# Just found out my wife was abused as child



## maverick23 (May 2, 2014)

Cross posting from Men's area - same title.

Mods - please advise if there is a better sub forum.

This item finally came out 2 hours into our regular 'my intimacy needs aren't being met' disagreement late last night.

Known my wife for 5 years, married for 3. Her dad's dad is the abuser - inappropriate touching when she was young and that's really all I can say with certainty other than no intercourse.

My wife is the type that is NOT introspective, NOT self aware, NOT very open to counseling of any type. She feels shame, lots of memory suppression, she just wants it to go away. If she had her way, we would never talk about this again and this data would serve to get me to understand her barriers to intimacy, and that would be the end of it.

Intimacy issues now being like 17th down on my to-solve list, I now share in this burden with her and feel overwhelmed with anger towards her grandfather (who lives out of state and we don't see regularly) empathy towards my wife but fear that she will drive me away when I encourage her to seek counseling. My first instinct was that she needed to tell her dad (who is a great person) especially since she has a younger sister. I told her that she is in charge of what we do with this, but I did not bring up the idea of counseling at the time, and I feel very strongly that needs to happen. Not that this is a foregone conclusion, but this piece of info explains her POV on the vast majority of conflicts we have had.

What I NEED HELP with is:
-how do I help her take the step to seek counseling?

-I feel like I am doing my father in law wrong by not insisting that he is made aware of this. I know trust with my wife comes first, but this aspect will wear on me fast and hard. Need input here.

Thanks in advance!


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## treyvion (Apr 29, 2013)

maverick23 said:


> Cross posting from Men's area - same title.
> 
> Mods - please advise if there is a better sub forum.
> 
> ...


The counseling isn't just so you can get sex. It's so she won't have to fight through repressing the memories and has an effective strategy to deal with it. Then you can worry about the sex, because does she really want to cheat you out of a sex life because she was sexually abused as a child?


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## maverick23 (May 2, 2014)

treyvion said:


> The counseling isn't just so you can get sex. It's so she won't have to fight through repressing the memories and has an effective strategy to deal with it. Then you can worry about the sex, because does she really want to cheat you out of a sex life because she was sexually abused as a child?


I guess I should emphasize that I really am not focusing on sex at all - more concerned with her well being, how this affects our ability to be parents, and my own sanity in keeping this info from my father in law.


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## Serinity1980 (Oct 22, 2013)

-I feel like I am doing my father in law wrong by not insisting that he is made aware of this. I know trust with my wife comes first, but this aspect will wear on me fast and hard. Need input here.

Thanks in advance![/QUOTE]

You can not tell your Father-In-Law you absolutely can not. I understand you want to but if you do you will break your wifes fragile trust in you. She told you because she trusts you and telling you is the first step and then how you react will be the bases if she takes the next. 
Hopefully she will realize that what happened to her, the shame she feels its not hers to feel its her grandfather's shame and its up to you if help or hinder her in this.

In life there are just some things that you take with you.


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## Happyfamily (Apr 15, 2014)

maverick23 said:


> Intimacy issues now being like 17th down on my to-solve list,


What you will find is that an entire galaxy of behaviors are linked to child sexual abuse, not just direct sex-oriented things.

The way you interact with a father, mother, brother, friends, school officials, church leaders, boyfriends, etc. is all hopelessly distorted by this 800 lb gorilla.

All of her mechanisms are familiar old friends from having repressed feelings and emotions, so of course seeking counseling is antithetical to her previous coping mechanisms. 

For a lot of us, confronting the abuser is an enormous step towards healing, and it sounds like that never happened.


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## Happyfamily (Apr 15, 2014)

maverick23 said:


> I guess I should emphasize that I really am not focusing on sex at all - more concerned with her well being, how this affects our ability to be parents, and my own sanity in keeping this info from my father in law.


One of the great tragedies in this situation is forcing everyone else to live dishonestly in order to protect the abuser and the sick coping mechanisms the abused developed.

You will learn the same coping mechanisms of pretending nothing is wrong or doing underhanded things to the person you are angry with, etc. It is astonishing how intricate the web is once you start having to live it. 

The one thing you can never help though is that people's radar will be blinking red and you'll have to lie in order to conceal what's going on. If you have a conscience, that in turn will eat at you and it is a burden you will carry for the rest of your life. 

This is a cruelty and a reason for the perpetuation of abuse from generation to generation. It is unfair to put this upon you. 

There are a number of books she can read on amazon dot com, and you can read all of the reviews to see which ones might be best for her. But thinking we can handle it alone instead of standing on the shoulders of those who came before us is foolish. If she won't do counseling then at least read.


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## maverick23 (May 2, 2014)

HF - I see it as very foundational to who she is. Really, it explains so much about her that just didn't add up, but I had written off the possibility that she was abused because she was always in the company of family and 'good influences' for lack of a better term. Thanks for the empathy to me but my heart hurts for my wife - I talked to a counselor on a help line this morning and she made the comment that emotional growth becomes stunted afte r the abused, which really explains why she is less self-aware than I would think she should be. As a consequence, she hasn't built up the strength to fight this issue BECAUSE of the issue, which is a cruel cycle.


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## Happyfamily (Apr 15, 2014)

maverick23 said:


> HF - I see it as very foundational to who she is. Really, it explains so much about her that just didn't add up, but I had written off the possibility that she was abused because she was always in the company of family and 'good influences' for lack of a better term. Thanks for the empathy to me but my heart hurts for my wife - I talked to a counselor on a help line this morning and she made the comment that emotional growth becomes stunted afte r the abused, which really explains why she is less self-aware than I would think she should be. As a consequence, she hasn't built up the strength to fight this issue BECAUSE of the issue, which is a cruel cycle.


Totally!!

I broke free of this very early on, and don't wish to put forward details here. But it is clear to me how much different those of us are that confronted an abuser. 

My husband did some reading just because he is a conscientious person, not that we had any problems. I encourage you to continue working with a counselor, reading, discussing - even if she will not participate because of the insight it gives you. It can be an awful lonely feeling, powerlessness, despair - and guess what? That's how your wife felt. 

There comes a time when an abused person has to accept responsibility for their PRESENT actions. She was in a HORRIBLE position as a child, but as an adult you have to recognize how your coping mechanisms that were taken on as a child are destroying your adult relationships along with the way you raise your own child.


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