Elly was tired from the day. Her visit to Margreet and Lisa and her meeting with Annerieke had stirred up a lot in her. Memories of her own difficult pregnancies and heavy deliveries. Her contacts with Annerieke, and through her also with Erik. Experiencing how different the relationship of Annerieke and Erik was, and painfully feeling how she did not have that real contact with Martin, but longed for it.

She remembered well that day when she decided to give everything. She didn't know how, but she did her best. And that became more and more her life: doing her best... and passing herself by. Pleasing people had always been a trap for her, and even in her marriage she had walked into it with her eyes open. She had so longed for Martin to see her, to really see her.

Oh yes, in his way he loved her, she had always been convinced of that. Just as she loved him. But still, she had felt they were missing the most essential thing. What Lisa had said, about two souls riveted together like magnets. She was sure that this connection was there, but hidden under so many convictions and wounds. As a result, Elly had never experienced that soul connection the way she had seen it with Erik and Annerieke, and that was exactly what she yearned for so much.

.

"I am tired," she said to Martin halfway through the evening, "I would like to go to bed already. Don't you mind if I go now?"

She already sensed herself that something was wriggling in that question. Why shouldn't she just be allowed to go to bed, it flashed through her. She realized that just about her entire actions were aligned with what she thought would be Martin's wishes.

Martin looked up, "If I mind? Well no, I'll go with you!"

He was tired, too. He didn't know how to bring it up with Elly, but it had concerned him so much since Margreet’s and Lisa's visit, that he hadn't seen Elly as his soulmate, that there had been something possessive in his attitude toward her. He realized that his life during their marriage had been more about himself than about her and them together. He hated to discover this, to admit it to himself. But he wanted to be honest and change himself to Elly. He just didn't know how yet.

.

With a kiss they wished each other a good night. Elly turned over and lay down on what she called "her sleeping side," with her back to Martin. Martin was lying behind her, looking at her brown curls on the pillow. Such a familiar sight, yet it felt unfamiliar. Just like tonight, when he had looked into her brown eyes for just a moment, her beautiful brown eyes. How many times had he really looked into those, to see her? Rarely... never... no, never really!

He reached out and began to play with her curls. Elly lay dead still, as if petrified. What was this? Why was Martin doing this?

She felt his hand going towards her cheek, how he caressed her. It felt wonderful on her skin, but inside it shocked her, bewildered her.

His hand went along her neck to her shoulder. He caressed her shoulder, her upper arm. He caressed her back, just until he felt she relaxed her muscles slightly.

Martin crawled up to her, lay against her. Not tight, not pushing, just relaxing. His hand slid down her arm, over her side to her hip and stayed there still.

"Elly, darling, I don't really know how to say it, but I really want to tell you. Those two women hey, Margreet and Lisa, their story has stirred up so much in me and has made me think. Do you know that I've never really asked myself how you really feel? And how you felt in our marriage? I even really have no idea how you feel when we make love. All those things, Elly, I feel terrible about. I've short changed you so much, I just haven't seen you at all. You know what my greatest desire is for the time ahead? To really get to know you. I want to discover what you like in our relationship, in making love, but also in all the everyday things. I want to know who my dear wife is....

Damn it, this is so bad, we have been married for so long, and the image of you, always running, taking care of everything is my only obvious memory of all these years! I don't want this anymore Elly, I want to be there for you from now on, I want to know you, have a real deep relationship with you. I want to help you become who you really are. Do you still want that? After so many years... Do you dare to take that step with me?"

Elly turned to him, looked at him with big eyes full of tears. "Darling, I want nothing more. This is exactly what I've always longed for so much. I was always jealous of Annerieke. Erik really knew her, and she really knew him. They were two people, but they seemed to be one person. And I was so jealous, I wanted that with you too. I decided once that I would do everything I could to be there for you. My desire was so much for you. I wanted to do everything for you, be everything for you. But I also wanted so much for you to see me. And damn it, I tried so hard, but it didn't work. It was like I was crashing into a wall, and I didn't know what kind of wall it was or what I could do about it. I blamed myself, I guess I wasn't doing a good enough job. And so I became a Cinderella, a slave. A running slave. Indeed I was, and I was constantly focused on you, longing to see your affirmation, to see your love. But I didn't see it, and I didn't understand. What on earth was I doing wrong? I thought you despised me and tried even harder. And I kept longing for you..."

She saw that now Martin too had tears in his eyes. "That's it exactly, what I saw, also that pleading desire of yours. And the rotten thing is, I didn't recognize it with my heart. I only saw the slave, and I didn't realize that something was wrong, with you, but certainly with me.

