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General I recently discovered my wife was raped. how to deal with her secrecy?

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the person I was is gone and the person I am now you will never fully know,
yeah. you get it. maybe that just crystalized for me, thanks. It is so hard to get to a clear statement like that one right now, posting here has helped, but thinking about it long enough to get to a concise 20 words or less like that one is hard and I haven't got there yet. You have had a bit more time, no?

We are kind of back to the petty little day to day things that make a marriage keep jostling along, little arguments about whats for dinner and how much to spend on a birthday present. Not a raised voice but an old comfortable ability to share an opinion without fear that has eluded me for awhile. Maybe it will be easier to understand some nonsense now that I know making sense of anything is tough for her, patience.
 
Women like my wife want to just get past it.
I was thinking, when I read that, that I wonder if it really is a gender thing. (Somewhat because my T keeps saying he "wishes I would avoid visualizing solutions to problems that involve the use of firearms".) So, from what @Hojay says, people besides me think it's not. It's just different people deal with things differently and it probably varies with a lot of things.
You know that radar you have for the person you love, that gut feeling, intuition? Yeah, that’s been tanked.
And I wonder if this is really such a bad thing?Because maybe that radar was mostly an illusion to begin with. We can know another person really well, but, myself, I don't believe we can ever know them completely. And I guess I don't think I have to.

@enogh, my impression of you is you're about as good a husband as anyone could ask for. Oh, you could ask for "perfect" but not only won't you get it, I'm not sure anyone REALLY wants it anyway. Thanks for sharing all of this. I'm thinking of it as a really good example of how this stuff gets worked out when people try to work it out. Messy, not perfect, but eventually ok. I haven't seen that much in the real world. I hope you guys get smooth sailing going forward, so things get a chance to really heal.
 
I can't even imagine what you are going thru ...but once again it opens my eyes to what supporters have to deal with. I think that your willingness to come here, talk to us and ask questions shows that you wanted to do this right.....but sadly there are no "right" answers. But you still get points for trying. For accepting that what you want and what she wants are different and for trying to see both sides

You need to remember your feelings are just as valid as hers. You also had a painful experience even though you were on the sidelines. You need to be able to get angry and grieve also. Just maybe not with her.
 
@scout86 i know what you mean and I agree. We can’t and shouldn’t know someone completely. Thinking that is a bit of a romantic comedy illusion. What I was referring to is more along the lines of being able to read your partner. There’s a kind of intimacy that goes along with knowing if someone is having a bad day, or something happened that day, or they’re worried about something, or heck, something truly horrible happened. It’s a subtle gut feeling. One that goes south when the other is doing everything they can to hide not only from you, but themselves and their true feelings. It doesn’t help when that radar actually works but the other would rather make you feel like you’ve gone crazy and are imagining things, rather than confirm what you know and open up (which is what my guy would have done before.)
 
@scout86 you are right. it is not a gender thing but on the other hand it is easy to think in terms of gross generalization with the subject of rape just because the majority of victims are in fact members of one gender. I hope it doesn't get your feelers hurt when you hear someone make stereotypical gender statements, I dont usually and kind of forgot myself there. Just insert the word "people" where I used the word "women" as in "people like my wife just want to get past it'

I will wear the sexist branding of "guys want to solve the problem" although projecting that on other males is probably too gender specific for a common human trait. Another gross generalization that is easy to fall into.

I want a bumper sticker that says "every gross generalization you ever heard was completely wrong"
 
You need to remember your feelings are just as valid as hers. You also had a painful experience even though you were on the sidelines. You need to be able to get angry and grieve also. Just maybe not with her.

your posts have been so good for me here and i thank you for the time you have spent, and on other threads where I needed a bit of a push to get out of a hole I was in at the time.

this thread has been a life line. To use a metaphore, this was like falling overboard and wondering if I even knew where up was.
 
I hope it doesn't get your feelers hurt when you hear someone make stereotypical gender statements
You know, that's something I've dealt with all my life. Mostly, it only bothers me when it sounds like the speaker actually knows and believes what they've said. I'm female and tend to go into "problem solving mode". LOL And would for SURE like one of those bumper stickers!
 
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