Project Unbreakable

I came across an interesting story at Project Unbreakable about a woman coming out of an abusive relationship and marriage, and I will keep it.


_ _ _

We got together when I was 17, he was 21. Everyone wished they were dating him. He was such a “great guy.” I felt lucky.

When I told him I didn’t want to have a sexual relationship he said “I feel like you don’t love me. If you love me and want to be with me, you’ll let me touch you.”

When I told him that I was afraid to do more than kiss because of past sexual abuse, he exposed his erect penis and begged me to touch it and put my mouth on it. He kept saying “Please.” and “I know you’ll like it.” When I finally did it, reluctantly, he begged me to let him cum in my mouth and to swallow. I almost threw up. When I lay there afterward and cried he said “Thank you, that was nice.”

After 2 years I could see that he was abusive. I broke up with him. I dated another much nicer boy, but when he learned that I wasn’t a virgin he broke up with me. I thought the only way to fix things was to marry the only person I’d ever had sex with, because who else would want me? He had good qualities too right? And I could help him to be better.

When we had been dating for 4 years we got married. We had 3 children together. He did whatever he wanted to my body whenever he wanted to and no matter who else was around…even our children. The more chance there was that someone might see, the more he wanted to do it. In his parents house, in a public room where anyone could walk in, he held my hands and forced me to let him perform oral sex on me. In our shed while our children and my brother played in the yard…we were stacking boxes and then he was forcing me to have sex with him while I stood in the cobwebs and said “NO!” repeatedly.

He did me when I was sleeping, he did me when I said “NO!” repeatedly. He did me when I punched him. He said “You don’t have to do anything, just lay there if you want. I’ll be quick.” I thought it was like that for everyone. I believed him every time he said
“You’re cold and frigid.”
“You’re boring.”
“You should be more slutty.”
“You smell bad.”
“You need a boob job and a tummy tuck.”

I only knew it wasn’t true when he said, “We don’t have enough sex.”

His unwanted groping hands every night while I tried to sleep and said “No, I don’t want to.” weren’t enough for him. Sex 3 times a week or more, wasn’t enough. I thought I needed to change. I focused my attention on his more acceptable flaws, ones I thought I could fix. I only talked with friends about the flaws that I thought they could relate to, flaws the husbands on TV sitcoms had too. I was ashamed, embarrassed and I didn’t have the courage to ask if the other things were normal or if I was really a frigid, crazy, bitch for thinking that they weren’t.

Everyone thought we had the perfect little family, and I wanted that to be true, so I made it true in my own head.

When we had been married for 10 years things were at their worst and had been for about 2 years. I began to let myself see and somehow, I began to like myself enough and to love my children enough to realize that we deserved better…and to accept that I couldn’t change him or save him because he didn’t want any of that.

When I told him I wanted to separate he said, “Sex is the most important thing to me” and “I want to fuck you.” When I decided to ask for a divorce he raped me. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time that I realized what it was. When it was over he said “You could have made me stop.” Even then I wanted to try to help him if I could, I wanted to try for an amicable divorce. I believed he was still human.

The last time I allowed myself to be alone with him, while he was packing his bags, he raped me one more time. He said, “I want you to be sure about what you’ll be missing.” He still wanted me to like it. I had never hated it more.

Some people didn’t believe it was rape because we were married, or because I didn’t scream.

Some of my closest friends believed that because I fell in-love with another man (a truly good and kind man) that my rape story was just that, a story to cover infidelity. But the only lie I ever told was that my marriage was a good one…I regret the lie, but mostly because I told it to myself for far too long, I believed it, and it kept me and my children with a sick person who hurt us all, over and over again. I lied to myself to keep from going insane. I understand. It’s easier to believe that your friend is an adulterer than to believe that unbeknownst to you, you’d been enjoying BBQ’s with a rapist.

