I knew my marriage wasn’t where I wanted it to be, and had been in this fragmented state for some time. Honestly, years. Now I can semi-cohesively narrate what happened, where we aggravated one another’s raw spots and pushed one another deeper down our personal holes instead of lifting one another out of the pit. But in June of 2009, I only understood and felt that the connection was off, not the why’s and how’s. Ok, so I did have a few ideas about the why’s and how’s, and most of the blame was laid at NH’s feet. Not fair, not realistic, but it’s what I believed. That was one of the loops my mind was stuck in, and I didn’t have a lot of long-term, healthy relationships that I knew intimately to hold my marriage up against, so taking this position seemed reasonable to me. The other loop my mind was stuck in was, “Of course we will figure out the problem. Until then, soldier on”.

I have no simple sound-bite for the misery we created in one another. Our final therapist would use words like, “the dance”, “demon dialog” and “lack of attachment”. I connected to many of these ideas, but it was too late for the marriage. The marriage was not “revivable”. Now, several years later, I tend to believe NH gave up or lost interest or hit an impenetrable wall early on. Heartbreaking…for both of us.

We had been in couple’s therapy for some time – over two years. I was unsatisfied with our counseling, but believed that something – some kind of effort to sort through the pains and fears – was better than no effort at all. I often scolded NH with, “You get out of therapy what you put into it!”. Meaning, if he would just open up and share something from the heart, then we could move forward. Certainly I wasn’t the problem! If anything, I was too emotive and too quick to tell anyone who would listen exactly how I felt about every detail of my life. And I was willing to accept my mistakes. I grew up in a family where people didn’t take responsibility for their own hang-ups and foibles and it drove me nuts. I made the decision at a young age that I would acknowledge when I was wrong and then do my best to remedy the problem. Of course, I’m very human and I am not always happy to own my personal shortcomings, but own them I do. In fact, I wrestle with these flaws regularly, some might say to the point of neurosis. The negative critics in my head are well fed and live a comfortable life. One might say they have celebrity status in the movie of my life. Taking personal responsibility is essential, though, in my world. So I was moderately satisfied to limp along with our mediocre therapist, because, hey! It was better than limping along without one. It was like having a cup of room temperature coffee…drinkable but not gratifying.

We were bumbling along in our dysfunction, when NH comes up for air. It started with jury duty, which seems like a strange place for the end of a marriage to begin, but it’s where I’ve earmarked our formal demise…and so the luge run began. He was the juror on a local rape case. He took the duties seriously and I didn’t know any details, but when the cases ended (with a guilty verdict, I believe) he came home and shared the story. I vaguely remembered the incident being in the paper a year or two earlier: woman hiking/camping alone on the coast, meets a man camping alone, perhaps he was a drifter. The two hang out together for a while, it’s amicable and ok; in the middle of the night he crawls into her tent and rapes her. There may have been a knife involved and I remember that she felt very threatened. He also may have raped her multiple times. The detail that sticks in my mind because NH was so affected by it is that during the act of rape, the woman laid as still as possible and just endured the violation.

(I want to proceed carefully from this point forward about how I share NH’s story. I’m a bit conflicted about to how to tell my story and deliver my perspective of NH’s story without misstating what he went through. I acknowledge that he likely would recount many of these pages differently. I happen to think I’ve been fair and accurate…I certainly have been painfully honest with my own feelings, thoughts and experiences. But how does one fairly relate another person’s story? I’ve decided that I can only do my best to retell what I saw and experienced. I may make guesses at what NH was feeling and experiencing, but he is the only person who knows those details for certain.)

NH is quite distraught over the case. Something about being on that jury and hearing the testimony and seeing the faces of real people – on both sides of the offense – hit NH hard. A point worth noting is that I had been raped as a young teenager, and he was well aware of the horror.
We had friends coming over for dinner the night the trail ended and he started sharing details of the case…in the kitchen, with friends standing around as I prepared dinner. I was quite shaken by his recount of what happened. It wasn’t my story, but it did make room for the memories of my rape to surface. I remember thinking, “Can’t he see that this is upsetting and that this might not be the place to process his experience?”. I also remember feeling like he was watching me closely as he recounted the trial. Was he trying to upset me? I was confused about why he was going into such great detail and carefully monitoring my reactions. I was having a visceral response. Everyone was fairly engrossed in the conversation because it really was a griping story. I finally asked him to stop talking about it, though. I made some joke about more party-appropriate topics, and he obliged. The night progressed without further discussion about the rape trial, but I didn’t forget anything. As a side note, the dish I was preparing while NH occupying us with the story turned out horribly. It was all I could do to get the ingredients in the bowl, mixed and in the oven. I was unnerved.

Standing in the kitchen one evening, sun still out because it’s June, kids playing in the other room and I can hear their talking and laughing, he leans over the kitchen counter and tells me what hit his core during the rape trial. He tells me that what he realized when listening to the details of how this woman was raped is that he raped me.

I couldn’t have been more surprised or puzzled by this statement. However, the last time we had sex it wasn’t good. (I don’t have genteelism for the act, people. “Made love” sounds like something from a soap opera, “sex” sounds clinical, and “got busy” sounds like a drunk teenager. After some unscientific polling, I found many friends refer to it as “sex”, too, so I’m going with clinical for now). It was while NH was on the jury. The night started off normal – me not so interested, but willing to put in the time to get to the good place, and NH happy to have a semi-interested partner. Quickly, though, the energy morphed into something I had never experienced with him. There was hostility. Anger. It was coming from him and it was directed at me and I didn’t know what to do. I chose to be silent. I pretended the whole experience wasn’t happening. Looking back, I probably did shut down. Let’s be clear, this was not offensive or threatening. In fact, I remember thinking that it was sad and that it would take a little while to shake off the experience, but I did not take it personally or feel debased. We had bad sex. It was a first and I thought a last (boy, I didn’t know how literal the latter sentiment was!).

NH did not rape me. And in fact, I found his presumption offensive. Like, you think I would allow you to rape me?? Get real. Never again, motherfucker. I have been in that paralyzing, frightening, dehumanizing, appalling place and, frankly, I thought he was absurd for even suggesting it. I did interrupt briefly to tell him that he didn’t rape him, but I’m not sure the words even registered in his ears. So NH continued to reveal his pain and an incredible shame. He was ashamed for doing this to me. He cried, which, as is typical for many, many men, he rarely-to-never did. I could see that this was very real for him and I thought it was important to give him the space to express the thoughts and feelings. It was odd, though, because he was distraught about an incident that intimately involved me, and yet I didn’t share the same experience.

And now NH was saying he raped me. It was a bit confusing for me, but I was committed to going down this path with him and resolving the matter together. It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t sort out the pain and frustration, but that’s not what happened. Over the next several weeks he grew more distant and incredibly angry with me. It wasn’t just a generalized anger, the feeling was consciously directed at me.