As I become more and more open about the abusive situations that I have allowed in my life, I shake my head and just cannot figure out how this all happened. I’m at a place where I feel that if I’m not coming clean with what I’ve gone through, I am STILL protecting those individuals that did this to me.
HOW is it that I made all of this abuse OK? What went on in my head during these situations that somehow, some way, I said “it’s OK to do this to me.” I had no voice to speak, so I just went along with it.
Recently, I heard from someone in my tribe who told me that she honestly feels that what I experienced in my relationship with Robert was rape. I hate that word and it makes me sick, but she was the THIRD FRIEND that actually called it that. THE THIRD!
I don’t want to believe it, my ego wants me to push it down and somehow sugarcoat what I went through, but I can’t because now I have others to hopefully help, too. I am hanging my ass out there so other people will know that what they are going through may NOT be OK and they CANNOT let anyone dumb down what they are experiencing.
Only people that have something to hide will gaslight you into thinking you’re not seeing reality as it really is.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, Robert gave me 2 options every night of my life – either have sex or hear his wrath and lectures until 3am. When I listen to the recordings that I made during the torture, it makes me so incredibly sick. HOW DID I ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN FOR ALL THOSE YEARS?? Why did I make this OK and just a part of my life?
Having sex to avoid abuse IS ALSO ABUSE and it’s also RAPE, hands down, 100%. I will NOT be told differently and you should not either. If you are enduring abuse to avoid a different type of abuse, IT’S ABUSE!
Robert would always tell me to never compare our sex life with that of others because WE ARE DIFFERENT. I bought that bullshit, can you believe that? If I would have told just ONE friend what I was going through, I’m sure they would have physically pulled me out of that house. But I stayed quiet and never shared the agony I was going through.
To my defense, I was never allowed to go out without Robert, so how would I ever tell anyone anyway? I also discovered that he was hacking into my social media for several years. I found 203 logins from his device. I believe they call that Menacing by Stalking in Ohio, but more on that later.
Somehow, I made the daily raping OK so I could keep everything “peaceful” and status quo in the environment. At least if I gave him the amount sex he wanted I could avoid being told I wasn’t good enough. It’s OK, I can take it, I have no worth. I can keep up the charade and bullshit lie that was now my life.
I also mentioned previously that Robert abused me financially. So basically, I was a hooker and he was my pimp. His “need” for sex 7 days a week, and some days more than once, was coupled with me only being “allowed” to have a joint checking account and a joint credit card. I couldn’t even walk into a bank without him.
All my money & paychecks went to the joint account while Robert had other accounts to do what he wished. Of course, he claimed full transparency with his personal accounts, but remember, this is also the guy who also claimed that someone must have climbed through my sunroof to steal my CDs from the 1990s. (Refer to previous blogs on Insulting Intelligence).
I digress. I couldn’t spend any of that money on things for myself, as Robert would tell me that I didn’t have it to spend and whatever it was that I wanted was not a budget-line item. The only way he supported me was if he somehow benefited from it, too.
I had to give up taking my kids on soccer tournament weekends because it wasn’t a budget line-item. When I told him that we needed to add it to the budget he would ask me “where are we going to get that money from?” Basically, you can’t get blood out of a turnip. We were the poorest rich people around. Well, if he wasn’t benefiting from it, anyway.
That made me so incredibly sad and depressed because that was such a fun thing to do with my kids. To this day, it hurts me so much to think that I didn’t fight for that special time with my children and somehow buried all of that so I didn’t have to think about it. I made up excuses why I couldn’t take them anymore.
So, just like everything else, I somehow had no voice and just didn’t go on these weekend getaways with my kids anymore. But now wait, if Robert was invited to go along with us, then we had the money – that would be considered a “vacation” and we had a budget line-item for that.
The very first time I actually spoke up and told Robert that I wanted to take my son to a tournament 2 hours away, he, of course, said the money wasn’t there. As I kept pushing, he said that we could use vacation money if he was also invited, BUT, the only way that we could ultimately go was if I would get my son out of the hotel room at some point so we could have sex and/or I could blow him.
Yep, those were the conditions, so I said OK. I encouraged my son to go swimming with his teammates one of the nights so I could pay my debt. I mean, I should be so grateful that Robert even allowed this trip to happen in the first place. After all, he was my pimp, my supplier of life, so I owed him mine.
I hated him so much, as I fell further and further from my true self. Hatred, anger, and rage were at the core of my being, which is the exact opposite of who I am. I only existed on the planet to fall in line with Robert’s rules and give him his narcissistic supply to keep him going, keep him pumped up.
Several times a week I would get a lecture about how I’m not satisfying him properly, so we started seeing a sex therapist, at his request. His hope was that I could learn how to desire him more during sex. He also was threatening to leave me if I wouldn’t have a threesome. He told me that he shouldn’t have to give up his desires because his partner wasn’t interested in the same things.
I began to believe I was deficient and needed to learn how to be a better partner. How was it that everyone else had this figured out and I was just so bad at it? If I could just desire sex 7 days a week too, maybe he would stop torturing me and telling me all the ways that I’m not good enough. But that wasn’t happening.
I realize now that I was terrorized, raped, and continually disrespected as a woman and a human being by the person who supposedly “loved” me, and I took it. I accepted it.
But how did I allow this to happen?
Sarah Saxby is a Holistic Nutrition Consultant, Transformation Coach, and blogger that uses Kabbalistic Astrology, Human Design, and intuitive guidance to lead her clients to finally live with clarity, fulfillment, and internal happiness. You can also find her at Strategies for Happiness where you can schedule an Astrological Alignment Reading or a free, 15-minute Discovery Call to discuss Nutrition and/or Transformational Coaching sessions.
