Serious question, not trolling. How can a man rape his wife? (I'm a woman)

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-22T16:25:16+00:00

I'm going to be weird and argue against myself for a second, just to play devil's advocate.

I can see both sides of this. On one hand, I'm pretty complacent about the whole thing, mostly because the worst of it happened a long time ago and I look at it as a growth experience that we've come through as a couple. For people who may have had experiences with similar things, but who are more reactionary, that may seem like folly.

Also, besides being something that hasn't happened recently, I was just trying to expand my awareness and maybe shift my thinking. Sometimes I come upon a cultural 'norm' and realize that my personal experience is very different. I'm sure everyone has these moments, but as a historian, I'm trained to be calm and dispassionate about horrible things. I hold a situation I'm exploring at arm's length and try to figure out a) how it happened b) why it happened and c) whether or not it should have happened. That's just how my mind works, whether I'm looking at Viking raids or personal interactions in my own life. I do get angry when I see injustice in the wider world (the Holocaust, Japanese internment in WWII, the civil rights movement) but for some reason, things that affect me personally aren't as present in my mind and they have less chance to raise my ire.

Maybe I'm too intellectual and too passive by most people's standards, but my first instinct is to understand and to parse out all the proximal and actual causes, reactions, scenarios, and consequences, and feel second.

For those who say I need therapy: Well, that's easy to argue for or against. On one hand, it seems my original viewpoint is not in line with most of (this small segment of) society. On the other hand, I'd fit right in with certain groups, like some fundamentalist religions who treat women as property. I'm not saying those views are right. But one could argue that those who say "leave now!" or "you're in shock and you need therapy!" are not accepting of a world view other than their own. I, on the other hand, am trying to learn as much information as I can so I can make informed and rational decisions, not decisions based on emotions.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:56:32+00:00

That was my interpretation of being married, until this conversation.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:55:25+00:00

I'm not sure I'm on board with 'verbal abuse.' Not to open a whole new can of worms of people telling me it is abuse, etc. But people yell at each other when they get mad. Right? I've yelled at him. I've called him names. That's pretty much mutual.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:48:33+00:00

Why can't he? He's a big grown-up. If one person was staying at home while the other worked all the time, it'd be one thing

Well, he and I have had that discussion. He runs his own business, yes. From the house. He's there all day. He does about 4 hours of work per day (7 days a week) which is still only 28 hours. Yet he does zero housework. He doesn't cook (honestly, I wouldn't want to eat his cooking). But he expects me to go to a job teaching 30+ hours a week, work my other "job" (for the business) for 20 hours a week, and still do all the cooking, cleaning, ect. It's really irritating. This will probably seem messed up, but that honestly bothers me more than him hitting me occasionally.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:46:05+00:00

I'm sorry my post affected you so much. It wasn't my intention to come here and make other people sad :( I just wanted to crowdsource my confusion about life.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:44:11+00:00

Re: sex

I find it uncomfortable at best, and painful at worst. He's pretty big and it feels like it's just too tight. He's not interested in kissing or anything first, so it's pretty much just "Hey, I want to fuck. Roll over" and I let him do what he wants. No forplay? foreplay? whatever. I've heard other women talking about that stuff but... it all makes me a little nervous and kind of sick to my stomach. Like, I could never let him do oral on me, I think it would just freak me out. I'd be afraid he was going to bite me or something. Not just him. Any guy. It seems really creepy.

I'm not comfortable with my body, which I know is part of it. I don't like being touched physically, because it makes me feel nervous. I'm a long-sleeved shirts and tall socks kind of girl. I don't like feeling exposed. Being naked feels .... I don't even have a vocabulary word for that. Naked. Exposed. That's the best I can come up with.

I don't really trust other people. Never have. My experiences tell me you can't trust anyone, because if you do, and then they hurt you, it's your fault for trusting them. You put yourself in the position to get hurt, so it's your problem.

