What to do?

[stride]

Hi everyone,

I believe it's been well over a year since I last visited/posted, and I am so glad that you're all still here!

For those who do not remember me, some background: My SO, now in his 40's, was sexually abused by his father from ages 6-12, but has never sought any counselling for the night terrors, substance abuse, relationship/intimacy/sexual, and related other issues that are no doubt a result of that history. (I did buy a copy of "Victims No Longer" for us and left it laying around hoping he'd pick it up, but he said the picture on the front was even too upsetting for him, and stopped reading it after the first couple of chapters [meanwhile, I've read it so many times now, I could almost recite it verbatim from memory!]).

After some 2 1/2 years of trying everything I could to make our relationship work--living together for the last 15 mos. of that--I moved out of our apt.in Nov. of '03. Among other things, I had discovered that he'd been using--and dealing--cocaine the entire time we'd been together; suspected him of having had at least one (one night) affair; could no longer deal with his jealous obsession with/addiction to porn (especially when our sex life was extremely unhappy, impersonal, and infrequent at best); his lying, hiding things from me, etc; his generally shutting me out emotionally and otherwise; and his behaviour was also becoming increasingly hostile, hurtful and even violent towards the end (throwing things at me, punching holes in the wall, etc, on one occasion).

That Christmas I sent him a Christmas card with a poem I wrote addressed to "the man behind the masks." I still loved that man very deeply, but believed at the time that he was likely lost to me for good. We then reunited for a few months, during which period I began doing coke with him--something I'd quit for the 17 years prior--but, aside from the obvious folly in that, he only pushed me away that much further anyway. We only lived 5 blocks apart, but our relationship had become pretty much one of just daily phone calls from him (almost always sweet, but loaded with excuses as to why we couldn't actually spend any time together, etc), by the time I'd really had enough & formally ended things between us again in May.

To make a long story short, he immediately went out and started seeing/partying with a woman in her late 20's, while also taking a leave from his work and booking himself a 3 month trip to Europe.
His behaviour at the time both disgusted and hurt me deeply and I was relieved when he left town.

Almost as soon as he arrived overseas, he began emailing and calling me every week or so, but I did not return his emails or answer his calls for the first few weeks at least, and only sporadically after that. To me, it was a pointless exercise, and only "tore the scab off" the wounds I was working hard to heal in myself. Among other things, he kept writing that he'd been "clean" of both coke and porn since his arrival overseas, but I was not convinced that that would last, even if true.

Well, it's now been 8 mos. "clean" of cocaine for him. He's been back since early Oct/04, and we are once again living together. So much has changed, and we are both very happy together. For the most part. We talk more, share more, laugh more, relax more, and he is so much more openly loving, thoughtful, respectful and appreciative of me--consistently--than ever before. Due to the trust issues I've come to have with him over the past 3+ years, he has voluntarily offered and agreed to give me free access, should I want it, to all of his personal effects, his email, etc. Until recently, he has also seemed far more comfortable with my expressions (verbal and otherwise) of affections/sentiment towards him...something that used to frequently agitiate him in the past. And not only that, but he is far more "present" in our lovemaking and even sometimes uses the phrase "making love" when referring to our sex life now. Before, the phrase aggravated him to no end, and he would say, contemptuously, "Why don't people just call it what it is: 'Having sex'? As if mechanical, physical release was all there was to sex.

In the past he would never cuddle at night, always saying he wasn't comfortable sleeping on that shoulder or some other such thing, now he cuddles me every night, pulling and holding me close to him. In birthdays and Christmasses past he would get me a card and maybe some last minute
$10 item that showed no thought towards what I might like, whereas now he takes obvious pleasure in making those occasions extra special and even surprises me with flowers almost every Friday night In the more mundane areas of our day-to-day life (budgets, household maintenance, etc) I feel very much--for the first time--like we are truly partners. It has been wonderful, blissfully so, to say the least.

Even the sex has improved, and he no longer turns away from me (or immediately gets up and leaves the room to shower or something) right afterwards like he used to. Still, this remains a difficult area of our relationship that still feels like a minefield to me. So many things trigger him. And, quite honestly, my awareness of the many ways in which he remains uncomfortable being sexual with me, leaves me feeling sexually uncomfortable, awkward, and frustrated much of the time. His father (perp) always talked to him during his molestations--about his fantasies, about what was turning him on, about what he wanted my SO to do to him, etc--so my talking in bed or asking my SO to communicate thoughts/turn-ons/fantasies/etc to me, in bed or out, is strictly prohibited. This and other such things often leaves me feeling quite literally ignorant of what's going on for my SO when we're in bed together...a fact that I experience as alienating, if nothing else.

