I like him, despite violating me

Dear Agatha, I am a final year student in the university. I met this guy in a social night, my department organised. He wasn’t a student. His friend invited him to the event. He seemed cool and nice to me. In the course of our discussion, I discovered we were from the same hometown. Eventually, he said he really liked me and wanted a serious relationship with me. I decided to give it a trial. One evening, he decided we should hangout. We did and it got late. Since I could not go back to the hostel, I passed the night in his house. He dropped me off in his house and went out again. He came back in the morning and wanted sex. I told him he was rather too fast since we just met. He kept insisting he liked me and had no intention of using and dumping me. I opened up to him that I was a virgin and wanted to keep myself until my wedding night. I requested for a sexless relationship. Immediately, he started pledging his everlasting love, care and respect and insisted on having his way. When I declined he forced me. I struggled and begged but to no avail. He locked his doors, seized my clothes and phone. He told me whether I liked it or not, he must deflower me that day. He kept repeating that he really liked me and would not dump me. He said my tears did not move him. He forced himself on me. I was in severe pains and while I was screaming, he kept apologizing and encouraging me to endure the pains; that it would soon be over. He said all sorts of things to me; including having everything to make me happy. I was so devastated and afraid it would affect me in my examination that was to start in two days from that incident. After I left him that day, I did not take his calls. My surprise is that I am not even angry with him and that the incidence didn’t really affect me or made me to hate him. I find myself rather still liking him. The last time he called, I asked him never to call me again but when he called again, I could not ignore it. He still wants to see me. Please help me. I don’t know what to do. Loveth. Dear Loveth, There are so many things wrong with your story. For instance why did you stay so late with a man you hardly know? Why didn’t you end the outing when you discovered it was getting late for you to go to your hostel? By staying that late with him, you encouraged the situation. When you realized it was getting late, you should have insisted he took you back to your hostel. Had you insisted in a public place, his reactions would have given you a preview into his kind of temperament. There are certain things a man cannot hide; one of them is masking the kind of aggressive character that would make him rape a woman. Such traits don’t develop overnight; they are always inherent in the man who has the tendency to. His intentions were well thought out and executed. Had you been more observant, your insistence to leave early would have brought to fore his frustration which would have manifested his true nature for you to see. The fact that you stayed out late with him, encouraged and emboldened him to take advantage of you. Also, why didn’t you insist on him taking you back to the hostel rather than his house, no matter the time? The fact that you didn’t, compromised you in ways you cannot explain to yourself let alone those around you. You may have been a virgin but didn’t display an understanding of an undergraduate at all. The lesson here is for you never to trust a man you are just meeting. Trust should be earned to given to anyone. There is also the tiny issue of him leaving you all night and coming back in the morning. That too, gave you the opportunity to be ready to leave immediately he came back. The fact that you weren’t ready when he came back in the morning, sent out a very wrong signal about your kind of person. For a girl who is a virgin; just finding out about the character of a man, you left too many things to chance. Telling him you were a virgin at the time he wanted to have sex with you was a miscalculation. It only served to stimulate his ambition. A normal man would have backed off at that point, but not a man who is selfish. He left you all night to fight the urge raging inside him; he wanted to avoid what eventually happened but lost the battle when he found out that you were a virgin. Finding you untouched further fueled his desires for you. Well, the harm had been done. The decision really is yours to make but you need to munch on these points in arriving at how you want to handle him in future. No matter his excuses and your slips, he is guilty of forcing himself on you; more so, in deflowering you. This isn’t the kind of man to trust at all. If he is capable of doing it once, he will do it again. For you, he took away the most precious time and gift of your womanhood. Responsible men don’t go about raping women. Therefore, be careful because his words and promises lack credibility. This kind of man can become violent in other ways. Sexual violence has led to the deaths of many women in and out of relationships. What if he had injured you in the process of you struggling with him? A lot of women have gotten killed in their struggles to avoid being raped by a man. Any man who abuses a woman the way he did to you, should be avoided by a reasonable woman. The fact that he showed no remorse is a dangerous signal you should take into consideration. This presents him as one of those men who hold the view that women are meant to be conquered in all fronts. The danger of living with this kind of man is that he will never completely treat you with the kind of respect you deserve as a woman; no matter what he says, when the chips are down, he will apply violence to bend you to his wishes. The sincere question you should ask yourself is, can you cope with this kind of man who may never completely exhibit the compassion that a woman needs to come to full accomplishment of herself in life? For now, your emotions maybe confusing, but you need to appreciate that you are the one who has lost so much; your virginity and dignity as a woman. Responsibility, is knowing when to draw the line between selfishness and selflessness. What makes a man absolutely responsible is how he treats the woman in his life. The nature of the man is to be stimulated by sight but, a reasonable man has to be able to control his emotions at all times else he ends up becoming a rapist. The important question is can you cope with a rapist? Can you defend his actions against other women including your close friends and sisters? The cycle of respect is all embracing. If he can violate you, what assurances do you have that he won’t do the same thing to other women around you? Can you trust and stand by him if another woman comes up tomorrow to accuse him of raping her? When you look back to your first time as a woman, would you ever be able to forgive and completely forget the brutality of his actions? Given the promises he made to care for you and what he did to you, can you ever believe in his words as a man to you? Since you are unable to get him out of your system, arrange for a meeting with him to discuss these issues with him. Ask him why he raped you even when he knew you were a virgin and was making promises to take care of you? Violating you and the promises he made to you are worlds apart. They are two strange bedfellows that don’t go together. Even if you think you can continue with him, let him know he has to earn your trust in more ways than he knows. Importantly, you don’t have to give in to him cheaply. Forcing himself on you could be his way of ensuring you stay his’ forever. Don’t be fooled by your feelings. Think with your head and not your heart to avoid being taken for granted by this man whose only interest in you could be your body. Frankly these aren’t good signals but like I said, the choice is yours to make. Good luck.