Am also not ready for a conversation around this subject. But I found myself talking about it some months ago at the Holistic Healing Well event, yet again it scares me.
It mostly scares victims of this kind of rape to share of it because marital and rape can’t marry in the eyes of the world.
And so it’s a fallacy, its nonsense, it’s not true, it’s actually unthought of. A husband can’t rape a wife and vice versa. No, never, si they belong to each other and their bodies are for each other. Yes for each other. His and hers.
I think the police won’t hear of it, lemmie not pass a judgment early. I don’t know what the police would think of it.
In October 2021, when I had to report a matter to the police in order to acquire a restraining order after things happened and even crawled into the company I was working with … a female police officer asked me to give proof of domestic abuse. How do you give proof to a fellow woman that you’ve been abused!
Last year a pastor I still love asked me to explain how I was abused or rather why I feel I was abused. These are all good statements until the tables turn, you’re the one being asked to justify your truth, let’s use the word claim.
How would you respond?
Your truth is their claim. Different experiences have made me extremely gracious with anyone who minimizes domestic abuse, most of us do not understand abuse and it’s OK. There’s time.
Onto the subject - marital rape
Even marital rape can remain a claim to the most educated, a good age and even to the most exposed women and men. And it’s OK. Any form of abuse is like an illness you read about and watch on television until it opens the doors of your home. And you have no option but to feel it and call it by name.
I think I still feel edgy writing about marital rape, so lemmie just scratch.
The pains that come from marital rape
In the event that, marital rape happens and a baby is conceived, that woman is left with wounds to deal with. And because these wounds are not real wounds to her surroundings … she’ll brood over them, but then she’ll burst in the ugliest of ways later.
But are we ready for conversations around this matter?
She will deal with the pain of forced intercourse
The pain of carrying unplanned pregnancy
The pain of struggling to accept that child
The pain of seeing her husband like her real husband and not a rapist
The pain of receiving congratulations with a smile
The pain of dressing in a maternity dress and telling the world I am pregnant.
The pain of the mother going through seasons of feeling insane, numb then again, disconnecting from the pregnancy yet again it’s a reality because the child is going to pass through her!
Learning to love your child born out of marital rape
And the pain of separating the child from the ordeal, loving that child separately without sprinkles of hate, regret and rejection because of the rape!
Or having to go through a transformational journey of turning rejection towards the child to torrents of healthy love.
Then the mother has to forgive herself for letting her husband ravage her. Accessing her without her consent … him grabbing her powers, and invalidating her. He silences her, objectifying her, and without words he communicates to her that “You have no right to say no to anything!”
Then she has to deal with FORGIVING her husband and finally refer to the child birthed as “Our Child.”
And maybe she had to carry that pregnancy to be “accepted” in the marriage because she came in with a child birthed out of wedlock. Her log in details were … conceive to sign up for the marriage journey ahead, you can’t say no to anything even this one.
What makes you think it's a them vs us situation?
Far be it from us that Christians – believers go through marital rape. No, not us, body of Christ, mmmmh NO. We can’t even think of it, leave alone discussing it.
Our husbands and wives are so wholesome. Wholesome we say!
I write on behalf of the women who went through, are going through marital rape each night.
Sometimes in the watch of their very young babies, sometimes in the watch of their silent walls and ceilings. The walls and the ceilings have witnessed them weep countless times, they have watched them sigh heavily and stare into space after each ordeal.
As the man feels powerful, flexing his muscles and thundering mean expressions across the room, the woman is so drenched in self hate, agony, feeling so unworthy. Unworthy of honor, admiration and consent.
Most Christian women stay silent
And most christian women do go through this ordeal. Since it’s a taboo to say in a church setting, they die each day protecting their marriages. They pour their hearts on the altars and go home to take up routine praying for better.
Most women who are being abused in this manner may be financially incapacitated and so they stay in this carnival of misery just hoping that things get better.
They enjoy the shelter and cover of a husband, their children have a good father who’s providing, but the woman pays for it in the cruelest of ways.
Most abusive husbands would ravage them, splatter on their faces how stuck and useless they are that the only thing they have is what they’re abusing, having their way and dishonoring it.
Similar to any other sexual abuse, marital rape have such gross effects on the woman.
She will feel powerless.
No control over her own body.
She’ll feel worthless and confused.
She’ll have low self esteem.
Sex is meant to be pleasurable
Good and bad can’t happen at the same place. Sex wasn’t created to cause pain or to bring dishonor and shame.
She’ll grow to resent the man, with time it will culminate in something more dangerous.
It’s a burden. It’s a vice. It’s a sin, a hidden sin beautified by religion for those in church. Your body is mine, and they add onto it – I can do whatever I want with it and in whatever way and at whatever time!
It is marital rape.
Most women who’ve gone through domestic abuse have gone through marital rape. An adult man who raises their fist on a woman seizes her power, and when they’re powerless they won’t pull their legs together and say “Not today sir!”
Their willpower, their core, their dignity has been grieved and crushed and they will take ages to love themselves and love others healthily should they manage to free themselves from the bondage.