Question:
I agree with Eloise on the open marriage part. Personally – I would feel like a failure also. I liken it to having an injured back. If your wife had an injured back would you go to find sex with someone else the six months she was in traction? I guess for me that is a good analogy because maybe it will give you a more realistic picture of her future regarding her sexuality. Having been through this – I agree with other survivors that she will not *always* be afraid of/not interestd in sex. I wasn’t waware that acupuncture had anything to do with evil spirits … for most acupuncturist’s it doesn’t – it’s a healing modality that’s been used for a really long time in Asia and it can be quite effective. Though, I’ve found it’s usually more effective for physical problems. Personally, her best bet is to keep seeing a competent therapist and maybe find a women’s abuse survivor support group for some peer support. By the way – Alan has posted some really skewed and bizarre posts in the past has a tendency to not always make sense. I guess I would warn anyone new to take what he says with a grain of salt. Oh … one last thing. For the original poster (the husband) – I don’t personally think that what Alan said about sex-and-love-addicts anonymous is probably appropriate right now. It’s a normal response to the statement "I will never have sex again" to question – do I *want* a celibate relationship for the rest of my life? It doesn’t as of now sound like you’re "addicted" to anything. Just sounds like you have the normal concerns of anyone in your situation. Julia – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – i think alot of the suggestions are real good,like patience and her in therapy and you in therapy and books like courage to heal,and a womans support group and lots of stuff like that,it takes along time,i am messed up mpd but still i try hard and its been 5 yrs now,but had to leave abusive relationship first to start to get better/my ex could not support me,only exploit mein cruel an abusive sex sex is a good thing but not if it is at the expense of anothers sanity and pride,and if she "feels" it to be too much then back off oh and the open marriage in my open would be a real slap in the face first of all they almost never work out,you may fall in love or the woman may and your wife will feel terrible like a failure and worse there is nothing wrong with masterbation, and she may occasionally feel able to,or you may wanta find out what would be acceptable to her,she needs to go slow like learning all over again no open marriage as a female survivor i would flip out if my current s.o. wanted to do that but i would be interested in learning more about that acupuncture stuff/i am not sure if i believe in evil spirits,but at this point i think i would try it anyway take care love eloise Hi Chet: She broke silence on a par with what has surfaced into consciousness, it isnt a confession, she did not sin, she did not do anything wrong. It is a witnessing to her own perpatration. Accuracy in words are important in my model of the universe. It strengths the power of the word. And yes, you do know how to pick em, it speaks to some shadow issues you have in your own unconscious and how you were raised, or the disease skiping generations. Your stuff is just a mirror reversal, and that is ok – just have to do the work your self and with her. As for her ideation on sexual abstainance, this is her going into recovery. Like any drug addict, the first thing to heal the broken heart and addicted personality is to isolate the wounds by stoping the acting out, what is medicating the wounds. With all this stuff surfacing any sexual contact will likely bring back history like PTSD does in veterans in real time, you are petting her and in her bodymind it is her perpatrators doing it – and she has to sort that out. Also her hormones are going big time with the pregnancy, possibly charging this a bit more then what it really is until she gets her bodymind back to "normal" about 4 months after the birthing process. So, you are probably going to have to back up. Honor her boundaries, and do some healing with her. Get out of your sex partner stuff with her and do husbandry with your own children and create a protected space for her own healing. Figure on about 2 years, so patience is going to be required top on the list, every day for some time. Good idea to start 12 steping yourself, and hanging out with other survivors and spouses of survivors in perhaps Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. If you want this to go as fast, safe and sanely as possible, find a Rosenberg and Rand Integrative Body Psychotherapist ideally with training in Biofeedback and Applied Psychology to help her find her relaxation response. Accupuncture is very usefull also. In Chinese medicine their model purports that an evil spirit is about the perpatrator and want to "infect" a victim – a child. And they in turn pass it on down to other victims to possess. There is an accupuncture point just under the left breast that is called "bury dead spirits", it works real good. It is good that she is doing this integration