it would mean my husband would have to change and I am not sure people can change even if they want to. And how would I even begin to go about this ?
Maria.
This article really started to make me think, for some time my partner in our web business Sandy Toplis him of www.free-online-yahtzee-game.com fame have been setting up web business’s aimed at making money but I feel that I would like to set something up that is going to help people. I am a practising health therapist and as such I hear a lot of peoples problems. It is a couple of those that I am going to highlight and throw out for discussion , I would like this site to become a sort of forum where people can anonymously talk over their problems and maybe get some feed back from others and maybe get a handle on what is troubling them, they have been subjected to behaviour over a long period that has completely eroded their self worth. Often people in these situations feel that they are on their own and have no where to turn too, with this site they can anonymously post their problems and hopefully get some feed back to help them.
Often even writing or talking over their problems helps them to get it straight in their own heads and make a
Decision. I can assure you if you get in touch with this site or me you be assured of the utmost confidentiality, as I say I am a practising therapist and as such have a high degree of responsibility and keep my clients problems confidential.
I was treating Mrs J for a physical problem, but as I treated her and talked to her, I gradually gained her confidence. She started to tell me how unhappy she was, how she cried herself to sleep nearly every night. She was in her mid 30’s and had been married for approximately 10 years during that time her husband had only sporadically made love to her and often he specified what she had to wear at those times, laying out clothes and wear bright red nail varnish and lipstick so she looked like a prostitute. Then he often subjected her to quite rough oral sex holding her head or hair so she couldn’t pull away and often asking for anal sex which she always refused.
They had three children just under teen age and he would often put her down in front of the children calling her fat and ugly (neither of which is true) . When they were alone he used to say that her breasts were to small and saying that he wished he had a girlfriend with big boobs. (Although as far as she knew he had never been unfaithful to her.) He seemed to want her there as a mother rather than an active partner. If they had guests he would often try and make her look small. She wasn’t stupid and had a degree, but his continual put downs had destroyed her self-worth and started her believing in what he was saying to her.
Because she loved and respected her husband she couldn’t see that he was in fact treating her abusively.
While I was treating her I gradually tried to build back her self respect and believe that she was an attractive woman. Over time she started to realise that she was in an abusive relationship and longed for the love and affection she thought she should be enjoying in her marriage. With three children and a husband who was earning £85,000.00 pounds a year this is a big decision. What should she do ?.
Another of my patients was a young woman in her mid twenties, she had been with her partner who was nine years older than her, for ten years and had got married in the last two years. Here again was an unhappy woman who had been taking anti-depressants since she had got married, and who regularly cried herself to sleep. She had never slept with any one else in that time, so her husband had taught her most of what she knew about sex. One day she let slip that her husband was a marmite miner and laughed. I asked her what she meant and she laughed and told me that he liked anal sex. I ask her if she liked it and was it painful for her, she told me she didn‘t really like it and admitted it was painful. I ask her how it worked, if he wanted anal sex, did he ask her to go and have a shit first. ( I hear peels of laughter from you ) I‘m sorry but it‘s beyond my experience, I fail to see if a woman has a perfectly good vagina made for the purpose why a man wants to have anal sex. She told me that as well as that, he liked putting objects up her vagina (is there a name for this practise ? ) often bigger than your average penis, and liked her to go down with her vagina on the bedpost, while he watched and masturbated. I asked her why he liked anal sex and she told me that he liked it because he said it was tighter. ( So if he liked it tighter why did he put items up her vagina that stretched her ? ) She also told me that she was frightened to go out in his 4 x 4 with him because he wanted her to go down on his gearstick. (This seems a very strange way of showing someone you love her. ) She told me that he liked her to watch porn with him as it turned him on. The trouble with this is, that porn often treats women as sex objects and subjects them to not very nice experiences. He didn‘t seem to like giving her affection, cuddles , hugs and kisses but preferred her to lay and masturbate while he stood and masturbated as he watched her. She told me that he liked to video her masturbating, on his phone.
I ask her where he got his porn from and she told me his students gave him some of it, (It crossed my mind that he was swooping some of his shots on his phone or showing them to other people ) I am not a prude but it seems to me that if one person subjects another to practises which they object to, and don’t like, that there is a degree of Abuse here. He had taken a beautiful young woman and instead of treating her with respect, giving her love and affection and growing in a happy relationship together, indulging in sex and love that they both enjoyed. He had gradually over the years groomed her into believing that the woman should behave like the ones in the porn films. Is this abusive ? What do you think. ?
As I said earlier these two cases are the opening ideas for this website. I want to hear from you, the way you are treated, are you being abused without realising it, and would you like help, to put what is happening to you out there, and find what other people think. I would especially like to hear from a (preferably woman) doctor who can help me understand anal sex, is it harmful to a woman, what is the attraction ? I would like to post this reply on the website if possible.
I fell in love with my husband 14 years ago and we have two sons, 11 and 13. He is a very intelligent, well-educated man who was in a good job when I met him, but our lives have changed. When the children were small I started up a business and he began to get involved, but he also began to be very controlling, not just of my business decisions but of everything I did.
At the time, I wondered whether to leave him. I saw it as a choice between doing things his way or leaving altogether - but I decided to stick it out for the sake of the children. Besides I am not English, and my family live in Spain. So I tried to make the marriage it work.
Not only did this mean giving in to my husband in the business, but it meant complying with him sexually in ways that I didn’t enjoy or want. I think I am a tactile, affectionate person, but my husband never kisses touches me and when I try to say what I want he turns a deaf ear.
