SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

If this is too much please let me know and I will rectify this immediately, but this exact situation sits on me heavily.

Unconventional, I want to offer you a perspective from someone who has lived through both childhood sexual abuse and the betrayal of a spouse. I genuinely believe you're coming from a place of wanting to help your wife, and I can understand why this revelation has left you questioning parts of your marriage. But I think there is something incredibly important here that you may be overlooking.

I was sexually abused as a child, on more than one occasion, by more than one person, including by a family member. I carried that with me for decades (41 years) without telling my wife. In fact, I finally disclosed it to her just hours before my first D-Day, she decided to tell me this because I was vulnerable. The timing of those two revelations was absolutely devastating. Discovering her infidelity was already going to be traumatic, but having it land on top of wounds I had carried privately since childhood made the experience feel like a nuclear explosion. In some ways, the sexual betrayal by the person I trusted most in this world felt like an even greater violation than the abuse I suffered as a child. I am not suggesting the two experiences are identical, but the psychological impact of having someone I entrusted with my safety betray me in such an intimate way has been almost impossible to put into words. Her betrayal didn't simply create new trauma. It exponentially compounded trauma she didn't even know existed.

And that brings me to something you wrote that genuinely gave me pause. You said that by telling you about her abuse, your wife made her trauma your trauma. I understand that her experiences may affect your relationship, but I respectfully disagree with that conclusion. Her trauma belongs to her. Her story belongs to her. And perhaps most importantly, the decision about who hears that story, when they hear it, and whether she ever chooses to confront it therapeutically belongs entirely to her.

I chose who knew about my abuse for decades. I continue to make that choice today, and I will continue making it for as long as I live. That autonomy matters enormously to me because the original abuse involved having my autonomy taken away. If my WW had responded to my disclosure by deciding that my trauma was now hers to manage, that I needed to seek treatment on her timetable, or that she was entitled to disclose it to other people because it affected our marriage, I cannot begin to describe how deeply that would have hurt me. Particularly after what her own choices had already done to me.

I think there is an important distinction between wanting your wife to heal and needing her to heal in a particular way so that you can feel better about your marriage. You absolutely have a right to your feelings about intimacy, connection, and what you need from a relationship. Those are legitimate concerns, and I wouldn't suggest you simply bury them. But her childhood sexual abuse is not something she owes you a resolution to, particularly while she is simultaneously trying to process the betrayal she has experienced within your marriage.

Something else worth considering is that she trusted you enough to finally reveal something she had kept hidden for forty years. That may well have been one of the most vulnerable moments of her entire life. I would encourage you to see that disclosure as an extraordinary act of trust rather than another marital problem requiring immediate intervention.

My suggestion would be to concentrate on your own healing, understanding the choices that brought you here, and becoming someone she can feel emotionally safe with again. Let her decide when, how, or even whether she is ready to address her childhood trauma. You can support her, encourage her, and love her through that process without trying to direct it.

I say all of this with compassion, not condemnation. I know you're struggling, and I don't doubt that you want a healthier marriage. But as someone who has experienced both sides of this particular kind of trauma, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that she retains ownership of her own story.

You cannot give someone back their sense of safety by taking away their right to choose. And right now, after experiencing both childhood abuse and marital betrayal, that sense of choice may be one of the most important things she has left.

Well said (as always) Gemmy

Yes please listen to him. Great post.

I do appreciate the brave and sensitive feedback, people!

Y'all can think I'm a monster, I guess. But here's how I see the lay of the land:

If I don't divulge to our marriage counselor my W's CSA, I can try just telling our counselor that we have some sexual issues to address and see how that goes. But, since we all know the root of those issues (you just don't know who my W or I are), either my W will have to herself divulge (and be treated for) her CSA or she will have to lie about the cause and the sexual issue won't improve. (She can try to stall for time, but I won't let that happen beyond a session or two.) If valid work toward an actual remedy was in progress in good faith, that'd be one thing. But, if she lies about the root problem, things won't improve.

So then, we're looking at me divorcing the W I still love! But, if I get divorced at 50-51 years old, I am not going to stop there. Divorce means nothing to a Catholic. So... then, I either need a life alone or an annulment. But why would I choose a life alone? Now, a nullification determination requires a "tribunal" to investigate the marriage. Presumably, my wife and I will then be questioned about our sexual history. I have no idea what format that interview might take, but I will be required to divulge my ex's CSA to the tribunal because that's the whole reason the marriage may never have been valid in the first place. So... it seems to me that the CSA gets disclosed no matter what. So... isn't it better that that comes forward in a marriage counseling session than to a "tribunal"?

