I have been married to my husband for 3 years, have a beautiful girl together, living in Victoria, and my secret is that my husband raped me, or at least that is how I feel. He took advantage of me and, despite my protests, raped me. I stared at the ceiling while he held me down and prayed for it to be over. I don’t know why but that night we were fooling around after our daughter went to bed. All of a sudden I just didn’t want to do anything. I know I lead him onto it but still I thought he would stop when I said no. I haven’t told anyone about this till now. I don’t have any friends because I moved here from Vanderhoof with my husband. I left all my friends and family back there and no one to talk about this. A lot of people have asked, if I’d ever been abused or taken advantage of sexually and I can’t bring myself to admit that I have been raped by my husband. I want so badly to believe that I am one of those women who’d never been raped or abused. Just now I’m realizing how much it affects me all the time. I can’t concentrate. I don’t feel anything for my husband but I used to love him with my life. I don’t even know if this is rape or not. A part of me thinks it’s not the other part thinks it is. I tried to tell myself that he is my husband, so he had the right, but I feel like he took something I can’t get back. I can’t bring myself to admit that he had that power over me. I wish I could come to at peace with it. It may lead us to divorce. He did apologize about it after but still that is not enough. We had full-filling sex after the incident too but still that incident really messes me up.

I work for School District 57 in Prince George. As most people know it was semester change last week and so all new classes started in the high schools. In my first class of the day I was running through the class list and marking who was present or not. I was about half way down the list when I came along the name of a new student to our school. I knew the last name but quickly thought … well lots of people have that last name. Well I looked up and scanned the room to see if I could see which student went with this name. And there staring at me was a female version of the man who raped me when I was 12. I have never seen someone so much like their parent before. I thought I was going to die. It was so hard to focus on anything else. I wanted to run out of the room yelling. Panic hit me so hard. I had to leave the room for a few minutes to regain myself.

How am I going to teach a class with this child looking at me every day? I know it has nothing to do with her. Her father was the one who did this to me. But how am I going to talk with her parents knowing that he did this to me years ago. What is he going to do when he realizes that I am now teaching his daughter?

I tried to tell someone about what he did to me but the cops said that I was just making it up. I was a girl who slept with someone and then regretted it the next day. Since that time I have never said anything to anyone about it. I know he was really pissed off at when he heard that I went to the cops and he threatened to kill me and my family. We had to move and I had to start my life over again. What am I going to do when I see him again?