Intimate Partner Violence and Waiting Until Marriage

Hello friends,

I too am a survivor of what I believe is sexual abuse. I was going through a rough time in my life, feeling like I just wasn't meeting the right kinds of friends and finding the kind of community I so desired. I believe this social unhappiness led me into a lot of non-sexual, but physically intimate situations with people that I did know, but that were certainly not right for me. I ended up falling into a very bizarre relationship last spring/summer with someone who ended up being emotionally and sexually abusive. I have always wanted to want until marriage to do anything sexual, and made this very clear immediately, but this person really didn't care about that and took advantage of me while I was in such a vulnerable position. While I sometimes eventually agreed to engage in certain activity, significant amounts of coercion, manipulation, and pressuring were employed, especially in the beginning stages of the relationship and during the first few times anything "sexual" occurred between us. I should note that it took some time for me to finally give in to any of this.

Over a year later, I still think about the things that happened every day. I feel guilt and shame and mostly, disappointment in myself. I know that these feelings are very common amongst survivors of (sexual) abuse, but even so, it is very challenging to heal from all that occurred. The hardest part of my healing is coping with the anger I often feel at myself for beginning to initiate sexual acts with my abuser, though this did not occur until after he had already been pressuring and coercing me into doing compromising things. I try to understand what I was thinking at the time, and I feel that sometimes I am coming to some answers. Even so, it is practically unconscionable for me to accept that things were so bad last year that I was driven to act in this way. I have read a great deal about this subject and apparently, victims "re-victimizing" themselves is fairly common. Still, it is very hard to accept.

Sometimes, especially because of the fact that I began initiating sexual activity with my abuser, I feel like a fraud, like I've failed in some regard with respect to waiting until marriage for this stuff. Has anyone else been in this position before?