husband in trouble

husband in trouble
J

jennyseagull

Registrant
Hello to all of you! I have been reading posts on this website for 2 months and it has been helpful to me, but my husband is the one who needs assistance and can't/won't view this site yet... We have been married for 7 years. About 4 months ago he revealed to me that he was abused by a teacher.We are both 38. He said he wanted to prosecute the perp, so we immediately went to the authorities with the help of his mother who lives in the small town where the perp does. We live out of state and thought she would be able to coordinate things for us with our lawyer and the DA. She has been extremely supportive and of course is full of guilt herself that this could have happened and she did not know about it. The day after we saw a lawyer we learned that another man came to the same lawyer on the same day for the same perp and his abuse was 10 yrs prior to my husband. We all thought this was a gift from God that my husband would have someone to talk to who had been where he had been - and with the same perpertrator! But it did not happen that way. Since revealing the abuse my husband has engaged in internet affairs, taping illicit sexual acts and has allowed himself to fall for someone who lives on the other side of the country via an internet affiar. He even flew out to be with her on New Years. I had to ask him to leave when he refused to stop. Initially I forgave him and he said he wouldn't do it again but it still continues. He wants a divorce. He is not eating, sleeping, looks like a homeless person, looks like a zombie, and is abusing drugs while being a truck driver everyday. Talk about dangerous. He is in therapy, but it doesn't seem to be doing any good. He says he is leaving and moving across country to be with this person he started a relationship with. This is not the only acting out - I have seen porn and emails to other women but this one has stuck. The terrible thing about this person is that she was abused by her stepfather who is still married to her mother. She is also married. Her husband has told me she never healed from her own abuse and that her hobby is psychoanalyzing other people. That is what she herself lists as her hobby on her email profile. The first time I emld her to confront her about her relationship with my husband she said to me "Don't you realize that many people who have been abused sexually act out in this way? Why can't you just be there for him?" I could not believe my eyes. Yet they continued. My therapist said this person is just as bad as my husband's abuser for him because she knows he is just acting out due to the abuse revelation (he has never done anything like this before)and she is taking advantage of him. Her husband told me he had had an affair on her and she is trying to get back at him, yet my husband believes now she is the only one he can talk to who understands him. Her husband has now moved out and her and my husband are planning on being together. According to her husband this woman is addicted to the internet and chats and just likes to feel wanted as she is a lonely stay at home mom. How could someone who has been abused themselves know and admit that someone who has come to her is acting out and then encourage them to continue that, knowing it is ruining his marriage???? I am almost ready to file for divorce. Each day my husband say he is going out west, then the next day he says he doesn't know what he wants. Then the next day says he can never forgive himself for what he has done to me and could never look me in the eyes again. He is such a mess - drugs, no sleep, no food, etc. How long am I supposed to hold on, how far down am I supposed to go with him??? Thank you for this website. I appreciate any suggestions or comments anyone might have. I am at my wits end, and my husband is nearly at his life's end. He says he just wants to disappear, that the humiliation is too great whether or not the prosecution becomes public. Also one big issue for him is that my husband had recorded the abuseon tape!!! And for the attorney he had to listen to the tapes over and over to pick out certain incriminating evidence and time references. Hearing the perps voice and the sick things he did to him only sent him a downward spiral to hell. And his mother has heard the tapes also and he says he can never face her because of that humiliation. We had a happy life and were looking for a home in the country but immediately following his abuse revelation our life went to hell. And to make matters worse, we have found out that the laws back then were such that 16 was and is the age of consent, so even though it was a teacher the tapes are not admissable, as they were after he turned 16. We can only prosecute for the age 15 crimes and the other man in the case, we are told that NO LAWS existed for him back then, so nothing the perp did to him was even illegal!!!!! Thanks for listening and letting me ramble. This is my first post.
 
Boy oh boy....

This is sooooo complicated!!! You & him, he & she, he & his mom: aaaaagggghhhhhh!!!

