had a bad moment this morning while getting ready for work.

my wife and i were talking about a friend who had died of cancer over the weekend. she was saying how bad she felt for the husband. how he didn't deserve that pain. then she made the jump to thinking about us and said she knows how it feels to suffer for something that is not your fault. and next she said - referring to being married to ME - a survivor who didn't know he was one until years after we were married - "I have often thought 'I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS!'"

i almost lost it.
i took a deep breath.
i said - "i didn't either..."

lee

I'm sorry Lee... that was a pretty insensitive thing to say, but perhaps she didn't mean it that way?

Hey ((((Lee))))
hang on my friend.
I'm sorry that your wife felt like she did and that she couldn't hold those negative words.
Please stay out of that negative field...
Hang on !

Pero

That sucks that you did have to here that in that way. I have to say we of all people should no that we all deal with things in our own way. It sounds like this is a moment were you might have to put yourself in her shoes for a moment .
I no for a fact when i look back at some of my attitudes and behaviors and actions that have directly correlated with my abuse my wife had to suffer through those things .

Things are a lot better now a days but i am thankful that she stood by me .

I am not picking sides here you must understand . I am simply asking you to be open minded about this.
As survivors we always make a lot of things about us and tend not to look at the other side of things . Abuse make so many things about us and trying to cope in anyway we can sometimes and i no for a fact that i put my wife through some things that i wish she did not have to go through .

I can only guess that things have gone in a similar way for you.

There is one thing about truth sometimes it is raw and it hurts but it is what we do with that truth that makes the difference . Yea the pride and the ego is bruised up but when we do not just look at it from our own perspective but the others objectively than we can learn a lesson.

Speaking from my own experience I can tell you that in this instance It would be worth examining your roll in this and how you can see things from her perspective and make some changes . Maybe you have not realized the suffering you have inflicted on your wife just as i once did not realize the suffering i had inflicted on my wife . But when she did tell me that she had nothing to do with what had happen to me and i was taking it out on the wrong person .

I felt like well f this and F that and me me me me me
But after i cooled off and realized she needed to be validated and that i needed to apologize

yes there goes that pride and ego right out the door

Than i could see that there are things that i am responsible for such as healing and doing the work necessary for our marriage to be healthy because she did not sign up for this suffering
she signed up for the man that was portrayed during the courting and the love and the bond we had for each other

I no I no for sickness and health and good and bad i get that
so in that sense she did sign up for the good the bad and the ugly
but it is our responsibility as the God man to grow and mature and be the head of the house leading the home . We can not do that if we are not willing to say i am sorry this is part of marriage .

I could be way off base if i am i apologize now but i am speaking from my own experience and it sounds so familiar . It was a big eye opener that i put my wife in a position to say hay what about me to . We are all human and we all can only take so much before we let it boil up and out . Well sounds like she had had enough and decided to speak up And we are all guilty of this and when it happens it usually does not come out the way we wanted it to or if we knew the response we would of said it differently.

Sounds like this . I can tell you the enemy does not want your marriage to succeed you can allow this thing to go to places you will inevitably regret if you do not put pride aside and be willing to sit down and work this out through love and understanding . She has feelings to and she has put up with some things i no she has because it pretty much and impossibility with us survivors .

If she did not know about it in the beginning than that had to make things harder. Just think about that for a moment . My wife knew about it all before we got married and she still knew what she was signing up for
but did she? how could she really no the phases and the mood swings from compulsively going over every detail in my head some days of course effecting the relationship and everything around it . The good days the really bad days could she of known what she was really signing up for ? No way in hell

Look man I get it your mad your hurt you probably want to hurt with words but this is not going to solve it . Love is what is going to solve this understanding and mutual respect will help this situation .

I am not taking sides i am simply sharing what worked for me like i said i could be way off base here because I am not a fly in on the wall in your house . I just want this to get worked out and not go down a long road of hell


Peace and love brother

Hey Lee

I'm glad you posted this.

And I'm glad it happened to you Especially that you said your piece/peace.

I hope your wife sees things more realistically now- there is suffering and trouble in other people's lives too-and to only feel sorry for herself (you could never telll her this ) limits her ppreciation and understanding of her own life.

Yea, I brought a lot of stuff into our marriage my wife didn't ask for- and she felt deceived and betrayed-Nltsaved says a lot of truth above that's out of my story as well. And I have had to own that and find ways to heal, recover and change.

And we get to live and to have lives.

Lots of people, including our abusers, (imho) don't have a chance to really heal or live. I've seen enough folks did haunted with regrets, remorse, tooo soon or unloved or with unloveable spent lives.

I hope this exchange with your wife brings you both closer to each other and healing.

Lee

Man that must have hurt - I feel it.
Sorry you had to hear that - like that
She didn't ask for 'this' but she did ask for you.
'This' is not you. 'This' happened and is happening to you.
You are not doing 'This' to her.
'This' just 'is'.
She is hurting too.

Glad you remembered to breath
Glad you didn't loose it
You were both right - it sux for everyone and noone asked for IT.
You are both hurting - try to remember that.

I think there is something in what nlt had to say.

Lee,

That's tough. My wife and I had a similar exchange, sprouting off from a duscussion of how difficult the year has been and what we've got to deal with. Awkward.

It is maddening to hear bystanders, however well-meaning, talk about how upset they were by witnessing your car crash. But.... people are allowed to be human and their feelings are valid. Spouses who got this news as a surprise naturally have their own issues to work out. You can just hope people phrase their feelings appropriately and not in a triggering or minimizing way. And if they do you can just hope you can forgive them.

