Didn’t Realize It

I was raped my a coworker March 4th, 2009. This was 5 months after my wedding. I worked with this “man” at a local craft supplies store. I would often give him a ride home as we usually closed the store together and the neighborhood is not always safe. There was a lot of back and forth flirting type joking going on for a while up to this. I had friends, or so I thought. It started with harassment. I ignored it. Then came the night I took him home. I ended up driving down a road where I had gotten lost for a minute. He told me to pull over. I figured we were going to figure out where we were, turn around, and go home. I was apparently mistaken. He started kissing me and undoing my pants. My mind blanked, I froze up. I couldn’t vocalize that this was wrong. All I could say as I was being folded over the center console of the car, with my head on the backseat, pants still half on, was “but…I’m married!” That’s all I could say. He used no protection, and I was not, at the time, using birth control. As he was about to finish, he even asked me where to “do it”, meaning should he ejaculate inside me or not! I was appalled? When he was finished, I got out of the car, smoked a cigarette, as at that time that was my crutch for anxiety, and then took him home.

Two days later I finally told my husband. I had to come out then and say that I had cheated on him because I thought that because I never actually said the word “NO” that it wasn’t rape. This was the thought for 5 years, until this past Easter morning. I was reading survivor stories on a website that morning, waiting for my husband and daughter to wake up and begin festivities. In reading these stories I came to the realization of what actually happened. I WAs RAPED! I did not break my marriage vows. I did not betray my husband! I was raped!

I have since been in therapy, with my husband, where I was never free of the guilt that I felt for letting this happen. Only after I realized that it actually was rape, did I tell my husband, and after he thought a while, he apologized, and asked what he can do to help me. He apologized for blaming me for so long, and said that all my actions back then make perfect sense with this being the case. I have spoked to the police, one cop, who told me that it’s. NOT a rape BECAUSE I never specifically verbally said NO in a forceful tone. After this incident happened, I was suicidal, I wanted to disappear, and as I had already had a long history of abuse, depression, and suicide attempts, this was another crushing blow.

It’s now almost 6 years after the fact, and I still feel like I’m helpless.