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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 A big part of what made me vulnerable to relationship disordering is my wife’s having withdrawn from me emotionally over years.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!

I intended to continue this post by editing it, but with replies having already started, I chose to just add another post onto this one instead. So… scroll down a bit for my continuation.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 6:56 PM, Thursday, October 8th]

I am glad to hear you shifting more into resolving the issues between you and your wife.

I am going to give you some thoughts on what you wrote:

What you are describing in the beginning of this is you seem to choose women you can help. This is a very common thing amongst males, I see that pattern in my own husband. Or at least used to before the context of that wore of by the longevity of the marriage.

Around here was call it Knight In Shining Armor syndrome (KISA), but I don’t think it’s really a disorder, it’s only a problem when it is a factor in affairs. So we talk about it differently. My husband had an affair as well and it was very much KISA based. He wanted to feel vital and needed and I get it.

However, in your wife’s case, she doesn’t want you to solve her problem. The truth is I was also sexually abused and the stats on SA is very underreported but most women I know have experienced some degree of it.

When I started therapy after my affair, ai didn’t even think to bring it up and we were many sessions in when the therapist asked me about it. And it actually startled me. I said "oh yes, by different people starting when I was five" and she was like"and you do not think it effected you?" And I had to do some work around getting that all out and looking at it.

The results were that the major way it affected me was similiar- I did not see it as a loving expression, I saw it as a physical experience I enjoyed. But I also saw how it contributed to some promiscuity in my youth, and how that compounded into shame about myself.

And I want to be clear, I do not think of shame as an emotion. It’s an underlying belief that I was "bad" in some way. Or damaged.

And what shame does is often blocks your ability to be vulnerable out of fear of non-acceptance, or feeling unlovable, etc.

So with that background, I am going to advise you to side step the trauma for now. I would even side step the sex is an experrseion of love conversation right now.

What I would recommend is approaching her with a need of deeper connection. I would frame it I your existing issue- there is marital damage based on your other relationship and I think in that way she understands work to repair is needed. Keeping it under that umbrella posts little more emphasis on you, but I think that would provide some emotional safety for what I think could be a good next step.

There is a book I read early in my journey that helped me identify how I was blocking myself from connection. There was some great material on how hard it is to be vulnerable and why, and how to practice being braver within your relationship allowing for greater connection to be possible.

The book is called "Rising Strong" by Brene brown.

I would buy the book or audio book and read it under the premise that it was recommended as a way to illustrate ways of regaining connection, and you see that maybe as a good way to start an awareness between you and her and a basis in which to talk about things more.

Read a chapter at a time and discuss it. I think it will help conversations surrounding this come up, and if not I think at the very least it may get her mind working.

Another thing we did around that time was there was this game that DR Gottman came up with and he uses in his marital workshops. We used it to start talking to each other more about each others inner worlds. I think you can buy the cards or there may also be a phone app.

I know this is very indirect for handling the situation but I think it starts opening a dialogue that can help you bond and think about issues together.

Also because SA is secretive by master, we are groomed so much to bury it. After all these years I don’t think it’s something that can get unpacked all at once. Forcing her to confront it is too radical.

I want to also tell you that by strengthening our connection, it did change how we make love together. I do now see it as maybe the deepest expression of love. So what you would like to see is completely possible.

The truth is her healing doesn’t have to confront the trauma. She only needs to start seeing ways the trauma hinders her from fulfillment and that is possible without facing it all head on at once. Simply start with the book and practice new skills of connection and allow her to see that those things are safe. You also must recognize you may need to go slow in getting the book finished because she isn’t just mad at you, right now you have introduced an idea that you may not be emotionally safe for her because of the feelings of betrayal. So be sure to be sensitive to providing as much emotional safety as you explore these topics as possible.

Back off on the therapists and tools or trying to fix. Instead, engage, connect, and provide emotional vulnerability and safety.

First, I don't know anything about childhood SA. I haven't experienced it. My partner has not either, that I know of anyway. I'm sorry all around for both of you and how painful this must be.

You are posting her secret here, on an online forum. I'm imagining that you understand the agreement not to reveal is about anonymity? Ok. Either way, what you do with that info is your own personal choice left to your personal discretion.

You have mentioned that you feel your marriage is/may be non-sacramental and a marriage not valid in the Roman Catholic church. I'm not a practicing RC, but I did grow up around it and understand the teachings fairly well.

