My story:

My wife suffered horrible physical and emotional abuse
primarily by her father starting pretty much at birth
until she was old enough to move out. In addition to
the known abuse issues, there still may be hidden some
incest, and there were several rapes and molestation
outside the home. I have known about all of this since
we got together 10 years ago. We have had about 9
years of absolute bliss. even now, looking back on it
I can say we had a pretty damn good relationship and
marriage by anyones standards (especially my own).
I didn’t really get any warning. Things started
getting a little "weird" about a year ago. Nothing
that I could really pinpoint, just not quite right.
She started complaining about everything. nothing was
good enough. The night before our anniversary was the
last time anything was “normal”. We stopped having sex
and we stopped talking for the most part. She started
treating me like I was evil, dodging my presence. She
was angry and couldn’t express to me why. I am not
abusive. Not to her, our two wonderful children 10 &
4, or anyone else. I was her rescuer. I am an amazing
man. Two intelligent, healthy, beautiful children,
self employed and making it, home owner with rentals,
and a fairy tale relationship with a woman that I
would not only die for, but I would live for (not in
order of importance). We built this life. when we
first got together we were poor and on welfare, but we
had love and drive. Lots of it. Three months after our
anniversary, I had had enough. I would no longer
accept life as it had become. She went into
counseling. after just two counseling sessions, it was
very clear that it was time to deal with her past. She
was telling me she didn’t love me, that she was
smothered by me and the kids, that she couldn’t handle
it. What had happened to that woman I married? where
was she? It has now been 4 months of counseling. We
have spent some time apart, we have argued, laughed,
cried, and counseled each other over the last few
months. These days, I am a lot better able to cope.
She has opened up considerably. I have also been in
counseling for 3 months. She still feels the need for
isolation, but she is mostly comfortable with me being
around. I have been asking her for a month or so if
she would just touch me. non-sexual, non threatening,
just a hug, a hand, anything. She still cannot. As of
today, I am going outside of my marriage for some
affection. I tell her everything. She deserves to
know. I want desperately to feel like the most
precious, important person in the world for just a
little while. I cannot provide that for myself, and
she cannot provide it for me yet. I realize that this
is entirely mine. I own this. I can’t seem to figure
out how to get past it. She seems to be very
supportive of me going outside for this, but yet I can
see she is very disturbed. I have nothing to hide from
her, she needs to fully understand my needs and who I
am. I am not HIM. She needs to fully understand that I
do not wish to abandon her, that I would continue to
be supportive and as physically distant as she wants
if she could only give me 10 minutes of her attention.
I want to heal as well, I want to be a more whole
person. I’m working on that, for me. I want my wife
back. She is incredible. Even today I can look back
and only hope that somebody else could have the kind
of relationship we have had.

There is so much more to tell, but for now I have a
very disturbing question to ask, and hope some others
have seen something like this.
In our recent discussions, she is telling me that she
wants sex. Violent sex, mean sex. She doesn’t want
this for me, so she will not even consider sex with
me. She tells me that when she masturbates it is so
fierce that it scares her. She wants sex to hurt
someone. This sounds to me like a great deal of anger
and self-hate, but I am a partner, not a survivor.
I would love to hear any comments you all have. I am
ready for them all, good and bad. Please help me.
Derrick


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