Your desire, it went out to me, you said something like that. And those words touched me, because I know those words, they are in the bible. It's not a positive text, not a nice text. It's a curse from the beginning of the bible. You know the story, don't you, of the creation and the fall?"

Elly nodded. Martin had been raised christian, had been held rather strictly to biblical standards. She herself wasn’t, but she knew many stories from the bible. "Yes, I do know those stories, but I don't know what it has to do with that longing."

"Well, after that fall, god pronounced a curse on the people. I remember exactly what he said to the woman:

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.”

Elly was shocked, "Wow, it looks like that god put that curse on both of us. Remember how lousy I felt during the pregnancies? I was sick to my stomach and had such trouble staying on my feet, pain in my pelvis, pain in my belly! And those childbirths, so hard, so much pain! And that desire for you, my desire for you, so recognizable. And you would rule over me... well, I guess that's not so bad. Luckily it wasn't that bad!"

Martin shook his head, looking her straight in the eye as he stroked her beautiful curly hair. "It's that bad for sure, and that's why I'm so sorry. If it was necessary for you to act like my slave, I caused that by being a kind of ruler over you. Without a master, without a ruler, there is no slave. No, I don't remember giving you orders, not like that, I wasn't that kind of a ruler. But a ruler has no heart for his slaves, and I do recognize that in myself. Deep down I had no heart for you, I didn't really see you, I didn't see who you were, I didn't see what you liked, I didn't see what you needed, what you needed from me....

I thought at first that maybe it was because of the rank difference in the police force, that it made me experience you more like a subordinate or something, but it comes mostly from that christian faith, from the bible, from the church that spread that curse of god on people. I haven't believed in it since a long time, you know, but I still seem to be stuck in things from that faith in a certain way.

Something else, from the bible you learn that things are either right or wrong. If you do something right, you get a feather, a reward, an affirmation. But oh woe if you do something wrong, you get punishment.

When Lisa had told me about this man she wants to divorce, I thought to myself: how did this man become so messed up, that he abused his wife that much? And then immediately the next question came up in me: how can it be I don't let my own wife experience love? It felt wrong, I felt guilty, and I felt ashamed. But now I realize that that belief is just still completely through my system, I act on what I know, on what I’m used to, like a puppet attached to that christian god. It's so stuck through my system, I'm really stuck with it. I don't know otherwise. But I do want to be different.

That visit from those young ladies loosened something up inside. Do you know that I even literally felt that in my stomach? When they told me, it was as if something was being pulled loose in my belly, a wire with something like a hook attached to it. It didn't really hurt very much, but it was nasty for a moment, like something was scraping through me. And after that I was able to scrutinize myself. I have never been able to do that before!

Well, nice story, but I still don't know how I can change. I only know that I want to. Will you help me Elly?"

Elly laughed shortly, "Yes, I would like that, but... I myself have the same. That slave behavior of mine, it started in my childhood. I did not know better than that I had to do everything to please everyone. I hated that, because I didn't always know what people liked. And people were so different, so what one person likes, another doesn't. It has been a struggle throughout my life. A perfect breeding ground in which I could grow into a Cinderella during our marriage....

I also very much want to be different Martin, but I don't know how either. The Cinderella in me is afraid, afraid to do things wrong, afraid to make you sad or maybe even angry. How are we supposed to deal with that?"

"Pfff, no idea! The very idea that you have been afraid of me... I don't know how to heal your fear, I don't think I am capable of it. What do you think, do we need something like relation therapy?"

"I don’t want to think about that! Please, let's try it together first. You know what I think? I think this kind of talk is very important for me, and maybe for you too. I think it's important for us to discover within ourselves what’s difficult for us, and to share that with each other. Not as an accusation, though it may feel that way at times. I think it's true that we're both stuck in things that originated in our childhoods. And I don't want to be stuck, I want to be free!

Do you know what I experienced this afternoon in the nursery of Margreet and Huib? I saw a mural. First the word FREEDOM, very big. And then it faded and became all birds and butterflies, very colorful, very happy and free! And I get to make that mural there. I knew, that was an old dream that plopped to the surface. I felt it.

And I want to feel it towards you too, learn to feel what's under the surface, or behind that wall. Learning to feel what is really wrong, and most of all what is good and fine. I want to search for my inner self, and for your inner self. And I think I need you very badly for that, as a backing and a consultation. And I think the same is true the other way around, don't you think so?"

Martin nodded, thoughtfully. "Yes, we need each other in the first place. Searching for our inner beings, that clicks with me. Let's just go through it, always feeding back to each other what's happening, what we're feeling and so on."

To chapter 92. Sexual abuse within marriage

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