Also, he says that he's "not thinking of/about anything" when we're making love (which I find very hard to believe), and is only focussed on the physical sensations of the moment, though he says he doesn't give any thought to what those sensations are either.

Another area of concern is that while I have found no evidence of him looking at hardcore porn since he's been back, I am aware that he's been spending increasingly frequent periods of time seeking out and looking at what I'd call "soft porn" on the net (naked women, internet videos of naked or semi-clad women dancing or caressing themselves, etc)when I'm not home. This is slowly growing to be a concern for me, especially as his interest in me sexually seems to have been diminishing at about the same time. \

Well, a couple of weeks ago I seem to have "blown it" once more, by trying to talk with him--however lovingly--about how I'm feeling when it comes to our sex life these days. I've acknowledged that it's been much better since he's been back, while also letting him know that there remains things I want/need from him as a lover, and am wanting some guidance/insight from him, if nothing else. We haven't made love/had sex since.

There is more to this than what I've written here, but that's enough for now. Any thoughts/comments/suggestions that you may have would be greatly appreciated--especially from male SA survivors.

Many thanks in advance,

Stride

 

[SAR]

Hi Stride,

I've just gotten around to reading this long and mostly positive, affirming post-- I don't think I remember you from your first time here but am glad you came back anyway.

It always strikes me how many stories of "self destructive survivor becomes an actively healing survivor" turn on small personal events, internal events, sometimes nothing other than the day comes when that particular person is ready to look at his life in a new way.

Also, he says that he's "not thinking of/about anything" when we're making love (which I find very hard to believe), and is only focussed on the physical sensations of the moment, though he says he doesn't give any thought to what those sensations are either.

Honestly? I think this is a "guy" thing to say and you should just believe him. Maybe he means it as a good thing-- like, "I am totally lost in/focused on being with you."

HOWEVER-- I would call him out, maybe not especially gently, about the porn-- just the porn without bringing your sex life into it, because the porn isn't about your shared sexual relationship, it is about something else and it only has to do with him. He needs to hear from you as a concerned friend on this and not as a frustrated lover.

I have to say that Shame is the biggest intimacy-killer in my relationship-- when my boyfriend was looking at porn we stopped making love, because he was ashamed of himself. Not because I wasn't doing it for him or because he was meeting his need some other way-- it's not the same need. Trying to initiate "normal" and loving talks about intimacy generally backfires for the same reason, it makes him ashamed.

SAR

 

[stride]

Thank you SAR. I will give some serious thought to your suggestions and sharing.

Heartfelt thanks once again. Your input is very much appreciated.

Stride

 

[Dan88]

I try not to take someone else's inventory for them. And I should probably be doubly careful in this case because my story and your SOs are pretty similar, which makes it tempting to think that I know what he's facing when of course I don't. But I guess I'm in a mood to shoot my mouth off, so I will say this: If he isn't willing to address the sexual abuse, I don't see how he can get sober, either from drugs or porn or affairs or whatever. It's easy enough for an addict to manipulate someone into thinking he's sane and in control. We're really pretty good at that. He's in his 40s, like me, and I imagine he's had a lot of practice keeping secrets and pretending everything is fine. But without tackling the issues of abuse, I don't see how he can really even begin to talk about sex the way you want to talk about it.

As a survivor, sex gets very jumbled in my head. I really associate it with fear and secrecy and shame, since my early sexual experiences were filled with those emotions. When I was actively having affairs, I realized that the reason was that to me, secrecy and sneaking around and fear of getting discovered were the things I associated with sex. Looking at porn could do the same thing. I learned, of course, that most normal women associate other things with sex. Flirting, some roses, dinner, dancing, cuddling, attention, etc. That's what clicks for normal people. So intellectually I know I have to do these things to get my partner in the mood, when for me it's the secrecy, the adrenaline, that are actually what give me an instant high. In the early stages of a relationship, both of these factors work together. The woman I would date would be happy because I was going out of my way to romance her, and I would still have those jitters and fears that come with any new relationship. But after a while, the fear and anxiety drop away. For normal people, that's good. It probably leads them to be freer and more experimental in bed. For someone f-ed up by abuse, it's a problem. Now I'm just acting again, trying to demonstrate that I'm normal.

This is how to a survivor of abuse, sex can easily get turned into one more thing we need to learn to fake. Got to get it right, to keep up appearances that we're normal. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he isn't thinking about anything. Or, he might be thinking of another woman, or porn, because that type of secret and shameful thing may get him turned on. But it's not probably something he's likely to say to you because he probably thinks it's insulting and it also opens up the fact, once again, that he's suffering some of the after-effects of abuse. When you push him about it, it's just suggesting to him that, guess what, here's another area where he's not normal. All his faking isn't working. I think this is why a lot of abuse survivors will just give up sex or cut way back. It's too big a minefield. I'm actually kind of surprised he talks to you at all about the abuse, but I guess that's a good thing as far as it goes.

