Even though my serial-rapist-ex-bf started stalking me a decade ago and stopped 6 years ago I only started talking to my therapist of 8 years about it last year. It's been a whirl-wind since!
I've worked through most of my guilt about him raping women (including 2 of my friends). Side note: the fact that I feel more guilt for dating a rapist than he does for raping is terrible!
BUT I've been avoiding physical intimacy with my husband for months now. He's been working on his own problems with ADD, but now that he's doing so much better I'm having a really hard time letting myself even enter opportunities for sex (IOW, I've been avoiding dates).
I know part of this is because my husband (due to his ADD) did a couple things that reminded me of my ex and I'm working to "un-over-couple" (as my therapist puts it) the two of them. But I'm also struggling to imagine having sex with ANYONE, so I think there's a part that's not related to him at all.
Every man seems "scary" to me now - do ALL of them have sexual thoughts about ALL the women they encounter? I keep thinking of the twisted things my ex would say, like, "If she didn't want me to imagine having sex with her she wouldn't have worn khakis" (because khakis are so close in color to Caucasian skin-tone). A part of me knows most men aren't as sick as my ex...but maybe there's still a part of me that believes him when he said, "All men think the way I do - I'm just one of the few honest enough to admit it." ?
I've worked through most of my guilt about him raping women (including 2 of my friends). Side note: the fact that I feel more guilt for dating a rapist than he does for raping is terrible!
BUT I've been avoiding physical intimacy with my husband for months now. He's been working on his own problems with ADD, but now that he's doing so much better I'm having a really hard time letting myself even enter opportunities for sex (IOW, I've been avoiding dates).
I know part of this is because my husband (due to his ADD) did a couple things that reminded me of my ex and I'm working to "un-over-couple" (as my therapist puts it) the two of them. But I'm also struggling to imagine having sex with ANYONE, so I think there's a part that's not related to him at all.
Every man seems "scary" to me now - do ALL of them have sexual thoughts about ALL the women they encounter? I keep thinking of the twisted things my ex would say, like, "If she didn't want me to imagine having sex with her she wouldn't have worn khakis" (because khakis are so close in color to Caucasian skin-tone). A part of me knows most men aren't as sick as my ex...but maybe there's still a part of me that believes him when he said, "All men think the way I do - I'm just one of the few honest enough to admit it." ?
