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I Fell in Love with the Man Who Molested Me About abuse, emotional attachment, and wounds that are not always visible. I used to believe that missing someone meant I loved them. I didn't understand why I wanted the attention of someone who had once made me afraid. Years later, I began to realize that the effects of abuse don't always end when the abuser stops. This is not a story meant to justify the abuser. It is a story about how complicated the effects of childhood abuse can be, and why we should not judge victims simply because their feelings do not match what we expect them to feel. Page 1 — The Man I Should Never Have Fallen for He was my father's friend. When I was little, he often came to our house and treated me kindly. However, behind his kindness, there were things he did that made me uncomfortable. He touched my neck, back, and thighs without my consent. Every time he did it, I always asked him to stop. "Please, stop." "Please, stop." I said those words because I was afraid. I didn't understand why an adult man would be interested in touching a little girl like me. To me, his actions were strange and frightening. I didn't like it, and I didn't want him to touch me. Afterward, I told my father what had happened. He looked angry, but he didn't do anything. He didn't even confront the man. At the time, I felt as though what had happened to me wasn't important enough for my father to take action. When I turned sixteen, his behavior became increasingly disturbing. He often looked at me in ways that made me uncomfortable. One day, he came to our house as usual. By chance, no one else was home except me. I was alone in the living room when he came inside. Without warning, he pushed me onto a chair and gripped my thigh very tightly. "Hey, stop. I'm scared. Please, stop." At first, he ignored my pleas. I kept begging him until he finally saw me crying. Only then did he stop, apologize, and leave. After that incident, he no longer looked at me the way he used to. I thought he had distanced himself because he felt sorry for me. However, later I learned that his own daughter had been sexually abused by someone else and had become pregnant as a result. I don't know for certain what made him change. I can only guess that what happened to his daughter may have made him realize how terrible the things he had done to me were. Whatever his reason, the experience left something behind that was not easy to forget. Page 2 — Three Confusing Years For three years, he no longer showed me any attention. Strangely, as time went by, I began to miss him. I missed his presence. I wanted him to pay attention to me again, talk to me, and be around me as he had before. Those feelings confused me. Hadn't I once been afraid of him? Hadn't I cried and begged him to stop touching me? Then why was I now hoping he would come back? I didn't know the answer. I only knew that something inside me kept waiting for his attention. I even began to wonder whether he no longer wanted me. It was as though the loss of his attention was something I should mourn, rather than something that should have made me feel safer. At the time, I didn't understand my own feelings. I didn't realize that my childhood experiences might have influenced the way I viewed attention and closeness with him. Now, I am eighteen. Whenever he comes to visit my father, I deliberately leave my room just to see him. I hope he will look at me again. But he always looks away. I feel angry with him. Not only because he ignores me, but also because he seems able to carry on with his life without thinking about what he once did to me. Meanwhile, I am still carrying feelings I cannot understand. Part of me resents him because of our past. Yet another part of me still wants his attention. I want to tell him that he has left something inside me. I want him to understand that what happened did not simply end when he left my house three years ago. Unfortunately, I still don't fully understand what is happening inside me. Page 3 — When His Attention Returned After some time, he started looking at me again. I felt happy. He even began speaking to me gently and treating me romantically. I found myself becoming attracted to his face. He seemed different from the other older men I knew. There was a gentleness in the way he spoke to me that made me even more interested in him. I knew something was wrong with my feelings, but at the time, I didn't want to question them too deeply. One day, he came to our house and found me asleep on the sofa, wearing shorts. I wasn't trying to seduce him or get his attention. I had simply fallen asleep, unaware that he would be coming over. He sat near my feet and watched me while I was still asleep. When I woke up, I found him stroking the soles of my feet. I was startled. "How long have you been here?" He smiled and said, "Good morning, my sweet little doll." I let out a small laugh because the nickname sounded strange. "What kind of nickname is that? That's so weird." "You look so much like a doll. You're so beautiful," he replied. I didn't know how to respond. I just felt shy because I was receiving the attention I had wanted for so long. Not long afterward, my older brother arrived. Fortunately, he hadn't heard our conversation. At that moment, I was more focused on how the man was treating me again than on remembering that he had once made me