We don’t really understand silence. Silence serves a useful purpose at times, then destroys and crushes us when it’s imposed, or we cannot seem to break it. Maybe the key is in whether we’re in control of our silence, or it’s in control of us.
As a woman that has experienced many years of domestic abuse in the form of lying, manipulation, gaslighting and betrayal, I have been silent for much of my adult life, at different times and for different reasons. I only speak up now after finally finding myself in a place of relative safety, free from these forms of abuse.
The “Me Too” movement, started by Tarana Burke in 2006, went viral on social media in 2017 giving many women and girls a safe space to break the silence around their sexual abuse, assault and harassment. Being surrounded by so many others that had experienced the same thing made it possible to feel strong enough, and/or safe enough to speak up.
But no one really thinks of the wives and children of the male perpetrators of this sexual abuse, assault and harassment who are married, maybe with families; I’ve heard them referred to as the “silent victims” of the “Me Too” movement.
I discovered my first husband’s patterns of lying, manipulation and betrayal initially by coming across an internet search looking for naked pictures of one of his co-workers (I recognized her name in the search bar). From his co-worker’s perspective, his sexual interest in her certainly qualifies as sexual harassment because she probably didn’t know that he was stalking her like that online. I’ll never know if he was making advances towards her when they were at work and whether she was welcoming them or not.
It only occurred to me when I heard someone refer to the wives of perpetrators as the silent victims in the “Me Too” movement, that there may have been many women working with my first husband that saw him as a sexual predator or felt he was sexually harassing them. I was deep in my own suffering for his harmful actions at the time, we had long since divorced. He may have sexually harassed many more women in the workplace, and possibly other places (at the gym, at church, etc). A man like him, addicted to pornography, and incapable of viewing women as anything more than an object to use for his own purposes, could have done plenty of harm outside my home, to other women, not just me.
But the “Me Too” movement was focused mainly on those women – the ones that men like him victimized “out there”, while the women in committed relationships with these men are usually unaware of what they’re up to at work.
We, the silent victims in “Me Too” lived in a special kind of hell with these men. We noticed the flirtations when we were out with him, or when he put his phone away a little too quickly when we walked in the room. We felt the knot in the pit of our stomach every time he lied, and we had no proof, or he called us “crazy” for asking for an explanation. We practically turned backflips trying to regain or maintain the love and attention we thought we should have as his life partner and wife, confused about why it had disappeared in the first place. The children were silently suffering too. They could feel our anxiety, they heard the arguments, they knew something was wrong too. Our shame, confusion and fear about our situation kept us quiet, just trying to make sense of it all, not understanding that we were being emotionally, psychologically and sexually abused too.
Because if sexual abuse and coercion is about not obtaining consent, I NEVER consented to having sex with a man I didn’t really know. I NEVER consented to having sex with a man that was chasing after other women, sleeping with other women and putting my health and wellbeing and the wellbeing of our family at risk. I NEVER consented to having sex with a man that was diverting the time, energy and resources that belonged to me and our family to other women. He did not have my consent and I was not fully informed about who he really was or what he was really up to.
We, the (ex-)wives and children of the “Me Too” perpetrators are among the silent victims in the “Me Too” movement.
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