I mean... let me know if I'm overlooking some kind of escape hatch or something? I don't actually want to be an ass. I just know that the new status quo is a "no" for me--and there does seem to be consensus that I'm allowed to feel as I do:

GotTheMorbs: "You only control you. If you can't be patient with her healing, you don't have to stay in the marriage."

HikingOut: "I don’t think it’s you should accept how things are…"

That is why my W's disclosure to me of CSA that she, herself, linked to one of the most essential commitments of marriage makes her trauma into our trauma. I don't mean that I have now been SAed. I mean that we now have a fact that has to come out, one way or another.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 6:17 AM, Saturday, October 10th]

I am not religious but I am Italian so I am familiar with Catholic Church to a good extent.

Marriage is unsolvable until death. When it is annulled the rational is that it wasn’t true and honest from the start when it was celebrated, so it was a "lie" in front of god, and thus the Union is not really blessed.
Because you violated a commandment with false testimony.

That’s about the gist of how it works.

That’s what is about if this is hat matters to you.

However I am not yet sure whether you are looking how to escape from a marriage where you feel unhappy while keeping the form of sacramental contract intact and validated from the external source that judges its appearance, or you are looking to heal the souls of both you and your wife from pain and find each other again.

Both path can be pursued, but they are in opposition to each other.

I am thinking of reading this statement at our next counseling session:

{Marriage counselor's name}, I need to discuss something that {my wife's name} asked me not to bring to counseling. While I understand her desire for privacy, I never agreed to a vow of secrecy, and I cannot participate honestly in our sessions while withholding this. What {my wife's name} disclosed three weeks ago fundamentally altered my understanding of our entire history, our sexual relationship, and our future.

Three weeks ago, {my wife's name} told me that she was abused sexually in her childhood. If I understood her correctly, this may have been the first disclosure of that trauma in her life, from perhaps forty years ago. She then immediately told me that, because of the sexual trauma she sustained, she has never experienced sex as an expression of love and never expects to. Her disclosure to me was incredibly brave, and I appreciate having at last been read even a little into this painful part of {my wife's name}'s history.

At the same time, {my wife's name}'s disclosures came as profound shocks to me. Long ago--I think while we were still dating--{my wife's name} told me that an investigation had occurred in her childhood, but that no abuse had actually taken place. What I learned three weeks ago directly contradicts what I believed to be true.

It pains me deeply that {my wife's name} was abused, and that she has carried this agonizing weight entirely alone for forty years, including throughout our courtship and marriage. But her subsequent instinct to return this trauma to a compartment and carry it alone reflects a longstanding pattern that has caused significant difficulty in our marriage. When {my wife's name} faces significant pain, she closes the door to it rather than bringing it into our partnership.

One of my core marital needs is emotional openness: a spouse who brings burdens into the marriage rather than shutting me out. Another is a partner willing to address deep wounds that impact us, rather than accepting them as permanent and untouchable.

This brings me to the sexual dimension. Marriage, to me, requires a sexual relationship where love is both expressed and received. I am not merely seeking physical activity; {my wife's name} has been willing to participate in sex, and that is not the issue.

I do not expect every sexual encounter to be transcendent. Sex can be playful, routine, rough, or simply a release. None of those are "wrong" within a marriage. But those ordinary moments must exist within a marriage that is still reaching for something deeper.

The relational point of sex is connection. Physical pleasure is certainly and happily an element of sex, but not its purpose. Even "a quickie" can communicate love, reassurance, desire, appreciation, and connection between spouses.

What I cannot accept is the permanent conclusion that sex can never be an expression of love, and therefore will never be pursued as one. If that is the permanent understanding of our sexual relationship, then I do not know how to understand the future of our marriage.

As part of the "processing" that I have been trying to do to understand my errors in having disordered what should've remained a beautiful and simply healthy friendship with {my OW's name} and how I can and will prevent future waywardness, I've scrutinized what drew me to {my OW's name}--and initially to {my wife's name}. A major part of what deepens my attachment to a woman is the ability to protect, help, and stand beside her through challenges. I am not embarrassed by that characteristic. In many ways, I am proud of it. Anyhow, whether that characteristic is reliably wise, faulty, or somewhere in-between, it is a central circuit of my wiring--and I think that insight is a relevant asset that we can exploit to support connection and fidelity for me within my marriage. When {my wife's name}'s wounds are compartmentalized beyond my reach, I experience a profound, starving distance rather than connection. When a woman allows herself vulnerability with me, there will my heart grow.

