When Abuse Comes in Between the Sheets of a Relationships

Journeying deep into despairing memories can be so confusing. It is only months later things become clear and then unclear again. What happened? What do you call that?

I know that this must have happened in a similar way for many others but I can only express my experience of it and express it poorly at best. I feel I could explain a hundred times and never get it right. If this comes across as too personal rather than a normal article on the subject I make no apologies. I have never been able really to express this so I may as well try here and hope that it gives some peace to others too.

I am talking about sexual abuse, rape, abusive relationships and sexual misconduct within relationships.

It could range from feeling the pressure to perform certain acts or something more forceful.

Within a relationship, there are only two people in the whole world who know what is going on, the people within it. And so every sexual partnership has its own unique boundaries and peculiarities. Considering this, it is very difficult sometimes to determine when abuse is taking place in certain circumstances. In the dark of the night and in between the sheets in times of great intimacy certain things can take place that sometimes take things to a black space a space perhaps with no name, a partner feels reluctant it rape and equally wrong calling it consensual. There is the added hurt of this being committed by someone who is supposed to love you. There are many kinds of love. Each individual has their own kind I think and everyone has learnt to love in their own way. They love, as they know how to love. If this has been expressed to them in a dark way then this is what they know perhaps. This is what they know love or sex to be, dark or aggressive or forceful.

Within an intimate relationship they can fool themselves into believing sometimes that such behaviour is just a part of this relationship. Today sexual freedom is thankfully the norm is most countries and within most relationships, but it is often used to excuse behaviour that actually violates some ones sexuality.

I will go through my own experience. I met this person through my profession. It was an unusual first meeting, in that I never actually saw him. We were both in the same organization and so we would later see each other everyday. It was my first day, he was more senior, I was walking down a stairs and I heard a voice talking to me from behind. It was male and he was asking me how I was finding it there. I kept trying to look behind but as it was a winding stairs I could never lay eyes on him. He excused himself saying he was late for something and rushed out a nearby door and still I had not seen him. And I don’t know why but I asked myself standing there at that moment ‘ I wonder if I will have a relationship with him ‘. I had no idea who he was or what he looked like. I don’t know what made me feel this way it was as if I knew whatever happened something was going to happen I don’t know why.