- When we hear stories about domestic abuse, they seem to always be stories of victory—of those who survived some abuse in their past. Why don’t we hear about it in the present tense? Why don’t we talk about it as an ongoing issue rather than a thing to be ‘left’ and ‘moved on’ from?
While I don't feel like it matters, I feel obligated to mention that the post has a Christian backbone while focusing on the personal,civil and legal sides of the quesion.
Every person deals with trauma in complex and intricate ways, and there is no true "right" or "wrong" when a person is in that much pain and faced with fields of choices which seem to vary only in intolerability, especially when the primary recipient of pain dealt as a consequence of any option is that person him- or herself. I am confident for every one, that the way in which they chose to respond to their trauma was the way that seemed best - as in, that the sum of its achievements was highest and the allotment of its achievements most desirable, when compared to its as-reasonable and as-possible peers of potential actions - to them at that time. No one deserves to feel their trauma is invalidated by the way which they chose to cope with it. Therapy is a good thing. __ Honestly, I am sad to say, this story reads to me like one vivid, specific portrait of a story so common it is the stereotype, which, at the end, I think the author is trying to get away from (but she doesn't seem to know/establish why) Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/removingthefigleaf/2016/08/i-let-my-husband-rape-me/#cs6wXlFHbp8cF1se.99 I feel this story feels probably much more revelatory to the author, and perhaps its intended audience, than it does to me(and I suspect, than it will to the audience here). Or am I jaded? I am sympathetic, and what she lived through and is living through is sad and awful, and she's right that this is a societal problem on many levels. I do not deny her trauma, nor wish to, nor dismiss it. However, there is nothing particularly new to me in this article. I confess, I spent a lot of time this past year reading about abusive relationships. Presented to a religious, sheltered group of readers, however - that reception is going to be a little different, I think. I bet on the site this was originally posted, it will serve its purpose.I can be the stereotypical survivor, tell you how I got away, how I’m making it on my own now, paid my house off, got my GED and am going to a real school, winning scholarships and awards, maintaining a 4.0 GPA, my kids are getting awards at their school—doing all the survivor things. I can put on my makeup and smile for the camera pretending everything is fine now, but the truth is it’s not because we live in a society that systemically values the traditional family unit over the safety and well-being of victims.
Her story is a perfect example of why the horrifyingly immoral way some Christian groups handle sexuality is worse than the sins they're supposedly protecting against. I do wonder about her descriptions of the legal side, though. I don't know what state she's in, but her descriptions of the legal process ring improbable to me. At the least, there's stuff she may not realize is going on that would make things less clear to an outside observer. I have a hard time believing, for example, that a charge of domestic violence wouldn't be admissible because it was "pre-divorce." Maybe this took place longer ago than it seemed, but having practiced family law in a southern state (including some rural counties therein), that's not how it works anymore.