Lauren, **caution this could contain triggers**
While I cant advise you exactly what to do I can share some recent experience/s that are eerily close to what you described.
My husband is a sex addict. Years of lies and finding porn, being tested for HIV because he had been with prostitutes etc... has led to a very bumpy road for the past 3 yrs. His disclosure of one incidence of SA came early in our realtionship, and I am also a survivor of many years of SA and all the bullshit that comes with it, (i'm shaking as i type this) -
About 3 yrs ago I got sent on a doc ordered vacation, do it or die -- our home life was a complete fiasco one bullshit thing after another. AND our youngest daughter was a "route" in which my husband was "acting out" - he was buddying up so much with her and her friends I was so pissed telling him he could not be "twenty something again" and it was inappropriate as hell for him to be going to rock concerts etc with her, he was her FATHER not her FRIEND and the porn never stopped. He would stand in the kitchen of our home with these bunches of kids , and they WERE kids to me because they had been my daughters friends for years and pretty much being the only "stay at home mom" I quickly became and maintained being the "koolaide mom" for years.
As the kids matured I pretty much accepted the dirty jokes on occassion from them, I accepted the band practices in our attic several times a week.
They all graduated high school and it was as if I had 10 kids graduating at once not just my youngest one. We even ended up with one of the foreign exchange students when her "host family" divorced.
I would catch husband leering at these girls and would confront him, in privacy as gentle as I could. It grew to screaming matches at times tho --and I can tell you I can scream like a fucking wild pinned dog in a trap. I tried ultiimatums, I tried understanding and letting him have "some porn" -- his buddies at work seemed to be the worst tho. It grew to hidden email accounts, and me tossing the house & garage almost daily at times to "find" that "thing" he wouldnt tell me about.
He just would not or could not understand that it was NOT acceptable to let other kids have alcohol in our home. I begged pushed throttled, threatened, you name it I did it to attempt to get him into therapy for our marriage.
I finally blew a final gasket for MYSELF when my daughter called me a "ho" while I was on the phone with a fellow cardiac rehabber (he was male). I never knew I could crack so fast and so hard -- called husband at work ( it was a golden rule to never call him at work and I had adhered to that even BEFORE the military life crammed it down our throats) -- I cried and told him that was it, I was packing and he was to bring money home I couldnt stand by and watch any more and they were not worth dying for like that.
I was gone traveling by myself the entire eastern half of the United States, no plans no routes no nothing other than a promise to call every 3rd day, if he didnt hear from me on the 3rd day he was allowed to call the cops to find me. -- I had packed a rope in the trunk as I was truly intending on hanging myself from a mountain look out on the PA turnpike -- it was fall and I knew I could do it looking at the carpet of colors God had spread before me.
I drove all night and when the next morning came and I crested the top of a mountain and saw the beauty stretched before me -- I sucked in a breath so deep and let it out -- I actually felt muscles release that I had not realized I had been holding so tight for so long -- it was no wonder Doc told me I was dying, I was so filled with the tensions of life I litterally was strangling myself to death, like a boa constrictor squeezing the life out of me.
I ended up doing things at MY pace, going where I wanted to go, -- side roads, citys, winding hills , around and around trapped in Washington DC traffic for 4 hours trying to get to one exit, and didnt even care --- I deep sea fished, swam in streams, slept in truck stop parking lots, visited his sisters and played with my nephews -- Met up with other "heart members" and ended up in Texas with his baby sister for the longest of the trip. Oh I'd call -- but never did he ask when I was coming home or if I was coming home, and that is the one thing I really felt he needed to do.
After several weeks in Texas I began asking him when he was ready for me to come home, -- he would only reply "when you feel ready to come home"... I think I was gone about 7 weeks total and finally decided it was the right time to travel back up north and take the "long way" going to places and seeing sights along the way that I will never forget how good it felt with the sun shining on all of those carpets of colors, the coolness of standing in groves of trees and just breathing ---- And then I hit the border line of our state, I noted a car began following me for some time. I knew that area well and began doing some looped de loops, and yet it still followed. Not close, but enough that I recognized it was an under cover cop -- not one I had worked with before, but one none the same. I set aside my worries just figuring that they were just watching out for me as I had a list of some pretty mean drug dealers who would have been just as happy to take me out as to see me live.
My god that trip -- I had lost weight, my blood sugars were back under control again, more importantly my blood pressure and heart rate. I had been home about a week and went to a function where my little bunch of co horts who were crime fighters were celebrating, none knew that I had returned -- and it took over an hour and something for them to recognize me, My first pal who I worked the closest with kept looking across the room at me with a quized look on her face -- I finally walked up to her and said "Gee Gurl, ya dont even know who I am any more?" -- She just about fell to the floor, could not believe the change in me, and I didnt and couldnt really believe it other than from others responses -- but it did verify for me that I had definetly needed what had been ordered and felt a new lease on life.