All of this gets back to really the only thing I can suggest to him. He should take a half a day alone, lock the doors so he can cry in peace, turn off the phone, unplug the TV and the internet, get a box of kleenex and sit down and read Mike Lew's book and then start looking for a therapist to get a game plan together to tackle this. Hiding from it's not going to make it any easier. It really sucks. And believe me I understand completely why he probably doesn't want to get into it. It's one big, nasty mess. But if his life isn't working as is, I think it's probably the only way. And if he looks at the book and the issues and decides that what I've suggested is nuts, please feel free to tell me I've got my head up my a**. I'll be glad for his sake to hear it.

Take care.

 

[An]

Dan,
although you weren't answering my question, as it happens by the grace of the universe, you said so much to me tonight just when i needed to hear it.
I thought my bf - and at the moment, I write bf hesitantly-, was going to go for recovery, for a year (almost to the day as I met him exactly a year ago), all has been aiming that way. I was filled with joy and excitement because before this last 2 week "blackout" period, - (which is my name for his cycles of depression during which he's totally uncommunicative-)before this last blacklut, he'd made his first appointment with an SA specialist in preparation for going to Mike's 2 day workshop in April-it was a miracle that it was going to be just a few hours drive from here. we'd been planning to move in together a few months after that. the weekends hotel reservation was made as he'd said it was important I go with him and my joy was huge- deep and wide. then,,,,,,,
Tonight I get an email that's "friendly" but frightened (my descriptor). For the first time ever, I have nothing to say to him . it's not anger in me, it's just pure and total grief. Like you said, without doing the recovery work, there can be nothing there and that's where we are now. To me, no relationship could be whole without recovery. He's called off the plans to live together, as of this email and rightfully so, because he'd cancelled the counseling and recovery plans. He says "nice" things in his email; to me, they're just covers for fear and meaningless. There's nothing personally negative between us now, but sadly, without recovery, there's so little that can be.

I appreciate your affirmation of my gut, that knowing that there is no sense in trying if recovery's not the goal. I expect that as is the pattern, he'll go through other moods in the next few days that will change his current moderated tone and try to bring me back to how things were before we brought things to the line of actually starting active recovery, but there's no going back for me, I can't pretend the joy I felt before or support a direction that is destructive to him. It's so different for me to have nothing to say to him, I've always felt overwhelmingly responsive to him, but there's nothing to say now. Although I'm deeply, deeply saddened, the very good thing is that I'm not torn. Although I'd support him with no limits in the journey towards recovery, I can't support his evasion, his seemingly casual sauntering away from it ( I know inside he feels like he's running for his life while presenting this casual outside of making "alternative plans". I understand that he must be ready for recovery, and it was reasonable to have to move gradually this year in that direction. But his email just announced an "about face"- he's walking back to his past of "pretend" and it's just not somewhere I can go.
Thank you for helping me with the outside affirmation of my soul's reaction. This board works in mysterious ways. Your truth is a wonderful gift for me~ I don't know how much of this is understandable to others, but it was therapeutic for me to write it. In appreciation, An

 

[stride]

Dan,

Just read your post. My guess is that you're pretty close to the mark, if not right on target.

When you push him about it, it's just suggesting to him that, guess what, here's another area where he's not normal. All his faking isn't working. I think this is why a lot of abuse survivors will just give up sex or cut way back. It's too big a minefield. I'm actually kind of surprised he talks to you at all about the abuse, but I guess that's a good thing as far as it goes. Yup. Just recently he said (and not for the first time) that he's grown "scared shitless" to approach me sexually...that he fears/feels as if "every move I make is going to be scrutinized and analyzed...that no matter what I'll be doing something wrong." What I hear loudest in this is that the moment I open my mouth about anything to do with our sex life, he just feels "not good enough," a failure no matter what. And this, regardless of what I may actually have said or been talking about. It seems that he's already decided, a priori, that no matter what I say or how I say it, what it boils down to is that I find him inadequate...that he doesn't measure up. So, not having sex with me at all...or for varying/extended periods of time, may feel a whole lot safer than having sex with me and worrying about somehow letting me down/coming up short in my eyes.

For me though, the core of the problem seems to be that yeh, at some point it feels like he just can't remain present and/or authentic and sexually "real" with me. That, and the fact that most of the time, if he makes an effort to pleasure me, it feels like just that: An effort (an obligatory duty that, being a considerate person, he will perform in the interest of being a fair and loving guy). Problem is, if I sense that he's not really getting any real enjoyment out of pleasuring me or slowing things down a bit, the result is that it doesn't really work for me either...I end up in my head, worrying that he's not enjoying himself/me, and thus no matter what he's doing, my mood/degree of genuine responsiveness is compromised.