The first person to worry about is YOU!!! Unfortunately, when someone we love is bent on destruction & self-destruction, and is also abusing US, the first thing we seem to do is blame ourselves.

You have done nothing wrong to contribute to this mess and, for better or for worse, there appears to be nothing you can do to clean it up.

I know this is hard to absorb & sounds harsh. You might want to check out AL-Anon - a 12-step is not for everyone, but you will be amazed at how much you will have in common with others in the program. Even just reading some of their literature would be helpful. One of the most critical themes is that sometimes an addict simply has to "bottom out" before they can be ready to help themself. And until the bottom happens, it is actually counter-productive or "enabling" to offer any assistance at all.

If you are able to move yourself physically to a safer place, it might help you to gain some perspective.

So sorry to hear about all of this - especially the injustice.
 
Daer Kolisha 54,

Thanks for your words of wisdom. I will check out those programs. Myhusband has had a history of drug and marijuana abuse, and he thinks that is has been because he was trying all these years to block out the rage from the abuse. It all stopped for years until he saw things on TV about the priests and other molestation in the news. Unfortunately we come from a samll town where there are many sexual offenders. SO many in fact that I often wonder whether there is an underground network that directs them to our tiny town. We are finding out more and more everyday abut the hush hush activites of perps and how they all stick together in this small town. Even the former chief of police. It is sick. I feel that I am physically safe, as my husband is no longer staying in the home, but bouncing from place to place, trying to decide what to do or if he wants a divorce. Meanwhile his cross country affair continues. Thanks for listening to me. PS - I lived in NYC for 11 years - just though I'd mention it since I saw your post was from Brooklyn. Thanks again for listening.
 
So sorry...

I recently moved from one apt. to another & had to give away a lot of books.... I think there is a series called "Getting Them Sober" that is absolutely wonderful about putting out the issues for people who have partners stuck in addiction.

While this site is full of wonderful people who will help you, you might derive further benefit from getting support from others who can help you understand how to better protect yourself from the fallout from your husband's chemical dependencies...

Be strong & vigilant....
 
Thanks again for your words of wisdom. As much as I know the marijuana is a problem, and possibly other drugs, I honestly think that he is a zombie because he feels like he has nowhere to run or hide from the humiliation of the abuse revelation. Reporting it to the authorities has not helped him. He says he wishes he had never revealed it, because he did not know the fallout that would result, the sexual acting out, the feeling like he's not a man, loss of self esteem etc. None of us were familiar with what might happen. My therapist says disclosure works for some people but not for everyone, and if we had done some research we/he might have decided not to go forward based on the ways your mind can trick you into reacting to it.
 
Not to ramble too much but my husband ALSO says that he sees his abuser when he looks at me - he says he sees his face instead of mine? Has anyone else had that experience? It is incredibly painful to hear that your husband sees you as the pedophile who hurt him.....
 
Jenny,

It sounds to me like your husband is having a breakdown brought on by the process of bringing his perp to justice and having to listen to tapes of the abuse. You say your husband is in therapy. Is there any possibility that you could make an appointment with the therapist to inform him/her of what your husband is doing? You could copy your post and bring it with you to the appointment and either let her read it or use it as an outline of your husband's destructive behavior. You should definitely tell the therapist about your husband's self-medication (drug use).


Ask the therapist for a referral to a p-doc, who can evaluate your husband's condition. If she/he can't give you a referral, then find one yourself and make an appointment with him/her for your husband. Either you or the therapist should give the p-doc a brief rundown of your husband's condition prior to the evaluation. A line of communication should be established between the therapist and the p-doc.

Ask the therapist if she/he has experience with victims of sexual abuse or other horrific trauma. If she/he doesn't then it may be time to look for another therapist. You would need to discuss this with your husband.

I very much doubt that your husband will move in with this other woman. You have undoubtedly made it clear to him that if he moves out of your house and into hers, he will not be able to return to your home in the event his new relationship falls apart, which it would probably do. Your husband's inability to decide what he wants to do indicates that in spite of his frenzy, he realizes the magnitude of the impact on his life that a decision to leave will mean. Frankly, I think all this frantic acting out is his way of expressing how badly he wants to excape the psychic pain he feels. It is too much for him to bear without insulation.