process while she has time before she leaves her earthsuit to set things straight. Keep hanging out dude. You dont have to get a divorce, and with the children it isnt necessary. And for your own sexual stuff, it might be an idea to talk of an open marriage for a while. This is really touchy and has to be done with extreme conscousness and strength of self to do it in both parties. The addition of a third person in the relationship adds their spiritual energy and can mess things up even more then they are now. But in the right mix it can be helpful and balancing for the short term until she is better and more integrated. The lack of the sexual bonding in the marriage is likely to be a large strain on the relationship. You lying in bed with with her, and not being able to touch her especially given the history of contact . This is a big load to deal with guy, and you have my salute to your integrity and love for your family and their future to do this. SumBuddie Hi. New guy to the group. Looking for mature, understanding assistance. Male 35, married 8 years, 2.5 kids (due next month). Marriage in chaos. Wife has always been sexually dysfunctional and through counseling she confessed to her two older brothers sexually abusing her in her youth. She was abused through the ages of 6-13 and yes included intercourse and oral. To add the misery, her father is gay and her she has not spoken with her mother since she left home at 16. I sure know how to pick ‘em. She personally admitted in counseling she could go the rest of her life without sex. Thinks it is all bad. Please take a moment and let that last statement sink in. I am a normal, healthy, compassionate male with a problem that will affect me the rest of my life. Don’t want divorce. Need a friend or group of friends to help me through this. Efforts much appreciated…. chet
J.P. Montagnet | "And he cried… http://havoc.gtf.gatech.edu/jope | And when he cried, El JoPe Magnifico! | seven thunders uttered their voices."
Response:
Hi. New guy to the group. Looking for mature, understanding assistance. Male 35, married 8 years, 2.5 kids (due next month). Marriage in chaos. Wife has always been sexually dysfunctional and through counseling she confessed to her two older brothers sexually abusing her in her youth.
Well – first the good news (somewhat …). You say that your wife has always been sexually dysfunctional, so you’re used to it (bummer – but ok – moving on). Now that she has admitted that she was abused, things will most likely start changing. I don’t mean she will be *fixed* of her problems – but she’s in counseling and she’s addressing her problems that made her sexually dysfunctional – so she’s healing. That is a big cue for hope. She was abused through the ages of 6-13 and yes included intercourse and oral. To add the misery, her father is gay and her she has not spoken with her mother since she left home at 16. I sure know how to pick ‘em.
Oh – you and my boyfriend both. I’ve been through hell and back too. I guess what might help is a change in the way you look at the situation. It’s not *her* fault at all that she was abused by her brothers. As far as a parent being gay – that can be really confusing for children, but I have about three friends who have a parent who came out as gay and it didn’t leave any deep wounds or problems because of it. Her problems stem more from the abuse she suffered, I would imagine. And although after living through something like that – many of us are badly wounded (the same as if living through an earthquake – only the wounds are emotional and not physical). She has the compacity to heal, and since you must love some part of her (you’ve been married eight years …) try to focus on the part you love and keep up hope that as long as she’s trying to heal she will. She personally admitted in counseling she could go the rest of her life without sex. Thinks it is all bad. Please take a moment and let that last statement sink in.
Oh … don’t have to let it sink in because I’ve said it before. First clue about survivors of trauma – often times we say things in the "big picture" like "I’ll NEVER have sex again!" But they don’t last. As your wife heals she will change her mind about that. It may take a long time, but it’s going to happen. It’s like breaking one’s leg and saying, "I’m NEVER going to walk again!" Eventually you do – it just takes time to heal. You probably want to think about that aspect of things. You *are* married to a woman who’s been badly wounded. It will take time and energy and compassion to stand by her while she heals. You may have to go through some changes yourself (as would anyone married to a spouse who’s going through healing from trauma – be it emotional or physical). Are you up to it? Can you handle not having things as you may have always pictured it should be? These are important questions to ask yourself. Because it will affect your wife and kids poorly if you stay and feel trapped and just want out. I am a normal, healthy, compassionate male with a problemthat will affect me the rest of my life. Don’t want divorce. Need a friend or group of friends to help me through this.
