Hi All,
I am new to this as recently my husband disclosed to me that he was molested as a child. I guess in my heart I knew something had happened at some point... Our sex life has never been "normal", but at least now it makes sense. When my husband was around 11 the boyfriend of his babysitter did some horrible stuff to him and another male friend. The part that he is having trouble with is even sometimes when the creep wasn;t around, he and his friend would do things to eachother because "it felt good". These were their first sexual encounters so I guess I understand it. He has become a very productive memeber of society despite all this. The problem is this... He has issues, sexually. A lot of the things that turn him on today are those things that happened to him. Before I knew the details about what happened, he and I would engage in role play, what I didn't realize was he was getting excited by me recreating his abuse. Even talking about the abuse turns him on. He is so sickened by this and I wish I could help him. Now that I know the role play is off, but how can he supress these feelings that he has? Is he gay? I know he loves me more than anything and I am glad after 10 yrs together he has opened up to me but what do I do with this knowledge now? How can I help him. How can I cope myself? How do I not track down this creep who did this to him and f'd up our whole lives? I am having a really hard time. Any advice would be appreciated.

Vanessa:
Re-enactment of abuse dynamics is pretty common for survivors. It may be an unconscious way to change what happened but probably, at age 11, he was prematurely stimulated and is trying to re-create that first and very powerful experience.

A lot of men who are not truly gay are confused by their interest and arousal to penises. I'd suspect if he has been sexually interested in you for 10 years, he is not gay.

Best for him (and perhaps you) get into therapy with someone who is experienced in sexual abuse issues to disconnect the abuse from your relationship issues.

Ken

Vanessa,
It's a good , no great thing he's opened up to you. I'm coming up on my 9th anniversary (this week) and still have no openly confessed. Like your situation we haven't had a normal sex life for many years.

LNH