afraid. I didn't realize how easily his attention could make me forget the questions I should have been asking myself. Why did I want his attention so badly? Why did I feel happy when he treated me gently, even though I still remembered the fear I had felt because of him? I didn't have the answers yet. Page 4 — A Relationship That Should Never Have Happened After that incident, he left nervously. When my older brother asked why he was at our house, I said he had only come to ask my father something. I lied because I didn't want my brother to become suspicious of our closeness. From that point on, I thought about him more and more. Small gestures of attention from him could make me blush, while his absence made me miss him. Eventually, we entered into a forbidden relationship. For several months, I allowed myself to become immersed in those feelings. I loved him, or at least that was how I understood what I felt at the time. However, little by little, I began to realize that our relationship was not as simple as I wanted to believe. He wasn't just a man I liked. He was an adult who had molested me when I was still a child. I began questioning our relationship. Did I truly feel safe with him? Did I love him for who he was, or was it because I had spent so long longing for the attention he had once given me? I couldn't answer all those questions. But I knew that this relationship should never have happened. One night, while I was sitting alone, he came over and sat beside me. I took a deep breath before finally speaking. "I think our relationship needs to end here." He looked at me. I could see that he was reluctant to part ways, but I tried to stand by my decision. I didn't want to cry. I wanted to appear strong, as though the decision wasn't hurting me. But my tears fell anyway. "I really love you," I said, my voice trembling. He hugged me and kissed the top of my head. "It's okay. This is the right choice. I'm sorry for making things this way for you. I truly feel guilty." I cried in his arms. For the first time, I tried to choose what I believed was right, even though my own feelings refused to let him go. Page 5 — Feelings Don't Change the Past Before we truly parted ways, I kissed him one last time. Honestly, I didn't want to let go of his embrace. I called his name several times while holding him tightly, as though doing so could delay a goodbye I didn't want. When I looked at his face, I saw a sadness I had never seen before. I didn't know what he was truly feeling. I only knew that, at that moment, we finally had to let go of something we had been holding on to. After we parted, we went on with our separate lives. He spent more time with his family, while I kept myself busy with my work abroad. Life went on. Yet the experiences I had gone through remained part of my story. In the past, I thought my longing was proof that I truly loved him. Now, I'm beginning to understand that human feelings are not always easy to explain. Someone can miss the attention of a person who once hurt them without that making the person's actions acceptable. I don't know whether my feelings back then came entirely from love, a need for attention, or a mixture of many things I didn't yet understand. I only know that I once wanted to be close to someone who had also made me afraid. And that is the hardest part for me to understand. Sometimes, the effects of abuse don't stop when the abuser stops touching the victim. Those effects can carry over into the way a victim sees themselves, understands affection, and builds relationships with others. However, not every victim will experience the same thing. Some distance themselves from the abuser, some hate them, some feel confused, and others develop an emotional attachment. No single response represents every victim. A victim's feelings are not proof that the abuse was wanted. Whatever the victim feels afterward, responsibility for the abuse remains with the abuser. This story is not about proving that love can justify everything. It is about someone trying to understand her own feelings after experiencing something that should never have happened to her. Because sometimes, wounds don't always look like hatred. Sometimes, wounds take the form of longing. And sometimes, it takes a long time for someone to understand that attention, affection, and love should never come at the cost of feeling safe.

I could never remember my childhood well, even as a kid. But I started to be hypersexual at 3, and so thats when I believe me and my brother started touching (hes 3 and a half years older). When I was 12 I remembered and told my parents, my mom freaked out and screamed at me. She said it was my fault and that it wasn't too bad if I didn't tell anyone. I fear thats she's right. When I was 14 and in deep psychosis, I felt like there was more to remember. I started to feel my brother's hands over my body and mouth. I remembered us having sex 3 times. The first time when I was 6 and the last when I was 8. One of those times he was hitting me and pinning me. I dont know how real those memories are because I recovered them in psychosis. I started doing really bad cus all I could think about was me and my brother fucking. A couple of months ago I remembered my brother fucking me with his hands around my neck (which was painful). Im so scared that really happened because I see my brother daily and hes my best friend. Im worried ill remember more.