I don’t regret falling in-love with another man. Knowing that I could be loved and respected, treated tenderly and humanely was part of what held me together when I finally faced the hellish reality of the first 15 years of my adult life.

When my ex asked me to come back and I told him that I never would he said, “What is this about? Is it the rape thing?” The scariest part is, he knows what he did…and he doesn’t think it’s wrong.

I’ve lived hours away from him for nearly 2 years. I am safe and with a good and loving partner. But there is not one night that I do not go to bed without a haunting fear of his hands and the weight of his lust. I try not to go to bed until I am so tired that all I can do is fall right to sleep. If I lie awake at all, everything he’s done crowds my thoughts and it’s all I can do to lie still and try not to claw the image of his face out of my mind.

-- Project Unbreakablel

Project Unbreakable

I came across an interesting story at Project Unbreakable about a woman coming out of an abusive relationship and marriage, and I will keep it.


_ _ _

We got together when I was 17, he was 21. Everyone wished they were dating him. He was such a “great guy.” I felt lucky.

When I told him I didn’t want to have a sexual relationship he said “I feel like you don’t love me. If you love me and want to be with me, you’ll let me touch you.”

When I told him that I was afraid to do more than kiss because of past sexual abuse, he exposed his erect penis and begged me to touch it and put my mouth on it. He kept saying “Please.” and “I know you’ll like it.” When I finally did it, reluctantly, he begged me to let him cum in my mouth and to swallow. I almost threw up. When I lay there afterward and cried he said “Thank you, that was nice.”

After 2 years I could see that he was abusive. I broke up with him. I dated another much nicer boy, but when he learned that I wasn’t a virgin he broke up with me. I thought the only way to fix things was to marry the only person I’d ever had sex with, because who else would want me? He had good qualities too right? And I could help him to be better.

When we had been dating for 4 years we got married. We had 3 children together. He did whatever he wanted to my body whenever he wanted to and no matter who else was around…even our children. The more chance there was that someone might see, the more he wanted to do it. In his parents house, in a public room where anyone could walk in, he held my hands and forced me to let him perform oral sex on me. In our shed while our children and my brother played in the yard…we were stacking boxes and then he was forcing me to have sex with him while I stood in the cobwebs and said “NO!” repeatedly.

He did me when I was sleeping, he did me when I said “NO!” repeatedly. He did me when I punched him. He said “You don’t have to do anything, just lay there if you want. I’ll be quick.” I thought it was like that for everyone. I believed him every time he said
“You’re cold and frigid.”
“You’re boring.”
“You should be more slutty.”
“You smell bad.”
“You need a boob job and a tummy tuck.”

I only knew it wasn’t true when he said, “We don’t have enough sex.”

His unwanted groping hands every night while I tried to sleep and said “No, I don’t want to.” weren’t enough for him. Sex 3 times a week or more, wasn’t enough. I thought I needed to change. I focused my attention on his more acceptable flaws, ones I thought I could fix. I only talked with friends about the flaws that I thought they could relate to, flaws the husbands on TV sitcoms had too. I was ashamed, embarrassed and I didn’t have the courage to ask if the other things were normal or if I was really a frigid, crazy, bitch for thinking that they weren’t.

Everyone thought we had the perfect little family, and I wanted that to be true, so I made it true in my own head.

When we had been married for 10 years things were at their worst and had been for about 2 years. I began to let myself see and somehow, I began to like myself enough and to love my children enough to realize that we deserved better…and to accept that I couldn’t change him or save him because he didn’t want any of that.

When I told him I wanted to separate he said, “Sex is the most important thing to me” and “I want to fuck you.” When I decided to ask for a divorce he raped me. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time that I realized what it was. When it was over he said “You could have made me stop.” Even then I wanted to try to help him if I could, I wanted to try for an amicable divorce. I believed he was still human.

The last time I allowed myself to be alone with him, while he was packing his bags, he raped me one more time. He said, “I want you to be sure about what you’ll be missing.” He still wanted me to like it. I had never hated it more.