You definitely have more tact than I would have had in the situation. While I always make an effort to be empathetic to the feelings of others, lately I've noticed that I've taken a very hardball appraoch when people attempt to discuss my status as a survivor. You kept your cool. Be proud. :-)

you are all right.

thanks to each of you, my friends, for the words of support - and of challenge. both are welcome - and required for me to be the balanced, responsible and complete man i want to be.

i was able to defuse a potentially explosive situation by removing myself emotionally. i am "good" at that. had decades of practice. and while it is not the most healthy or beneficial tactic in the long run, it does help me to maintain control and keep functioning when i have to.

what i quoted above is literally all i said.

i did have a brief flash of shock/defensiveness/hurt/(anger?) - before i shut down. i am not good at recognizing or feeling or expressing anger. but distancing myself gave me time and space to sort out what was going on here. and since we both had to go our own ways mere minutes later, i had the space i needed to work through it.

so - with a bit more reflection and objectivity, i took it all in context. this was only ONE expression of many things she has said - and i now realize that many if not most of her other statements have been FAR more positive - things like - "i won't leave you" and "i want to help you heal" - so i am glad i did not lash out at this isolated comment in the reflex action that i was momentarily tempted to give in to.

and more than that - she also did not reply when i said "i didn't either." i think and hope that means that she accepts and believes that and recognized the fact that we are in the same boat. both victims of the same perps - me directly - and she indirectly.

thanks again,
Lee

Traveler,

I have had a similar comment from my wife. And its the truth. So many things I hid from her that, if she had known before marriage, would have sent her running for the hills. And now its too late to make it right.

we are doing better now. really on the same team again. i'm so grateful for the sympathetic kick in the butt, guys! it is truly NOT all about me.

lee

YEEEEAAAAHH it is not always all about you; that is so victorious acknowledgment


((((Lee))))

I'm sorry to say my wife and I had our own re-hash of this just last night. I told her about contacting my perp and she responded very badly - more of the notion that I should have told her instantly instead of one day later, or better yet told her first, and why the introduction of secrets into our marriage all of a sudden?

I know she is dealing with aftereffects in her own way and when she said as much in a borderline one-uppy fashion I stayed very quiet for a sec to stay calm. "And I'm dealing with the first recovered physical sensations of when a guy raped me in the mouth!!!" would have been impolitic. I don't ACTUALLY want to one-up her on the sorrow scale so I just said that we are each trying to fit this problem into our lives in our own way and it can hurt. But I did re-emphasize that she ought to see our trust as stronger than ever because I'd kept the secret for 26 years, never told my parents, never told 3 prior therapists, that I hadn't been emotionally ready to tell her when I did (when she found my pills), but that if I hadn't trusted her, if there was not real trust in our marriage, then I wouldn't have told her then either and would have made up some bullshit about stress at work, bills, new house, etc etc. And compared to 26 years, disclosing the next big step just 1 day after it happened is pretty good. I did hold firm on the "being mad at me for keeping secrets" angle - that really did hurt me and I said so as calmly as I could, but explained there is already so much sense of dirtiness and self-blame around this that being actually blamed regarding it is counterproductive.

Nobody "wins" an argument with their spouse - somebody loses - so we have to try to see eye-to-eye and move forward.

But when I asked her to hold me after, she wouldn't; I held her but she did not reciprocate.

Our house is still badly damaged by Sandy - our new heater broke last night after one week so it again was graveyard cold - baby up all night crying - and more and more repair payouts required with no sign of insurance checks yet. Which is exactly why I wasn't going to tell her now and frankly why it's so clear to me that I'd been right in thinking that way.

But life goes on. I hope.

Lee I am sorry to hear what you had heard. Clearly, no deserves what happened--especially the child who was innocent and robbed of that innocence. It seems people can relate to a physical illness and the pain and loss it causes. People cannot relate to CSA--they cannot understand what the child lived and lost and the lifetime of pain the victim has lived.

Yes you did not deserve it but in life we all carry baggage--no one has a perfect life. When people commit the commit for the good and bad--be in a degenerative disease, mental illness, effects of CSA--all has consequences to their lives. However, people seem to fear the CSA and its effects--I believe fear or refuse to learn to understand what CSA has done to the child's mind, body and soul. I believe as an adult when a support lives with the effects--they have greater ability to learn,understand and if they truly want to accept the CSA. Sadly, I believe a super majority refuse to learn or understand and dismiss CSA as a sham on how it impacted the victims life.

Stay strong my friend. You have support here and we understand. We can only change ourselves and not those around us.

SoccerStar -

obviously - i empathize. and as you can see from the additions to this thread - so do many others. remember there are lots of guys who understand and are supportive - even when life doesn't work out like we hope. recovery is difficult at the "best" of times. you have added stresses of natural catatrophies and all of that mess to contend with as well. i think you did well in your response - clear, firm and not too defensive or offensive. that shows maturity and - i am speculating here based on my own experience - growth from the beginning of your journey.

thanks for sharing. keep healing,
Lee

Hey SoccerStar


Glad you managed to keep this voice on the inside.

Like you said it isn't about 'winning'. I think you handled it well - it would have been so easy to bite back to 'put her in her place' so to speak. Like Traveler said - you showed maturity and growth by your response/attitude towards your wife.

Thanks for sharing

I did eventually have to say it out-loud to my then wife and then a judge and a court appointed psych...people sometimes forget that we never asked for this.

Sometimes, I can get outright nasty about the assumptions, myths and dumb remarks. I've gone on some blue-benders with folks.

Oh yeah!!! I was intentionally LOOKING FOR IT in my sexy snow-suit at 7.5!!!

idiots.