And this so easily can turn into a dysfunctional cycle where we both end up pretending. Him, for reasons of his own, and me, because I don't want to discourage him from at least trying. I mean, if I let on that his efforts aren't really doing it for me--no matter how I try to get him to understand what I'm after--he'll just feel worse and maybe just cease to bother altogether. I want to make him feel good about being close and intimate with me, but we can't talk about it so what to do?

If I commit to being totally honest with him at all times--no matter how gently and respectfully--he's just going to end up feeling even worse than he probably already does and likely just say "f**k it" altogether. I sure as hell don't want that, because I want so very much to have that contact and closeness with him. It's an extremely rare occurence that I ever say no to him, because that kind of intimacy between us--whatever its shortcomings--means so much to me. But then again, if an important piece of it is just "faking," then it's not really intimacy or what I'm wanting/needing at all, you know? He's not the only one who feels like he "can't win..."

Oh sigh. Sorry if I've gotten off on a rather unfocussed tangent here. As for my "pushing him about it," I try not to, but what to do? We all know where pretending gets us.

Common sense may dictate that I need to just let go: To either (a) resign myself to the way things things are, try to learn to be happy with what he is able to give, and hope (however foolishly) that things may someday improve, or (b) to leave him. Still, option "a" just does not work for me and option "b" seems so sad an answer.

You can lead a horse to water...

One last thing: Anyone whose read my recent posts knows that sex is my biggest source of anxiety/pain/confusion/frustration/heartache in my relationship. But perhaps more to the point, it's the conflicts arising from the erected barriers to communication (his, if I dare say so) that leave me feeling so utterly discouraged and at a loss as to what to do (or not do).

As for his talking with me about his SA, that's a very rare occasion indeed, and usually mentioned only briefly as a warning (believe me, his tone at such times is clearly one of "don't go there!") that I'd be wise to leave well enough alone and abandon any hope of any discussion whatsoever about what may or may not be going on with him and/or our sex life. His SA history is certainly not something he's discussed with me (or anyone) at much length or in any real detail, nor does is it likely to be. Fine. I can live with that. What is so hard to live with is his refusal to even look at it as a possible contributor to the problems he/we have in this area of our relationship.

Anyway, I'm going to go give him a hug before he heads off to bed. (oh sigh)

Stride

 

[Dan88]

An,
I'm sorry to hear about it, but I think you're taking the only approach you can. He's got to make the choice about his own life. And you've got to make the choice about how you're going to lead yours.

One of the saddest things is the way friends and family of survivors get dragged into this drama. And I don't mean to be overly dramatic about it, but it's a real mess you're dealing with, and you folks have got to take of yourselves.

I think posting what you did is good for all friends and family to read so they understand there are limits to what you should be expected to do.

Stride,
I hear what you're saying about your SO, and I'd venture one more guess. I'd bet the reason he won't consider that the troubles in your sex life are linked to his past is because he can't stand the idea that anything is linked to it.

Probably the toughest thing I've ever had to face is exactly how being abused and molested influenced who I am. I can not possibly describe how repulsive and disgusting it is, and I won't try because that's not the topic here. I only raise it so you understand that for him it's not like he's avoiding doing some simple thing just out of procrastination. If he's like me, the idea of sitting down and going over this crap is absolutely terrifying and totally distasteful. So stringing you along about your inadequate sex life, even though he probably feels bad about it, and even if you're really angry about it, is still probably 100 times less painful than the idea of sitting down and telling his story to a therapist and stirring up all the garbage that will go with it.

But I also understand the unfairness in expecting you to stay in this unsatisfactory relationship. I've seen the advice given here many times that spouses and SOs should stand by and offer support to survivors. I only agree with that to the extent that a survivor is helping himself. I understand your not wanting to push things with him. But like you say, ignoring it won't accomplish anything. I'd say you have to make some time to just air it out once and for all. Not when you're feeling hurt or he's feeling vulnerable, just some time when you can make time to spell it out for him.

Put yourself in his shoes for a second. Suppose you had been molested as a child and it was wreaking havoc on your sex life with your husband or SO. What would you want him to do? Wait until it boiled over and he left, or have him tell you that you had to get some help if the relationship was going to continue? In my opinion, it's only fair to yourself to set a deadline for this, and it's fair to him to tell him exactly what you need him to do. Then let the chips fall where they may. Easier said than done, I know.

Good luck and take care.