Emotional abuse victims find few resources available regarding sex with an abusive, unfaithful partner.
Emotional Abusers Weaponize Sex
Sexual intimacy should be mutually wanted, respectful, and safe. Tragically, for abuse victims, sex is none of those things because abusive men use sex as a weapon.
While at times sex may feel intimate and mutual, this is an example of an abuser using sex as a weapon to tether his partner to himself, as a form of control.
Emotional Abusers Feel Entitled to Sex
Abusive men feel entitled to sex and indoctrinate victims to believe they don’t have a right to say no.
Because emotional abusers feel entitled to sex, many use coercive tactics on victims. Covert partner rape is a serious issue and is a cause of chronic pelvic pain, trauma, Rape Trauma Syndrome, anxiety, and depression.
Dangerous Myths About Sex and Emotional Abuse
Therapists, clergy, family and friends may perpetuate harmful myths about sexual dynamics. They may counsel victims to offer the abuser more sex in order to manage the abuser’s harmful behaviors.
These dangerous myths are:
- If you give him more sex, he will be more content & faithful
- He needs more sex in order to be stop harming his family
- If you give him more sex, he will be stop being so controlling
- You married him, so you owe him sex, even when you don’t feel like it
- Unless you fight him off, the sex is mutual
- Married women don’t have a choice
- Biblically, since you are “one”, he has a right to your body whenever he wants it
Truths About Sexual Abuse in Marriage
Women, and all people, deserve safety in every aspect of life, including sexual intimacy. Here are the truths about sexual intimacy that negate the dangerous myths perpetuated by abusers and their enablers:
- Sex does not stop an abusive man from being abusive: in fact, he may even further harm you.
- Similarly, sex does not stop an unfaithful man from being unfaithful: he will continue to cheat on you no matter how often you are having sex with him.
- Sex does not make a verbal abuser stop yelling, or a physical abuser stop hitting: he will keep doing those things. He may stop for a little while to try to bait you into giving him more sex, but he will resume into his normal pattern of abusiveness after a short time.
- A controlling abuser will continue being controlling, no matter how often you have sex with him. In fact, he will likely become more controlling.
- The most common response in a marital rape situation is “freeze”; if you are not fighting your partner when he is having sex with you, know that you are completely normal, and you are not at fault for his choice to sexually assault you.
- Biblically, legally, and ethically, your body is your own. Men who use the Bible as justification for marital rape are not safe individuals.
BTR.ORG Supports Victims of Emotional & Sexual Abuse
It takes time and emotional energy to accept
You are not alone: courageous women all over the world understand what you are going through. Attend a BTR.ORG Group Session today and find community, validation, and support as you begin your journey to healing.
Excellent article! Thank you for spelling it out! It took me almost 2 years of counseling, listening to podcasts, and reading articles, to accept the fact that I was sexually abused throughout my marriage.
BTR has helped me immensely! Thank you!
I’m grateful for this article. My husband told me if I give him more sex, then he’ll act how I “want him to” – which is just a decent human being. I’m struggling because I’m tired of the silent treatment and yelling. I just don’t feel safe emotionally being intimate with him. It’s to the point where I feel sick afterwards, but if I don’t give in, he’s gonna keep being mean. How do I get through this? He says if I leave then I’m the one breaking up the family when I know that’s not true.
Yes, this is exactly what an emotionally and psychologically abusive person would say. Have you considered attending one of our daily online BTR Group sessions?
We just decided to divorce on June 22. It is now Sept 18 and I am just starting to realize because of something I put in my restraining order that I had been getting raped for years.
I’m so, so sorry! I’m so glad you found us!
So tonight, I just ran across the phrase ‘intimate anorexic’. Due to my husband’s emotional abuse, I don’t feel emotionally safe enough to have sex.My husband is also verbally abusive (emotional, psychological, etc). I think it’s natural that someone, after a few decades of abuse, would recoil from an abuser’s physical touch or sex. At one point (for a few years) just the sound of his voice was a trigger. I have chosen to stay well. Do you have a ACBC counsellor or Biblical counsellor as a resource?
Hi, Deanna, we don’t recommend counseling for abuse victims. Have you considered enrolling in the BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop to help you know what to do next?
Isn t counseling standard for abuse victims
Yes, but unfortunately many therapists victim blame asking victims why they attracted an abuser or what they did to cause it, so therapy can be problematic for abuse victims. It’s especially dangerous when it’s couple counseling with their abuser (which happens ALL the time).