I hope, in time, that we will revisit all of those considerations, but I realize we can't untangle all of that today. The specific impasse we must address right now is this:

{My wife's name}'s position is that her abuse--and it was absolutely part of only her lived experience--and its effects on our sexual connection should be accepted and left unaddressed. My position is that a wound this massive, with consequences this severe, must be met with a good-faith effort through competent professional help.

I am not demanding immediate healing or instant changes. I know this process takes months or years. But a genuine effort must begin soon--because I do not believe permanent non-engagement is compatible with the future of our marriage.

If this issue is permanently re-compartmentalized and left unaddressed, I do not believe our marriage has a viable future.

{Marriage counselor's name}, I need your help navigating this safely for both of us.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 12:03 PM, Saturday, October 10th]

If I don't divulge to our marriage counselor my W's CSA, I can try just telling our counselor that we have some sexual issues to address and see how that goes. But, since we all know the root of those issues (you just don't know who my W or I are), either my W will have to herself divulge (and be treated for) her CSA or she will have to lie about the cause and the sexual issue won't improve.

Be trustworthy and keep to yourself what she entrusted you with. Allow her a sense of autonomy by letting her choose who this information is shared with, when, how, and whether she wants to address it. Stop trying to fix it. I understand you are suffering from the lack of sexual connection and that's challenging, but you can't fix it for her, and pushing her to fix it will not only most likely make the relationship between the two of you worse, but... It's also just unkind.

So... isn't it better that that comes forward in a marriage counseling session than to a "tribunal"?

Don't write off the possibility that she won't process her CSA trauma in her own time without you pushing her to do it. Your options aren't "disclose it to the counselor ourselves or have it investigated by a tribunal." They're "disclose it to the counselor yourself, allow her to decide who she wants to disclose it to, wait and see what happens in the marriage and legally divorce without seeking annulment if things don't change within a timeframe you find tolerable, wait and see what happens and seek legal divorce and an annulment..." and probably some others.

Morbs and others,

I'm solidly resolved that this disclosure is going to happen. I'm not asking any longer; I'm declaring. I am open to suggestions on wording, etc.

I am not forcing my wife to disclose her trauma. By reading this text, I am not asking her to dig up the past or detail the horrific things that happened to her forty years ago.

Instead, I am bringing our current marital impasse into the room.

The moment my wife explicitly connected her childhood trauma to our shared present reality—telling me that sex can never be an expression of love and never expects to be—this stopped being a hidden historical secret. It became the active, driving force behind a major fracture in our marriage.

I cannot sit in counseling and participate in a fiction. I cannot pretend our relationship is struggling for ordinary reasons while withholding a truth that fundamentally altered my understanding of our entire history and future. Keeping a secret of this magnitude would turn our therapy into a performance rather than a place of healing.

I know it is wrong to force a survivor to heal on someone else’s timeline. But I also know it is wrong to force myself to live in a marriage completely devoid of emotional openness and love. I have a right to state my own boundaries and my own reality.

I am bringing this to our counselor because I want our marriage to survive. And the only way it has a chance to survive is if we lay the truth out safely, right in the counselor's session.

Revised introductory speech:

{Marriage Counselor's Name}, I need to discuss something that {my wife's name} asked me not to bring to counseling.

While I understand her desire for privacy, I never agreed to a vow of secrecy, and I cannot participate honestly in our sessions while withholding this.

Three weeks ago, {my wife's name} told me that she was abused sexually in her childhood. If I understood her correctly, this may have been the first disclosure of that trauma in her life, from perhaps forty years ago.

Her disclosure to me was incredibly brave. I deeply appreciate being read into this painful part of her history.

What made this disclosure particularly consequential for our marriage was that {my wife's name} immediately connected the abuse to our sexual relationship. She told me that, because of the sexual trauma she sustained, she has never experienced sex as an expression of love and never expects to.

While the abuse belongs to {my wife's name}'s history, its consequences no longer affect only her. As {my wife's name} herself recognized when she connected the abuse to our sexual relationship, they affect our marriage, and they affect me. That is why I believe this matter belongs in marriage counseling even though the original trauma belongs to her.

I cannot heal our partnership or process my own reality if this remains locked away. What {my wife's name} disclosed three weeks ago fundamentally altered my understanding of our entire history, our sexual relationship, and our future.

At the same time, this disclosure came as a profound shock. It directly contradicts what I believed to be true. Long ago—I think while we were still dating—{my wife's name} told me that an investigation had occurred in her childhood, but that—in fact—no abuse had actually taken place.

