Sexual Abuse in a Relationship

I’ve never told a single soul about the things that happened to me, while I was in this relationship. I’m not sure exactly why I’ve just randomly decided to share this, but maybe someone who was going through similar things as I was will read this and realize they are not alone. You can be in a relationship and still be sexually abused, despite the fact that you are with the person. I was in a very toxic relationship, for many reasons, this being one of them. It started out slowly. The guy I was with would get very aggressive and on more than one occasion he would force himself on me. Try to hold me down, he didn’t care how rough he was being. And I always had told him no, that I didn’t want to do anything, to get off. He never listened, he just kept going. I tried getting him to stop, but I don’t think he ever got the fact that I was being serious, he just thought it was “cute” how I resisted him. He always stopped though, eventually. But one night he decided not to. He was staying the night at my house and we had gotten into an argument, ironically enough, the argument was about a rumor I heard about him forcing a girl in his past to have sex with him. He denied it, of course, and I believed him. That night was really awkward, because I was still upset and he was also irritated. We eventually decided to go to bed and after maybe 10 minutes of laying there, he began kissing me and all of these things. It started off innocently, then got more intense. I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea because we had been arguing that whole day, and I just wanted to sleep. Did that stop him? No. He kept going, and I tried pushing him off of me, telling him I didn’t want it, but he kept pushing harder, he kept forcing himself on me. I told him no, many times. But he did it anyways. I don’t know if I could have the courage to call this rape, but he proceeded to have sex with me. Despite the fact I was telling him to get off of me, to stop, I tried pushing his hands away, but his mind was just so set in what he wanted. And I just laid there, as he had sex with me, confused and upset and not understanding what was happening. He was my boyfriend and I loved him, but that was something I didn’t want and I couldn’t understand why he would force something like that on me, knowing I didn’t want it. After he was finished with what he was doing, he just rolled over and went to bed, while I was crying myself to sleep, just so confused. I convinced myself for a long time, that it was a stupid thing, that I shouldn’t be upset for him wanting to have sex with me when I didn’t, because we were in a relationship. But now I know that that doesn’t justify anything. This happened quite frequently throughout our relationship. One time I tried talking to him about it, but he never would. He would always say “I don’t feel comfortable talking about what happened.” I guess he knew what he did, and in the ways he hurt me and made me feel so violated. Thankfully, I’m no longer in this relationship, but the pain of what he put me through still lingers. If anyone else is going through this, talk to someone, I wish I would have. And you are not alone. <3