When a House is Not a Home

I got this letter from a myspace friend about a friend of hers: Her husband had got deployed for 4 months. Well before he left to go to Iraq, they were already talking about getting a divorce. Well while he was away, she started seeing another guy. I told her she wasn't being smart with the affair, she was out in the open with it. Now where she lives...it is nothing but military families. All of them are friends! They watched her for 3 months, parade her new man around. She even had the man in the house with the children. Well, she has three kids, but the oldest one is not his. So when her husband calls one day, the oldest son tell him that mommy was having another man in the house. Well to make a long story short, he and she had an argument about it and he threatened to kick her ass out his house when he got back home. Well, he came home Oct. 1, and it has been hell every since. He has followed her to stores, and other places. Just to make sure she isn't having any type of contact with the other man. He has even left the children in the house sleep, so he can go out and catch her with the other man. Well she hasn't been having sex with him, she told him she doesn't feel it anymore, and she thinks it won't be a good idea with them getting a divorce. Well of course this man has some built up pressure, and he had been trying her. Well they had been sleeping in separate rooms. She and the baby would sleep in the master bedroom, and he would be in the guest. Well...She usually leaves her bathroom light on for the baby, so when he wakes up he can see her and not start crying. Well when she went to bed the light was on. She said she was sleeping well, and she said something awaked her. When she rose up in the bed the light was off, and he jumped on top of her. Now her husband is large with muscles and military training. My girl is a size 2, and tall (she is a model.) Anyway, he pinned her down and raped her for an hour. When he was finished, he got off her, went in the bathroom got a towel, threw it on her, and then told her "I see you did have a little more left for me". Girl when she told me this I cried for her, and with her. I didn't really give her any serious advice just yet, but I did tell her to get herself together and go get her children. She left the house and went across the street to stay with a neighbor. I suppose to call her back, and I want to make sure that what I tell her is right. She has showered and gotten rid of the evidence, so now she has nothing. I think she should just get the hell out before he hurt her...like kill her. Um….wow? Ok, first she needs to get all her shit and get out the house for real, not across the street. Rape is an act of violence, it is also often committed by people who feel out of control. Let me just say first that soldiers take a while to get back to normal after they come back from fighting a war. I think that she handled the situation ALL WRONG!!! But rape is never the fault of the victim, no matter what! There is obviously some psychological issues with her husband that need to be dealt with. However, if she plans to leave him anyway, I don't really feel like those are her concerns at this point. She needs to get out! Now!! I say this because a man who is fresh home from Iraq and rapes his wife, is probably still transitioning from being in a situation where violence is accepted and a place and time where it is not. I kinda like to put myself into the shoes of both parties when dealing with any situation before giving advice. And although I can see both sides, I think the most important thing I can say here, is GET OUT!!!! This man has some violence issues that he needs to deal with and the violence may become even worse. Because he is military trained, I don't think that she should take the chance of being there when he snaps again. It's unfortunate, I know that, but very necessary. She may want to seek counseling and in fact, I urge her to do just that… If she wants to reconcile after he sees someone for his problem, then fine…but for right now, she needs to leave and he needs to not know where she is. From there, she needs to listen to the advice of the counselors and she needs to file a police report. It doesn't matter that she has no dna evidence, because he is her husband. It would be difficult to use dna evidence against a spouse in the case of rape anyway, because she could have just said that he raped her after she had consentual sex with her husband. So, that doesn't matter right now. She needs to get an order of protection, because she doesn't know what he's capable of at this point. She needs everything to be documented. And I think that may be the best advice I can give on the subject. I cannot stress COUNSELING enough!!!!! She needs to talk to somebody (a professional)!!!!!! With that said…. I know that we want to paint a picture of this man as a monster, but I just cant do that. Don't start writing me hate mail. I empathize with all victims of rape. I happen to be a rape survivor myself, so I know how it feels to be violated. And I know it'll be a long road ahead of her to get past this, but she will with proper counseling, or alternatively a really long time and a lot of prayer…:-) Even though I am empathetic with the victim, I am also sympathetic to the rapist in this case. I can not imagine what his mentality must be like right now. I know that military training and worse, real-life combat, changes a man. I also know that without the proper support when they come home, that it takes longer to "get back to normal". I've seen it with my own friends and family members. I got my own issues with this war (don't get me started), but this is one of the reasons, that I don't feel like we should be sending people over there for unjustifiable reasons. This pisses me off, but I won't even go into it, cuz I could write about that for days…if I were talking, somebody might shove a sock in my mouth, so imam leave it here for now. But I think that we should be more careful how we treat our sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, and whoever while they are fighting and support them when they get home. I don't support this war, but I do support our troops. As a matter of fact, I'm sending a care package (masturbatory sleeves and lube) to a unit in Afghanistan this week….:-0 Don't hate. But seriously yall, this was really hard for me to answer, cuz my mind was all over the place trying to examine the situation from both sides. And I will agree with my naysayers that I wouldn't have been even a little bit concerned with where he was coming from had she not led with "he got deployed". So, Imma just say I hear yall already with your "shame on u laa" and "I can't believe u even thinking bout that nigga" and "fukk him, he's a violent asshole that needs his ass whooped". I thought that too at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt almost as bad for him as I did for her