Well – you’ve come to the right place for people who will understand what you’re going through! Welcome! Once again – try to look at this as a temporary problem. Sure, it may take years – but not the rest of your life. Everyone grows and changes, situations grow and change. Your wife will not be as wounded in five years. And you will find that you will probably have changes some too. There’s a couple books that you might try reading – they’re very good for validating one’s feelings when living with a survivor of abuse – one is "Allies in Healing" and then there’s a section called "for Partners" in a book "Courage to Heal" about healing from sexual abuse. They’re good in that they address *all* the feelings that come up for partners – including fear and frustration and anger and hopelessness. Maybe try some counseling yourself, seperate from your wife. That way you have someone you can go to with feeling trapped or feeling angry that your marriage isn’t "normal" – because your wife is probably not up to understanding that right now. Good luck – I hope something I said helps! Julia J.P. Montagnet | "And he cried… http://havoc.gtf.gatech.edu/jope | And when he cried, El JoPe Magnifico! | seven thunders uttered their voices."
Response:
i think alot of the suggestions are real good,like patience and her in therapy and you in therapy and books like courage to heal,and a womans support group and lots of stuff like that,it takes along time,i am messed up mpd but still i try hard and its been 5 yrs now,but had to leave abusive relationship first to start to get better/my ex could not support me,only exploit mein cruel an abusive sex sex is a good thing but not if it is at the expense of anothers sanity and pride,and if she "feels" it to be too much then back off oh and the open marriage in my open would be a real slap in the face first of all they almost never work out,you may fall in love or the woman may and your wife will feel terrible like a failure and worse there is nothing wrong with masterbation, and she may occasionally feel able to,or you may wanta find out what would be acceptable to her,she needs to go slow like learning all over again no open marriage as a female survivor i would flip out if my current s.o. wanted to do that but i would be interested in learning more about that acupuncture stuff/i am not sure if i believe in evil spirits,but at this point i think i would try it anyway take care love eloise – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Hi Chet: She broke silence on a par with what has surfaced into consciousness, it isnt a confession, she did not sin, she did not do anything wrong. It is a witnessing to her own perpatration. Accuracy in words are important in my model of the universe. It strengths the power of the word. And yes, you do know how to pick em, it speaks to some shadow issues you have in your own unconscious and how you were raised, or the disease skiping generations. Your stuff is just a mirror reversal, and that is ok – just have to do the work your self and with her. As for her ideation on sexual abstainance, this is her going into recovery. Like any drug addict, the first thing to heal the broken heart and addicted personality is to isolate the wounds by stoping the acting out, what is medicating the wounds. With all this stuff surfacing any sexual contact will likely bring back history like PTSD does in veterans in real time, you are petting her and in her bodymind it is her perpatrators doing it – and she has to sort that out. Also her hormones are going big time with the pregnancy, possibly charging this a bit more then what it really is until she gets her bodymind back to "normal" about 4 months after the birthing process. So, you are probably going to have to back up. Honor her boundaries, and do some healing with her. Get out of your sex partner stuff with her and do husbandry with your own children and create a protected space for her own healing. Figure on about 2 years, so patience is going to be required top on the list, every day for some time. Good idea to start 12 steping yourself, and hanging out with other survivors and spouses of survivors in perhaps Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. If you want this to go as fast, safe and sanely as possible, find a Rosenberg and Rand Integrative Body Psychotherapist ideally with training in Biofeedback and Applied Psychology to help her find her relaxation response. Accupuncture is very usefull also. In Chinese medicine their model purports that an evil spirit is about the perpatrator and want to "infect" a victim – a child. And they in turn pass it on down to other victims to possess. There is an accupuncture point just under the left breast that is called "bury dead spirits", it works real good. It is good that she is doing this integration process while she has time