My W (the BS here) of over 2 decades told me about 2-3 weeks ago that: (1) she was abused sexually by a now-deceased male family member when she was a child, (2) in consequence, she has never been able to experience sex as an expression of love, (3) she has experienced sex as pleasurable physically and—although she’s too mad at me right now for us to engage in sex, she remains open to sex between us again in the future, (4) she anticipates never being able to express sex as an expression of love, (5) she didn’t disclose any of that to me previously because she didn’t trust me to hold that information, (6) She has never told anyone before what happened to her as a child, and (7) I am forbidden to tell anyone—our marriage counselor included—what happened to my W as a child—that that secret is hers to disclose or not as she—and only she—sees fit.
This revelation from her has shone a whole new light for me on why my W defaults to "compartmentalizing" and bottling and stifling her feelings.
Separately, I am realizing that my strongest attachments to her and to my OW have been rooted in service to distress those women bore. My wife is an anxious person and used to lean on me over her anxieties. I think that’s part of what drew me to her in love in the first place. A big part of what made me vulnerable to relationship disordering is my wife’s having withdrawn from me emotionally over years.
Those facts are colliding for me in a big way these days, and I am not sure how to proceed. First of all, lest otherwise be suspected of me: I do not blame my W for the sexual abuse she sustained in childhood. The night my W told me what I’ve said she said, I spent hours finding mental healthcare providers with the right sort of credentials to help my wife—and eventually she and me as a couple—work through the hangups her traumatic experience created. In the morning, I proudly presented her with a list of 3 providers with the right kind of credentials so she could choose among them. My W has refused to call any of them. She is now wanting to return to compartmentalizing her abuse and move forward without addressing the wounds.
That doesn’t feel OK to me!
By telling me what she told me, my wife made her trauma our trauma!
This post isn’t finished yet, but my phone battery is dying. More later today!