You Are Not Alone You are not alone. So many of us had so much taken from us by people who put pleasing their basal urges over our sanity. For their moments of bliss and dominance we suffer. We blame ourselves for their sickness. THEIR pathology. There is an army of us. That is what these stories teach us. They show us we are legion. We are strong. Our psychological reactions of fear, mistrust, hatred are not crazy. They are normal. It is also normal, but not easy, to climb out the darkness together. I grew up in a large low income black of flats that was like a village. My mum worked and we went about by ourselves. In the winter we were never expected to be seen if we left. We were in some flat mucking about with some kids or neighbor, and it all worked out fine. I did lose my virginity when I was eleven to a friend of my older brother who was in year ten. But that was no bother because it was not uncommon there, sadly. I am half Brazilian on my absent father’s side and was considered quite exotic and fit. My secondary sexual characteristics developed early. I was reasonably careful and in control. True abuse began years later when we moved out to a proper house with HIM. HE was my mom’s dream man. HE was fit for a middle-aged man. By that time my brother wasn’t with us because he took work in Alaska on a fishing boat. HE was ex-Army and seemed like a good man at first. I was a bit of trouble maker and over-cheeky and my mom gave HIM carte blanche to discipline me like father. We weren’t there the length of a full season when HE started treating me like a tart. The spanking part mom knew about and thought it was funny, even with me being fifteen. HE spanked my bare bum even when she was home. She said I’d always needed a man’s hand to block of my rough edges. It was cringe, humiliating, but nothing compared to what HE did when mum was away. Not to get detailed, HE soon got to a point where I was going to get HIS load whenever there was the chance. Since HE got to set my schedule he made sure there were regular chances. It was my HELL and HE was the Prince of Darkness. He was rough but careful not to leave any marks. Unless time was short I had to shower first. Sometimes after there would be something specific sitting out to wear, like a costume or lingerie, or my netball kit. The grating anticipation of what was going to follow was the real torture. HE would tell me to “Pick a hole”. My holes! My foof was one, my mouth was two, and you’d think I would never select three. But you’d be wrong. I hated HIM. I am very sensitive sexually and if I went with one I looked like I loved it and if I chose two I was doing work to please HIM. Three was the way I could shut down and brace myself without him ever seeing me smile, even if I was facing toward him. When I was strong with hatred I would choose three. I compartmentalized that small but brutal part of my life for my mum. If was a mere thirty to one hundred twenty minutes per a week of 10080 minutes. And I saw no other way then. Mum, for the first time was living a happy life. I could have won a BAFTA for how I seemed so cozy and content for her. It gutted me that my fear of upsetting HIM made it appear that HE had smoothed out my rough edges and made me into a proper lady. I kept my marks up and stayed on the netball team in spite of being the shortest. I kept going. I developed a habit of stabbing mechanical pencil tips into my skin and biting my nailbeds to illicit pain. I had one boyfriend for a short time. I went to the dances. Home was my hell so I did everything HE would allow to be anywhere else. I could not work but he made my mum keep her job so he could have me. My birthdays I would get my way of having a just girls’ night out with mum. There were only two birthdays before I got free of him. College cost 1000 pounds and when HE paid it HE did not know I was not going to be his tart anymore. I had a friend with a home much closer to my school. They had spare bedroom because an older sibling had moved out. Being seventeen, HE couldn’t force me to live with them if I had other safe accommodations. I took employment and paid the meager rent. He got me one more time when I was sleeping back at his house on Christmas eve. Probably drugged mum to keep her sleeping. I made sure he never got a chance again. Through my Portuguese class I met a man who lived in Portugal and invited me to come stay with him as long as I wanted rent free. I finished one year of sixth form and went to Portugal. I had fleeting relations with the man I stayed with but he traveled often we both had our own things. I worked at an American-themed restaurant as a server then. I spoke with my mum on the phone most days. She visited once, with HIM. I missed her and tried not to show much of my sorrow about being forced apart from her. Seeing HIM was horrendous, yet I kept it contained inside like a cancer. It helped solidify my decision. I traveled with a friend to Florida and got a job serving in a posh restaurant. I applied for a work VISA and on my second try I got it. I am thirty-eight now. Only three years ago did I confront my demons because I read online stories about other abuse survivors. It opened up a deep wound so I could start to heal. It was and still is hard work and an ongoing process. I confessed to my mum who had split with HIM after years of her own abuse that she also kept hidden. HE had let her go when she started having health problems, showing his true black heart. She lives with my brother and his family. I regret losing years with mum and my brother and being chased away from my home when I was young but it made me stronger. I have never married but I have a loving partner, two dogs and I speak three languages. I am a physical trainer and work near the beach where I go to meditate and body surf. Our journeys and stories are individual but we are in this together. Worldwide. You are not alone in carrying the pain and the shame and the fear and the flashbacks! Even if you are in the dark, start toward a path that looks like others are using to try to climb out. Use the resources, even if just right there on your computer, and build from there. Just start and keep climbing, especially when it seems too hard.

