Dear Lindsey:

You wrote earlier about M, “I.. allowed M. to do whatever to me because a part of me was not even there” and “I do not have the ability to walk away or tell a man to stop these behaviors. It’s like my brain turns off”, and “My brain goes into tunnel vision of seeing the relationship through to the end and not stopping it when things are not right”.

Your brain functions well in the present in some contexts, work for one. You are able to remain employed and you are able to take care of your children much of the time, to live independently in your own apartment. But currently and for some time, it hasn’t function well in the context of relationships with men, particularly your soon-to-be ex husband and with M. To function well in a relationship with a man, you have to be there, but part of you hasn’t been there, cut off, disassociated.

For your brain to function well in the context of a relationship with a man, you have to be able to walk away from abuse, to assert yourself, two things you weren’t able to do. Your brain has to be turned on, not off and your vision needs to be wider than a narrow tunnel vision.

All this means that at this time and for a while, you need to stay away from relationships with men. Resume the aim of a relationship when your brain functions well enough in that context, when it is on, when your vision is wider, when you are able to assert yourself and walk away from abuse.

Resume the aim of having a relationship with a man when you know that you will no longer beg (“I was begging (M) not to end it”) and when you are able to get to know a man without sex for a couple of months at least, before considering sex. You have to talk with a man you meet in a public place, such as a coffee shop, ten times at least, in ten different days, before being alone with him.

A part of you has to protect the part  of you that can’t take care of yourself in this context. Not all of you is out of control, is my point. Operate from the part of you that has control. This part does exist!

You shared that with your soon to be ex husband, you had a bad relationship that turned worse, “about 2 years of the coercion sex” before no sex of the last 1.5 years of cohabitating (before you  moved out this April). During the worst part of this marriage, “There was an agreement to meet his needs once a week”. If you didn’t, “there was lots of yelling”. If you did, “his mood was improved and I got a break from the verbal abuse”. You felt like a prostitute, “would cry during and after” and “hated myself after”.

What took place there was sexual servitude/ slavery. How dare he? It enrages me!

Tell me, Lindsey, how does it feel when you see him, are you angry at him? And how did that sexual slavery stop in the last 1.5 years of living with him, did he have mercy for his slave and stopped enslaving you?

anita