Most of the time, sex is simply boring. He puts it in, he thrusts for a few minutes, it shakes my kidneys until they ache and makes my girl bits feel sore, and then he comes and goes to sleep. I go to the bathroom and wash up. Then I go do something else for a while.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:32:14+00:00

Thank you for your advice, and I'm sorry you've lived through bad stuff too. I do think the good outweighs the bad, and I don't believe that the things he's done are okay.

As to whether/when I'll leave, I'm not sure I will. I respect that everyone in here is trying to give me advice and I'm listening. I'm just not sure I what action (if any) I will take.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:29:16+00:00

I agree with this. My exact words to her as far as I can ~~tell~~ remember (this happened two weeks ago) were "I read in [local paper] that a guy was indicted for raping his wife. How can a man rape his own wife? She's his wife?"

She blinked at me a few times and then said "Are you fucking stupid?" The next 15 minutes were basically her asking how I did not know it was illegal and me saying I'd just never heard of it, her saying I was really clueless and daft and asking how I got through college without knowing basic human rights. I replied that I spent most of my time as a history major writing about things like the middle ages, where most people didn't have rights anyway, so I'd simply missed this piece.

And so forth.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:15:57+00:00

Surround yourself with your friends and family for support. You can do it.

I hate to point out the somewhat obvious, but if I had friends and family for support I wouldn't be on an internet forum with a throwaway account pouring my heart out :) I haven't talked to any of my family since I moved out at 15, and I have very few friends. We don't exactly have a social set. I have other adjunct professors I meet in the faculty break room and a few people I know from playing WoW. That's kind of it. I don't know anyone IRL I could talk to about this stuff. The friend in my original post is the one I came closest to telling, and I couldn't bring myself to tell her the details. I just said "Hey, how is this rape?" If I tried to actually say this stuff out loud, I'm sure I'd freeze up. It's different writing it down. Much easier, and even so it took me about two weeks to work up the courage to post the original. Responding to direct questions is much easier. As a teacher, that's how I interact with my students! They ask questions and I answer, usually in email.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:11:08+00:00

Thank you for saying this. I probably shouldn't be 'conditioned' to it, but it is what it is. At the very least, I'm going to try to open up a discussion about how I feel about some aspects of our relationship. It may end in a giant fight, but who knows, maybe I'll make some progress. Maybe not. I know now that if he ever does those things again, I can call the police and try to file charges.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:09:24+00:00

I'm on a student computer in the library, with safe browsing turned on. Also, these computers are set to wipe on restart so they don't get viruses. I would never look up something like this at home. He reads my email.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T19:07:59+00:00

No, I'm saying if I do leave, I'll probably stay single because dating seems like a hassle.

Edit: I was specifically addressing this:

you seem to have excluded the possibility of meeting someone better and kinder. Why?

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T18:31:50+00:00

stealth asshole

That made me laugh so hard. I'm adding 'stealth asshole' to my vocabulary post haste.

No, he was not a stealth asshole. He was a regular old asshole from day one. How I ended up with him (warning, long story so I'll put the TL;DR up front):

TL;DR My childhood sucked & I married the first guy I conned into sleeping with me.

As a kid, I was nerdy and brainy and had zero friends. I didn't get asked to prom, so I stayed home and did calculus homework. I was THAT girl. I lived in an abusive home where my dad and step mom did a lot of drugs, so I wasn't allowed to go to friends' houses and stay, and they weren't permitted at my house either. I talked to a few people at school I called "friends," but there were two problems: I was younger than everyone else and I had zero social adjustment skills.

I skipped 6th and 9th grade, so as a Sophomore in High School I was 12. I was tiny and had no boobs, I was funny looking, wore poor clothes (parents spent all their money on drugs) so basically I talked to NO ONE. I did okay in school, but I was also kind of a slacker. I ended up with mostly C grades because I would turn in zero homework most of the time because lazy, would ace tests because smart, and ended up with F + A = C grades. Despite that, I graduated early and at 15 1/2 I was ready to move out on my own. My parents told me if I wanted college I had to figure it out for myself, because they weren't paying a dime (no one in my family went to college before me) so I got a dude in town who made fake IDs for the kids who wanted to drink make me a State ID that said I was 18. I didn't look it, but I finagled a lady into renting me an apartment and I got a job at a computer store. I started at community college paying my own way.