I’m sharing here because I hope I can reach out to other women who may have gone through marital rape or may still be going through it and I want you to know you are not alone. For years I felt as if I was asleep as I couldn’t face up to what was happening to me, why I was losing weight and why I so depressed. I minimised everything, even to him. I would try and make him feel better afterwards. Most of the time it was as simple as me saying no to sex and him doing it anyway while I was completely disconnected, and it was so often, I would lie there and wait til he was done most of the time, but each thing built up to him pushing the boundaries further, sometimes when we were out in public, always after I went out with my friends, it was part of the deal. I always told myself he’d be in better form if I just went along with it. He was always so stressed and so angry. And I loved him and sometimes I enjoyed sex with him. It made things very confusing in my head. And I was eating barely anything, which he encouraged, he was constantly buying me exercise equipment and sexy outfits. I kept getting sick, I was tired and low all the time. My family and friends were saying I wasn’t myself. There were 3 incidents that I play over and over in my head that I couldn’t minimise (although I tried). And they led to me telling him our marriage was over. That was a year ago. I thought it might help me to write one of them down and maybe someone will identify with me and it might help them. It was at his best friends wedding and as usual, he wanted us to do something exciting sexually. So we went to the men’s toilets. We were kissing and we started to have sex. I was quite drunk. All of a sudden he turned me around and bent me over the toilet, my hands on the window sill. I started to say no. It came out in what sounded like a little girls voice. I don’t know why I remember that so well. I don’t know why I didn’t shout. He raped me anally in the men’s cubicle and I was crying looking at a dirty window sill and I could hear strange men outside commenting. Afterwards I kept asking why did you do that, I didn’t want that, it hurt me, you were too rough, I said no. But he he didn’t want to talk about it. He left me sitting with one of his male friends that I didn’t know to go outside with his best friend and have cigars. He saw I was in pain and bleeding for days after. I stayed with him for years after that. Other things happened after that too. I ended up feeling like his stress ball, a rag doll, good for nothing else. I was with him since I was 18 years old and we have children together. He was all I knew. He was my husband and I loved him. No one knew what was happening. Everyone thought we were a couple in love. It wasn’t until I told him I couldn’t share a bed with him anymore and I was starting ti have panic attacks that we went to a marriage counsellor and it all came out. I woke up. It was her face. Her reaction. I felt so stupid and embarrassed. And he tried to explain it away to her shouting at her that he was a man. I was sitting there thinking how did I let this happen to me? I always saw myself as quite a strong, intelligent, bubbly person. I’m in my 40s, I should know better. I was looking at the counsellors face and it somehow didn’t feel as if it was happening. I realised I was shaking and she was worried about me and he was shouting at her. I felt so embarrassed and helpless. And stupid in front of another grown woman. I was thinking what if this was someone I loved telling me this happened to them? But still in my head I kept thinking its not really rape because he was my husband, and I loved him and so many times I wanted to have sex with him so how could it be rape. But why did he want to hurt me? I kept thinking this couldn’t be happening to me. Anyway thanks for reading. I hope it helps someone. I feel it helped me to write it down.

In my original shared story, IT STARTED WITH MY BROTHER, I talked about my abuse from a bird’s eye view. It was my abuse life as I was able to share it at the time. I have been working up to sharing 3 instances of rapes that I only avoided by allowing the men to take what they wanted instead of fighting. The most traumatic of the three incidents I mentioned involved a police officer. This is that account. I was pulled over on my way home from a study group as junior at the university on a week night. We had shared two drinks toward the end. I DO NOT condone driving and drinking but I was not drunk, as the breathalyzer later confirmed. I was pulled over and already had the nerves associated with that, amplified by the fact that I was under the legal drinking age for another three weeks. That is when I first met the cop I will just call SIK. He gave me a creepy vibe when I first saw him and that never stopped. Still, I flirted with him to an extent desperate to not get it huge trouble. He had me get out of the car, take of my hoodie, under which I only had a basic sports bra. It was only sixty degrees or so that night. I was cold and shivering from fear and the temperature. I saw him look at my body with no filter. Another cop car pulled up with two officers while I was doing the field sobriety tests. He had already searched me in an uncomfortable way. One of the officers who arrived was female and also searched me after he had said I had some problems with the sobriety tests. Walking backwards on an imaginary line heel to toe was the only thing I had trouble with. It is hard! The female cop brought out the breath test I had asked for. I blew 0.035. That is less than half the legal limit. At that point SIK said he was just going to follow me home, rather than arrest me, and the other car left. The whole stop took maybe an hour. Cars drove by on the side street I had pulled onto. Headlights and tail lights in the dark. After the other car left SIK talked to me more harshly and threatening than ever. He said a girl like me is probably used to