General How Do You Support When You've Caused Some Of The Trauma?

[Rob1]

i started a conversation in the relationships section about how my wife seems unable, unwilling, or both to forgive me and allow us to move on from the pain I've caused in our marriage. Basically...she had a horribly abusive father, emotionally and verbally. He would scream at her and her sisters, call them horrible things, condemn them, tell them all the horrible things he thought of them, what he thought they'd amount to, and defined who they were as being failures, ugly, worthless, and in the way of his life. My wife has always desperately wanted his love and approval but the man just can't give it.

When we got married I brought my sexual addiction into it and was very dishonest. My dishonesty made me very angry, critical, duplicitous, and distant. She tried very hard to love me and never understood why I wouldn't just love her like she'd always dreamed her husband would. Everything came out a year ago, I started attending 12 step groups, seeing a therapist, and have put all that behind me. I really do love my wife and feel awful for the terrible ways I treated her all that time.

But here's my question...

She already had triggers from the abuse her father inflicted. I added to them. Now she's reached limits and is extremely reactive. Has anyone been in a position like this before? How do I be a supporter when I've been a hurter? How do I be a supporter when its as if I myself am trigger for her? I want to help her but she obviously does not trust me, nor should she easily.

 

[Rob1]

BTW, I'm sorry if this is redundant from my previous conversation. I asked this in that discussion but everything else I said really over shaddowed it. And its really what I want to know the most. Yes she needs help and needs to forgive and I need to take care of myself. But I feel we have a unique dynamic, me trying to be a supporter while also having been an abuser.

How would any of you that suffer with PTSD from abuse be able to receive the advances of that person? How would you be willing to allow that person back into your life? And even...allow that person to be an intimate part of your life and healing, like a husband wants to be.