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Hello. I recently joined this sight and decided to try to tell a bit of my story. At a young age I can remember being molested by cousins. My first real kiss was from an older male cousin who tricked me into it without knowing what he was doing. I had male adult figures who were friends of my family, as well as family members who molested me, most I can only remember flashes of but parts of me are grateful I can’t remember everything. I remember being locked in a room with a male cousin while pornography played on the tv, with no escape. That male cousin was also sadly molested by the same male who locked us in that room. I remember other Men standing naked in front of me with their arms open as I walked into the room and then I draw a blank.

Every man I've ever been in a relationship with has had a pornography fetish and a shitty view of women and how they should be treated. Seems like no matter what I attracted them. I've been married twice. Both of these men were addicted to porn and had very unhealthy views of how to treat women. My ExH physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually abused me. My current husband was a sex addict when I met him, I wasn’t aware until years later.

After everything I had been thru, when I met my current husband, I was very honest and told him all I had been thru and everything I didn’t want to go thru again. After moving in together, a lot of that no longer mattered to him. He would sit up all night, talking to other women on the computer, including his exgf, who he would later end up having an affair with. He would turn down most sexual advances from me, but watch porn constantly and take care of matters himself. Needless to say, with everything I had previously gone thru, it broke something in me. I went into deep depression, my ptsd flared, and I went on to have multiple affairs.

I've been in IC on and off over the years and dealt with a lot of my issues but the things with my husband, I left harbor inside me. I am now in IC working to find myself, discover my worth because I don’t feel I have any, and trying to find out who I want to be. I think so poorly of myself. I know I have a long road but I’m willing to put in the work and try hard to fix what's broken inside me, once and for all.

Shatteredheart5,

Thank you for trusting us with your story. I am so very sorry you had to endure abuse. In our story my husband is the survivor, and the former wayward spouse. I am the betrayed spouse. I can’t speak survivor to survivor, but wanted to let you know you have been heard.

My husband has been in IC for four years now unpacking his story (which only came to light after dday) and working to understand how CSA affected/ continues to affect his thinking, his choices, his feelings of inadequacy and always feeling “less than”. I have been in IC dealing with the fallout from his choices for over 3 years. It has been a long painful journey for us both. The long reaching after effects of sexual abuse and the choices he made to cheat nearly destroyed us both.but today? Well, most days are good days. We are stronger individuals, and stronger as a couple. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to say that.

I am glad you are back in IC. It is a lot of work, but you are worth it. Sending you strength and well wishes. Keep posting. This thread has been quiet for a bit, but you are not alone here!

2frayedsouls thanks for responding. I hope and pray we are able to make it to where you currently are with most days being good. I don't feel we are doing great and my heart breaks and faced with everything I need to deal with/work on, it just feels like I can't even SEE the light at the end of the tunnel yet.

Thanks again!

Just dropping by to unload because I'm feeling kind of messy.

He's not my personal abuser, but he molested so many of my friends (at least 6 that I know of). He was a known sex offender going all the way back to 1962, when he worked at a grade school. They let him go and made him promise to stay away from kids. So what does he do?

Why, he becomes a boy scout leader, of course! And because it was the 60's, 70's, and most of the 80's, and because his victims were boys, he didn't get arrested and charged until 1987. Over 70 counts. It still makes me so angry. One of my friends tried to commit suicide after testifying in court. So I'm still bitter and angry.

Every year, I look him up on the sex offender registry. Today, he's no longer on there, which leads me to hope he's finally burning in Hell because there's no way that he wouldn't be on there. He went unchecked for nearly 30 years. I haven't found his death notice yet, but it could be that no one gave a shit when he died.

I want to find his grave and do profane things to it. I know how my childhood was stolen from me, and I saw what his shit did to so many of my friends.

I'm just emotional about it right now, had to unload. I hope he's dead. I hope he's suffering in the afterlife. For him, I hope hell is like Hades, where your damnation is personalized just for you.

