It was never…..That

I had the same boyfriend through most of high school. We went to the games. We went to dances. We went to the movies. We ate pizza. The basics, you know?
Of course, I had a vagina, and he needed one. So we went to the backseat. We went there. We had handys in the movies, We, I think you get it.
It was what he wanted, so I had to do it. I never decided I wanted to, just I was supposed to. I could attend to myself all I wanted when I got home.

We separated at graduation, and he went upstate to play football, and pretend to go to school, and I waitress and cashiered my way through community. I graduated to administrative assistant where I answered phones, arranged schedules, and delivered a derriere to be accidently run into to protect the furniture.

Everyone told me how beautiful I looked at the wedding. It was long processions of people who knew me as a baby, and smiling. Constant toasts and calls to kiss left me tired and tipsy. When it came time for our exit, I was ready to pass out before the limo. I slept until Atlantic City, checked in, and was carried into the room, so romantic!
I wanted sleep more than air, but we had to be traditional. He helped me out of my dress, and helped himself to me. I’m not sure if I was awake when he was done, but I knew that wasn’t an important part of the process.

He provided well for me. We had our house, ample food, cars, and a few luxuries, and I had a vagina. He never beat me, or verbally abused me, he just needed my vagina when he needed it. I could meet my needs later.
I knew about the girl after him at work. He would come home and want it regardless. It was okay, being he turned to me, rather than her.

He didn’t come home one Wed. Dinner got cold. I went to sleep alone. It wasn’t until early the next morning that the Sheriff’s dept. came around to tell me that the multi-car pileup on the Interstate included him in the middle. They didn’t get to him for hours, and he didn’t need to go to the hospital.
The funeral had more people I didn’t know. That girl from work came, and admitted she was never with him, and I said I knew. I knew little of affairs, but I knew where he went for it.
He left the finances in great order for me, for I was lost otherwise. I needed to enroll in a group for grief counseling.

It was in group that the phrasing of my marriage changed.
I described our active and satisfying love life, with various activity carried away all over the house. 7 years I was happily married.
They analyzed this too much for my comfort. His needing me immediately on the living room floor, centered on him holding me like in wrestling. Satisfactory sex in the kitchen was translated to having him get finished fast enough so I could get back before things burnt.
We voted whether I was being used: 1 vote, me for wifely duty, 13 unlucky for domestic rape.
How was I raped, I was married, and he wasn’t a stranger?

Apparently, my whole sex life was a lie, and I told it. I could not say once that I initiated or gave consent to intercourse, and only sometimes convinced to switching to alternate activity. No means ask again, and again, and again, and then keep going.
I remember the night I accepted everyone else’s conclusions. I felt ill, I cried, I couldn’t talk. It was like he died all over again, but I couldn’t distract myself with duties to attend. It was me all along as much as them, because I allowed it, supported it, hid it.
The recent call to End the Silence is true. It is the silence that is as much Wrong as the activity. Yes, I could see that the forced sexual activity was not my fault, that was all theirs. It was allowing it to continue that was mine.
For all those acting to end the putting up with the use and abuse because of a blessing of our birth, Thank You!