It pains me deeply that she has carried this agonizing weight entirely alone for forty years. But her desire to leave this trauma unaddressed after disclosing it reflects a longstanding pattern that causes significant difficulty in our marriage. When {my wife's name} faces deep pain, she closes the door to it rather than bringing it into our partnership.

One of my core marital needs is emotional openness: a partner who shares burdens rather than shutting me out. Another is a partner who is willing to address deep wounds that impact us both, rather than accepting them as permanent and untouchable.

This brings me to the sexual dimension. Marriage, to me, requires a sexual relationship where love is both expressed and received. I am not merely seeking physical activity; {my wife's name} has been willing to participate in sex, and that is not the issue.

I do not expect every sexual encounter to be transcendent. Sex can be playful, routine, rough, or simply a release. None of those are wrong within a marriage. But those ordinary moments must exist within a marriage that is still reaching for something deeper.

The relational point of sex is connection. Physical pleasure is certainly and happily an element of sex, but not its purpose. Even a quickie can communicate love, reassurance, desire, appreciation, and connection between spouses.

What I cannot accept is the permanent conclusion that sex can never be an expression of love, and therefore will never be pursued as one. If that is the permanent understanding of our sexual relationship, then I do not know how to understand the future of our marriage.

As part of my own processing, specifically examining the errors that led to my disordered relationship with {OW's name} and how to ensure future fidelity, I have been scrutinizing my own wiring.

A major pathway in my emotional attachment wiring is the desire to protect, help, and stand beside a woman through challenges. When {my wife's name}'s wounds are compartmentalized beyond my reach, I experience a profound, starving distance. When a woman invites me into her struggles, that is where my heart grows.

I recognize that this is an important attachment pathway for me. I want to exploit this insight as an asset to support connection and strict fidelity within my marriage. But I cannot do that if the door to what troubles {my wife's name} is permanently locked.

We cannot untangle all of this today, but we must address the specific impasse we face right now.

{My wife's name}'s position: Her abuse and its effects on our sexual connection should be accepted and left unaddressed.

My position: A wound this massive, with consequences this severe, must be met with a good-faith effort through competent professional help.

I am not demanding immediate healing or instant changes. I know this process takes months or years. But a genuine effort must begin soon.

I do not want our marriage to end. I love {my wife's name}, and I want a future with her.

If this issue is permanently re-compartmentalized and left unaddressed, however, I do not believe our marriage has a viable future.

{Marriage Counselor's Name}, I need your help navigating this safely for both of us.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 2:18 PM, Saturday, October 10th]

I know it is wrong to force a survivor to heal on someone else’s timeline. But I also know it is wrong to force myself to live in a marriage completely devoid of emotional openness and love. I have a right to state my own boundaries and my own reality.

Right, and your boundaries are what you are willing to do, not what you are willing to do to make somebody else behave the way you want them to. As stated, if you don't want to live in a marriage lacking sexual connection and love expressed the way you want it expressed, you don't have to. You can exit the marriage.

I doubt anyone here is going to help you word things more better to hand off a disclosure your BW entrusted you with to a stranger so you can make her get help for it in order to make the marriage better for her WS.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 3:42 PM, Saturday, October 10th]

I'm not a big fan of separating the physical from the "spiritual" when it comes to sex.

That's true for a lot of people, but not all of us. You need to allow for differences. Your W may not experience sex that way - may not and probably doesn't.

*****

Your W's revelation obviously has hit you hard. Getting help processing what it means to you strikes me as definitely legit, but my reco is to stick to exactly that: the thoughts and feelings it evokes in you. Keep the revelation about you, not about your W.

That's OK, if I don't get help. I've sent our counselor the transcription already. I'm at peace that what I am doing is, morally, the right thing to do within my marriage's ethos. If the shoe was on the other foot, as it were, this would be the right course. Now, I will not tell another soul about this as long as my wife seeks help. In case she won't, I may need to have a suitcase packed for next Thursday.

Thanks!

[This message edited by Unconventional at 4:28 PM, Saturday, October 10th]

Would you be willing to let us know how your wife responds to your decision? I'm interested in how this affects her sense of safety and trust in your relationship.

I predict: negatively. I also predict the impact will be less negative than if I have to involve a formal Church "tribunal," where statements will have to be taken and witnesses--people we know--will have to be called. I am absolutely committed to this being addressed. Of note, the final deciding factor for me was my wife's having made the association from "CSA occurred" to this affects us in an area essential to Catholic marriage. I didn't make that logical leap. She did that.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 5:19 PM, Saturday, October 10th]

I maintain that your other choices were not only to litigate her CSA trauma in front of a tribunal.

