Hi Partners

I have posted on my BLOG about partners and the need for support groups.
Please could you read it and comment or recommend changes.

Thanks all
Martin

I think this is a great idea Martin and its nice to know were appreciated. It is a long hard road and I guess what I would like to see is more awareness and advice....especially from yourself and others who are prone to 'acting out' etc as to how to hande the situations. What has worked what has not etc etc.

I think this is a great way of raising awareness. There are so many lost souls out there who are not aware of the support they can access (when it is available) Here in the Uk we do not have many services which support male survivors... maybe not even a handful to be honest.

The law.... yes I agree...what Law... my parnters perp is being released next Friday (13th ironically!!) after serving only 18 month of a 4yr sentence.. 4 yr because he pleaded guilty.... had he not he would have had 12!! Go figure.. So 18 month for 8yr (maybe more) of my partners life going through this every week / day...

Great work tho keep it up x

I've been looking for a support group with no success. I live in this big city and there are no other secondary survivors out there also looking for help? Not a single therapist has any clue about starting one either. They treat the victim and forget the family. So very frustrating!

Martin:

When you write: "The Survivor however does not have the ability to have an emotional relationship with anybody, but really really needs this relationship as his "SAFE PLACE"."

Please tell me what you mean by inability to have an emotional relationship with anyone.

Thanks,
D.

whome gives great answers but I hope you'll appreciate my take until his post appears.

As a seven year old who was introduced to adult sex in a violent and disturbing way I had no context to understand. My childhood was truncated. Ended right then and there. But I wasn't adult, with adult perspecives and adult coping tools either. I became filled with complex emotions stemming from the trauma, self-blame, self-hate, rage, alienation to name but a few. These feelings are painful, too painful. So the mind shuts them down one by one until the child is the shell of a person feeling no emotion. No sorrow, no happiness, no love, no hate just numb. Drugs helped with that and so did my dad who was also emotionally unavailable. It worked great! I was an island, needing no one, trusting no one, content. Except sub-consciously all those raw, unprocessed issues were roiling in the background. That leads to destructive behaviors. My outwardly bad behavior fed my number one belief. That I am a bad person, unloveable and undeserving of love. I did hurtful things to my partner to prove my point. She forgave me. I did destructive things to myself to prove my point. She accepted me. I pushed the limits of trust and tolerence to show I was bad. She was there for me and she told me she always would be. But I needed to get help. I was an outsider going through the motions in my own family, unable to have an emotional relationship with my kid, my wife, my parents or anyone. I had spent so many years shutting those emotions down that I only felt like a stranger to the people that surrounded me. I think that's maybe what WHOME might mean. But he can tell you much more eloquantly than I.

This is another post of the utmost help. Thank you so much for explaining. I look forward to what Martin will write, but you've written something extremely helpful as well.

Let me ask this: If you were "strangers" to them, did you like them? Or once you came out of the numbness, did you find out you didn't really much like them?

How could I not love them? They accepted and nurtured me. My daughter gives unconditional love no matter how distant I am, no matter how much I don't want hugs. She gives me hugs. I was often a monster and they allowed me back into their lives time and again. Now that was me. I tried to love my wife and family in my own inept way while I was emotionally crippled. But people also get together for all the wrong reasons, too. So if you have a partner that has burried his feelings about you that aren't exactly flattering, you may need to deal with those when and if they come to light.... just sayin.

Okay, this is very helpful.

Thank you.

So you like hugs, even when you don't like hugs?

I hate hugs. They're a much needed human connection. This dovetails into the quote from Martin that you inserted in the beginning of this dicussion (where are you whome? I need you today.) Just the word replace "emotional" with physical.

"The Survivor however does not have the ability to have an emotional relationship with anybody, but really really needs this relationship as his 'SAFE PLACE'."

Same for hugs. I have an inability to accept affection, but I really really need a hug sometimes.