Male survivors who happen to read this...

What makes you unable to give and receive love?

Is it fear? Mistrust? Fear of disappointing another? Not feeling good enough? Sabotage? Not knowing how to?

What makes this impossible or challenging?

What would it take for you to be able to give and receive love?

Thank you for sharing!

Having no one to love. If I resolved that problem I'm sure I can give and receive love.

But maybe I'm missing something. What you you mean by "love"? (and who better to get the answer from )

I wish I knew, and even when I have met others with this same problem it's just as perplexing.

I would say for me it has a lot to do with not being able to believe that it's even remotely possible that somebody could love me. A lot of times this comes as a form of a question like, "How could they love me if they knew who I really was?" Also trust is a big issue. I can't trust whether or not what I'm being told is true or just superficial bullshit. And I guess one of the most significant reasons is that to some extent I hate myself so I end up sabotaging myself so that I don't receive love, because well, I hate myself so I don't deserve it.

It's different between everyone I guess, so I just give you examples from me.

As to what would it take for you to be able to give and receive love, well if I knew I guess I wouldn't have this problem. Part of me understands it's a delusion, but part of me believes this delusion. It's an inner struggle, and if someone hates themselves, I don't see how it's possible for an outsider to help them if they're not open to the help in the first place. I've been told many times that you can't help someone who doesn't want help, idk if I believe that though, but I do know it holds some truth.

Being abused at a young age cauterized my heart. It's like I had scar tissue there where I was supposed to love and trust and communicate.

Puffer

Good topic.

Fear is what used to stop me from loving in the sense of dropping my defensive walls and allowing someone to fully engage my heart. I was afraid because my siblings not only rejected me, but they became sarcastic and demeaning, ridiculing me. My siblings also sexually abused me. My parents believed in corporal punishment when they were angry, the beatings were stopped when they were tired, not due to incident or indiscretion.

Fear. Maybe more to the point, a supporter may be confused because when a supporter meets their survivor, he was happy, funny, unconcerned, took chances and made you feel special. He was attentive and co dependent, eating, sleeping, driving and working became about you. Please dear supporter, do not confuse these things for love and openness, they are not. It is decades of creating the perfect wall to hide behind, and dear supporter, we are not laughing when you are hurt, we are screaming, we are terrified, we are clawing at the walls we make, hating them and yet desperately needing them lest we are overtaken again.

We love, we cannot trust. Happiness, hope, safety and comfort all come with a terrible opposite, because we MUST control ourselves, or we will be destroyed.

I think trauma damaged my ability to be intimate.

(And if healthy relationship skills were offered in my family of origin, I missed those classes.)

And my myriad coping skills (drinking, reading, acting out/solo sexual activity and keeping others at a distance). Only undermined any natural inclination I had towards Intimacy.

Shame, trauma, isolation don't encourage vulnerability or intimacy.

So I had to start with me.

I had to seek help and find others who struggled in the same ways. I took an long honest look at myself and my life and choices and impulsive behaviors- and that continues to this day.

This same process and support helps me be intimate wih myself first and foremost. And others - male and female- in non sexual ways.

I create safe space to open up and experience my emotions I've stuffed for years.

And it opens me up to experience intimacy.

On behalf of my H who is a survivor, I know he feels love. He is a very gentle heart with a tender soul. He gives and receives love, but only to a small circle of few and only in moments when he feels safe. For the rest of time and people in his life, he saves his inner Comedian, or Performer, or Athlete... anything to distract them from the possibility of seeing HIM. He stumbles greatly with trust and with communicating in an emotionally honest way. He struggles with all levels of intimacy. So, for him, trust and intimacy, emotional communication and connection are what I think was damaged, but not the ability to give or receive love in of itself.

And to your question about what makes it challenging, I'd have to say yes to all. Fear, mistrust, self-worth, conditioning, control is a big one, sometimes sabotage, and sometimes the path of least resistence. Sometimes he is just tired of trying and working so hard all the time and just wants just wall himself in so he can take a break.

I had to learn how, as an adult. I never learned how to show love as a child - I had no role models.

And receiving love was terrifying. First - Someone who loves you can stop loving you/abandon you. It's safer to not be loved. That way you can't hurt anyone and no one can abandon you. Second - When I was in my teens and moved in with my grandma (the first home where I wasn't abused) I had no idea how to respond to kindness. It was completely foreign to me. It was unknown and therefor frightening. I did my best to hurt her and piss her off just so she would act in a way that made sense to me, that I knew how to respond to...