This is a pretty important thing to reveal for both you and your wife. You have said this faith is a vital thing to you both. You need to figure this out now, and you need to reveal your feelings to her. I would see a Priest or Monsignor and discuss this with them. Not AI. It's not the same. You can read Pope Leo's thoughts on the matter. If anonymity is important, then go to a neighboring parrish and just walk into an anonymous confessional booth.

If you are in a marriage that you feel is non-valid, and you can get an annulment anytime; yet your wife is believing and acting daily that she has a sacramental and valid marriage, that is not ok. If she doesn't know you have a different understanding of the marriage and vows and feel it's invalid (because you didn't consent I guess?), wow. It's unfair and cruel to her.

I had intended to continue my original post when my phone had a charge, but 2 people had already responded and I felt it would be unfair to them for me just to add to the original post, so I am adding this one instead.

I have not yet really scrutinized the replies already posted. I will.

Regarding posting here about my wife’s childhood abuse, I figure this is 100% OK because I will never be disclosing my identity here nor my wife’s.

This issue is—I feel—now ours rather than my W’s alone—because: (a) the abuse is probably why my wife bottles her emotions and I need her to open up so we can heal, (b) my wife’s announcement about how she has experienced sex makes me question whether we ever got married Sacramentally (because sex is an absolute requirement in Catholic marriages and it is precisely the fact that marriage is a total gift of self that makes the sex in marriage both permissible and necessary; this may be grounds for an annulment, but I don’t want one—I want my W to heal), (c) the fact that my W disavows that she has ever experienced sex as an expression of love and denies that she ever will makes me feel dirty (in a bad way) and makes me not want to pursue sex with my W ever again in the future unless/until this chasm is closed!

To be clear: I have no expectation that every act of sex within a marriage is going to be a chandelier shaking blissful merging of souls. But some should be, I feel!

I have no expectation that a wound my W has held inside for 4 decades is going to heal in the blink of an eye. What I want to see for now is not an immediate fix (I mean: that’d be great, but entirely unrealistic), but progress. An active effort to secure healing. My wife insists she is free to bury the truth as deeply as she wants and tell no one for as long as she wants because it isn’t my history; it’s hers. I understand her perspective, but now that I know that this occurred and how greatly this affects the marriage, am I really supposed to just sit back and let my wife process her wound whenever she wants to—if she ever wants to? I feel that the truth needs to be brought forward to a marriage counselor because this affects our marriage! If we want to heal it, we can’t really do that without getting to the root issues—which apparently now includes my wife’s childhood abuse! On the other hand, surely, I fundamentally want generally to honor my wife’s request that I hold a secret of hers.

So, I am trying to figure out what to do.

I have considered going to a priest for guidance, but I don’t want to start any ball rolling that could steamroll into consequences I don’t want—like my marriage being declared nullified—or even just a tribunal being called! I don’t want my wife dragged into a roomful of old celibate men sitting behind a mahogany wood bench and grilled about her trauma and sexual histories!

[This message edited by Unconventional at 6:49 PM, Thursday, October 8th]

I have no expectation that a wound my W has held inside for 4 decades is going to heal in the blink of an eye. But now that I know that this occurred, am I really supposed to just sit back and let my wife process her wound whenever she wants to—if she ever wants to?

Yes, lol. This is deep and profoundly personal wound that she must be willing to engage with in order to heal. She can't be made to do it because it's causing problems in the marriage for you. Be curious and willing to sit with all of her feelings on the matter as she processes the trauma of SA, but you gotta be way less pushy about it.

ETA: Consider how this might be entangled with your own need to solve problems, be useful, and play the protector role.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 6:48 PM, Thursday, October 8th]

I have considered going to a priest for guidance, but I don’t want to start any ball rolling that could steamroll into consequences I don’t want—like my marriage being declared nullified—or even just a tribunal being called! I don’t want my wife dragged into a roomful of old celibate men sitting behind a mahogany wood bench and grilled about her trauma and sexual histories!

Oh, please! This is definitely not how the church works in real life. Do you have any faith and following in this religion?! On one hand, you seem bound and dedicated to it. On the other, what? Is this disdain? What is this??

Edit: Either way, if your wife follows the church and it is her faith, you should let her know where you stand on this marriage. It's the fair and morally correct thing to do. I suspect that you know that.

[This message edited by KitchenDepth5551 at 7:30 PM, Thursday, October 8th]

I practice the faith very earnestly, yes! But I have no experience with annulment cases at all! I searched for information on them and found that "nullification" cases are each decided by a "tribunal." What that means in practice in an annulment case within the Catholic Church is beyond me, but if I chose to use the word "tribunal" of my own accord, I would do so when describing a bunch of people having a big meeting and sitting in judgement.