Some people didn’t believe it was rape because we were married, or because I didn’t scream.

Some of my closest friends believed that because I fell in-love with another man (a truly good and kind man) that my rape story was just that, a story to cover infidelity. But the only lie I ever told was that my marriage was a good one…I regret the lie, but mostly because I told it to myself for far too long, I believed it, and it kept me and my children with a sick person who hurt us all, over and over again. I lied to myself to keep from going insane. I understand. It’s easier to believe that your friend is an adulterer than to believe that unbeknownst to you, you’d been enjoying BBQ’s with a rapist.

I don’t regret falling in-love with another man. Knowing that I could be loved and respected, treated tenderly and humanely was part of what held me together when I finally faced the hellish reality of the first 15 years of my adult life.

When my ex asked me to come back and I told him that I never would he said, “What is this about? Is it the rape thing?” The scariest part is, he knows what he did…and he doesn’t think it’s wrong.

I’ve lived hours away from him for nearly 2 years. I am safe and with a good and loving partner. But there is not one night that I do not go to bed without a haunting fear of his hands and the weight of his lust. I try not to go to bed until I am so tired that all I can do is fall right to sleep. If I lie awake at all, everything he’s done crowds my thoughts and it’s all I can do to lie still and try not to claw the image of his face out of my mind.

-- Project Unbreakablel

The Aspiration of the Writer

“Poetry dwells in a perpetual utopia of its own,” wrote William Hazlitt, the great British essayist of the Romantic Period. Despite everything I’ve been saying, I think he has a point. In relation to the future, a poem is like a note sealed in a bottle and thrown into the sea. Writing one is an act of immense, near-irrational hope that an image, a metaphor, some lines of verse and the voice embodied in them will have a long, posthumous life. “The poem wants to reach an Other, it needs this Other,” Paul Celan has said. And it happens sometimes.

A young man in a small town in Patagonia or in Kansas reads an ancient Chinese poet in a book he borrowed from the library and falls in love with a poem, which he reads to himself over and over again as the summer night is falling. With each reading he brings the voice of the dead poet to life. For one unforgettable moment, he steps out of his own cramped self and enters the lives of unknown men and women, seeing the world through their eyes, feeling what they once felt and thinking what they once thought. If poetry is not the most utopian project ever devised by human beings, I don’t know what is.

-- Charles Simic at The New York Review of Books

I think this is true of literature and art in general. I even suspect that this is true of a lot of bloggers. Over 99% of us will never be published in anything, and I imagine that a lot of us fancy the idea that our little postings may continue to reach an audience long after we have dreamed, debated, and ranted our last.

The Aspiration of the Writer

“Poetry dwells in a perpetual utopia of its own,” wrote William Hazlitt, the great British essayist of the Romantic Period. Despite everything I’ve been saying, I think he has a point. In relation to the future, a poem is like a note sealed in a bottle and thrown into the sea. Writing one is an act of immense, near-irrational hope that an image, a metaphor, some lines of verse and the voice embodied in them will have a long, posthumous life. “The poem wants to reach an Other, it needs this Other,” Paul Celan has said. And it happens sometimes.

A young man in a small town in Patagonia or in Kansas reads an ancient Chinese poet in a book he borrowed from the library and falls in love with a poem, which he reads to himself over and over again as the summer night is falling. With each reading he brings the voice of the dead poet to life. For one unforgettable moment, he steps out of his own cramped self and enters the lives of unknown men and women, seeing the world through their eyes, feeling what they once felt and thinking what they once thought. If poetry is not the most utopian project ever devised by human beings, I don’t know what is.

-- Charles Simic at The New York Review of Books

I think this is true of literature and art in general. I even suspect that this is true of a lot of bloggers. Over 99% of us will never be published in anything, and I imagine that a lot of us fancy the idea that our little postings may continue to reach an audience long after we have dreamed, debated, and ranted our last.

