My husband and I need help. We are trying to save our marriage. We both Want to be happy again together, but don't know how to get there.

6 years ago, I was deployed and was raped. I didn't handle it well at all, choosing to keep it to myself instead of talking about it or reporting it, believing it was something I could handle on my own and the fear of what would happen (psychologically and emotionally) if I did start talking about what happened to me. Within a few weeks I was drowning and out of control. My husband was 8000 miles away and communication was almost non-existant. The nightmares and feeling his hands on me and hearing his voice were driving me crazy and when someone propositioned me one day, I thought 'maybe this will erase it'. Within moments I knew I was wrong but was unable/unwilling to stop it ... fear of what would happen if I chanel my mind /being raped again... fear that I would stop it and it would have worked. .. all kinds of things. It was kind of my wake up call that I was acting completely out of character and if I didn't get ahold of myself, i would go crazy, end up dead or a shell of myself.

So i locked everything away in a box in my head and didn't deal with it. It ate a way at me and changed me- destroyed our sex life, I can see that now. I hid it from/lied to my husband about it until august of this year. Understandably he was devastated not only that something like that had happened to me, but that I felt I couldn't talk to him about it. .. and then on top of that i made bad choices and then chose to lie for 5.5 years.

But I didn't even say out loud that I was raped until February of this year... I felt like I couldn't talk about it- he says I chose not to and there is no way I could have loved him when I made those choices.

He loves me, says he always will, but that isn't enough for either of us. We don't want to 'survive' this, we want to be us again. He says he will never see me and not see this, I don't know how he can finally be able to jot see me as a monster, but someone who made bad choices (yes choices, I know I am responsible for the decisions I made after I was raped) when I was trying to survive on my own with ptsd from being raped. I love him more than anything in this world and I always have. I don't want to lose him and us- the good times and even the bad times are worth anything to me and I'm doing the best I can. We just need some direction...we don't fit strictly in the 'couples dealing with rape' category.. or the 'couples dealing with infidelity' category either.... we can't do this on our own and don't know where to turn.

Help, please.

Welcome to MB.

Do i understand correctly that there was the rape 6 years ago, and a consensual event after that? When was that? Does your husband know about both those events?

Was the rapist known to you? Was he also in the military?

What was your connection to the second man? Was he in the military? Have you ever seen him again?

Why haven't you reported the rape? Do you have any plans to do so now?

Are you still in the military? Are you and your husband living together (when you are not deployed?)

Your husband will certainly be able to see you and not "this" when he agrees to follow the program you find here. It will take time and dedication though. You must realize that this is new to him and it will affect his emotions in a major way.
You may want to contact Dr. Harley and ask to be on the radio show for some personal advice.

Hi Kitkat, welcome to Marriage Builders. Yes, your marriage can recover but your explanations don't ring true. Marital recovery must be based on the truth, not lies. I would imagine that is where your H gets hung up. He cannot ever trust you again if he doesn't have the full truth. Your rationalizations for having sex are just excuses that should scare anyone. There is no excuse for your choice. If you can't take accountability for your choices, then your husband is not safe because it will happen again.

If you can get honest, there is hope. If there are other affairs you need to get honest and perhaps even offer to take a polygraph. It is pretty obvious that the condition that led to your affair is being apart overnight. Has that condition changed?

Here is what it will take to affair proof your marriage:

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

You chose to have an affair, period. You are a big gurl and need to put on your big gurl panties. If you had an affair because you were "afraid" in the past, then you can have another affair for the same reason because you are "afraid." Women CAN be accountable and this is a case where you need to step up and take accountability.

Saying you have affairs because you are "afraid" doesn't cut it.

Do i understand correctly that there was the rape 6 years ago, and a consensual event after that? When was that? Does your husband know about both those events? Yes, a few weeks after the rape and yes, he is aware of both. That choice is the hard part for him. And lying about all of it for so long.

Was the rapist known to you? Was he also in the military? Yes and yes.

What was your connection to the second man? Was he in the military? Have you ever seen him again? He was someone in the unit. Worked in the same building and haven't seen him since the end of the deployment.

Why haven't you reported the rape? Do you have any plans to do so now? It was in 2008 and I had seen what the other females who had been raped had been put through, and I refuse to live it. It has been a restricted report, but that is basically just for files. I did that after I told my husband.

Are you still in the military? Are you and your husband living together? Yes I am and yes we are.

I understand your point of view. The only reason I am saying it is different at all is because there were other reasons instead of me looking for another relationship, or not loving my husband anymore or wanting someone else or being sexual attracted to someone else.

Never in my post did I say I didn't take responsibility. I said yes. I chose to do this. All I am saying is to bear in mind that it was a few weeks after being raped and I was extremely traumatized. And yes, going through that at home with a support system and being 8000 miles away from everyone you loved including your husband makes it more difficult.

I'm not here to justify what I did or how I handled it, I'm just asking for some help in us getting through with and being married 50 years from now.

And melodylane, have you ever been raped? Please don't judge me for how I handled it, especially if you haven't ever lived it.

KitKat,

Does you H blame you for being flirtatious perhaps believing that is what got you into trouble.

What many feel is that it's the lies which hurt even more than the infidelity. And a lie maintained over a number of years makes those years wasted.

Did your H serve the rapist with a fractured skull or confront him?

God Bless
Gamma

KitKat,

Do either the rapist or the OM have wives who need to be informed. Also inform the IG and your congress persons.

Post their information to www.cheaterville.com.

God Bless
Gamma

Purchase His Needs Her Needs and read it together.
Purchase work book to use together
Purchase Lovebusters.

Listen to Dr Harley's MB Radio everyday and best together.
Call Dr Harely on MB radio.

Sign up for the accountability program.

Make sure you are spending 20 hours together each week meeting one another's needs for affection, Conversation, Sexual Fulfillment, and Recreational Companionship.

This list may seem ordinary given your circumstances, but really the affect can be extraordinary. This truly is powerful medicine.

KitKat,

One more thing thank you for serving, you really have to push on getting them thrown out of the military. It is completely unacceptable that soldiers are brutalized by their own side.

God Bless
Gamma

WE know the reason. It is because you have poor boundaries around men. Most people don't go looking for affairs.


Saying you take responsibility AFTER you blame the rape is not taking responsibility. You CHOSE to have an affair with someone and did so because you have poor boundaries. You don't need to concoct unworkable explanations like you did here.


And here we go again....


Then stop justifying it. We will be glad to help you, but the buck stops with the big gurl in the mirror.

Yes, I have been raped. And no one judged you for how you handled it. We are judging you for HAVING AN AFFAIR and using your rape as an excuse. I don't make excuses and we won't accept them from you.

Stop with the excuses. Your husband is not safe from you until you take accountability for your CHOICE to have an affair. Like I said before, women CAN be accountable.

Hold on.
His Needs, Her Needs is not for this case.
In the case of adultery, the book Surviving an Affair should be read and followed.
Dr. Harley wrote Surviving an Affair to rebuild marriages following an affair.
His Needs, Her Needs was written to couples not recovering from an affair.