to therapy or not to therapy? (possible triggers)

[lovingwife]

Well when I last posted my thanks to you all for your support my dear hubby had agreed to therapy - to my surprise and happiness. Without pushing the issue I'm giving him time. To put a spin on the issue last w/end he made comment "Did I want him to leave me?" If he went to therapy that would probably happen. I can be honest and say that the possibility did cross my mind which was part of my response back to him. Together with that all I really want is for him to be healthy, in the heart and in the mind - if he finds that he married me to "escape" then he's only being honest with himself and of course me. I'm trying very hard not to take this personally - but it does yank at the heart a bit to think that I could have been an escape for all these years. I guess I should explain "Escape" it's that he has eluded to that he feels like he could be gay and he is fighting it or ignoring it. In all that I have read this is sometimes normal. I'm trying very hard not to be confused / any suggestions? Anyone gone or going through similar. I wish I had a crystal ball to see the future for both of us. Fat Chance - thanks all for any comments.

 

[MikeNY]

I don't know if it helps or hurts, but here is one thing that I believe.

If you aren't being honest with yourself, you are only lying to everyone else, including the people who care about you.

Hope it helps some. Good luck with everything.

Hopefully you will both want each other to be happy, no-matter which way things go.

Without honesty, they can only go bad.

That's my opinion for what it's worth.

 

[gryffindor]

Dear Loving,

I'm wondering exactly what he means by "finding out he is gay." Does he mean that he has only been attracted to women thus far in his life, and he thinks that he might get a big surprise in therapy and find out he is really only attracted to men? Or, does he mean that he is aware that on some subliminal level he has always been or is currently or is sometimes attracted to men?
I have always understood "gay" to mean that one was exclusively attracted to others of the same sex.

In therapy a person will hopefully discover their real feelings and accept those feelings. It seems to me that your husband may discover that he is attracted to both men and women. If he does, he will find that he has lots of company. Many people are bisexual. Most people probably don't act upon it (except perhaps during youth), but choose one sex or the other. Whatever happens, your husband will be able to be honest with himself and with you, which has at least as good a chance of improving your marriage, as it has of making it worse.

Loving, don't let this prey on your mind. It will only cause you trouble. I have never heard of therapy destroying good marriages. I suppose it's possible, but it's got to be very rare.

Mary

 

[PAS]

>>> it does yank at the heart a bit to think that I could have been an escape for all these years.

I can understand that.. however your hubby may realize that his feelings of attraction to the same sex are just a fall out of his abuse experience. Its a common feeling among sexually abused men. My fiance thought he was gay for about 15 years.. but it turned out again it was just the fallout of the sexual abuse experience getting all mashed up in his brain with sexual feelings, the weird feelings generated by trauma, etc. I think the fact that the human body reacts to any kind of sexual stimuation - unwanted or not - can also be kind of confusing (many survivors think that because they were aroused that means they were gay.. on the contrary - human bodies were designed to be aroused due to stimulation- no matter the source of such stimulation)

My fiance we was pretty damn happy when he realized that most other male SA survivors have felt/thought the same type of gender confusion.

I have a STRONG hunch that your hubby, as a SA survivor, may actually not be gay but is suffering the same thing that many other guys on here will attest to - gender confusion as a result of being sexually abused by a male. No guarantees of course but it is not outside the realm of possibility.

>>I guess I should explain "Escape" it's that he has eluded to that he feels like he could be gay and he is fighting it or ignoring it. In all that I have read this is sometimes normal. I'm trying very hard not to be confused / any suggestions?

>>>Anyone gone or going through similar. I wish I had a crystal ball to see the future for both of us. Fat Chance - thanks all for any comments.

None of us have a crystal ball for any of this... but I would bet that knowing where you stand no matter what the fall out or the final ending to this has to be better than living in a state suspended animation for an indefinite amount of time.

Its hard to get much worse than waiting and waiting for the ther shoe to drop after many years. If things get better and your relatioship is improved/saved, then that's great.

But if it goes the other way, I dont know if this may help but I see a parallel with this and losing someone you love due to a long, chronic illness. I"ve lost family members and friends to cancer and other illnesses and this may sound kind of harsh, but I actually started to feel better and more free when they finally did succumb to their illness and die. The waiting and ongoing grieving was, in retrospect, way more agony than the acute grief of the acutal death. Dont get me wrong it still hurt like hell when they actually did die but at least the pain started to subside and I could move on. But when they were ill I just stayed suspended.. time passed, seasons came and went yet I was emotionally trapped, not really living my life.

 

[coolcat]

Take it one day at a time. If you are ment to be together you will stay together. it may be helpful if you also get some counselling to deal with things and feeling that are happening to you.

Take care of yourself and each other

 

[SAR]

lovingwife,

My boyfriend used sex in all kinds of unhealthy ways throughout his adolescence, and I hate to think that I might have been a part of that but I probably was... and I was doing about the same thing with him that he was doing with me... trying to get away from--forget about--- yes, escape... we were good friends with some tragic stuff in common and we managed to work out a long term relationship that enabled each of us to get what we needed. It's not glamorous and it started out pretty unhealthy. But it's evolving now, it's what you might even call a "real" relationship now.

You're right, all of this "yanks" at my heart... especially because there's no way that I wasn't a part of it from day one. I think a lot of us are sometimes unconsciously dense about what's really going on in our relationships, I know that I was... and I think that at the worst of it, "not" seeing what was there saved my relationship... therapy, or any other close scrutiny of his problems/my problems/our problems, WOULD have destroyed us four years ago... of course at that time, it was not a good relationship at all.

Our relationship now is good enough to survive a look at some of the stuff we shelved back then, but you know what, it can stay there while we deal with the people we are today and not the people we were before. Today, we want to make our relationship work. We are making better reasons than escape for us to be together, even if that's what got us together in the first place.

And honestly, if today, I had the relationship I had four years ago, and the chance for one or both of us to grow and feel better about ourselves, I'd risk that shitty relationship on it. Even after everything we've both worked for, if it came down to it, I would stake our good relationship on it. Even if it was him recovering and getting on and me left in the dust. Because he's my friend and I want him to do alright. I might have said that four years ago, too. I've always been his friend.

good luck
SAR

 

[lovingwife]

thanks to all..for the thoughts and the kind words and honesty - I really appreciate this site - and am thankful I found it and you all.