Perhaps the best thing you can do for your relationship is to step back from his acting out. Try not to rehash old misery. Don't exchange emails with his online gf. Decide what your boundaries will be and make them clear to your husband. Don't allow your husband to abuse you either physically or verbally. If he wants to talk, by all means listen to him, but if he wants to talk about things that are painful to you like his gf, tell him to save it for his therapist. Someone suggested Al-Anon for you. It's a good idea. You also might consider therapy for yourself because you need support during this terrible time. I hope things improve for you and your husband. Given enough time, work and patience, I think they will.

Mary

P.S. I just read your last post about your husband looking at you and seeing his abuser's face. I'm guessing that the marijuana and/or stress is causing him to hallucinate. I have had similar experiences (not drug induced). In my case the hallucinations were caused by extreme anxiety/fear. These hallucinations are very painful for you. They must be frightening for your husband. He really needs to see a psychiatrist and soon.
 
Jenny,

Quite a terrible position that haste fallen upon you. The affects of our SA do carry over to our loved ones, sorry that you got hit by them.

It really sounds like your husband is in the depths of dispair. The situation he has put himself into is definately self destructive. To come out he needs to want to come out and do it on his own. At this time about the only thing you can do is help him see the light. Without pushing him, pushing him towards something is only pushing him away.

Take care of yourself, help him if you can, but understand that the affects of the SA for him to deal with. It is unfortunate that you have to feel them too.

Bill
 
jennyseagull
I'm afraid agree with Bill, your husband's still on the self destruct spiral, and from my own experience we don't see it happen until we reach the bottom.

I saw my self destructive behaviours as something that was actually doing me good, and to a degree I suppose they were - at least they kept me alive.
But in the end having sex with strangers in toilets wasn't the answer to my problem. And somehow it took 31 years for me to figure that out.
Luckily my wife stuck by me, and she knows everything that went on, and we'll be married 30 years this year.

Whether it would have worked out this way if I'd been discovered acting out is something neither of us know, but I somehow doubt it.
If I'd been found out I would probably have been 'pushed' into doing something like therapy before I was ready for it, once again other peoples ideas, morals and opinions would have been dictating my actions. Just like the abusers did when I was a kid.

I believe that recovery is something that WE have to want to do, it has to be our choice.
BUT - don't discount the effect a loving partner can have on a survivor, they can walk alongside us and support us, be there with us, and pick us up from whichever gutter we fall in.
It's a tough job, but some people do it.

Just remember one very important thing though - YOU are the most important person for you to care about. Don't allow yourself to be dragged down, you'll be no use to yourself, let alone your husband, if that happens.

Take care, and keep coming to MS for support.

Dave
 
Thank you all so much for your support and wisdom. I am very thankful for this outlet. Everyone in my life except a few very close to me think I am "just" going through a breakup, and have no clue of the SA and the horrors it unloads on survivors and their families. My husband's therapist DOES know everything, and I am also in therapy and our therapists' exchange information, but it hasn't helped him yet. I have read many of the Laura Davis books which suggest survivors sometimes see their abuser's face when getting close to the people closest to them, so I do not think it is the pot making him hallucinate and see that. My husband's clothes are loaded in his truck and he is going from friend to friend like a hobo. I have asked him to come home to get a decent night's sleep but he tells me he doesn't deserve a nice warm home, and that he would get too comfortable and want to stay and he can't. He says he doesn't think he could be faithful to me and that I deserve better than that. I have told him about this website and that there are people like all of you who want to help him and have been where he is, but he said he cannot talk to anyone about it other than his therapist and "girlfriend", and that he cannot talk to a man about the abuse, even men who have been abused themselves. I am not sure why this is. For all I know he may be cross country any day now. Thanks for listening.
 
jennyseagull

I am sorry for everything you're going through--my boyfriend has struggled too with internet addictions (just one girl though--I guess the first one was a keeper...)... I know the hurt attached to someone abandoning their whole life with you right in your own home... it feels like such a negation...