getting away with everything. He asserted that he could still take me to jail anytime he decides as as he takes me home and makes sure I am safe everything I do is still a test. He could bust me for possession of alcohol and I would lose my license. I was scared. I told him my roommate was home. She was a student too and was supposed to be there. After following me inside my apartment I called out for my roommate. Then I checked her room. She was not there! SIK then accused me of lying to a police officer and locked the deadbolt from the inside. He made me stand with my hands on my own dining room wall with my legs spread. I wanted to call her so he could talk to her and confirm she was usually there, but he stopped me and made me just text her to see when she would be home. He gave instruction not to ask or say anything more and checked before I sent it. She was at her sisters and would not be back until late. At that point he took off his utility belt and put it on my kitchen counter. He told me after all he had done for me was no longer free, since I lied to him. His gun was right there next to us. He made sure I saw it and he even twisted it so it was pointed toward me. I was scared and pleading with him. I really was willing to do anything. I am not sure but I think I told him that. He radioed from his shoulder thing that he was taking a “lunch” break. What I definitely remember was when he said he was going to do a proper strip search this time, down to full nudity and asked if I agreed to that. At that point I no longer had a doubt what was happening. I made the mental adjustment but what he did was more than I had prepared for. He gave me vulgar compliments about my body as he blatantly molested me. He kneaded my breasts like dough. He fingered me as asked if you could use a special appendage he had that went farther in. I knew what he meant. I was repulsed but I agreed. After the initial eager sex with me still having my hands on the wall leaning forward he slowed down. I had been hoping it was almost over but he decided to prolong it. He commanded me to my bedroom. He took off all his clothes besides his socks. He complemented his own anatomy and made me agree. His member was well above average in size but I doubt, if he had not had a wedding band on, that he would ever get to use it. He was half bald, had a prominent eyebrow like a neanderthal, and a pale beer belly with lots of moles all over his body. He had a mustache and goatee that did not completely hide his poor complexion that looked like he had scars from severe acne. Almost all men all taller than me but he was short and only towered over me by a few inches. Never had I lied bigger than when I told him what he wanted to hear about being sexy and wanting him. The only truth was about his large penis. SIK spoke a lot, mostly degrading me and confirming that I agree with him. Cliche stuff, like me being a whore, slut, dirty, and liking what he made me do to him, but also asked about my sex life and abuse history. He wanted me to say that my dad and coaches abused me, but I would not lie about that. Instead I told him some of the truth about my brother abusing me. That was probably the worst part. Saying out loud to SIK what I never used to admit to anyone, for his great pleasure, harmed me. That was worse that the physical stuff. Worse than making me kiss him during parts of it. He was also cruel. He tried to gag me and push all the way down my throat while he made him do oral. He pushed my ankles behind my head while he pounded me with his abusing thrusts. I could see the cruel lust in his eyes. I could see his wicked smile. He slapped my face many times, just not very hard. He did spank me hard. He realized he had me captive and vulnerable to his whim and he was finally living his darkest fantasies. I was doing anything he wanted and encouraging it because I wanted it to stop. So many times he stopped himself right before he was going to climax! He did not want it to end. SIK tried to have anal sex with me and I was accommodating him but he was just too big to fit. I was crying during most of this out of pain but trying to act like an eager partner to make it end. I later thought that might have prolonged it. SIK was probably the time that would prefer I suffer more, like I was being raped instead of hiding my pain. It was not much longer than twenty minutes but it was so bad and I relived it so many times in my mind before I got smashed drunk and high the next night after work. So the memory lived much more prominently in my head than a simple 25 minute encounter. I do reach climax easily, but I never had one orgasm from him because of his preference for causing sexual pain. When he suddenly released inside me he got quiet and barely said another word as he dressed, gun belt and all, and left quietly. I have no idea what that meant. It scared me. I was afraid while driving for a while, and avoided sleeping at home as much as I could, which sometimes meant sleeping with men and even male friends just to not go home. It was the main reason I did not renew my lease and moved it to a smaller apartment by myself. This was the same roommate whose father had already slept with me without my initial blessing. I did tell my roommate a short version of it and she reacted like it was cool story. I did kind of tell it that way, as a way of dealing with it. The easy path of least resistance. To not admit it may have been the worse sexual thing to happen to me. The true worst things that happened to me in my college years were broken hearts from losing men I loved. But those are stories for a different forum. I don’t put my heart out there to be trampled anymore. This incident was one of the wake up calls that stood out as an omen for me to change my whole lifestyle and try to salvage myself. It was also one of the things that took me the longest to mention to my therapist even though I thought about it during sessions.