before she leaves her earthsuit to set things straight. Keep hanging out dude. You dont have to get a divorce, and with the children it isnt necessary. And for your own sexual stuff, it might be an idea to talk of an open marriage for a while. This is really touchy and has to be done with extreme conscousness and strength of self to do it in both parties. The addition of a third person in the relationship adds their spiritual energy and can mess things up even more then they are now. But in the right mix it can be helpful and balancing for the short term until she is better and more integrated. The lack of the sexual bonding in the marriage is likely to be a large strain on the relationship. You lying in bed with with her, and not being able to touch her especially given the history of contact . This is a big load to deal with guy, and you have my salute to your integrity and love for your family and their future to do this. SumBuddie Hi. New guy to the group. Looking for mature, understanding assistance. Male 35, married 8 years, 2.5 kids (due next month). Marriage in chaos. Wife has always been sexually dysfunctional and through counseling she confessed to her two older brothers sexually abusing her in her youth. She was abused through the ages of 6-13 and yes included intercourse and oral. To add the misery, her father is gay and her she has not spoken with her mother since she left home at 16. I sure know how to pick ‘em. She personally admitted in counseling she could go the rest of her life without sex. Thinks it is all bad. Please take a moment and let that last statement sink in. I am a normal, healthy, compassionate male with a problem that will affect me the rest of my life. Don’t want divorce. Need a friend or group of friends to help me through this. Efforts much appreciated…. chet
Response:
Hi Chet, I guess first I would like to ask how long she has been in counselling? The reason that I ask this, is that when I first started dealing with the effects of the abuse, and all of the issues surrounding it, I said the exact same thing, to my therapist, and to my husband!! Guess what? It didn’t turn out that way. Now, I actually like sex!! Just don’t like it often enough, according to my husband! 
But I think that can be a problem that many marriages have, not just those with survivors. I have a friend that has the opposite problem. Her sex drive is much higher than his. All I can say is, she needs time to deal with this. I read something, just yesterday, that I found really interesting, and want to share it with you, okay? It comes from the book, "Allies in Healing" by Laura Davis, written for the partners of sexual abuse survivors. This really hit me, because I realized it was really talking about me. "When a survivor takes in the fact that he’s been sexually abused, he makes more room for the truth in his life. More of him comes alive. These new parts are often born in an atmosphere of pain and struggle, but as he moves through the pain, eventually, more of him becomes available. Ultimately, there will be more of him to love you. He will be able to make love intact – with the fullness of his passion, his vulnerability, his weaknesses, his strengths – not as an impostor. I know there will be times you’ll wish the impostor had stayed around, but healing from childhood sexual abuse is a one-way trip. There is no turning back. And the survivor has to bring all the undeveloped, hurt parts of his body, spirit, and mind with him. Be patient. At the other end will be a mature, intact adult, not a needy wounded child. Isn’t that who you really want to make love with?" This was highlighted in our copy of the book. I have a feeling that it really had an effect on my husband. I do know that this book helped him a great deal, in dealing with his own issues of being the partner of a survivor. He once told me that though he didn’t suffer the abuse at the hands of my perp, that I did, that he felt like he was a victim of my abuser, as well. Because it hurt him so much, to see the pain that I was going through. He hated my perp, with a ferocity I really thought was reserved for survivors. I was wrong. Anyway, Chet, can I suggest you get yourself a copy of this book. My husband swore by it, especially through the real crisis periods of my life. And Chet, be patient, love her, listen to what she says and how she says it. You can help her on her journey of healing. As my grandmother always used to say, this too shall pass. take care, rosee – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi. New guy to the group. Looking for mature, understanding assistance. Male 35, married 8 years, 2.5 kids (due next month). Marriage in chaos. Wife has always been sexually dysfunctional and through counseling she confessed to her two older brothers sexually abusing her in her youth. She was abused through the ages of 6-13 and yes included intercourse and oral. To add the misery, her father is gay and her she has not spoken with her mother since she left home at 16. I sure know how to pick ‘em. She personally admitted in counseling she could go the rest of her life without sex. Thinks it is all bad. Please take a moment and let that last statement sink in. I am a normal, healthy, compassionate male with a problem that will affect me the rest of my life. Don’t want divorce. Need a friend or group of friends to help me through this. Efforts much appreciated…. chet
