The principles that govern my work with husbands include the necessity of self-awareness, self-care, and personal development. The trauma inflicted by childhood sexual abuse and the long-term effects endured by survivors of abuse imposes unwanted challenges for both the survivor and spouse. I work with husbands of childhood sexual abuse survivors, helping them navigate in their marriage relationship in such…
The prevalence of Childhood Sexual Abuse continues at a disturbing rate yet remains ignored or disbelieved by too many in our society. Some people give the “deer in the headlights” look when they hear that at least one-in-four women and at least one-in-six men are sexually abused before age 18. They live in ignorance about the problem. Others believe childhood…
I’ve recently been diagnosed with cancer. Though it was unexpected and obviously uninvited, I’ve been journaling many valuable lessons and embracing some new perspectives. Because of my work in Marriage Reconstruction Ministries, I began noticing parallels between a diagnosis of cancer and being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. In this article I hope to specifically highlight three vital truths…
In my previous blog, I outlined how each of us has a predictable style of communication when we argue. According to Mark and Debbie Laaser in their book Seven Desires, we each adopt one of four stances when we have conflict over unfulfilled desires in our relationships, especially in a marriage relationship. This is true whether or not your marriage…
When Glen and Brenda disagree and argue, their interaction is predictable. He points his finger at her. She cowers in silence. It is not unusual for victims of childhood sexual abuse to be silent in conflict. But a predictable style of arguing is typical of everyone, whether or not there is abuse in their background. Every husband and wife have…
Grant recently told me of a loss that his wife had experienced. The lost item had significant financial value. Grant’s wife, Callie, is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Grant and Callie, not their real names, have both given me permission to share this incident that offers insights into wives who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse. When Callie realized…
My wife and I were at a dinner party last week. Since we are still relatively new in our community, we were asked to tell about ourselves. We talked about our involvement with Marriage Reconstruction Ministries and its mission of “helping men and women rebuild marriages affected by a wife’s childhood sexual abuse.” Our new friends around the dinner table…
In the current issue of Time, editorialist Laurie Penny identified questions that many people are prone to ask in response to the recent #MeToo trend; the declaration of being a victim of childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, or sexual harassment. Could this [referring to childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sexual harassment] really have been happening to so many women…
Childhood sexual abuse produces effects on the survivor and poses affects for the spouse, husband in my case, of the survivor. For students and writers, the difference between affect and effect is grammatically important. For husbands whose wives are survivors of childhood sexual abuse, the difference between the two is relationally important. Bear with me for a really quick grammar…
“I am so angry that I could [fill in the blank]” is a statement commonly expressed by female survivors of childhood sexual abuse and their husbands. Some of us are scared of our anger, some of us salivate in our anger, and some of us are scared while we salivate. I was so enraged at my wife’s perpetrator that I…