I have noticed the timelines on a lot of posts here. A lot of you have been with your partner for many years before learning about their csa. A lot of you post about how you knew something wasn't right or that you had a hunch but had kept it to yourself. The conclusion that I'm drawing from this is that for a lot of you your relationships had suffered for years prior. That there had been a lack of closeness etc.
I have only been in my relationship for 5 years and married for almost 2 of that. When I read about partners who have lived in a csa marraige for 10 or 20 years all I can think is wow! Please tell me how you do it. How do you love someone even though they create distance between you or emtionally are absent. How do you not curl up and cry when you watch your friends partners dote on them. How do you not let the darkness that consumes the one you love not consume you in the wake of life's challenges. How do you go it alone without being alone?
I do okay at all of this most of the time. However somedays when I think about that this could be the way it always is I feel overwhelmed with sadness. I get anger at myself for what I. Have chosen. I want to scream and cry and run away from it all. My husband is a great provider but I. Don't feel like he even knows the real me. We don't have kids yet thank god but I want them someday. I want have a stable home for them I want them to know that their parents love each other. Somedays I just worry so much. I know I shouldn't.
So to all of you who are older and wiser than I please share your secrects and stories of hope. I'm sure I'm not the only one who could use a boost right now.
Thanks

I've been with my husband for 35 years and when things got tough over the years, I decided I could either laugh or cry - so I laughed. We share the same sense of humor, and we laughed together about silly things, even about serious things if we could.

Plus - I absolutely adored this sensitive, vulnerable, amazing person even when he was treating me badly.

I guess I was always able to see beyond what the abuse made him into. Somewhere inside me I could see the person he really was.

Now! This isn't good because I'm going all misty eyed and I'm English and this shouldn't be happening!!!

Take care of yourself.

Jemma

I understand your questions, sometimes there are no answers, My wife also did not know for several, thank God our relationship coontinued, it sounds like your husband does not know himself. I didn't, with much love and patience and a good T things are now better, I wish you the best.

I really didn't have a lot of relationship issues before we had kids. There was some odd things here and there that in retrospect I can see but at the time they didn't concern me. When we had child #1 he freaked out a bit. When we had child #2 several years later he totally broke down and all hell broke loose.