I want help

[Enapay]

I have recently found out that my boyfriend was sexually abused/assaulted repeatedly when he was very young. He and a girl were forced to do sexual acts, against both of their wills. He has seemed to work through most of his problems emotionally with this issue, but one thing stands out in my mind; that is the guilt he has for not telling anyone to get help for the girl. Our relationship remains helthy and wonderful, but I am wondering if anyone has any advice on how we can work through his guilt together. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lloydy]

Enapay
helping any survivor is going to be difficult and frustrating, but if your relationship is a good one then you're ahead of the game in some respects.

You say he was "very young" when the abuse happened and 'you' say he was "forced" - is this a word he uses to describe what happened or have you attributed it to his description?

It's no problem if it is your word, we're all guilty of relating someone elses experiences in our own words, but if he says he was "forced" then he's at least partially accepting of the reality of the abuse.

I can see clearly now that I was forced, through coercion, trickery and violence into becoming the sex object of my abusers, but I've had many years of therapy and done a lot of hard thinking about my childhood.
For over 30 years I thought that 'the sex I had as a boy' ( from 11 to 16 ) was something that I wanted, that somehow I was born to become a pervert at 11yo.

All the time I remembered the way my abusers led me gently into doing sexual acts, that I wasn't that keen on what we were doing, and that they then beat and raped me. From then on I did everthing they wanted.
I 'knew' all of that, but I couldn't process it in any kind of meaningful way as an adult.

The main things I couldn't process or deal with were the guilt and shame I felt about doing 'gay stuff' as a boy and living as an adult as a married hetero guy.
I had to lay the guilt and shame where it belonged, with my abusers, in order to free myself of it.

Am I free from it now? yes, to a very large degree. And the bit that remains I can manage.
It also gets less as I still progress.
I had to look at David as an 11yo boy and see how defenceless and vulnerable I actually was back then, and then look hard at how my abusers operated to see how they groomed / scared me.
It's painful, and won't happen overnight. But it can be done.
It's worth the effort, and you obviously love your boyfriend enough to stick by him and support him - you wouldn't be here otherwise. So he MUST be worth your effort as well.

Dave

 

[Trish4850]

Enapay,

Welcome to a wonderful sanctuary. You're on a very difficult road but the fact that your relationship is a good one means you have some solid footing to work on. Coming here helps - alot.

I haven't been on this board long because my b/f just started to deal with being s/a. He's still in so much denial and suffers from such guilt that it's overwhelming to him. I can't do much in that regard except to keep telling him that I love him and that he did nothing wrong. Unfortunately, he only hears that he "did nothing" and leaves off the wrong part.

I've learned from being here that his feelings of guilt and shame are "normal" for the completely abnormal horrors he endured. My b/f is in counseling, finally, and attends incest survivor meetings. He hates to go to the meetings because he sees so much sadness. What's messed up is that he doesn't feel like he's entitled to anyone else feeling sadness for him and he certainly doesn't believe that he should feel any for himself. There are so many reasons for this that he has to work through but one of the main ones is that "he did nothing." The loved ones of survivors know, and survivors who have come a long way in their recovery know, that a child doesn't have the power over the adult who abuses them to do anything except survive. But the survivor who is struggling to deal almost embraces the shame and guilt as his own because that's what he's lived with and that's what he knows. As much as you love him, you can't make that go away.

Although my b/f doesn't really talk much about his counseling sessions, he does speak very highly of his counselor. He trusts her and he's still going to his sessions. That in itself proves to me that he's making progress, or at the very least, that he hopes to make progress, which all by itself, is progress. He's not the type to stick with something unless he feels it is or will do any good.

Have you suggested or has your b/f thought about counseling? The fact that you want to work through it together is wonderful and it will mean the world to him knowing that you're there, but he probably needs some professional help. Even if you were a trained counselor or psychiatrist, I doubt you'd be the one he'd completely open up to. I say that only because my b/f and I are exceptionally open with one another but the last thing he wants to do is "bring me down" by bringing me into this world. I've given him assurances galore that I'm in it no matter what because I love him, but that really doesn't matter. What does matter is that I'll be there for him when he wants to talk and I'll be there for the every day stuff. Someone on the outside is dealing with the crap.

Think about it and maybe broach the subject with your b/f. It's a hard conversation unless he's the type who would normally be open to such things.

In the meanwhile, welcome again. This place and the people who come here have meant the world to me for the last month or so and have helped me maintain my sanity when I was getting close to the edge. There is alot to learn here and some very good and wonderful teachers who will help.

ROCK ON..........Trish

 

[roadrunner]

Enapay,

Guilt is a huge problem for any survivor, and in a post here all I can do is offer a few tips on how to look at this problem as you will see in your boyfriend.

Maybe the biggest problem is that we tend to look back from our current perspective and ask why, at the age of 8 (for example), we didn't do something that we would do (or think we would do) now as adults. That isn't fair, of course. A child does not have the resources to work problems out like that and in many cases doesn't even know that he has choices.

Close to that one is the problem that we often fail to "connect" to what it means when we say "I was an innocent child". The memories of abuse are too terrible, and over the years it seems that we file off the sharp edges if we can. I found that looking at old photos of myself at the age of 11 was an enormous help to getting back in touch with the pre-teen I was when my abuse started and dumping the huge burden of guilt that I carried for so long.

You may also find your boyfriend talking about what he "knows" about himself, and behaving very differently five minutes later. This is part of the big problem of knowing, rationally and intellectually, that we could not have been guilty of anything, as opposed to actually believing this. The two feelings are very different.

It's great that you are trying to help your boyfriend, but could I also say here that you should watch out for the trap of trying, as the loving girlfriend, to take all this burden on yourself and solve or fix it for him. It doesn't work that way. He has to proceed at his own pace, and many times that is just not in his control. Meantime, you do have to take care of yourself and not let your own feelings and priorities get vetoed all the time by his.

I mention this last point because I wonder if your boyfriend has really worked through his issues as completely as he thinks. The issue of the girl may just be the only thing he can talk about so far.

Here is why I wonder that. If he has dealt with the issue of his own feelings, then he has accepted that he was just a child, had no responsibility for what was happening, had no choices from which he could have selected, and was not emotionally capable of saying no or saving anyone, not even himself. If he is cool about all that, then he would also know he bears no responsibility for not intervening to help the girl. The fact that the one issue is still a live wire suggests that the other one is as well - that one and maybe many others.

Much love,
Larry

 

[Enapay]

I thank you, Dave, Trish, and Larry, for taking the time to respond to me in such an honest and heart-felt way. I have worked with /volunteered to help sexually abused and battered children in the past, and many of the important points you three were trying to make I read loud and clear. It's just harder to deal with it when its someone I love to no end. Hard to see the forest, if you will.
I have not suggested therapy because he only just opened himself to me. Apparently I'm the only one he's ever told, which places a bit of responsibility on my shoulders to not scare him back into his shell. So I did not think it was wise to just jump right in and tell him he needs to seek professional help.
And besides which, I really don't think he will. He's not that type, as ridiculious as that sounds.
I've decided to be there for him, to listen to him, and to love him unconditionally while keeping my own boundaries at the same time.
I am glad I have found this site. I have read many posts already, and am delighted to see a community of people supporting one another, especially giving support over such a difficult and terrifying subject.
Thank you so much for all of your words. I look forward to talking with all of you in the future.