Trying to Jog This Morning

"Were you actually trying to jog this morning?"

How about that! I'm feeling more ambitious. May as well get more calorie-killing value for my time and sweat. The idea of popping up my muscles a little doesn't hurt either.

"But you did not really achieve a full jog, did you?"

I guess not. I was surpised by how hard it was. I was not nearly this bad when I last fell for this kind of enthusiasm.

"Mmm, when you had happy dreams in your head of working up a sweat bouncing around between the sheets in Gabriella's bed, all the way in sunny Florida."

Yeah. Seven long years ago. Of course, I was not exactly in athletic shape then either, but at least I could jog. Not now or at least not much. This extra twenty pounds on my gut is no joke to be lugging around, nor is the greater girliness of my muscles.

Nevertheless, I do think that I will be able to work my way back up to a full jog. I am still feeling very good about this. I really hope it sticks. If no other real value is served by this trifle of exercise, I can tell that it is very good for my mental wakefullness - like it really gets the juices flowing and the thoughts going. I always feel this way though, and I always fall back into my decrepit lassitude.

Trying to Jog This Morning

"Were you actually trying to jog this morning?"

How about that! I'm feeling more ambitious. May as well get more calorie-killing value for my time and sweat. The idea of popping up my muscles a little doesn't hurt either.

"But you did not really achieve a full jog, did you?"

I guess not. I was surpised by how hard it was. I was not nearly this bad when I last fell for this kind of enthusiasm.

"Mmm, when you had happy dreams in your head of working up a sweat bouncing around between the sheets in Gabriella's bed, all the way in sunny Florida."

Yeah. Seven long years ago. Of course, I was not exactly in athletic shape then either, but at least I could jog. Not now or at least not much. This extra twenty pounds on my gut is no joke to be lugging around, nor is the greater girliness of my muscles.

Nevertheless, I do think that I will be able to work my way back up to a full jog. I am still feeling very good about this. I really hope it sticks. If no other real value is served by this trifle of exercise, I can tell that it is very good for my mental wakefullness - like it really gets the juices flowing and the thoughts going. I always feel this way though, and I always fall back into my decrepit lassitude.

Atlas Shrugged (1,2) Red Light, Lady

Not long after encountering the mystery of the Halley music, Dagny falls asleep, waking up an hour later to the strange stillness of the train. Something is wrong! She steps outside to get to the bottom of it. Remember, Dagny Taggart is one of the heads of Taggart Transcontinental, this train she is on, but she is riding as a regular customer so that her super-charged identity is not known to the others on the scene.

_ _ _

There was a cold wind outside, and an empty stretch of land under an empty sky. She heard weeds rustling in the darkness. Far ahead, she saw the figures of men standing by the engine - and above them, hanging detached in the sky, the red light of a signal.

She walked rapidly toward them, past the motionless line of wheels. No one paid attention to her when she approached. The train crew and a few passengers stood clustered under the red light. They had stopped talking, they seemed to be waiting in placid indifference.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

The engineer turned, astonished. Her question had sounded like an order, not like the amateur curiosity of a passenger. She stood, hands in pockets, coat collar raised, the wind beating her hair in strands across her face.

“Red light, lady,” he said pointing up with his thumb.


[...]

“If you know that the signal is broken, what do you intend to do?”

He did not like her tone of authority, and he could not understand why she assumed it so naturally. She looked like a young girl; only her mouth and eyes showed that she was a woman in her thirties. The dark gray eyes were dark and disturbing, as if they cut through things, throwing the inconsequential out of the way. The face seemed faintly familiar to him, but he could not recall where he had seen it.

“Lady, I don’t intend to stick my neck out,” he said.

[...]

She looked at the red light and at the rail that went off into the black, untouched distance.

She said, “Proceed with caution to the next signal. If it’s in order, proceed to the main track. Then stop at the first open office.”