Wow, that's such a great explanation. I couldn't agree with you more.

Great thread! Thank you love for posting this topic and thank you survivors for your candid and thoughtful responses.

My survivor friend has told me that he doesn't think he could ever love the way I love. It's confusing because sometimes he does seem very affectionate, but at other times he is very distant. He says he goes through periods where he has strong feelings for me, but other times he feels nothing, numb. He says it's easier to feel nothing than to feel the pain.

I also think there is some fear. He has said before that he is afraid I would leave if I really got to know him. I sometimes wonder how much is a direct result of CSA and how much is related to reactions that he has received in the past after disclosures. I know he has had some bad experiences with girlfriends in the past telling him that he would become an abuser himself after he disclosed.

It seems like he thinks he doesn't deserve love and that makes me really sad. I try to give words of affirmation liberally, but he always seems a little surprised that I could see him in a positive light.

What open and honest responds!

Thank you all for sharing your innermost thoughts. There is a familiarity in what you all shared and it saddening yet informative.

And you can have that person, someone who will adore you and love you just as equally.

@Mountainous Buck, it seems you've been progressing a lot in your journey and coming closer to accepting yourself. It's beautiful to hear!

How did you learn as an adult?
What your wrote is familiar! He always said he was terrified of disappointing me - would hurt me often then feel so much pain over it. It never made any sense to me. Why hurt another in the first place?

Is this why he would break down and cry from the bottom of his heart for hurting me? Yet repeatedly do what caused the hurt in the first place? It never made sense to why a person would be in so much pain causing hurt yet continue to hurt me in the same way after repeated, open, heart to heart talks.

I found this interesting. My survivor friend hates talking on the phone and I've never quite understood why. I've actually never met him in person and we've never talked on the phone. We've just communicated online and via text for the past 2 years. I've asked to talk on the phone and every time I bring it up he gets really quiet and stops responding. At first he said it was because he had a stutter. I told him it wouldn't matter to me, I'd like him just the same. Now he just says he doesn't like talking on the phone. I wonder if it might be related to needing to be in control and not being caught off guard or made vulnerable.

I'm not sure exactly if it's related to sexual abuse or not. I guess I didn't make it too clear. We didn't exactly meet first and then have the phone situation take place. We spoke for months over the phone and really grew to learn of each other. We only lived a few blocks away, but I was very busy until one day where we finally met in person. We were very comfortable and raw around each other. Felt a lot of peace and acceptance. After our split, we didn't really split emotionally or energetically, just technically if you know what I mean... Until 2012 after everything that was expressed to me. He had been in and out of my life due to his own issues. He wanted to pick up the phone and call me at times but didn't due to fearing a lack of control over how our conversations would be. I'm very straightforward. He likes beating around the bush.

How do you feel about never have spoken to someone you've known for so long over the phone? That's a long time!

It is hard to answer your question Love... He doesn't talk about these things in a clear literal sense most of the time. He just tends to react and then I get glimpses of these things when I press him to talk after the reaction so I can gain some insight. He is triggered a lot by anything that may be mistakened for a criticism. He can take a question like, "are you going to do such and such..." and react to it like someone has just said "why haven't you done this and you should have done this by now and you are a jerk for not having done this by now!" This is his guilt and shame surfacing and has nothing to do with me. I have to just steal myself away when this happens and continue on in a neutral way like he has not reacted at all. I have to just carry on without being drawn in by his reaction, without acknowledging or engaging his defensiveness... But it is really hard and I screw up a lot.

He has never wavered in his statements of love to me, he just doesn't always walk the walk so to speak. He can spend weeks being distant, not noticing what is going on around him with our family and emotionally withdrawn, but when discussed, he is surprised that I might question his love for me. He just doesn't show it in the same way and has very little self awareness yet when he withdraws. This was his normal for almost forty years, so he is often not aware when he turns off. He just fades to grey and then it is extremely hard to get any reaction from him at all for a while. I am learning to handle it by trying to focus my reaction, interpretation or reception of his love. I am trying to learn how to nurture myself and simply feel loved without his validation or affirmations.

