A friend of mine was molested by a close relative when she was about 7 years old. Now that she's married....she has a desire to be with her husband intimately, but suffers emotionally....she feels guilty, dirty, and used afterward. So she would rather forgo intimacy to avoid those feelings. What can she do to improve these feelings? What can her husband do to support her? Has anyone else experienced these type of feelings?
2006-12-28 17:03:25 · 16 answers · asked by caramelqueen 3 in Family & Relationships ➔ Marriage & Divorce
She really needs to deal with her trauma through therapy. Sounds like she has never fully worked through her pain and experiences PTSD symptoms when intimate with her spouse.
A therapist that deals with sexual abuse victims should be consulted. Joint therapy may help, her husband even thought it happened during her childhood also has feelings about the situation and how it still effects his spouse to this day, how could he not? Most therapists will do couseling seperate and together.
Many therapists also can work with a sex therapist, together they can help your friend and her spouse move forward and break this cycle of pain that is holding her back from the relationship she and her husband deserve. A sex therapist will help she and her husband take it slow. As slow as she needs them to. Working with small homework assignments and baby steps.
If she doesn't seek help then she is still allowing the experience to control her and that gives her abuser power over her even after all these years. Molestation and rape isn't about the sex it's about power nothing more. So by not seeking help she is actually continuing to allow the person who molested her to control her very actions to this day.
It's time to move forward break the cycle of abuse and claim the life she deserves. It is by far not an easy task however it is worth it. I wish her all the best, I hope she will seek the strength to get help with working through her trauma.
2006-12-28 17:24:16 · answer #1 · answered by Wicked Good 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It affects different people in different ways. I was molested when I was 10. I went through therapy as a teenager, but became promiscuous when I was in my late teens and early 20's. I had this idea that if I wanted to keep a guy that I had to have sex with him. All my relationships in the past have been based on sex as a result of the abuse. Even with my soon to be ex-husband. Then I caught him watching kiddie porn and it brought it all back, minus the promiscuity. I am in a relationship now that is healthy. At this point, there is NO sex involved and that is the way I want and need it.
Your friend needs to go to therapy as an individual, and at some point they need to go as a couple. Communication is going to be the key. Also, her husband may want to let her take the lead, so to speak, when it comes to being intimate. If he does, she MIGHT be feeling like that 7 year old again, where she has no control over her situation. He needs to not get frustrated if she can't go all the way initially. It will happen, and he needs to be a part of the healing process. Good luck to your friend.
2006-12-29 02:40:28 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I was molested from the time I was 8 until I was 17. I am now 29. My husband knows about what happened to me. Most of the time I am fine with intimacy, but there are times if something is said or done that I get thrown into a flash back. Just recently I have had repressed memories come up. I have been to counseling off and on throughout my life, but I think most things have to be dealt with over time. If he loves her he needs to discuss with her how she is feeling and show her that he is not going to hurt her the way she was hurt before.
2006-12-28 17:20:11 · answer #3 · answered by Jodi C 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Hmm... you are striking a sensible string here... I can tell from personal experience, it leaves a mark for the rest of your life. Your choice of words is very correct, all you can do is improve the condition. Lots of love, and caring and understanding is actually the healing factor. It will help her if she can find a therapy group. Or a counselling place. Or, just read a lot about how others dealt with it. She has to find it in herself to forgive that guy to actually be free from his power over her life. Forgive and make it the focus of her life to live a fullfilling life, in spite of her past circumstances. Closure might work sometimes... - it's never just one thing... her condition might require a combination of all those methods .... - like I found out recently that one of the guys who molested me when I was little, died a year after I saw him last, and that he died pretty dramaticly. I don't wish nobody's death, but in a sense I got the feeling that there's a pay off for my suffering...
To this day I have fear of intimacy, and I'd rather be sorounded by a lot of people than be alone with my husband... but he talks me out of that really nice... and for what's worth, I married my best friend, so I really trust him like no other. I hope she can find her way soon. That bastard who molested her does not deserve to have control over her life any longer! I will pray for her!
Let us know somehow how she's dealing with it.
2006-12-28 17:15:32 · answer #4 · answered by Pivoine 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your friend is probably suffering from Post Traumatic Stress syndrome. That doesn't just happen to service men and women it happen to anyone who has had a traumatic experience in there life and it still effects the way they react in the same situation. Her husband needs to know that it's not him that makes her feel this way, he needs to be very supportive towards her. Adults who have been molested as children sometimes have flashbacks of a terrible experience and this is hard to deal with, but they can't help it. Her husband needs to let her know that he's not going to hurt her and that she's safe with him. It will take her awhile to feel comfortable and secure with him, but eventually she will. Maybe your friend needs to see a therapist or something, it helps to talk about things and get them out in the open so she can learn to deal and live with this, plus it would help her to open up to her husband. Maybe they should go to counseling together, I have suffered the same thing and I have learned that all people are not bad. I could go on forever about how I went thru it. But that would take forever. But therapy and a supportive husband can help out a great deal.
2006-12-29 00:47:48 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Being sexually abused when a child can leave very deep scars. I know from my own experience and it took me 4 years before I was ever able to have sex with my husband. It helps to be with someone who is understanding and is able to take it as slow as possible. No matter if she went to counseling or not those emotional scars will be there forever, so it's really up to her husband to show her that sex can be a beautiful thing when it is shared between two people that deeply care and love eachother. Here is some things that my husband did for me to help me get over those feelings of being used and dirty:
he'd do romantic things to ease my fears, he would take it slow and reassured me that if at any time I asked him to stop he would. During a love making session he would go slow and say comforting things to me or tell me to think of happy things. If we happened to make it through a full love making session he would than run a bath and sit in there with me and just hold me and whisper comforting words to me. Though with each individual it may be different, all I can say is that the husband just needs to have patience and not to let his frustration get the best of him.
2006-12-28 17:20:38 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Because when you're young, you get into the habit of being molested, and it causes problems emotionally and physically. I would suggest therapy.
Because she was molested by a close relative, (someone who she loved) she felt that the person was just using her for their own reasons. Now that she has a husband, everytime they are done having sex, her emotional mind travels to the past where she was molested and she starts to wonder if the husband is doing the same as the relative. Just pretending to love her to get sex.
2006-12-28 17:08:10 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I have a friend who was molested by cousins when she was 12. She is an absolute freak - she puts out like a textbook case of sexual addiction. I've heard of similar things to this before, but she doesn't seem to have any sort of emotional problems (at least, she hasn't confided any in me).
What can I say? I don't think anything short of a full set of sessions with a shrink will make any progress with this sort of stuff, or anything else that has to deal with weird events during developmental stages.
2006-12-28 17:08:03 · answer #8 · answered by John C 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
What she is feeling is normal considering her previous abuse. She needs to see a marital counselor who specializes in people who were abused sexually as children. She needs to get assurance that she is normal, have her victim feelings validated and work through a plan to help her achieve the intimacy she desires. She can be helped to express her sexual feelings in a positive manner.
2006-12-28 17:14:27 · answer #9 · answered by snddupree 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
She needs to get counseling individually and with her husband. She needs to understand that it wasn't her doing anything wrong, as she was a child, and the adult was the one in the wrong. If she had had some counseling as a child, when the incidents occurred, she would be better able to cope now. Hopefully the creep who did this to her is in jail or at least spent some time in jail.
2006-12-28 17:10:51 · answer #10 · answered by Country girl 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