I am very active in the business and am away from home occasionally; he has gradually usurped my parenting role as well, taking the children out without me, which hurts a lot. I feel increasingly ostracised within the family.
Then, one day I woke up and found I had stopped caring. That was the day my marriage died. I don’t love my husband and yet I don’t want to leave him. If I did I would probably have to go back to Spain, and maybe even leave my children. I feel utterly trapped.
Do I risk going and losing everything ? Do I take a lover to find the love I am denied ? Or do I try to make the marriage work again ? This would be the best solution, but it would mean my husband would have to change and I am not sure people can change even if they want to. And how would I even begin to go about this ?
Maria.
This article really started to make me think, for some time my partner in our web business Sandy Toplis him of www.free-online-yahtzee-game.com fame have been setting up web business’s aimed at making money but I feel that I would like to set something up that is going to help people. I am a practising health therapist and as such I hear a lot of peoples problems. It is a couple of those that I am going to highlight and throw out for discussion , I would like this site to become a sort of forum where people can anonymously talk over their problems and maybe get some feed back from others and maybe get a handle on what is troubling them, they have been subjected to behaviour over a long period that has completely eroded their self worth. Often people in these situations feel that they are on their own and have no where to turn too, with this site they can anonymously post their problems and hopefully get some feed back to help them.
Often even writing or talking over their problems helps them to get it straight in their own heads and make a
Decision. I can assure you if you get in touch with this site or me you be assured of the utmost confidentiality, as I say I am a practising therapist and as such have a high degree of responsibility and keep my clients problems confidential.
I was treating Mrs J for a physical problem, but as I treated her and talked to her, I gradually gained her confidence. She started to tell me how unhappy she was, how she cried herself to sleep nearly every night. She was in her mid 30’s and had been married for approximately 10 years during that time her husband had only sporadically made love to her and often he specified what she had to wear at those times, laying out clothes and wear bright red nail varnish and lipstick so she looked like a prostitute. Then he often subjected her to quite rough oral sex holding her head or hair so she couldn’t pull away and often asking for anal sex which she always refused.
They had three children just under teen age and he would often put her down in front of the children calling her fat and ugly (neither of which is true) . When they were alone he used to say that her breasts were to small and saying that he wished he had a girlfriend with big boobs. (Although as far as she knew he had never been unfaithful to her.) He seemed to want her there as a mother rather than an active partner. If they had guests he would often try and make her look small. She wasn’t stupid and had a degree, but his continual put downs had destroyed her self-worth and started her believing in what he was saying to her.
Because she loved and respected her husband she couldn’t see that he was in fact treating her abusively.
While I was treating her I gradually tried to build back her self respect and believe that she was an attractive woman. Over time she started to realise that she was in an abusive relationship and longed for the love and affection she thought she should be enjoying in her marriage. With three children and a husband who was earning £85,000.00 pounds a year this is a big decision. What should she do ?.
Another of my patients was a young woman in her mid twenties, she had been with her partner who was nine years older than her, for ten years and had got married in the last two years. Here again was an unhappy woman who had been taking anti-depressants since she had got married, and who regularly cried herself to sleep. She had never slept with any one else in that time, so her husband had taught her most of what she knew about sex. One day she let slip that her husband was a marmite miner and laughed. I asked her what she meant and she laughed and told me that he liked anal sex. I ask her if she liked it and was it painful for her, she told me she didn‘t really like it and admitted it was painful. I ask her how it worked, if he wanted anal sex, did he ask her to go and have a shit first. ( I hear peels of laughter from you ) I‘m sorry but it‘s beyond my experience, I fail to see if a woman has a perfectly good vagina made for the purpose why a man wants to have anal sex. She told me that as well as that, he liked putting objects up her vagina (is there a name for this practise ? ) often bigger than your average penis, and liked her to go down with her vagina on the bedpost, while he watched and masturbated. I asked her why he liked anal sex and she told me that he liked it because he said it was tighter. ( So if he liked it tighter why did he put items up her vagina that stretched her ? ) She also told me that she was frightened to go out in his 4 x 4 with him because he wanted her to go down on his gearstick. (This seems a very strange way of showing someone you love her. ) She told me that he liked her to watch porn with him as it turned him on. The trouble with this is, that porn often treats women as sex objects and subjects them to not very nice experiences. He didn‘t seem to like giving her affection, cuddles , hugs and kisses but preferred her to lay and masturbate while he stood and masturbated as he watched her. She told me that he liked to video her masturbating, on his phone.
I ask her where he got his porn from and she told me his students gave him some of it, (It crossed my mind that he was swooping some of his shots on his phone or showing them to other people ) I am not a prude but it seems to me that if one person subjects another to practises which they object to, and don’t like, that there is a degree of Abuse here. He had taken a beautiful young woman and instead of treating her with respect, giving her love and affection and growing in a happy relationship together, indulging in sex and love that they both enjoyed. He had gradually over the years groomed her into believing that the woman should behave like the ones in the porn films. Is this abusive ? What do you think. ?
As I said earlier these two cases are the opening ideas for this website. I want to hear from you, the way you are treated, are you being abused without realising it, and would you like help, to put what is happening to you out there, and find what other people think. I would especially like to hear from a (preferably woman) doctor who can help me understand anal sex, is it harmful to a woman, what is the attraction ? I would like to post this reply on the website if possible.
