Horror

After the gynecologist had told me to work on inserting tampons, I bought a box and tried putting them in. I did successfully insert them about three times. I figured that was enough. I also spent a lot of time with my husband just cuddling and caressing him and getting close. Then came the Nidah period.

We were really excited for our Mikvah night. This time, everything was going to go perfectly. I went to the mikvah. I went to the drying room, perfectly blow-dried my hair, put on my makeup and beneath my blouse I wore the same lingerie I had worn on my wedding night.

My husband, in the meantime, got our house ready. He closed the lights, lit romantic scented candles everywhere and put rose petals on the bed. When I got home, he was waiting for me in his robe. He had showered and shaved. I opened the door and literally walked into a fairytale. He handed me a dozen red roses and after I had told him I was pure now, kissed me.

He had also found the music I had walked down to at my chuppah and he had set it to repeat. It was beautiful music. The connotation, of course, was that this night was our true wedding night.

We went to the bedroom. He undressed me tenderly. He kissed me. I kissed him back. We slowly touched each others' bodies, watching as they came alive. The feel of his skin, my hand in his hair after such a long time apart- it was heaven.

The moment came. I knew I should help direct him. So I lay back, bent my knees, relaxed, opened myself to him. He pushed hard. I choked back a scream. Whatever he was pushing against, it didn't work. I didn't want to let him know that, though. I just gritted my teeth and tried to bring him closer. He pushed again. This time I couldn't stifle the cry that ripped from my throat. There were tears on my face. I was in pain and I was crying. His arousal started to go soft.

"No," I whispered harshly, angrily. "Keep going." My head against the pillow, I could hear my wedding music playing. I could see myself walking to that chuppah. I wanted us to be married for real.

"I can't," he said in anguish. You see, he could see my face, which was a blur of pain and sadness.

I forced him. I came up with ways to make him aroused again and then I had him try again. And he did try and I would scream and he would go soft. "I can't do this, SJG," he finally whispered. "I feel like I'm raping you."

"But you're not raping me. You have my permission to do it," I said irrationally.

"I just can't be aroused when you're in so much pain," he said and cradled me.

We hugged each other, sobbing. In the background was the wedding music, which made us both think of me the way I was, such a happy bride.

"Shut that off," I begged and he got up and turned it off. Then he started to berate himself.

"How could I have been so stupid to think that it would just work without us doing any work," he said.

"I did do work," I protested. "I put the tampons in."

"Not enough. We need to see a professional."

"I can't, I can't see one," I said and burst into more tears.

Then we started fighting. I blamed him for not knowing where the opening was and how to do it right and he blamed me because he said I had vaginismus, which I didn't want to believe. We both sunk to the lowest levels human beings who are supposed to be in a loving relationship could sink to.

We left our bedroom, which we felt was cursed. We were so emotionally raw, so completely unable to handle this. We went to sit on our couch.

"Why don't we try here?" I suggested. He shook his head. "Please," I asked. "Maybe in a different location- you can make sure I'm relaxed first."

So he did relax me and play with me and I was happy and even smiling. And then he would try to enter me and my body would actually push him back. My legs would literally clench together and just not open to him. The memory of the pain I had just felt was not letting me be open even though in my mind I was telling myself to be. So I lay down and pulled back the folds and tried then. Nothing. There was literally no way for him to get inside me; my body wasn't allowing it. I was way too tense.

That's when my husband said we needed to call a sex therapist. So we called a famous one. He heard our whole story and told us to start with a treatment of putting in tampons (lubricating them first), from the smallest size to the largest over however long a period of time I would need. Then either I or my husband should insert one finger and work on moving it in and out. Then two fingers. If we couldn't do two fingers, I would have to actually go see a professional in an office.

It was amazing. I had managed to keep the tears out of my voice while on the phone with the man. But once we hung up, I dissolved into a puddle of sorrow and misery. My husband held me for a long time.

That night scarred us. We can't even fully think back to it or experience it because it was a true horror show, the kind that haunts you. I haven't begun to describe to you the horror of that night.

And my wedding music has been poisoned for me. Now, when I hear it, I think back to my husband on top of me, desperately trying to help me and make me happy and incapable of raping his wife. He told me sometime later the most awful thing he's ever seen is the way my face looked that night. How I was in excruciating pain and struggling not to show it while tears were trickling down my face.

I love my husband. I love him so much. And after that night, I think we can go to hell and back without being severed. Because there is nothing I can imagine that can compare to the horror of that night.