Response:
Hi Chet: She broke silence on a par with what has surfaced into consciousness, it isnt a confession, she did not sin, she did not do anything wrong. It is a witnessing to her own perpatration. Accuracy in words are important in my model of the universe. It strengths the power of the word. And yes, you do know how to pick em, it speaks to some shadow issues you have in your own unconscious and how you were raised, or the disease skiping generations. Your stuff is just a mirror reversal, and that is ok – just have to do the work your self and with her. As for her ideation on sexual abstainance, this is her going into recovery. Like any drug addict, the first thing to heal the broken heart and addicted personality is to isolate the wounds by stoping the acting out, what is medicating the wounds. With all this stuff surfacing any sexual contact will likely bring back history like PTSD does in veterans in real time, you are petting her and in her bodymind it is her perpatrators doing it – and she has to sort that out. Also her hormones are going big time with the pregnancy, possibly charging this a bit more then what it really is until she gets her bodymind back to "normal" about 4 months after the birthing process. So, you are probably going to have to back up. Honor her boundaries, and do some healing with her. Get out of your sex partner stuff with her and do husbandry with your own children and create a protected space for her own healing. Figure on about 2 years, so patience is going to be required top on the list, every day for some time. Good idea to start 12 steping yourself, and hanging out with other survivors and spouses of survivors in perhaps Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. If you want this to go as fast, safe and sanely as possible, find a Rosenberg and Rand Integrative Body Psychotherapist ideally with training in Biofeedback and Applied Psychology to help her find her relaxation response. Accupuncture is very usefull also. In Chinese medicine their model purports that an evil spirit is about the perpatrator and want to "infect" a victim – a child. And they in turn pass it on down to other victims to possess. There is an accupuncture point just under the left breast that is called "bury dead spirits", it works real good. It is good that she is doing this integration process while she has time before she leaves her earthsuit to set things straight. Keep hanging out dude. You dont have to get a divorce, and with the children it isnt necessary. And for your own sexual stuff, it might be an idea to talk of an open marriage for a while. This is really touchy and has to be done with extreme conscousness and strength of self to do it in both parties. The addition of a third person in the relationship adds their spiritual energy and can mess things up even more then they are now. But in the right mix it can be helpful and balancing for the short term until she is better and more integrated. The lack of the sexual bonding in the marriage is likely to be a large strain on the relationship. You lying in bed with with her, and not being able to touch her especially given the history of contact . This is a big load to deal with guy, and you have my salute to your integrity and love for your family and their future to do this. SumBuddie – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi. New guy to the group. Looking for mature, understanding assistance. Male 35, married 8 years, 2.5 kids (due next month). Marriage in chaos. Wife has always been sexually dysfunctional and through counseling she confessed to her two older brothers sexually abusing her in her youth. She was abused through the ages of 6-13 and yes included intercourse and oral. To add the misery, her father is gay and her she has not spoken with her mother since she left home at 16. I sure know how to pick ‘em. She personally admitted in counseling she could go the rest of her life without sex. Thinks it is all bad. Please take a moment and let that last statement sink in. I am a normal, healthy, compassionate male with a problem that will affect me the rest of my life. Don’t want divorce. Need a friend or group of friends to help me through this. Efforts much appreciated…. chet
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