Wow this is hard.....
Storytime...because I think that hearing different stories and different experiences can make it feel like we aren't alone in this awful journey.
To start, my WH is a CSA victim. He was born with mild CP and needed physiotherapy with the school physiotherapist. The PT would come in and slowly groomed him i.e. a little touch here and a little touch there and then it evolved into full blown assault. It lasted at least a year. No one ever found out. My WH didn't tell his parents or anyone until he was like 23 (and that was me).
We started dated when we were 19 (me) and 21 (him). It was somewhat normal but as the "honeymoon" phase kinda wore off, his ED was more apparent and he wasn't able to really connect intimately. It was still good and all but was missing something (true connection and intimacy). Otherwise, we were a perfect match in every other way. We connected and always had the best time. We rarely fought (unless it was about sex or intimacy).
After about 4 years, moving out and becoming engaged, I was on our shared computer and went to go paste something that I had thought I had copied and instead pasted something he obvious copied. It was the beginning to a profile "Hi, I'm 6'4, slim build, etc". Once confronted, he initially denied it but then opened up about how insecure he was and just wanted people to comment on his appearance. He swore then (and to this day) that he never intended on anything more. I forgave.
Fast forward a few years and we were coming back from a family road trip (now with a 6 mth old in tow) and my phone died so I used his to keep occupied. I found a strange email signed in with all dating matches from ashley madison and untrue websites. He initially denied it but then confessed that he had talked to woman on the site about 4 months prior and they emailed back and forth for a couple weeks. He said they exchanged photos of himself (explicit) and she had shared photos of her chest. He said she would describe things she wanted to do with him. He would get off to the photos and her words. He said they didn't exchange any real personal info besides age, general location, etc and they never saw pictures of each other (minus the explicit ones). He said that once she started to ask personal questions i.e. hobbies...he knew that that wasn't what he wanted and he ended it. The kicker with this one is that he would go to his parents house at lunchtime (I was on mat leave at the time) and do all of this. He attempted therapy but the two he tried to see, didn't focus on his previous trauma much and basically sent him on his way after a couple of sessions saying he was good. I forgave.
Fast forward 12 years later, and we were fighting once again (about intimacy issues) and he left his phone in the room. I hadn't checked his phone in forever and thought why not. I saw a skype app. I found this weird and opened it to see messages from a woman and him. He would request that she watch him get off and whatever. He never denied this one (maybe the evidence was just too obvious) and told me that it had basically started 2 years ago and had started with watching porn. He said he started watching the regular, vanilla kinda stuff and then it started to migrate into watching men (even though he'd always identified as straight). He said it continued and he kinda thought it was a new kink or something. He said then it progressed to going into a chat room for cams. This is where he met the AP. Once again, he said he kept it very impersonal. He said that they never exchanged photos of each other or any information. She just basically watched him get off. He said this was relatively sporatic (maybe 6 times in 6 months). He said some of the stuff she said was weird and she had a raspy voice so he even questioned if she was a woman but didn't care either way. He said that he didn't really care who was behind the cam but just that someone was there to watch him. He said the same was with the last time. He didn't really care about who the person was but that he was receiving attention (he said the last time, the woman wasn't his type at all). He also came to this realization that his interest in the different porn (men) and detachment from these APs and everything was probably related to the CSA that he never really dealt with. He said it felt like two worlds collided and that it immediately brought up flashbacks and nightmares about the CSA. I could tell he was in a lot of turmoil over that. He started therapy immediately. A hard part of this one was that he basically used my schedule against me. I work nights so when I went to work, he would troll the chat rooms. This AP could only cam with him on wednesdays so on wednesdays when I was sleeping in the room next to our computer room during the day (he works from home), he would go on cam with her or attempt to. He even went so far as to try to cam with her during the summer when our kids were home. He would wait until they were asleep or playing in the basement but I hate that they could have been involved in something awful.
Since this last DD, I have been having the hardest time. I think that initially, we were in a state of hysterical bonding. For the first time in our 18 years of being together, we were able to have sex and actually connect fully. He was able to fully open up intimately. He seems like he is actually able to feel a lot more now where he always kept his emotions bottle up. Now (4 months later), we are still connecting insanely well intimately. I don't think we are hysterically bonding anymore as it seems to not be as instinctual or animalistic. We seem to connect on a deep level. I just feel like the rest of us is broken. I feel like this DD, shone a different light on the last DD. It wasn't merely a "mistake" but rather now a pattern. Also, I am so hurt that the sexual side that he had so hard of a time showing me (I always thought he had a low sex drive) he was showing to other women. I would like to stay with him as I still feel so much love for him. I am struggling to sleep after my nightshifts because I feel like I associate it with him cheating. I am struggling in the obsession over details and the anger I feel that he would do this and still be the loving father and husband. He told me that he would compartmentalize and would split his realities so in one moment he was the good guy and in another. He has learned through therapy, that he was most likely trying to recreate aspects of his CSA so it makes it complicated. He has also learned that through the CSA, he had this dark secret and as part of having not dealt with it, he was basically doing that again. It's obviously an awful thing he did but he has such an awful thing happen to him. I feel constantly conflicted. This has been one of the toughest things I have ever gone through. I feel anger, despair, anxiety, and fear a lot (just to name a few). I have bad feelings about the past and am so fearful about the future. I can't go through this again. As for the rest of my life - I feel very detached.
Any shift workers have tips for sleeping after trauma?
When does the anger start to subside a little?
When does the control over ones emotions return?
How do you deal with the guilt of feeling like a detached mom? I try to be there for my kids so they don't know anything is wrong but it's so hard.
6 comments posted: Wednesday, January 29th, 2025