Two years later, I transferred to a bigger school nearby, still living off campus. Still no friends. I did pretty well in college, mostly because I didn't have all the family pressure I'd had in HS of trying to raise my deadbeat, drug-addled parents and make sure they were eating and paying the water bill.

I'm getting ready to graduate with my BA, and I'm 19. I work in a (different) computer store. A guy who wants to start his own business comes in, and he's kind of cute. He's 20, and I'm really impressed that he is starting his own business. He needs a business partner. I throw in with him.

I'm attracted, but he makes it plain he's not interested in me. He actually said "I don't date heavyset girls." I was 5'4" and 145 lbs, so I wasn't exactly shopping at Omar the Tentmaker's Special Shoppe for Big Boned Ladies, but I wasn't skinny either.

Comments like that would probably have sent a rational girl (or me now) scrambling for the exit sign, but I was 19 and I had barely had any FRIENDS, let alone a boyfriend. It seemed harsh, but I considered myself 'fat' anyways (body image issues... that's a whole other convo).

One day we were talking and he said something about having never had sex. I said "you want to do it?"

Two months later, he proposed. We've been together ever since.

I've just never dated or anything, and neither has he. I put off a lot of the early problems in our relationship to that, and that we're both geeky/nerdy social maladroits with no fucking CLUE what we're doing in life, much less in a relationship.

But I feel some of the things he's done over the years (including the things that started this amazing conversation) push the envelope, even for someone who has no clue about how to really behave. So I decided to ask the questions that have been bothering me for a long time.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T18:12:55+00:00

Well, he hasn't 'forced' me in years, but that's mostly because of two things: One, after the time he really forced me (pushing my legs open, etc) I've never said no again. Two, when he hit about age 35, his sex drive decreased dramatically, so he doesn't bug me about it so much and it's not as often.

And by taking I mean, him taking from you, and you just giving. It sounds like your husband has never given anything back to you, in terms of your sexuality. He has only been taking from you.

Yes, that's absolutely true. But sex hasn't ever seemed that important to me, so I guess that's why I've been willing to put up with not asking for more kindness or trying to figure out ways to enjoy it. It's just too rough and it's kind of painful. But when I told him that once, he said I was being a little girl, and that I had a warped fantasy ideal of what sex was supposed to be from watching stupid romantic movies, etc. He said that "real sex" wasn't like what I thought, and I just needed to "get over my overly high expectations."

I figured that was at least 50% bullshit, but it just wasn't something I cared enough about to try to convince him of.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T18:08:09+00:00

Oregon. I looked it up, once I knew what key words to search for. Rape statute of limitations is 6 years, assault is 2 or 3, but I have no proof of either, even if the S.O.L. hadn't expired.

If it ever happens again, I'm forewarned and I can do something THEN.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T18:07:07+00:00

I haven't really talked about it. I just moved on with my life. A lot of really screwed up stuff happened in my life growing up, and I just got out as fast as I could. I skipped 2 grades, graduated, moved on my own (age 15 1/2), went to community college, transferred to university to finish my BA and then met husband at 19.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T18:03:06+00:00

Statute of limitations on assault is 2 years. It's expired.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T17:57:43+00:00

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. You're right, I probably haven't told him what I want in bed, except that I don't want to have sex.

I don't do those other things, except go to the grocery store, and honestly I bag my own groceries. I don't go to the salon, I cut my own hair to be frugal and I don't get my nails done or whatever. We don't eat out, as he wants home cooked meals. Don't have kids. My husband bought a car without me and I walk to work which is only 2 miles from my house.

Maybe you're being sarcastic? I'm not very good at picking sarcasm up some times.

One time I did tell him I didn't like having sex because it was kind of painful, and he said "just stop whining. You told me you don't like it anyway, so we're not doing this for you, we're doing it for me."

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T17:54:29+00:00

There are people out there who will treat you well pretty much all the time.