I had thought it strange that none of the undercovers had called, that was usually first protocol -- I thought it even more strange that when I did return to the house that first evening neither my husband was waiting for me nor my daughter. Two weeks had finally gone by and he took me to dinner , dancing and hanging out with our favorite musicians and then as we began to share my adventures and what I had seen and what I had done.... I told him of one night of going out with my best GF from the military yrs and how it was early in the vacation and how we traveled -- for a whole day stopping in every little town every ten miles along this road and would drink, by 3 Am I had been in two fist fights with grown men twice my husbands size, and was about 300 bucks lower from the amount of alcohol I had put in my system. I wasnt too terribly proud of that day/ night (by the way the Red Wings Won I remember that much after the Iowa/ Michigan game
) -- He said to me very quietly, "Something bad happened while you were gone" ... Ok? What I asked, how bad could it be? -- I had beaten the shit out of some poor unsuspecting guy who thought it appropriate to make a sexual comment to me --
"Sam, I am being charged with Rape" ----
My stomach flopped like never before, dinner, dancing all wanted to lurch up into my throat as my brain was freezing in time. I stood up took him to the dance floor and got close in his ear, and said to him "we are leaving quietly we are walking out and we are going home, you WILL be answering every fucking question I ask of you and there will BE NO LIES, I dont need to remind you of WHO I know in this town."
What followed was a tale of him attending yet another one of those drunken bon fires he had been attending with his work buddies -- and of a couple of young twenty somethings that worked there who were only too happy to drink beer with grown men who had wives and families to flash their tits at them.
He came home in a drunken stupor to our youngest daughter having her own damn party -- from the cupboards. They were "out of booze and could "daddy" go buy them some more. The kids (all 19 & 20) were more than happy to drive him and give him the money.... he said the last thing he remembered was polishing off a bottle of Jack Daniels at about 7 or 8 in AM. Then he awoke to one female on him, he shoved her off of him he didnt know how she had gotten on him or in his bed, .... and the police reports ALL corroborated that part.
After hours of asking questions of his behaviors I was wanting to puke so much but kept getting calmer and calmer -- I have no idea if or what I felt of anything, years of prostitutes, the book stores, phone sex lies lies lies and hiding constantly.
It came to light to me it was no wonder I had not heard from the undercovers -- my own fucking house was being watched and not one of those bastards who swore to keep me safe had the balls to tell me what had been going on under my own fucking roof.
I finished my laundry -- I had not unpacked everything yet, and repacked what little I had to and left -- not having any idea where or what I was going to do. I found myself some several hours later at a rest stop calling my best GF, but I couldnt talk to her -- I had to talk to her husband, it was so fucking hard. I didnt cry but felt as if I was cracked everywhere like a frozen egg , broken but still in the carton. Of course that is where I went.
I dont remember how long I stayed, I know that after I got there I was in some mode that was a survival mode, I called some of my long time co horts and had them assist me in getting emergency housing to come back to.
There had been a handfull of phone calls back and forth... short and some bitter, but the worst phone calls I had to make were to my daughters. I had to ask them if he had ever been sexually inappropriate with either of them. He returned a call to me screaming at the top of his lungs -- and as dead panned as I could I only responded with "It was the hardest question I have ever had to ask of anyone in my life, especially my own daughters and I would not be able to live with myself as a mother to them if I did not ask it." What he did not know is that each of them screamed back at me, how awful I was for asking such a question, hearing tears hundreds of miles away unable to hold them or ease their pain from my question.
I returned a week or so later, moved out as my youngest daughter was struggling and hiding like hell from me. But I wouldnt and couldnt let her -- I knew she felt responsible, my "other kids" took several weeks each to appear a little at a time to apologize and give regrets for their behaviors. I had to sit and try to melt into a brick wall at the police station that I had in past so often walked in and out of so freely laughing and feeling comforted safe. The media showed up, it frightened me so much -- but thank god it wasnt about "me" or our horrid "story", then my undercover pal thru the door, and in whispers I told him what a bastard he was to leave me out of the loop and how stupid I felt -- a man who I had survived a gun in my face for and a kid killed down my alley because he didnt move fast enough on my info for. Then the Mayor returning to his job as a cop thru the door -- and he swore he did not know, to this day I believe him only because he is the only "cop" who keeps in contact with me on a personal level -- a friend. I became ousted from what had been very intense relationships - not love relationships, LIFE relationships.
My daughters entered therapy, I ended up back in the hospital with further heart complications, and a lovely dose of an STD -- I went to court and stood with my so called husband, had my doctors write letters asking lienancy because of my health condition. No one at the court house could look me in the eye, I was now just another perps stupid spouse.
I stayed in therapy, and continue to -- my youngest daughter went away to another city to finish her college degree. My oldest has only returned to this area on 2 occassions this past year and only for a day or so at a time.
My spouse got "lucky" some how, I am sure because the judge saw me in the rows behind him, face mask on to protect me from others germs, and perhaps because the "girl" had run and not returned, his charges were lowered to a misdemeanor and he is still required to list as a sex offender for the next ten years. He placed himself into therapy, and into a sex addiction support group. His therapy and attendance at the meetings remain sporadic, and just yesterday he told me he definetly wants to divorce.
