i commend you for being there for him. maybe a "backbone" would have helped. - or maybe it would have just speeded up the running - who can tell for sure?

what i do think made a big difference for me is that when i didn't really believe that it could be any better - or even any different - i thought i could delay the probably inevitable split by at least complying with her insistence to get help. i was going to go through the motions to keep her - even if there was no other point to it. when i didn't have hope, she did - and i was along for the ride. eventually, that turned around and i had more belief that it was helping than she did. it took a LOT longer than she expected for me to start changing and seeing results.

if you don't have that card to play - "if you don't... then i won't" - i really don't know what else to suggest - except to hold out the promise or possibility of hope - as you mention in your last lines - if you are still close enough for that to happen.

my life now is better than i ever thought possible. i'm not perfect - but am actually enjoying life again - and so is my wife. we are closer than ever. i don't know if i could ever have imagined this myself - but she did - and somehow got me to go along. and i'm so glad she did.

Lee

RoE - I don't think we run from healthy relationships. We run from ourselves, and from pain that we expect will come.

Vulnerability is terrifying. Even now, after all these years and all the therapy I've been through, the thought of being completely vulnerable frightens me so much I feel like I can hardly breathe.

A healthy relationship requires openness, honesty and trust. For us, all three of those are near impossible.

The closer you get to someone, the more you care, the more you need that person to return your love and the more that person has the power to hurt you. When you've been used, abused and discarded by someone you trusted, someone who was supposed to be on your side, it's hard to trust someone again. If you never depend on anyone, no one can ever abandon you. The easiest way to avoid being hurt again, is to not trust anyone.

When no one loves you, you can't disappointing anyone. And because we usually believe only the worst about ourselves, the thought of not disappointing someone seems almost foreign.

I know I push people away... first - intimacy/vulnerability is scary, as Lee also explained so well. Second - I always expect people to disappoint/reject/abandon me. So I'm always testing - are you mad? Will you be mad if I do this? Will you leave me if I tell you that? It's like I have to make people constantly prove their loyalty, or else I can't trust them. Does that make sense?


He probably doesn't feel like he deserves it. When someone else's picture of you differs so fundamentally with yours, it makes you feel like a fake or a fraud, and you spend you days waiting to be caught out. Even though I'm in a happy relationship at the moment, I'm always searching my girlfriend's eyes for a signs that she's finally caught on to me, realised what I looser I am and is preparing to leave me... Some days I want to leave her, just so that I won't have to go through the experience of having her walk away from me...

What made me stop running? Loneliness. The only thing that I fear more than intimacy, is loneliness. It's almost like a phobia for me. Every time I start to run, I realise that the only thing I'll find at the end of that road is more loneliness, so I pick the lesser of the two evils and stop running.

OK I've given this a lot of though but that doesn't mean that it's right. I don't know him and I don't know you or your history with him. So based on virtually no facts I came up with the following.

Aside from your relationship, how is the rest of his life going? And I'm thinking work here. Is he doing what he wants to do? Is he fulfilled with where he is right now and on his way to where he would like to be? My guess is no. I think he feels like he is a failure.

I won't go into what CSA can do to a person but we all know it isn't good. In my case I had a father with his own problems and we were never good enough. So there was emotional and physical abuse and later on sexual abuse outside the home. At an early age I sniffed solvents, stole alcohol, then later when I had money from a job I did other drugs.

The CSA was in the past and I moved on but with damaged core. But I had an interest and went to college, quit doing drugs because I was serious about obtaining my goal (but still relied on alcohol to get me through the stress). Socially I only had a few friends, most who moved away eventually. I had a couple of relatively short wonderful relationships that ended painfully. (nothing like being told your not great in bed, but you don't hold anything back)

But I had my job that I enjoyed as it allowd me to express my creativity. And that has been what has kept me going. But things started to fall apart there two years ago. Stuff that would not have effected a lot of people as badly but kept chipping away at any positive feelings I had of myself. Six months ago I was in a very dark place. I'm pretty fragile now but doing better.

But I wonder what I would have been like if I didn't have satisfaction in my work (until the recent period). How negative would I feel about myself and how much worse would the effect of the abuse be?

During the last 5 years I have been involve in some stuff that has been extremely stressful. Some things I had to do but I wasn't able to because there was this incredible wall internally that I couldn't get over. I would try and try and I would always fail. I just couldn't get over the wall. But there were some hard deadlines and at the last minute I did it because I had no choice. But I know what that internal wall is like. The harder I tried to get over it the more it tried to crush me.

Back to you and him. I wonder if he feels like he is a failure. And not good enough for you. And you being so wonderful keeps amplifying how much of a failure he is. If his CSA (and other) problems has created such a huge wall that he can't deal with. That every time he has tried it has crushed him. And because he can't take that wall anymore he would even give up you.

I don't know. But that's the best I can come up with.

Everything crazy gecko said is dead on in my case. Except for the loneliness part. I chose the loneliness because it was easier for me to deal with than getting involved again.

Well I find running a very good for of exercise, whether running from family or strangers.........., sorry

Basically for me it was a case of leave before you are rejected or before people find out that you are the pervert that you aren't. I did manage to hold onto my family, but emotionally ran from them.
And yes the need to run is huge, and worst thing is that we dont know why we want to do it.

Hope my experience gives you a little help.

Heal well
Martin

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