“Yeah? Who says so?”

“I do.”

“Who are you?”

It was only the briefest pause, a moment of astonishment at a question she had not expected, but the engineer looked more closely at her face, and in time with her answer he gasped, “Good God!”

-- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand

_ _ _

It’s Dagny, bitch - uberwoman, your boss! I love the atmospherics of this scene. I also love that Ayn Rand has her alter ego look like a young girl. As will become evident, she is supposed to be a sexy wench, the kind of woman that alpha males fight over.

As for this overall scene, I left out elements that help to bring out the sense of a country falling apart, a continuation of the theme that we saw when we were walking through the city with Eddie Willers at the very beginning of the novel. This is why the train has been senselessly left stranded at a siding. We can get the flavor of this with this summary paragraph at the close:

When the train jolted forward, the blast of its whistle dying over the fields, she sat by the window, lighting another cigarette. She thought: It’s cracking to pieces, like this, all over the country, you can expect it anywhere, at any moment. But she felt no anger or anxiety; she had no time to feel.

She must act. She’s uberwoman! But will she be able to save the day?

Atlas Shrugged (1,2) Red Light, Lady

Not long after encountering the mystery of the Halley music, Dagny falls asleep, waking up an hour later to the strange stillness of the train. Something is wrong! She steps outside to get to the bottom of it. Remember, Dagny Taggart is one of the heads of Taggart Transcontinental, this train she is on, but she is riding as a regular customer so that her super-charged identity is not known to the others on the scene.

_ _ _

There was a cold wind outside, and an empty stretch of land under an empty sky. She heard weeds rustling in the darkness. Far ahead, she saw the figures of men standing by the engine - and above them, hanging detached in the sky, the red light of a signal.

She walked rapidly toward them, past the motionless line of wheels. No one paid attention to her when she approached. The train crew and a few passengers stood clustered under the red light. They had stopped talking, they seemed to be waiting in placid indifference.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

The engineer turned, astonished. Her question had sounded like an order, not like the amateur curiosity of a passenger. She stood, hands in pockets, coat collar raised, the wind beating her hair in strands across her face.

“Red light, lady,” he said pointing up with his thumb.


[...]

“If you know that the signal is broken, what do you intend to do?”

He did not like her tone of authority, and he could not understand why she assumed it so naturally. She looked like a young girl; only her mouth and eyes showed that she was a woman in her thirties. The dark gray eyes were dark and disturbing, as if they cut through things, throwing the inconsequential out of the way. The face seemed faintly familiar to him, but he could not recall where he had seen it.

“Lady, I don’t intend to stick my neck out,” he said.

[...]

She looked at the red light and at the rail that went off into the black, untouched distance.

She said, “Proceed with caution to the next signal. If it’s in order, proceed to the main track. Then stop at the first open office.”

“Yeah? Who says so?”

“I do.”

“Who are you?”

It was only the briefest pause, a moment of astonishment at a question she had not expected, but the engineer looked more closely at her face, and in time with her answer he gasped, “Good God!”

-- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand

_ _ _

It’s Dagny, bitch - uberwoman, your boss! I love the atmospherics of this scene. I also love that Ayn Rand has her alter ego look like a young girl. As will become evident, she is supposed to be a sexy wench, the kind of woman that alpha males fight over.

As for this overall scene, I left out elements that help to bring out the sense of a country falling apart, a continuation of the theme that we saw when we were walking through the city with Eddie Willers at the very beginning of the novel. This is why the train has been senselessly left stranded at a siding. We can get the flavor of this with this summary paragraph at the close:

When the train jolted forward, the blast of its whistle dying over the fields, she sat by the window, lighting another cigarette. She thought: It’s cracking to pieces, like this, all over the country, you can expect it anywhere, at any moment. But she felt no anger or anxiety; she had no time to feel.

She must act. She’s uberwoman! But will she be able to save the day?