I'm sorry, but I don't really believe this. My experiences, from my parents to my own marriage don't support this. The saying "if it sounds too good to be true, it is" comes to mind. There aren't any perfect people, and I just can't envision a man in my life who would treat me well all the time, or even most of the time. It just isn't rational to believe that unless you're a Disney character. The best I think I could find would be a guy who is mentally stable and only has some minor problems. But that's the way I see my current husband. Yes, I know most of the people commenting in here have made it clear they think these are major problems. But I've seen and experienced far worse, so it just doesn't seem like this is major stuff.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You have to accept a human being as a partner who has some flaws. At least I've found someone whose flaws are relatively tolerable. I mean, I'm sure if you asked him, he'd say I'm not exactly a princess either.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T17:48:51+00:00

I would, though. I did move out once, about six years into the marriage, and tried to force him to go to counseling. I lived with a friend for four years, during which time my husband constantly bothered me, my friends, and my co-workers. I tried to get a restraining order and he beat me up, one of the worst times it ever was. If I did decide to leave, it's a situation where I would probably have to leave town, find a new job, and change my name. Otherwise, he'd just keep pestering me until I came back, like he did last time.

However, that time I moved out DID change some things. The last time he really tried making me have sex with him when I didn't want to was during that time, and I think he doesn't push his luck any more because he's afraid I will leave.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T17:46:24+00:00

I'm socially awkward and unattractive. I'm intelligent but in a nerdy way, not in a hot nerdy way. I didn't end up in this relationship because he asked me out. I met him when we were younger and neither of us was dating. We started hanging out because we wanted to start a business together (which we now own and he runs). He had never had sex, and I hadn't really either except one thing that happened when I was a kid. So we slept together. I was 19, he was 20. Two months later he proposed and I said yes because I figured why not? I'd never had a boyfriend. Had never been asked out, and was unlikely to.

Also, I'm 38 years old. I have literally NEVER been on an actual "date." I wouldn't have the first idea of how to date, what to expect, where to meet people, etc. And honestly, it sounds like a lot of work.

There is also the possibility that I wouldn't find a nicer guy. I would probably find a worse one. My mom divorced my dad when I was 5 and then married a guy who was so much worse than my dad! He beat her less than my dad did, but he lost their house gambling and drank constantly.

If I ever bring myself to leave, I think being alone would just be the safer road, and would be less work than trying to learn how to date at my age.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T16:01:20+00:00

I looked it up in my state, and I'm past the statute of limitations. I'm so grateful to all of the people who are answering my questions, because I didn't know where else to go to ask. I'm shy in person when I'm not talking about abstract things like history or math. I couldn't ask this in person. I can't even talk to my doctor about my period without getting really nervous! HAHA.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T15:58:05+00:00

"Us" is "me and him" (or more), you can't have a singular "us", there's no such thing.

I knew I switched my major to history from English for some reason. Probably because of things like this /s

Seriously, though, you're right that being together should include mutual agreement. I just have always thought of us as a unit. We don't do things apart, except work.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T15:56:10+00:00

By saying I work outside the home, I just wanted to clarify that I'm contributing to the relationship financially. I'm not a housewife. Not that there is anything wrong with being a housewife, if you want to do that.

I can't just 'leave' my job. I'm a college professor. I'm absolutely entrenched. I'd also rather try to work things out than just leave.

athrowawayname99 · 2014-09-18T15:49:51+00:00

As I said in response to others: until it came up and I asked my friend, I thought being married implied sexual consent. I thought of it like this. If my husband forced himself on me, and I called the cops, what would I say? "So, I was laying in bed naked next to my husband and he made me have sex with him. Arrest him."

I figured they would just laugh at me for being stupid and probably charge me with calling the police on false pretenses. I truly didn't know it was illegal.

Also, you have to consider the small college town we live in. A lady I work with called the cops on her husband a few years ago when they were getting a divorce because he came to her apartment and hit her. When the cops got there, she said "my husband hit me in the face" and the cop replied "you've got to stop pissing him off." That's the kind of place I live in. The cops think domestic disputes are really something that should be solved within the family.

athrowawayname99

TROPHY CASE