Partners of Sexual Abuse Victims Share Pain of Healing Process

His wife, deeply disturbed by memories of childhood abuse that are just beginning to surface, has asked him for a “sexual vacation” while she goes through therapy, and he knows, intellectually, that he shouldn’t take it personally.

But there are these voices in his head--echoes of macho locker-room talk he’s heard all his life--that make him wonder how much of a man he really is if he can’t get his own wife to make love with him.

“I don’t like this feeling of powerlessness,” admits Tim, who is sitting at a conference room table at a counseling center in Orange with five other men, including a therapist. He has begun to let down his guard after more than an hour of talk that has become increasingly intimate as these partners of sexual abuse victims have learned how much they have in common.

For Tim and the others attending their first “Partners of Survivors” support group meeting, being open about the fears and frustrations they are facing isn’t easy. But they agree at the end of the session--led by Tom Beechel, a marriage, family and child counselor--that they should get together once a month because, as one man says, “It makes me feel like I’m not the only one going through this. It gives me hope.”

Most of the support group participants--all of whom requested anonymity--are just beginning to find out how tough it is to live with a woman who is having flashbacks about horrifying incidents of sexual abuse or incest that have long been submerged.

However, two of the men at this recent support group meeting at the Mariposa Women’s Center have learned how long the healing process can take and, after years of trying to support their wives while putting their own needs on hold, they say they’ve just about given up on their marriages.

Beechel acknowledges that some marriages are bound to fall apart when one partner is unable to meet the needs of the other. However, he adds, he’s seen many marriages grow stronger when a survivor of sexual abuse gets help and a partner remains committed long enough to see the results.

In “Allies in Healing,” a book Beechel recommends for partners of survivors, sexual abuse expert Laura Davis points out that the long-term effects of sexual abuse can be overcome when the desire to heal “is met with information, skilled support and a safe environment.”

But, she cautions partners: “Healing is slow, and the changes never seem quick enough. If you can develop an attitude of patience, while continuing to affirm your own needs and desires for your relationship, you will offer the survivor support without selling yourself short.”

As Beechel puts it, the partner has to be able to “get out of his own hurt” so that he can respond to the survivor’s pain, but shouldn’t give so much that he becomes a candidate for sainthood.

Most of the men in Beechel’s support group struggle with guilt because they don’t think they are giving enough. Some reluctantly admit that it’s hard to feel compassion because their mate often sees them as a “safe target” for anger that should be directed at the abuser.

“After a while, you feel like you’re the perpetrator,” Tim says. “I don’t always feel supportive. Some days I just want an end to it.”

George, whose wife is an incest victim, adds: “Where do you start drawing the line? I’m not going to be punished for someone else’s actions. I can’t take it, and I’m getting to the point where I won’t take it.”

Beechel tells the group, “It’s OK to be angry. Your relationship has been turned upside down. The person you’ve turned to for affection isn’t available anymore. But try to focus your anger on the perpetrator, not your wife.”

Beechel explains that the survivor “has this pot of rage inside from her childhood” that can be triggered in any number of unexpected ways. Instead of responding as though the anger is really meant for them, partners should walk away from outbursts of rage, the therapist advises.

“Talk about those moments during a calm, receptive time, so she’ll understand why you’re going to leave the house and take a walk if she lashes out at you. Then she won’t feel abandoned,” Beechel adds.

For many men, coming to terms with a survivor’s need for celibacy during the recovery process is as difficult as dealing with anger. In her book, Davis explains that for a survivor, “sex becomes a minefield full of painful associations and memories.”

Although men want to be sensitive to that, they tend to feel unloved and unwanted when asked to stop making sexual advances. “A lot of self-doubt comes up,” Beechel says.

Bill, a support group participant, admits he felt threatened by his wife’s need for a sexual hiatus. “It was hard for me to come to grips with that because of my own insecurities,” he says. “But then I realized she wasn’t leaving me. She just needed a break to feel safe.”

Now, he adds, his wife has progressed enough that she occasionally will initiate sex, but he always waits for her to take the lead. “I can see her getting better. I can see that it won’t always be this way,” he says.

Two Orange County men who are not participants in Beechel’s support group but agreed to talk anonymously say they’ve had to re-evaluate the importance of sex in their lives because their wives--both incest victims--have required long periods of abstinence while going through therapy.

“If your priority is a wildly active sexual life, it isn’t going to work and you might as well get out of the marriage,” says Don, who discovered he had to be “very, very cautious” about making sexual advances when his wife, Sandra, started having flashbacks.

As Sandra worked through the trauma of being sexually abused by her stepfather, Don says he realized that having a complete relationship with a whole, emotionally healthy woman was more important to him than his immediate sexual needs. He decided to learn all he could about sexual abuse and do everything in his power to help her through the healing process.

He learned to be tuned in all the time to her volatile emotional states. “She needed me to recognize where she was at the moment--whether it was a time to be distant or just to hold onto her and let her unload,” he says.

After five years of counseling, Sandra is emerging from her struggle to overcome the abuse in her past with the emotional freedom to begin finding pleasure in sex--and enormous gratitude for her husband’s patience. “It takes a man who can put ego aside and allow room for a woman to be reborn sexually,” she says.

Steve, an Orange County resident whose wife suddenly began having flashbacks about eight years ago, says he also has learned--during years of abstinence--that sex isn’t as important to him as he once thought it was.

His wife, Diane, who was sexually abused repeatedly by her father when she was a child, is still unable to have a physical relationship with her husband. However, Steve says he has seen enough healing to feel optimistic that she will eventually be free of the associations with the past that make sex traumatic.

Steve admits he felt unloved and considered meeting his sexual needs outside the marriage when Diane first withdrew from him. However, he explains, he decided not to have an affair because “I’d made an investment in this marriage, and I didn’t want to toss it out the window for a temporary fix. That didn’t make any sense. I knew if I pursued a ‘me-first’ approach, it would destroy our marriage.”

Instead, like Don, he focused on his wife’s needs, giving her time to herself when she needed it, watching for signs that she was struggling with a flashback so he could be supportive, recognizing when her anger was not meant for him and allowing her to unleash her rage.

On the days when he wondered whether he had anything left to give, he’d remind himself of the affirmative qualities in Diane and in his marriage that made all his efforts to help her worthwhile. He also sought support himself by cultivating close friendships.

Don can now say that his wife’s decision to get help--and to continue a recovery process that often seems endless--has given him a chance to grow and has even strengthened their marriage.

“I’m much more sensitive and capable of being a care-giver now,” he says. “And I’m not as dependent as I used to be. Before our relationship was based on deficiencies and damages. Now it’s not nearly as vulnerable because we’re both better able to stand on our own.”

He says he is careful not to dwell on how long the recovery process is taking. “Hopefulness is very important in this process. You have to take it a day at a time,” he explains.

He urges partners of survivors to ask themselves, “How can I love better?”

“If you can access that love and use it creatively, you can accelerate healing and enlarge your own capacities,” he says. “We vastly underestimate the power of being truly loving.”