A short while after he had gone thru spending some evenings in jail -- he was given repreive to care for me during the day to keep his job also. And paying what I consider a very small fine and for the days / nights that he spent in jail --- he began to fall into severe depression. I stuck with him and he completely melted down with more information about yet a 2nd abuser of him as a small boy - when he found out that I had begun dating. I stopped the dating and began to earnestly try to support him, and I also found this web site. I scrambled like hell to understand how his sexual abuse could be so different from my own.
I cant exactly tell you those direct differences, other than I know for my husband it never stopped swirling in his head and it created a monster that he had to battle every moment of his life as I understand it. His sexuality was challenged, where as mine had not been -- I had grown to only know that men did things to girls and that girls/women were to perform for men what ever their wish. He has shared some of how he has tried to break the ending of his abuse in his fantasys, how he tries to not allow the acts committed against him to control what should have been pleasureable between us. Most times I understood far too well what was in his head, and now it plays out in my own mind -- as I see him with a knife at his 9 year old throat as an older boy rapes him repeatedly, kidnapping him from play groups by just flashing that knife -- and it is sad that now 18 years later I know WHY he has kept a very large knife in our head board. And I even know and understand most of the sex addiction. It breaks my heart to know that his dad saved him once during an act from an older child when he was so small, but no one could save him from the later attacks ---
He was harrassed at his job after his conviction and I called the sherriffs dept. asking what if anything could be done so he could just work in peace. The harrassment stopped, but I do believe that he did have to share with his immediate boss what was occuring.
What I didnt know was that while I was gone he had been spending sometime with a real asshole at work, who openly is a theif, a liar and each time he sees my husband holds nothing back calling him a "dumb ass".
And then one day that technicians phone began to ring about every 20 min. or so. He was so proud of having gotten custody of his children stating his wife was a fucking crazy bitch, it was not uncommon to hear this guy say to her" hey cunt bring me a beer and be prepared to suck my dick" -- she ended up in the crayola wing for awile when she finally was able to break from him, but some how the courts gave him custody of the children. On condition he not use alcohol or drugs. And that phone rang and rang every 20 min or so, and then the young twenty somethings and a 16 yr old runaway began showing up and tales were told from him of how he had his way with these girls.
I had to try.... I had to try to stop what I knew was so fucking obvious. My blood must run thick with hating blatant crime --- it was so easy to call and give information and do what I had done for so long with my own past work -- and this past week I found out, even tho those that I gave info to never called me back or let me know that they were taking what I shared seriously. And the Lord knows I fretted that since my own credibility had been challenged they would not take my documentation as real --- but they got him.
He is going to prison for a very long time. Ten years may not seem all that long. But for the safty of his own children finally going to be placed back with a mother who tried so hard to protect them when she was breaking her ownself free -- He is going, facing the same sentence that my own husband faced just about 3 years ago. There is no leinency going to be given to this offender. His record is far too long and filled with far too many other offenses. He was caught in the act of providing alcohol to underage minors, drinking and driving, and I know those girls will talk a mile a minute when they are seated in front of the investigator, they are young and frightened. Anything they will do to keep themselves out of jail.
It is sad that it takes so much to protect the innocent. The risk of those who report of not being believed and the lack of bodies who actually can enforce the laws.
But you can do it anonymously if need be. Call the sherriffs dept. tell them what you DO know and tell them that YOU MUST REMAIN ANONYMOUS EVEN TO YOUR OWN HUSBAND IF NEEDED.
If you feel you are in a good or strong enough relationship with you husband and that he is strong enough to deal with the back lash then perhaps you could do it together?
Perhaps you have a friend disguised as an Angel such as I do, and he or she can do the reporting FOR you?
Be prepared Lauren that this could take what seems as if it is a life time to get a response from protective services. You may never get a call back asking for more information, perhaps a typed letter sent anonymously from a different town or area to the local police department?
I know only about one thing Lauren --- Nothing is the exact ONE way to do anything, there are NO garruntees but SELF and living with SELF is what is the most difficult in any situation. Only YOU know what you are capable of being able to do safly to protect yourself in this. Only YOU know what you are willing to risk.
I know this has become long winded, and perhaps way too much information for what perhaps seemed a simple question, I wish life could be so damn simple -- but the healing process from being sexually abused is not an easy one, and it is not one that can be done by any other person but the one who is the survivor. It is up to the survivor to choose how and who they allow to help them if they ask. Many times they are completely unaware how much they are loved in spite of how filthy or low or unimportant they feel about themselves.
Fear is a strong emotion. For me personally it has been a huge driver in my life, it has been my strength when I was the weakest, it has been my weakness when I was strongest. I still have not reached a balance with that emotion, but I know that when my mind will not let me sleep peaceful at night I must find a way to take action to resolve what tortures me and keeps my body from its much deserved rest.
Please know that you can come to this site, and be safe with your struggles. That no matter how horrific life feels, someone hears you here, maybe they dont respond right away... but the support is still only a few strokes on the keyboard away.
Sending Prayers of strength and Peace your way...
Sammy