Identifying a connection between trauma and marriage is not consent to an intervention or disclosure of that trauma to additional people.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 5:20 PM, Saturday, October 10th]

I know that I had other options. My options: (1) lifelong celibacy (which might've seemed acceptable if the originating issue arose after marriage), (2) divorce w/ immediate motion to annulment (there's that tribunal), (3) Divorce + lifelong absence of both sex and romance (not an upgrade from option 1), (4) exactly what I am doing.

I get it that there also is the possibility of: hey, maybe... someday... my W decides to deal with this all on her own. Sure. That chance exists on paper. C'mon! Put yourselves in my shoes for one minute: you are now the spouse of someone who took 40 years to tell you, the spouse's life partner of >25 years and marriage partner of >20 years one true sentence about why they bottle up emotions and seem cold during sex despite your sincere efforts to be loving. How trusting are you going to be that your spouse is going to suddenly wake up one day and say: you know, I think I should start therapy for my hangup?!?

Also, if you'll forgive my boldness in saying so: you seem pretty comfortable with your sexuality. (That's a fine thing to be, BTW!) Obviously, we've never been intimate, and I won't ask you to comment on this publicly, but I'd go so far as to hazard a guess from your other statements that you're probably a pretty darned good self-advocate for yourself--and very possibly for your lover(s)--regarding getting outta sex what you want. (Again, that's a fine characteristic to have; I'm not trying to shame here!) Now... you've said your husband is 25 years older than you are, and you're 30 years old. Our kids' nanny married like that. Our kids' nanny is around 55-60 years old now and her husband has a prosthetic leg, another leg just about ready to be cut off, ventricular tachycardia, heart failure, COPD, diabetes mellitus, near blindness--and is now hospitalized with a broken hip. Granted, I haven't actually checked the guy's erection stiffness, but I have absolutely no qualms about guaranteeing he hasn't had one in 10-15 years, at least.

Now... I hope this doesn't happen to you/your husband. You seem like a real interesting and intelligent woman and I wish you only the best. But if you're 30 and your hubby's 55, I can totally see where he might not have ED yet. But let me hit you with some actual stats: In their 60s, about 60% of men experience some degree of ED. Among men in their 70s and older, the prevalence climbs to 70% or higher. On the other hand, many women experience a notable secondary surge in sexual libido and frequency of sexual thoughts between the ages of 27 and 45. When you are 45 years old, and have decades of life left to live, your husband will be 70 years old. Don't answer this question publicly, but think about the answer: Whattya gonna do with yourself in 15 years, when you're still in your "peak" years for libido and hubby is... well... 70 years old?

Now, in your case, you may actually have a solution entirely compatible with your marriage. You've said you're allowed to pursue women sexually at-will. Maybe, in your 40s, you dip into that side of the aisle more liberally? (Who am I to say?) But, at last we come to my point: not all of us have marriages so accommodating. A typical American man my age can expect to live about another 30 years. Knock on wood, but I've dodged the ED bullet too, so far. But, sooner or later, ED will catch up with me, too! And in whatever years I've got left where I remain "healthy enough for sexual activity," do you think I--or basically any adult who chooses the married life--would lightly accept going years... maybe decades... without sex? Would you?

If not... maybe don't throw stones until you check whether you live in a glass house?

[This message edited by Unconventional at 6:32 PM, Saturday, October 10th]

Doesn't matter much now, does it? You've taken away the opportunity for her to disclose that to your MC

Not without my W first telling me that I am prohibited from telling our MC about my W's CSA and seeing that my W won't make that that disclosure, herself, either! If she would've disclosed, I wouldn't have acted.

As it stands, I acted peremptorily so our MC could plan session management in advance.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 6:34 PM, Saturday, October 10th]

Wow, just wow

Identifying a connection between trauma and marriage is not consent to an intervention or disclosure of that trauma to additional people.

Actually, it is. Not in a general sense. I can't go telling my coworkers, let's say. Or my mother or brother. Or our daughters. Or even random strangers who could conceivably identify me/my wife.

But it is absolutely relevant--1000%--to the marriage and so 1000% is legit to raise in session.

That stated, I have standing to discuss this topic with our MC insofar as it is relevant to the marriage. Details of her trauma wouldn't be mine to share--if I had them.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 8:06 PM, Saturday, October 10th]