These kinds of behaviors were what my boyfriend did to get through what was a low low time for him, and for us. Just as Dave said, I don't think my boyfriend could have made it through those times without some of that escape (certainly WE couldn't have made it), and I don't think we would have pulled through either if I'd found out about what he'd been doing at that point.

I've only known about his affair since this summer, close to 2 years after he ended it... it took me 'discovering' (with lots of help from him) this for him to tell me about his SA. (This was weird to me at first, why would he want to disclose at the time when I had the least reason to trust and be there for him, he could have told me many times before... until I realized how entirely connected his affair and the SA were for him, in fact it was the ultimate weirdness of this connection that convinced me that they really were related and the SA wasn't just an excuse)

The more we deal with this together, the more I see how much he'd done on his own, before we ever started working on it together. I don't mean he went out and got therapy or started bringing home flowers or anything. I mean he began seeing things for what they were, and deciding to do something about it. I probably didn't notice much of it at the time--after all I had no reason to expect anything different from him... but that's even more proof that his changes during this time were self-motivated. He stopped speeding. He paid his bills on time. He stopped going to his parents' church. He fought less with his boss. He spent more time at home with me and our kids. In short, he stopped trying to destroy his life.

My point is that all this happened first, for him, to him, and it came from him. He had to be in that place before I could be involved in any kind of productive way. I don't take a lot of credit for the way he got there, although he's told me that having me around made him realize that he could be loved even without doing something to "deserve" it. In fact I wish that he would give himself more credit for getting this far. I don't mean to sound harsh, jenny, but it doesn't seem to me that your husband is there right now. I think the advice you've gotten so far makes sense--step back, disentangle yourself from his destructive behaviors, set boundaries and stick to them. Let him know that you love him, but don't love him so much that you lose yourself. In fact, let him see you being yourself, let him see that it's a whole vital woman who loves him and not just a sick pyschoanalyzing part-time chat partner who only cares about him for his problems.

One thing I would add to that advice is--"being in trouble" can be grotesquely comforting, especially for people who have had their sense of boundaries messed up or who have felt neglected when they're not in trouble. It sounds as though I'm telling you how to deal with a child, but it's sound advice for dealing with adults too--make sure that your attention is focused on him and not on his actions. It must be terrible for you and for him that he's living out of his car and jumping from place to place. But look at how many people are focused on, responding to, that behavior, giving him a place to stay, worried about where he is, look at how much attention he has to give to how terrible he is all the time because he doesn't even merit a decent night's sleep. As hard as it sounds, try not to dwell on this. The longer he is getting some of what he needs from the wrong places, the longer he can ignore the part he's not getting.

SAR
 
Well thank you all for listening to me during this tough time. Reading all the other posts as well I know I am not alone. Well, my husband is definitely fleeing 3000 miles away due to his acting out. Says he can't bear the humiliation of how he betrayed me more than the humiliation of the disclosure. He quit his job and has already cashed in all his retirement monies. I had him go to the doctor today and they put him on an antidepressant but he is leaving anyway.... It is tremendously painful to have to see him packing all his stuff up everyday. He says all he wants to do is to isolate himself and work on his music - he is a singer and songwriter. I don't know if the music allows him to escape from his reality but that seems to be and has always been his only enjoyment in life. Says things like he isn't worth anything if he can't make it in the music industry. That he can't be a good husband because he needs to devote all his time to the music. He says he wishes he could be right in the head, but he just can't. I never dreamed I would be getting divorced. Are his actions just a cop out for wanting out of the marriage or could his disclosure ans acting out REALLY prompt him to move 300 miles away? Does anyone have any words of wisdom for him that I could show him? Thank you all for your support...
 
Jenny,

I wish I had some words of wisdom, but I don't. All I can say is that I love you and that I'm sure a lot of other people here love you too. I wish you the best.

(((((((((((((Jennyseagull))))))))))))))

Mary
 
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