a big issue *trigger*

a big issue *trigger*
I

IrishKipley

Registrant
this post scares me, but here goes.
in my last post i said that i am going to be getting married in the near future. i have been with my girlfriend for a little over two years now, but there are so many things about myself, about my life before her that she knows nothing about. i know in marriage you need to be honest and i struggle with this guilt on a daily basis. i just don't know how to tell her the things i feel i should. i know it would be a bad idea to continue to hide this from her, but yet i keep hiding it, letting it fester.

in the past i have had relationships with guys. some violent and abusive, but others not. some of them were really bad people, but at the time i thought anything had to be better than living with my father, enduring what he did to me. i wasn't studpid, i learned from him how to use my body to get what i wanted and i used that to survive when i first left him. being in some of those relationships kept a roof over my head and that's all that mattered to me. i had nowhere else to go, i was 15. it makes me want to throw up. this is a hard thing for me to admit, but there i said it. i want to be honest, but i don't want her to be disgusted or afraid of what i was. i am still friends with one of the guys i had a *good* relationship with and my fiance knows him as well. how wierd and uncomfortable would that be if she ever found out? i just want to scream for being so stupid and feeling so weak. how can i deal with those feelings of wanting that type of relationship? i hate lying, i feel like i've done it my whole life. please any suggestions would be great.

Kip
 
Kip, I have two bits of advise. Don't get married if you have any doubts about whether you are straight or gay. Know what you want first. And secondly, tell your fiance absolutely nothing, at this time, about past relationships with guys, especially about the friend you still maintain a relationship with. Telling her will absolutely ruin your relationship with her. If you decide, at some future date, that you are leaning more towards being gay, then go ahead and tell her about your past experiences, it will almost certainly end your relationship with her. If you,
eventually come to believe that you are 100% straight, there is no necessary reason to tell her everything about your past. What is in the past is in the past. Honesty is important, but there is no need to sabotage yourself. I am also quite sure that a number of the guys here will disagree with me about this, suggesting that honesty is the best policy. And I believe that in most circumstances this is true. However, I also think that people should be able to wipe the slate clean for themselves if they so choose.
Peace, Andrew
 
Andrew

thanks for the quick reply :)
i really appreciate your advice. i understand what you are saying. i am leaning more and more toward not telling her (at least not now, if at all). in my heart, i feel so strongly that i want to be with Samantha for the rest of my life. she has been there for me through so much and i can't imagine life without her. i want a wife and a family and i DON'T want to ruin our relationship but i'm just confused. i feel bad lying to her, but i realize it would probably do more harm than good to tell her about my past.

thanks again for you input
Kip
 
Kip,

I'm not one of the gurus here, but I would strongly suggest talking your situation over with a competent therapist.
The issue of honesty and openness with your partner is an important one but I would think that working this through in therapy would give you the best perspective. Therapy will also provide growth for you in other areas, as well.
Meeting the right woman and thoughts of marriage is what drove me into therapy for the first time. I have never regretted telling my future wife that I had been SA'ed as a child. Most of the details did not come out until later, when I found better therapy. By then, we had a substantial relationship and she stepped up to the plate once again in my behalf.
I wish you the best and hope that you will find a therapist worthy of you.

Take care, have courage and peace for the holidays,

David
 
Kip,
Dave's advise makes sense. A therapist will be able to help you navigate through this very important decision. Peace, Andrew
 
You have recieved some good advice from two smart and kind men. One other thing I would like to say. When you feel you are ready to talk of it with her. Perhaps it would be best to write it in letter form first, because it will give you the chance to decide how you wish to actually put the words together, how to say it the way you WANT to say it, without interruption or losing your thought process with it. Then, when you have done that, you will have other option. You can still talk of it with her, having already decided how to 'say' it once already. Or you can give her the letter first and say, 'I wish to talk to you of this, but need you to read this first'. Then she has the chance to read it the way you want most to say it, without you becoming emotionally crazy with it. I did that with my friend Susanna, and was able to tell her a little more of it that same day, and we have talked of it all, slowly, more since then. But the letter is what helped me to open it up so much.

Just is my thought. My relationship with Susanna is not like what you are in right now, facing marriage together, so that may well make it different. I wish you luck.

leosha
 
As one who has been with men, I know a person can act out with males, and be perfectly straight. Kip are you seeing a therapist? I think he would be the first one to point out that survivors have a skewed perception of things. First, by labeling these encounters as relationships, you are taking responsibility for them when that isnt necessarily the case. Acting out and a relationship are two separate things.

The second distortion I see is that you are labeling yourself sick. You did what you had to in order to survive. That isnt sick; that is doing what is natural. Sometimes, we do things we are not proud of, but at the moment they were the only thing we knew to do.

First, I think you need to decide for sure if you are straight. I am assuming since you are engaged you are. I can still function with men, but it isnt what I prefer. I have come to understand that I act out with men. I am not looking for a relationship when I was with them. I was feeding the emptiness and isolation, I was filling holes in my life. I understand now that I was never gay, nor did I find those relationship fulfilling beyond instant gratification.

I agree that to be open and honest doesnt mean sharing every detail of our past, but it does mean presenting your mate with the facts. You dont have to get into every encounter you ever had, but I feel she needs to know that you were molested, and are struggling with it. You are about to drag her right into the middle of it. Doesnt she deserve to know what shes getting into?