My father also suffered trauma when his parents and 7 siblings died in a house fire, so I was raised by a man who loved his family feircly, but was emotionally distant, never showed emotion, rarely said "I love you", even to his kids, and suffered bouts of depression where he seemed to just go into his head for months... sometimes years. I did not possess the ability as a child to understand his trauma, so I became co-dependent and tended to think that I was at fault for his distance and lack of displays of love and affection. All I knew is that I felt invisible to him sometimes. This is what I am learning to gain independence from now. My husband has never acted out in hurtful ways like cheating or been verbally or emotionally hurtful to me, he just turns off and or becomes angry. He just withdraws and seems to be sleepwalking through his entire life sometimes and reacts with irritation and anger at anything or anyone who inadvertently draws him out of hiding. As he is now seeking therapy, I am trying hard to focus on my co-dependence and emotional independence. I am trying to learn to get on with my life with the hope that he will join in, but not the need that he do so. This gives me the confidence and patience to bear witness to his journey without feeling responsible for, hurt, unloved, or negatively impacted by the results of his trauma. Sometimes, I feel I have been self-centered in owning his reactions. His reactions and responses are about him and his pain, not about me. I am trying to learn not to be so affected so I am free to just love him for all that he is right now and all that he may or may not be tomorrow without requiring him to grow at any particular pace or in any particular direction for my happiness. This isn't easy for me and I stumble a lot.

I'm not sure that answers your question well, but this is what I am doing to try to help myself and deal.

With infinite patience, compassion of love from two women - my grandma and my girlfriend (who later became my wife and the mother of my child). And LOTS of therapy (CBT).


I don't know.
Because it's all we've ever known. We don't know how to be kind.
Because we believe that we are evil, and if you believe it enough, you act it. And hurting you reinforces that belief.
Because the alternative - being vulnerable - is just to frightening.

And then there is a thing called "splitting" - seeing the world in black and white. It is a symptom of BPD but I understand that it is also something that can occur in people who are not quite diagnosable with BPD. If you hurt me, whether intentionally or not - you instantly become evil and I can no longer remember anything good about you. I lash out at that evil person, determined to hurt and get my revenge, determined to protect myself from further hurt by driving you from my life. Then you break down and cry and say you love me, and suddenly you are good again. I can no longer remember anything evil about you and I am terrified of you leaving me because I cannot live without you...

I hate you... don't leave me!

Yes, love - the pain and remorse for hurting you is real. It feeds on his self-loathing and feeds into his self-loathing in turn, creating a vicious cycle. When he hurts you cries out of remorse but also because it confirms that he is as bad as he things, and that is incredibly painful. I'm not sure how, or even if, you can break that cycle without professional help.

Sometimes it makes me really sad that I've never even heard his voice. I used to get angry and frustrated. There are so many things that just can't be expressed very well via text. Sometimes we would have misunderstandings because something that was said was misinterpreted and that only fueled my fire making me wish we could just talk on the phone. I would keep asking and he would keep pulling away. He told me that I was making him feel like a jerk because he couldn't give me what I wanted. And I didn't understand why it was such a big issue to talk on the phone. I didn't like arguing with him though, so I tried to stop asking.

A part of me was hurt that he didn't seem to want to even hear my voice. I cared about him a lot and the things he said sometimes made me think he cared about me too. But I thought if he really cared about me, wouldn't he want to do this, what seemed to me to be, small thing? I think I'm starting to understand better though. I asked him tonight if talking on the phone made him feel like he didn't have control and he said it made him feel really vulnerable. I feel like I'm finally coming to understand.

I'm not sure if we will ever talk on the phone or meet in person, but I can say that getting to know him has changed me. I think it has made me a less selfish, more compassionate and understanding person.

To me, love is something that was tainted from an early age. The violations were all because my abuser "loved" me.

I have probably only truly loved about 3 times in my 40 years, as far as I can relate to the feeling. Each time brings about fears of rejection, abandonment, the wanting to trust.

If I do trust the person enough to open up, I break down all my defenses and it ends up leading to them not understand, not being able to cope with my emotions, and eventually them leaving. In the process it leaves me a complete mess, my emotions raw, reverting to self harm, thoughts about suicide as a means to no longer have to feel, and then having to put the pieces together on my own.

Once again the cycle repeats until i am stupid enough to let someone else in.

It is likely that by texting, there is a level of disassociation over having to talk to someone, either over the phone, or in person. It gives a sense of anonymity, even though he is opening up to you. To actually hear your voice may make it too personal for him. He has trusted you enough to talk to you about his issues, but he may feel by speaking, you will be able to hear his hurt, his shame, and all the other negative elements.

It may just take more time for him to feel comfortable moving to the next step communicating with you. Just be patient and don't try and force him, otherwise he is likely to retreat.