I am really struggling to know what is the right thing to do for my boyfriend right now. He has struggled in the past with addictions to alcohol and found himself in shallow sexual relationships. We really worked through a lot of this together and we seemed to be on the right path. For almost a year there was no drinking and he decided was ready to get married. Although everything was going well he still had some moods and would occassionally confided in me that he thought "something had happened to him." Just recently these memories about "what happened" have flooded back to him. At a very young age he remembers being raped. He doesn't want to think about it or talk about it, all he wants to do is dull the pain and he's fallen back to drinking again. He knows he shouldn't drink and doesn't want to drink, and it upsets me so much to watch him falling back into this addiction. He says if he lost me it would be the end of him, but that he doesn't deserve me, I should be with someone "normal." It breaks my heart and scares me. He thinks it's his fault and just wants to forget about it. I feel like we finally know what we are fighting and the root of his issues, but I don't know where to go from here. I feel like he's so fragile right now, I don't want to say or do the wrong thing, what do I do? I love him and care about him so much, I just want him to find some peace, please help.

supportive gf,

There is a post on here under "A little advice please" by little_leo816 the same advice would apply here so you should read that post as well.

I think that if you can get him to back off the alcohol till he can get some help that would be a good thing. Drinking as I'm sure you know will only drag his self esteem down and make it hard if not impossible to help him build it back up. He needs to hear that it was not his fault as often as he can even if he argues that it was. He should be made aware that males are abused more than anyone hears about he is not alone. This monster that survivors face in our thoughts only grows in the dark silent places in our minds. The only weapon is the light we can shed on it by talking to someone. But most of us have been conditioned to not talk or have been to afraid of how we would be treated if people knew what had been done to us.

Try hard to talk him into getting help from someone trained to do so.

Take care.

Brokensoul

"If the man you Love was Abused" by Marie Browne and Marlene Browne

"Survivors and Partners' by Paul Hansen

Thank you so much. I'm really trying to help him stay off the alcohol, but now he's started going out at night to drink at someone else's house. I tell him that it wasn't his fault and he just collapses into me and cries and then becomes angry. He's got so much guilt over the things that he's done to cover up the pain that we're in a vicious cycle. We have talked about looking for someone to see professionally, I just hope that he starts to realize that it isn't going to just go away like he thinks it is. Thank you again for listenning.

supportive gf,

Very strongly encourage him to go to counseling, but also into a program for the alcohol.

You cannot fix him, he has to want to begin the journey to recovery. I would suggest printing out a list of therapists in your area as well as a list of local 12 step programs for the alcohol abuse so that he can choose to start to deal with his issues. I discovered first hand that just the act of quiting drinking isn't enough, he has to deal with why he started drinking in the first place. He needs to learn how to cope with his problems as opposed to numbing himself out. And you need to be careful to not fix everything for him - be supportive by all means but don't think that you can make it all right for him.

For your sake, please consider waiting until he is well on his way in his recovery before you marry him or bring children into the picture.

This all can be worked through, but he is the one that has to have the want to work through all of it.

I'm so sorry that your going through this - none of it is fair.

Your in my thoughts,
Angie