My wife has inherited my past. She has had to deal with my inability to show affection and be intimate outside of sex. She has had to deal with my overactive drives, and extreme tastes. As I fought with bouts of depression and rage, she has had to endure them. If I could go back and warn her before, I would in a heartbeat. Do you realize how much guilt and shame I struggle with for having drug her through all of this? She deserves better.

I have never shared every detail, nor has she asked. I told her I was molested by a man, and that I continued acting out and struggling with it from there on. We talk in terms of how it affects me now, and if something is uncomfortable, I simply say I am not ready to talk about that part of it. She needs to know about the things that will affect her directly, the things you are currently struggling with. That doesnt mean sharing every second of your past. As Andrew points out, the past is in the past.
 
Kip,

I can't add to the wisdom you've received here (yeah, but I will anyway!... :p ). What I can say is that you absolutely DO NOT have to tell her everything about your past. After all, would YOU like to hear everything about hers? I must be honest with myself and say that I wouldn't from a future partner. Good or bad, you will always be comparing yourself with their past.

We all have done things that we're ashamed of. I myself have acted out twice and they were both sleazy situations that I am trying to put in my past. The mistakes we make are NOT the sum total of our existance. Believe me, I could write a book and I still consider myself a truly good person (flawed, hell yes! but a good person).

Another thing that I feel the need to reiterate. Are you sure about your sexuality? I'm on the horns of that dilemma right now and you NEED to be sure of that before you get married. I am in a relationship right now which I may be removing myself from. I actually considered this man to be "the one," but he has issues and I have my sexuality issues as well. It's not fair to someone, no matter how much you love them, to commit when it may not be what you want.

I hope this helps. You are a good person Kip, who had bad things done to them and did what you had to do to survive. That, in my humble opinion, makes you admirable.

Peace and love, my brother,

Scot :D
 
Kip
Andrew's right - someone will disagree with him, but not entirely disagree.

I'm one of the guys who always say's honesty is the only way - BUT - honesty is the way forward if done in the right time and place, and I agree with the guys who've already posted; tell her your past now and she'll likely say "I'm out of here !"

When I told my T about my acting out I also discussed telling my wife - I was already keen on the honesty option by then. But after a lot of discussion I decided that ommiting to tell her wasn't exactly lying, and that's what I chose to do.
( She actually found out soon after which raised many other issues - different story )

To disclose that kind of information takes so much trust and commitment between both people, not an easy decision for you.

Dave
 
Kip,

The guys are right on many levels. In the end, it all depends on your definition of the marriage relationship. Mine involves a belief that through it, you become one with another person. THAT is HUGE!

So, if that is the case, then keeping secrets is like what happens to SA survivors in the first place: placing bits of yourself in compartments to which others, within yourself and out, have no (or limited) access yet might need to know to live successfully.

This is a tough issue but whoever above said that you need to know what you are all about is on the right track. Where you were in the past, is not who you are now. But you need to know who that is before you can offer it up to another honestly.

I keep thinking would I want to be told, if the shoe was on the other foot. My answer is yes. I am learning to face life head on and I do not want to go back to the way things were.

If, something like this was deliberately concealed from me, I'd feel deceived and manipulated by someone I thought I knew but did not.

You are facing a tough call. In the end you have to decide for yourself.

Peace and blesings.
 
Kip,

Before I got married I did not go through the soul searching that you are doing. There was never any question in my mind. I would not under any circumstances tell anyone what happened to me, not even myself.

About one and a half years ago that course of action nearly cost me my marriage. My wife did feel lied to and manipulated when the truth finally came out. Part of me always knew that it would come out, too.

If you have doubts about your orientation, before this marriage is the time to settle them. If you have concerns about "hiding" the truth, do you want to enter the marriage believing that you are less than honest? If you feel comfortable cleaning your slate, as Andrew puts it, then I hope you can clean it and never look back.

I don't know how I would have acted if I had been self aware enough to have the concerns that you have. My wife felt that I lied to her and our marriage was based in part on that lie. (Back then I hid all the abuse I was able to remember and a lot of my reactions to it.) She has told me that she doesn't know if she would have stayed with me had I disclosed before we married. Part of me believes that if I had sought help, i.e., therapy, at the same time, she would have accepted me and we would have had a stronger start. But that's conjecture at this point.

You have a tough decision, but congratulations on at least facing that you have to decide. I didn't do that much.

Joe
 
Hey Kip... I'm in the middle of the aftermath of telling my g/f about my abuse and it's no picnic. And my god, the urge to keep it to myself, to keep the secret forever was (and still is) stronger than ever.

But the advice I keep receiving here is to keep the secret is only helping your abuser. And that you have to keep telling yourself that the abuse and the acting out was never your fault.

Not that I'm perfect, but I've really been trying hard. I still can't tell my g/f that I have violent male fantasies or all of the specifics. And I can't say that it has been easy or rewarding.

But there has to be a time to decide to push through the shame, and believe me, if you tell her after you're married, she may feel even more betrayed.

This is just my experience and opinion. I know that if you push past the fear of telling, you'll find what is the right thing for you to do.

-Sean
 
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