Look: I was a Sunday School kid—I didn’t attend a Catholic school. I learned my religion according to the Cliff’s notes version. I took it way more seriously than most of the kids in the class, but it’s not like I am a walking Catechism.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 8:56 PM, Thursday, October 8th]

I did some googling and it said that counseling is confidential, and a tribunal investigation only occurs if it is requested by the married party after obtaining a legal divorce.

Thanks, Morbs, but what I found said that how "nullification" cases are handled varies by Diocese—except that a "tribunal" is always involved. Unless you saw something else (please say so if you did), what you spotted well may be accurate—for whatever Diocese posted the content—but might or might not be the process in our Diocese.

If a person didn't attend a Roman Catholic school, then they attend CCD on Monday afternoons. There's no Sunday School. They are expected to attend Mass with the family. If they converted later and married in the church, there is a formal process. It is involved and takes a long time. You may have been involved in a different religion or process.

The Roman Catholic Church has famously been involved in the sanctity of the confessional. They have strong considerations for the privacy of priest/confessioner privacy.

And damn. I'm seriously not a practicing Roman Catholic. I've just grown up and been around it my whole life. I belong and go to a Universal Unitarian Fellowship. (It's Unitarian Universalist. I didn't even get that right.) I like Buddhism.

My point is that this may be a serious concern for your wife. It's not ok to let that marriage and vow just be nebulous. It's not fair to her!

[This message edited by KitchenDepth5551 at 9:35 PM, Thursday, October 8th]

If a person didn't attend a Roman Catholic school, then they attend CCD on Monday afternoons. There's no Sunday School.

When the classes are held varies by Parish. During most of my childhood, the classes were held on Saturdays at the Parish to which my family belonged (when the Parish’s small school had empty classrooms)— but we still called them "Sunday school."

You may have been involved in a different religion or process.

I can assure you, it was Roman Catholicism.

Now, my kids attend Catholic schools.

If you are in a marriage that you feel is non-valid, and you can get an annulment anytime; yet your wife is believing and acting daily that she has a sacramental and valid marriage, that is not ok. If she doesn't know you have a different understanding of the marriage and vows and feel it's invalid (because you didn't consent I guess?), wow. It's unfair and cruel to her.

The above quote is from an earlier post by someone responding on this thread.

I think there’s a chance that a couple of ideas may have gotten muddled together—either because my expression before was unclear or because the response was ambiguous.

I have an appetite for sex, like most humans. I don’t like the idea of pursuing sex with my wife until she experiences it as a mutual expression of love. Frankly, I’m probably terrible at sex—and so is my wife, probably. Neither of us has any firsthand experience against which we can compare. We didn’t get to learn by practicing with others. What I can attest to is: if I want just orgasms, I handle those better all by myself. If I’m being brutally honest, I bet she could say the same. What I "get" out of sex is connection—or what I thought was connection. It’s about paying more attention to her than to me. It’s an outpouring of my soul, not just an emptying of my sac.

Before a Catholic couple gets married, they are required to attend a religious retreat together. Every participant was asked—in the presence of only his or her betrothed and the priest—if we had any reservations or hindrances toward the total self gift of the sexual act toward each other. (There wasn’t any physical examination or anything like that to ensure that we each had working equipment.) Anyhow, we both said we could give ourselves to the other. I remember the question distinctly because I remember feeling a huge need to suppress a very nervous giggle at the time because—while both of us still to this day have "body counts" of only 1–we had had… robust experience of each other already, which is still a no-no in the eyes of the Church. Anyhow, we were told that the Church would not marry us if we couldn’t give ourselves totally to each other in sex—and… here we are today, nominally married! So… yeah—I think I’ve got a right to question whether I am Sacramentally married now—and that bothers me hugely—most of all because I feel lied to for decades. My wife’s disclosure also finally helps me to understand why, after 20+ years of marriage (including our wedding night), we’ve probably had sex less than 30 times in total! Oh! And nearly all of that was during our struggle with infertility to conceive our 2nd child; the first came after 1 try. Literally 1. Unequivocally 1.

However, I want to emphasize that now believing I am only married in-law doesn’t mean I want divorce or an excuse to fuck whomsoever I can talk into the sheets with me. What I want is for my wife to heal from her childhood trauma and for us to have terribly bad soul-merging sex together regularly—because that’s what I was promised—and, I may be the WS, but now I feel cheated!

[This message edited by Unconventional at 10:22 PM, Thursday, October 8th]

Right. But you have to let her heal from her sexual trauma on her own time.