Over a year and a half ago, when I revealed to my husband that I had abused his trust and had kissed another man, he also revealed to me that he was sexually abused by his pastor.

He hasn't given me any details since, and we haven't discussed it. The topic will come up occassionally when we discuss religion and church-related issues because he told me at the time that he doesn't want to find a new church because of this.

I can't understand why he wouldn't want to find a new church and get away from the one where the abuse occured. His family doesn't know about the abuse. His family is very conservative and I think he doesn't want them to ever know because he thinks they will blame themselves (as they were very close to this pastor).

I have no problem not talking about this until he is ready, but whenever we try to discuss church, he just brushes it off. The other day we had a discussion about having children (we don't have any yet) and he keeps saying that he doesn't want to bring kids into this terrible world.

I think that he doesn't want to find a new church because he is afraid of trusting again and I think he may not want to have kids because of this experience that he had as a child.

The problem is, I do want to have kids and I do want to find a new church. And I have read about effects of abuse on adult survivors and I don't want him to succumb to major issues as he continues to "forget" about it.

What should I do? Should I ask him to seek counseling?

I don't want to seem like I am forcing anything on him, and if, in the end, he cannot recover from the abuse enough to have kids of his own, then I accept that, but I do think that he should at least try to recover -- even though he will probably say that there is nothing wrong with him.

Are there any wives out there who have experienced this? And any husband/boyfriends who can offer any advice?

Thanks.

I'm sorry to say this like this - but it sounds as though you are doing an awefull lot of speculating without any grounding in fact _ as in having gotten hubby's input........

You're putting a world of hurt on yourself for no good reason.

As a survivor of CSA, he is not going to tell you anything that he is not ready to tell you - speculation on your part is futile to say nothing of hurtfull to you.