Anonymous Story: He Said he Wanted to Marry Me

He said he wanted to marry me. I believed him. I wanted to marry him, too. He was my true first love; you know, the one we dream about. The one that sweeps us off of our feet and makes us think for a second that maybe all those god awful movies weren’t so far off. He was like that for me. We had been friends for almost two years. Being in the same social circles, I saw him frequently. In fact, I dated his best friend, and he dated mine before we came together. And I -fell- for him. Hard. His name is [J], and so I rightly called my argonaut. He called me his Medea. I didn’t know at the time how the full story of [J] and Medea ended. I just thought that [J] whisked Medea away from her home, and they married (after stealing the golden fleece and getting rid of [J]’s uncle, of course). I didn’t know about [J]’s betrayal. And I didn’t know this betrayal by my own argonaut would come.

He left for the Air Force shortly after we began dating. Immediately, he began to change. He became more jealous, less trusting of me. He wanted to know where I was constantly. It started off slowly, insidiously. It got worse. He called me a slut when I showed him over Skype the pencil skirt I had bought. He said the only reason I had bought it was to show off my ass, to have people look at me. I never wore it after that. We began to fight, constantly, ruthlessly, almost every night over skype. He called me a slut and a bitch. I called him an asshole.

He said I wasn’t doing enough to show him I was committed to our relationship. I asked him what I could do. He said I had to figure it out. I was 16 and in high school. He was 19 and in the Air Force. I didn’t know what to do. He kept threatening to leave me if I didn’t figure out how to prove to him that I would stick around. He said I wasn’t allowed to go to New York for college (that was my dream), but instead I had to follow him wherever he went. At first, I argued. But when you’re 16, you’re in love, and you don’t have any good role models, eventually you just give in. At least, I did. Maybe that makes me weak. But I don’t think I was. I think you would have felt the same way if you had seen it all.

In December, six months after we began dating, he came home to Maine. We both expressed interest in trying new sex things. He told me he wanted to do anal. We tried, but I was injured and said we could never do that again. I said it was too painful. He said okay. We looked into light-BDSM, nothing super intense. Then he left. (Let me be clear: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with BDSM; this particular individual, however, used it to become more physically aggressive and abusive). I think that was what really changed it all. He became more aggressive. He told me I wasn’t allowed to go see other guys, even if they were friends. I got tickets to go see a band I loved, and he allowed me to only bring along one male friend that he knew and trusted–that he had gone to school with. This same friend was also the only one allowed to bring me to prom later that year in the spring.

Then May came. [J] came home. He was there for two weeks, and then he would leave for Japan, where he would be stationed right outside of Tokyo (I think, I can’t remember the exact location). It started off well at first. Then it got bad. Quickly. We got in a fight at his house when his parents were gone. He pushed me up against the wall by my neck. I hit my head hard. When he saw the fear in my eyes, he immediately stopped and apologized. He said he didn’t realize; he was trying to be sexual. I ended up making him feel better. I soothed him and let him know it was okay, that it happens.

We got in a fight again a couple days later over the phone. I considered driving to his house to talk to him. Months later, he admitted that if I had, he probably would have hit me.

Then, it all happened. A couple days before he was supposed to leave to go to Japan, we were in his room. We had been fighting, and he wanted to have sex. That was what we did: we fought and we had sex. Somehow, he got me onto my stomach and had me pinned down on his futon. I couldn’t move, I told him to get off of me. He said, “I’ll do it if you don’t shut up.”

I said, “I fucking dare you.”

And he did. He shoved his penis into my anus, and I screamed. I screamed and I begged him to stop and I cried. It might have been seconds or minutes. I don’t know. It was hell. Finally, he pulled out. There was blood on his dick. All he could say was, “We got more than the tip in this time.” He seemed happy by that. I was too busy crying from the pain to really know what to think.

After that, our dynamic changed. I had no fight. I gave up. I was too afraid to break up with him. I didn’t know what to do or who to go to, so I said nothing. He had dated my best friend, and she had never had this experience to my knowledge, so maybe I had caused it. And we all had the same friends. Who would believe me? They had been his friends first. And my family loved him. Looking at him, you wouldn’t believe him capable of doing such things. He has big brown, friendly eyes. He makes everyone laugh and smile. He’s goofy.

And he raped me.

He broke up with me in October of 2013, five months after the assault. I attempted suicide, which nobody knows about in my family, so that tells you how successful I was.

I was diagnosed with PTSD because of him and because I was later raped by another partner. And then I somehow ended up in another emotionally abusive, manipulative relationship. When this happens this many times, and when the first guy who tells you he wants to marry you hurts you like that, you begin to think that you caused it, that you deserved it.

I still struggle with this. My family still doesn’t know about this. I’m still in so much pain. And now that I have a fantastic partner who is healthy and wonderful and so fucking good in every way, I have so much fucking baggage and I feel so guilty.

God, I feel so fucking guilty.

My rapist was [J] of Buxton, Maine. He raped me when I was 17, and he was 19 going on 20. I didn’t go forward because we were dating, we had the same friend group, I thought I had caused it, I didn’t think anyone would believe, I felt ashamed, I didn’t want him to get in trouble, and because I didn’t think anything would come of it since we were dating. Black out his name if you want or need to. Delete this post if you need to. But I needed just one person to know.

It’s hardly ever a stranger in a dark alley that looks spooky. It’s someone you know and love and trust. And it breaks your trust in the universe when they hurt you like that.