I need advice

[Rosa2000]

I recently found my boyfriend looking a male porn and masturbating. When I asked him about it he told me he had sexual experiences with a boy at 9. Then at 13 a man raped him. Again at 13 he had experiences for a year with another boy. He told me that was all.

We talked about it and I understand the pain he must have suffered hiding his feelings all these years. I told him that I understood that this was fantasy and I could understand how it is a part of him. I gave him all the unconditional love that I could. I didn't tell him that these sites were off limits, I think fantasy is a personal thing.

Unfortunately now I am aware that he has posted an ad on a bi-sexual website. I am so hurt.

We have been together for two and half years. Never a fight, always loving and considerate. This is my best friend and lover. I can't picture myself without him, yet how can I deal with knowing that he is actively looking for other men and women.

Are there other guys out there who have gone through the same thing who can help me. He is a wonderful man and everything else about our relationship is as close to perfect as you get in this lifetime.

 

[Lloydy]

Rosa
you sound like the kind of girl your boyfriend needs, how many would have kicked him out and had nothing more to do with him ? A great many I think.

I'm a survivor who had uncontrolable fantasies about sex with another man, and it's nothing to do with being gay in the majority of cases. I sometimes suggest a rough guide - who's he watching when he walks down the street - a pretty girl in tight jeans or another guy ? Not scientific, but that's the way I explained it to my wife and a few other survivors have said that it's a good rough guide.

My fantasies eventually did lead to me acting out with other men, and my wife of 25 years ( it's 29 now ) found out and believed my explanations.
I still can't believe it at times, I though I was out the door never to return.

I'm past all that now, I haven't acted out for over 5 years, and I'm damn sure I never will again. OK, I still have fantasies in that direction, but I understand what happened to me now, how I allowed the fantasy to take control. And most importantly I now know how I have overcome it all, and that's something I'll never forget.
When I have a 'bad day' and the fantasies get a bit too much I tell my wife, the cell phone is one of the best aids to recovery I have; it's my line to instant support.

I have often said that I acted out in such a risky way - how I wasn't caught is a mystery to me - that I actually wanted to get caught in a 'subconcious' way. That way someone would have asked me "why" and I'd have the excuse I needed to tell someone "I was abused".

I hope that your boyfriend is ready to "tell" - I think he's got someone who's going to listen.

Dave

 

[PAS]

Rosa - I have not been in the same situation but there are people on here who have. However I have been around this board a lot as I am a partner of a survivor.

What I have learned is that sexual abuse causes what many can call an "intimacy disorder" and just being close to someone can cause so much anxiety that it creates a lot of "distancing" behaviour - for example - looking at porn and masturbating instead of pursuing a real life relationship with a human being is an activity that creates emotional distance in a relationship. So does the posting of an ad on a bisexual website.

With respect to it being gay or bisexual porn (I dont know if it is but it can be for men who have been abused by men) part of that has to do with what happens in a guys' brain when they are abused sexually by a man - for men sexual abuse by men can cause all kinds of gender confusion, as well as fusing all kinds of sexual feelings with anxiety and control and trauma and things get all messed up and sometimes, as Dave explained, during times of stress this need to act out or think about gay sexual activity is the result. For my partner he thought that his molestation was because he was gay and he did the opposite - had a lot of casual sex with a lot of women in order ot prove to himself and others he WASN'T gay. None of the sexual or relationship reactions to sexual abuse make sense but this type of behaviour is a pretty common thing that a lot of folks on here struggle with.

While this may seem all scary and daunting try not to look at this as anything purely SEXUAL but a way that your partner is expressing his anxiety about the closeness there is in the relationship. Remember that emotional closeness is a big fat source of anxiety for your partner because face it - your partner was very close to someone and then this person violated them in the most personal way possible - leaving a lasting anxiety reaction to "closeness" which is all fused with guilt and shame and sexual feelings. Its not anything you have done please keep that in mind. It is simply a the result of a survivor of this trauma feeling emotionally close - which is very scary for them!!

With respect to therapy or getting help - we as partners can be there to support our partners but they have to be committed to the relationship and to doing the work to get over it.

Let us know how things go and if your partner is open or closed to discussing this issue with you, through therapy, on this site, etc.

The first key to recovery from this is to bring the issue out in the open and for the survivor to acknowledge they have a problem and it is costing them major things in their life, and that they want to get help, and then to get help. But you cannot force a survivor to acknowledge that. The motiation to heal has to happen within the survivor himself. Until that motivation happens there is little that anyone can do to "get them" to heal, and if you try to push too much with someone who's not ready unfortuately an angry power struggle can quickly result.

PAS

 

[Lloydy]

Rosa / PAS

try not to look at this as anything purely SEXUAL but a way that your partner is expressing his anxiety about the closeness there is in the relationship. Remember that emotional closeness is a big fat source of anxiety for your partner

This IS the root of it, intimacy and betrayal.
We were "loved and dropped" just when we were supposed to be getting all the good healthy influences that make a child grow up into a healthy adult.
They told us they loved us, we believed them. Kid's believe adults don't they ?
Then they desert us, bastards !

So trusting ourselves in an intimate relationship is difficult. I realise now just how much of an act I lived for over 20 years. Yes, I did love my wife and she loved me. But I didn't trust myself to .....lose myself in that love.
It's what therapists call unconditional positive regard, and it's something everyone expects from infancy. A baby expects to be fed without giving anything in return, a child seeks affection, trust and love, without having to give something in return. They do give something, but that's a voluntary response.

Abuse creates a situation where the child receives 'love' and pays a price, we paid more than the abusers will ever know.
And the lasting effect is that we carry on that behaviour as an adult - we receive, and we still expect to pay the price. Conditional regard.

So to avoid paying the price we retreat and hide, we don't let people in close enough, or let them give us anything, without the fear of paying the price.

Intimacy is the most precious of gifts between partners, and one that is given completely unconditionally by 'normal' people, but we don't know or trust that concept.
So we show our partners a persona that we can construct at will, just for them. We hide behind it, and when we don't need it we let it fall.

At least that's how I was, everyone's different although some bits seem to stick to most of us.
It's not a good place to be, it's hard work keeping up the show. And I never did get an Oscar nomination.

But my wife prefers the new "me" or should that be the "real me" ? yes it should. I have my faults god knows I do, but at least they're MY faults now.

Intimacy ? I still struggle with it. But she knows I do so she's helping me overcome my little problem. This could take a while to fix

Dave