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Not sure where to post this? I have spent the last 6 months working with my psychologist on myself. I do know that my childhood played a major part in my life choices and my tolerance of what was acceptable behaviors of others. I realized after thinking about what my psychologist said
’because of all the abuse as a child your threshold for what is normal for you is so much higher that what would be considered the normal for most people” With that being said and really taking a damn good look at myself I can see how that has played a major role in my life.
I was severely sexually abused as a child by my father, started around age 3 until 12 or so.I still have very fragmented memories of this time. My first husband was controlling,to the point of he owned me,both physically and sexually abusive. I was married over 20 years to him.I did leave my marriage to be with this man I live with .I am now with my SA for 5 years, no control, no physical abuse, but sexually abusive-didn’t see this until month or so after d-day. My breaking point was when the SA had pictures of my daughter, my daughter!! I have to wonder if other women have found that their childhood has played a part in how they have made choices in their lives???
Also if it played a part in not seeing the red flags for what they were?Wow, I think you are right on. Your childhood experiences determine what your threshold of normal is.
I think that this is sooooo true. It is soooo interesting to learn about what others have experienced and how it relates to who they are today.
I grew up with an Alcoholic mother. I watched as my Dad lovingly took care of her. Although he would become angry with her at times, he was unable to get her to understand how her drinking behavior was affecting herself. She just could not get to that point of looking at herself.
I think that growing up in this environment contributed to my tolerating mood swings by my husband.
Very interesting.
So sad to learn of your abuse as a child and later on in your first marriage.
Hugs to you!
thanks cindy if nothing else comes of all the crap with my partner i have begun to understand myself, i never thought of myself in regards of how or why i just felt it was my fate or place in everything i just accepted it all- it is what it is.this is one hell of a lesson in life sorry you had to experience that with your mom.I often think how my kids are going to be due to their father, i would think its harder on kids when the mother is the addict
I can tell you that I have thought a lot about how my childhood has played a part in this. I grew up with a father who always talked about the “big breasted blonde” and had provactive artwork and playboys all over the house. I thought it was normal and accepted it as such. Until I was with a SA and now I am looking back in my past and childhood and even adult realtionsip with my father and always taking care of him. My husband has admitted without admitting that he looks at the young girls, barely 18, on websites as well as older women and everything else. I have a 13 and 5 year old daughter and i am scared to death and don’t want him around them as they grow older. If you are able I would run and run fast our children are our lives and we need to do everything to protect them. I am trying to do what I can to get him gone. I love him but my children matter more and he has done hardly anything to fix himself besides a whole lot of false promises and lies. People like this do not want to help themselves and are a danger.
lissamae how i wish i knew about his shit when we met my kids were 15,13,11,and 4. by this time their father was heavily into drugs for 5 years and my partner stepped in as a very needed father figure. him and i developed a very deep friendship, not romantically but definitely emotionally. Ive come to understand in his mind we were the family he always wanted. I believe now i was the focus of addiction later in the friendship,not the kids. but i do believe him when he says family because that’s what we became my kids changed less withdrawn,happier,less angry but the change in my girls they stopped talking about how they think men are jerks,how men were good for nothing, how maybe there were good men around they only saw how their father was. i do believe people like this are dangerous, if i knew i would have never gotten involved with him. i truly do not know where i am as far as we go hes doing RN and sees a addiction counselor who has started to include me at times. this has gotten complicated for now i need to sort out myself i have to believe people can change if they want ,if i cant then where would i be. i can understand what you are going through,i deeply feel your pain
Ugh my I say first off this sucks for all of us!!!! I am so worried about my son having girlfiriends over and my girls and their friends. I do not honestly thing that he would do or say anything inappropriate but I know that he would look and that it would build into his mind for things to get off to, that is my gut feeling anyway, and my gut is always right. I hate that all of us say if we had known we would never have been in this position but yet we all seem to have men that are our best friends and wonderful guys but they have this secret which has become our secret. I have thought a lot about this and it seems that this disease is more painful to us that stand beside them, but behind the other women, then to the men dealing with this. I know that I may be wrong and am jaded but I have never felt this kind of pain. I am working on getting me back and am looking to be empowered.
I have raised my kids on my own for a lot of years and am trying to get back to that mentality of even though I am only a Mom and not a Dad I can teach them more then a bad influcence can. I don’t want my son to look at women as objects and my daughters to feel as if they are.
This is such a hard line to walk and I don’t know where I am going but I hope that you find the road that is right for you and your children.
This is a difficult subject, because it affirms the co-addict model and I have so many problems with that. Cindy, anyone in a relationship has to adapt to their partners shortcomings. Unless the shortcomings are abusive and you don’t address them, it is hard to attribute the fact that you love someone for better or worse to being a doormat because of your childhood. So many of us were completely in the dark about their behaviors. I endured a sexless marriage and felt sorry for my “under-sexed” husband (AND myself), but I still think that leaving a long term marriage that I thought was very loving for sex alone would be hard to live with. This whole thing blew up in my face when my kids were independent enough of us and I decided that we were gonna fix this no-sex thing. Yeah, I wish I had been at the breaking point years earlier, but there were other priorities.
Katt, it sounds like you were able to see things in your marriage with a different perspective after counseling. I’m sure we all can now see a relationship between the addiction and some of the things that bugged us before we knew, but you can’t factor in what you do not know and the SA’s are masters of smoke and mirrors.
Lissamae, gamesmanship is NOT what I am advocating, but I asked my husband why he was able to committ to his recovery so intensely the day he disclosed his addiction and not the day (or years) before. Like…so now you love me and HAVE to get better, but before now you didn’t???? Huh? He said that he was never in danger of losing me before I knew, but he was afraid that once I did, I might very well leave. That was his rock bottom – his only hope was to dive into recovery and change. You need to get out of there for the sake of yourself and your children, and for his recovery too.
Hi Katt,
Its really disturbing that he has pictures of your daughter. I know hes not her biological father, however, hes been in her life for 5 yrs (age 16). Its creepy and at some level incestuous, in my opinion. It may even be unlawful. Did you confront him and are you still living together? Id be worried about my other daughters. He could be a predator. I can see your concern and I would feel the same way.nap – hes been in her life since age 13 and by all account i do consider it incestuous because the relationship is that of a father maybe not blood but really what does that count for yes i confronted him i wanted to kill him i would have but we only have shot guns she doest live with me away at school as far as my other daughter she doesn’t fit his mo i don’t know any other way to put it.yes he is here but i don’t believe for long as i don’t see him following in recovery as far as a predator at some level i think they all are,just my outlook.this SA has a escalating need from my understanding ,point is nothing can ever satisfy that need there are no rules to it, no set pattern
lissamae= i am the same way i have no friends,i worry to no end with the kids and their friends i to know without a doubt that he wound never do or say anything inappropriate hes just to perfect but i see hie eyes he has built up such a mister wonderful image that no one would ever think hes capable of the things he does hes just that great guy that everyone likes i like what you wrote ” but they have this secret which has become our secret” so true but i know that no one would believe me. also what you wrote”this disease is more painful to us that stand beside them, but behind the other women, then to the men dealing with this” they deal with nothing they feel nothing they face nothing i told him hes a shell of a man empty its all a act a part hes learned his entire life that’s why they seem so perfect its all fake he watches tv, moves for hours on end and i see how hes used this to be who he is but when it comes gifts,or in the moment problems he freezes no act to follow does this make any sence
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