I can't believe how long he got away with it, how it was all so hushed up for so long. And I know 70+ counts was just a fraction of the boys he damaged.

I'm not sure how I feel right now. Messy. I'm angry, sad, bitter, yet happy to think that bastard may finally be dead. At least it's one less annual ritual for me to go through. We talk a lot about pain shopping. This has been mine, for so many years. To think a part of it might be over is a little overwhelming.

Yes, overwhelming. And it removes a purpose of ours, that purpose to keep checking.

If this brings you some peace then it is a good thing. If you can now start to process then that's a good thing.

Thanks, DM.

I wasn't expecting to have so many emotions about it. And I also read some of the CYA letters submitted by the higher ups in the local BSA organization, so that really set me off.

The letters of denial were written by people I know and it just blew me away. Surely there had to have been rumors, after 25 years of his predatory behavior. This is a very small community. He didn't resign from his leadership posts until a few months before his arrest.

But yes, I think I can stop torturing myself now. I will always be angry, always feel pain for my friends, but I don't have to check up on him anymore. That's a very good thing.

I always knew there was a correlation between my view of my worth and sexuality because of my long term abuse but is it widely accepted that theres a correlation between cheating on your spouse and abuse??

One reason i picked my spouse was bc he was a catholic school boy and basically untouched by the bad in life, and yet he still cheated on me.

The correlation exists simply because a number of survivors recreate their abuse if they haven’t done so in a therapeutic environment. It doesn’t mean they are cheating as it is defined in the other categories, I like this, I’m so in love etc etc....it’s often more related to being used again and not seeing it for that- instead it just feels familiar.

From a female perspective it is often a misguided or backwards logic of, “now I’m in control of sex.”

Often you will also have people say I was abused and I never...

But the vices are all there- it just might not be cheating. Maybe the partner chosen is abusive, so why cheat, you are already recreating the abuse in this relationship.

Sometimes it is drugs or alcohol, shopping, codependency....honestly the list is long and cheating is one simply because of the nature of sexual abuse; it is sexual. But the later behavior doesn’t have to be that.

Again, correlation, sure, causation? Sometimes absolutely. Absolutely everyone? No. The big take away here is that we all have to get to the bottom of why we act the way we do, challenge those codes in our brains - who gave them to us and. Why, and are they good and helpful? Who do we choose to have in our lives and why?

We all fall no matter our past - some less, some more - but if you can take yourself, take a good look at how you got to today, and where you want to go tomorrow, then you can start to make those healthy changes today to get there.

Does that make sense?

I've in the middle of reading through this and I can't remember how many days without a response before it locks, so this is the lock prevention post.

The correlation exists simply because a number of survivors recreate their abuse if they haven’t done so in a therapeutic environment. It doesn’t mean they are cheating as it is defined in the other categories, I like this, I’m so in love etc etc....it’s often more related to being used again and not seeing it for that- instead it just feels familiar.

From a female perspective it is often a misguided or backwards logic of, “now I’m in control of sex.”

I'll help keep it unlocked. I can second all this. I became a really promiscuous teen after I was raped at 16. In my head it was "I'm going to take sex back for myself". My reaction on DDay was to essentially have a mental breakdown and go have sex with a stranger. I can see where that mentality was still there. Infidelity was a sexual wound and I reacted like I had after being raped. It brought it all back.

Fuck abuse and fuck abusers.

DevastatedDee, did you do anything to pull yourself out of the "sex as something I do to be in control" mindset in adult relationships and have a different kind of relationship with your spouse? And what did you do with that sexual groove you created in your teens?

I had a similar pattern, starting with the rape at 13. Lots of sex in my teens and early 20s and lost interest in the boys/men as soon as I had successfully seduced them.

