'I was sexually assaulted by my husband for years.'

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Sexual consent in marriage or a relationship takes on a very grey hue compared to the traditional views of sexual assault. Incredibly, researchers estimate that 10 to 14 percent of married or formerly married women have experienced at least one forced sexual assault in marriage by a husband or ex, according to the National Online Research Center on Violence Against Women.

Walking down the aisle does not give your husband blanket consent to have sex with you at any time. No still means no.

Sexual experiences should be enjoyable for both parties. That’s the whole point, right? (Well with the obvious exception of procreation.) Marriage starts out (usually) because you love each other.

Sexual intimacy takes things to another level. But what happens when one partner isn’t in the mood?

In any long-term relationship, there will be times when one partner wants sex and the other doesn’t. It’s part of the natural rhythm of life. A loving relationship has something called sexual communal strength, which is each person’s motivation to meet their partner’s sexual needs. Sometimes, the person who isn’t in the mood delights in seeing their partner happy by meeting their needs, so they oblige because they too gain pleasure. This is still a mutually beneficial situation.

Unfortunately, sometimes this can turn negative. When coercion is involved or when a person ignores their own needs, we enter the territory of unmitigated communion. Those mutual benefits are missing. As you can imagine, this can lead down a slippery slope of dissatisfaction, resentment, and negativity. (And yes, marital rape.)

Sexual coercion is defined as unwanted sexual activity that happens when you are pressured, tricked, threatened, or forced in a non-physical way.

That means that using guilt, continually asking after being told no, yelling, calling names, and threatening to withhold something else from you if you don’t submit are all acts of non-consensual sex and toe (and often cross) the line of rape. Yes, even in marriage.

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Sexual assault in marriage: Forced consent via coercion is not consent.

Lack of consent, while you are sleeping or drunk, is not consent either.

Legitimate consent is the presence of an enthusiastic “yes” (verbal or non-verbal) void of manipulation, threats, or head games, not just the absence of a “no”.

My story

After the drinking began, this part of our relationship began to go downhill. I disliked being close to him more and more. His actions annoyed me, his breath disgusted me, and his constant hounding made even the idea of sex less desirable.

I would say no. I would say I was too tired. I would use the kids as an excuse, anything to avoid a fight or him getting angry.

At first, I wanted to protect his feelings. I would oblige as often as I could bear, but I would spend the entire time just hoping and praying one of the kids would start to cry. Often they did and I was saved.

Over the years it got worse. Every pop of a beer can, every drunken sway was another nail in the coffin our relationship in general, never mind in the bedroom.

But he never saw that. He saw a spiteful, cold woman who didn’t desire him.

I saw in him a selfish, addicted man who put himself before all others.

I would give in to avoid the badgering and fighting. It was often easier to submit and just get it over with.

I would shudder at his touch at least half the time. I can’t say I never got any enjoyment out of it, of course. There were some decent times over the years but it got harder as time went on. I couldn’t always escape in my mind enough to give in to the moment. I would imagine I was with other men. A few of my favourite TV characters got me through the nights over the years.

Sometimes he’d notice and give up. Sometimes he didn’t care.

Was that really consent?

Was saying “no” the first five times in an evening but eventually giving in consent? Was saying “fine” or “I guess” truly consent? What about saying nothing? What about drawing back when he touched me?

Was this really enjoyable for him? How could a man who insisted he loved me treat me in this way and be perfectly OK with it?

Sexual assault in marriage

It’s absolutely mind-blowing that 10 to 14 percent of women who are or have been married have been assaulted by their partner, don’t you think?

Why might it be this way, you wonder? For starters, marital rape wasn’t even a crime in all 50 states until 1993. That means that until then, women were still treated more like property than free citizens. In the United States. In a lot of our lifetimes, or at least our parents’.

And still it continues, not just in gen X or Y, but millennials too, even though we grew up in a changing world that appeared to set women free.

There is something fundamentally wrong, in my opinion, with a culture that essentially allows this to go on still. How is it OK to coerce someone into the most intimate act between two people? And even more disturbing is: why would someone want to have sex with an unwilling “partner”?

I’ve heard stories from many women in my single mums’ community of sexual manipulation and coercion.

“With my ex, no wasn’t an option he accepted often. Woke up to him on top of me more times than I can count.”

“I was guilted all the time and made to do things I wasn’t comfortable with because I didn’t want him going somewhere else to get his needs met. He did anyway though.”

“You can’t deny me the right…”

“If you don’t, I will…”

“Since I have to beg for sex you’ll see how it feels to beg for something that you need.”

“If you won’t have sex with me, I’ll find someone who will.”

The back rubs that could never just be.

The constant insistence where you just finally give in to make it all stop.

The connection between vaginismus and sexual assault we need to talk about. Post continues below...

Drawing the line

I recall the day I told him NO, forcefully, and with confidence.

And I told him I wasn’t doing it anymore. At all. Maybe ever.

We’d been trying to save our marriage. He’d gotten sober to appease me once he realised I had one foot out the door, but none of it felt genuine or real. (And it wasn’t, as he has told me since then.)

I did it unwillingly for years and years and completely disrespected myself in the process.

I had a lot to think about and I didn’t need to be doing something I was regularly coerced into overshadowing it all.

You see, I still wondered if it was my fault. If there was something I had to change inside me…could change inside me…that would make me want him and love him again.

Months later he tried to make things better by sending me several links to articles that tried to imply what a horrible human I was for not having sex. They included such gems as “letting Satan into our relationship” and that “God was crying” over it. (His addiction had nothing to do with any of this, of course.) He made it clear that he was unwilling to let me try to heal at my own pace, and that he was seeing my harnessing of my power as a betrayal to him rather than something I owed myself.

I had always thought that his nastiness over sex was more related to his drunkenness but it wasn’t — he actually meant it. No matter how much I tried to get past the barrier and negative association I had with him and sex it was all about his comfort and not mine in the end.

He couldn’t accept that when I set a boundary of no sex while I sorted out the future of our marriage that it was his fault. He tried to use guilt, religion, obligation, anger, and more to make me change my mind.

In the end, the only way for me to break my chains was to set myself free.

If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.

This post originally appeared on Divorced Moms and was republished here with full permission.