During the affair last year I had the typical selfish/entitled/resentful wayward thinking, and dishonesty with my husband especially around my sexual past which created distance, but one of my "whys" was that the AP reminded me strongly of the rapist and I went into revenge mode. Many of my fantasies about the AP during the affair involved hurting him. And even now, thinking that the AP is miserable because of the affair and his fear that it will become public and ruin his career and life makes me intensely happy.

The rapist committed suicide a few years ago and I resist urges to call his mother and sister, who still post about their grief on a memorial webpage, and tell them what a hateful horrible person he was.

(((HopefulKate)))

Yep.

I have trouble defining what happened to me as abuse. I abuse myself better than anyone else ever did.

Oh Pippin, that is rough. Yeah, I pulled out of the mindset when I started dating my 1st husband. I did some work on myself in my early 20s and honestly never expected that trauma to come out like that again 20 years later.

Thanks, I'm working on it pretty constantly and have a lot of supports. Your experience worries me a bit (patterns coming back 20 years later, after successful work). I'm more and more aware that I'll need to have a daily battle against the coping mechanisms I developed. Like diabetes. Always there, but manageable, with attention.

I've skimmed through this thread and am now rereading carefully.

This is what stood out today.

The groups that a lot of people create in their minds to hold CSA/extreme DV victims? The "low-lifes", "someone else", "ne'er do wells" groups? That is a defensive reaction by them. People do this, put others into groups and then make the group less than themselves. It is a diminishing of the other people. By making them "not me" and "less than" the person can, through mental gymnastics, convince themselves that "it won't happen to _me_, because I'm not in that group." It is also cruel and dismissive.

I did this to myself. I tried to leave behind the person I was, literally and figuratively move far, far away. I collected badges of accomplishment and status to be protected from being that kind of person, the person who gets victimized or who behaves like trash. That led to quite a few problems though superficially I looked like I was doing fine. I was distant from myself and my husband, denied I had any problems, and doubled down on collecting armor. And the broken part came storming back. I almost literally threw away every single thing I had in the maelstrom.

Does anyone have resources on neglect?

I find it interesting that how we all coped differently from our Abuse... My csa abuse started at 6/7 hard to remember exactly . But I was raped at 12... it made me withdraw and I wanted nothing to do with sex but I was very coquettish but became very prude.

Interesting that I have been the one cheated on and Not the cheater.

So I would disagree with the statement below.

The correlation exists simply because a number of survivors recreate their abuse if they haven’t done so in a therapeutic environment. It doesn’t mean they are cheating as it is defined in the other categories, I like this, I’m so in love etc etc....it’s often more related to being used again and not seeing it for that- instead it just feels familiar.

From a female perspective it is often a misguided or backwards logic of, “now I’m in control of sex.”

As I grew older I chose to control the sex by avoiding anything sexual.. the way I dressed to the overeating making myself less desirable sexually. I focused on what I could control which was school, dance and music. They became my way of coping and I excelled realizing that I was much more than just a sexual object. As a young woman I learned to accept my sexuality but again never engaged in sexual escapades.

I had difficulties trusting my boyfriends and having sex was excruciating as I didn’t tell them about my abuse. I did become great at faking orgasms because I wanted to finish the deed as quickly as possible. I only enjoyed sex with 2 partners and one of those is my wH. Who knows only some of what happened to me. I have never shared my entire truth because I feared that I could trust them. And of course my fWH sexual betrayal for me was like ripping my heart out. It has caused me to retreat and again close myself to the world. It felt like I was raped again. The isolation and realization that we are born alone and we will die alone therefore I might as well not trust anyone because it’s only a matter of time that they will betray and hurt us.

We must find our inner strength and rely on ourselves to move forward. Looking for my Boot straps

[This message edited by Hurtbeyondtime at 2:11 AM, July 8th (Monday)]

But that’s exactly what I did. I hid and I hid. I consciously disconnected from all human contact, avoiding getting close to anyone and ultimately believing what I told by my hiding, and the constant rejections and abuse that followed me into adulthood.

I believed I was a monster.

I believed even if I wasn’t, I was too much of a coward to ever be with someone and not have it about rape.

So I acted on it. I just went and tried something to see if I could, and I found out I could, I wasn’t scared, and it’s ok.

I had made so much of this in my head for over 20 years, I just had to act already. And I get why my words are getting twisted around, but I’m glad. Even though I knew I was reacting to fear, the back and forth and emotions that it evoked helped me to realize something about my past that i didn’t see before, and the real WHY of what became of me and my sense of self and why I felt the need to just be in control of a sexual act. It all makes sense now, even if my method was risky and not healthy. I see that too.

I also see many people saying that this was a short term fix and that I am only seeking validation from outside sources. I get how that looks, and in part is true, but, I was acting from a place within me, searching for an answer about myself, and I got it. I’m ok. I’m not a monster and not some asexual child.

If I wasn’t married this task would be over and done, and while mrkate and I talked about separating for me to do so, it just wasn’t the right answer for us. And now we have to deal with that, because I needed to do this for myself, and I did it out in the open.

So now we heal from this, because it hurts. I don’t like that I did it, but I’m glad of the results I got for myself, but that’s not who I am. Those are not my core beliefs and although he knew about it and understands, it still hurts and we will have to go down this road. So for that, for the way i feel about, I will call it cheating. I will own it and say I did it because I felt I needed to, and mrkate agreed. So now we move forward, continue to heal the rest, and work on building that inner self more.

And I am putting this here because it wasn’t affair related. It was affair induced maybe, it healed that nagging part of me that wanted justice - though I don’t really view it that way, that’s my bruised ego still talking. The bruise has gone down, but it’s still there, obviously.

Anyway, thanks to all who got it and lended support. And thanks to all who challenged me. It gave me a deeper insight that I may not have gained.

And it made me realize that, even if the majority doesn’t agree, your opinion of me is yours, and that’s ok, and I am completely comfortable with that. For me that’s pretty huge!

HurtBeyondTime, I also think it's interesting how different people cope. In many ways I turned into an abuser, though I'm now thinking of what happened in my teens as mutual abuse with the partners I picked (thanks to Maia for that term). And I obviously was abusive and very hurtful to my husband, who did nothing unkind to me. Throughout my adulthood I've noticed and tried to get under control different ways that I'm cruel to other people. My thinking in this area is very warped. I think I'm being cruel when I'm definitely not, and I can do something really hurtful without noticing. My husband helps me with figuring out what really happened, and I'm just starting to ask people - when I said that, how did you take it? That's scary because I assume the worst.

I think it was because my mother had made me feel like an evil person, who hurts people by just existing. That started very early. I'm told my father loved me and enjoyed my company when I was little, and I clung to him because my relationship with my mother was so bad, but he really couldn't handle me growing up and actually said at one point that I made him so ashamed, and he stopped talking to me - literally stopped, not a word, just allowed me to live in the house and eat his food - for years. So I was seeking the company of boys/men at an early age. After the rape I started dating the best friend of the rapist, so I felt safe there because the rapist wouldn't touch me or talk about what happened out of respect for his friend. But I traded sex with the new boyfriend for that protection. That lasted for four years (13yo-17yo), on and off (I cheated on him but he pretended not to notice - he was happy for regular sex). So the path that made the most sense to me at the time involved not hiding from sex, but using it, and a lot.

HopefulKate, I can see the logic in what you did. And if your husband is being honest, and the other person wasn't affected by the kiss, then maybe it's a tempest in a teacup. I hope you keep posting. I wonder if you will think about it differently in a few months/years, or if it will be something that you nod to on your journey as a thing that happened and helped, either because of the act itself or that it prompted another round of looking at yourself? My thinking about stuff changes regularly with new understanding and practice. Though it goes right back to the old ways if I let it. I hear the exhaustion in you though - five years is a long time.