Not all survivors talk about their childhood sexual abuse. But some do. Among those who do, some share the dark experiences and feelings of their trauma over and over. So as the husband of a survivor, what do you do when your wife shares her trauma with you? A husband’s mind can easily wander off to sports, work, and to-do…
This video series will help you to understand why survivors are silenced, how disclosures have distinct characteristics, and how we can respond with compassion.
In my previous blog, I proposed our need to reframe our thinking about childhood sexual abuse (CSA) by understanding that the outcome for most CSA survivors is post-traumatic stress disorder and complex traumatic stress disorder. Once we have reframed our understanding of CSA, we can work towards reframing our response to survivors of abuse. Reframing our response includes these three…
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) report how they are often blamed, shamed, or avoided when they disclose their abuse. Take a moment right now to consider your response if a survivor discloses their abuse to you. Do you attempt to explain why the abuse happened? Do you mentally scramble for advice you can offer? Do you change the subject…
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…
Thousands of survivors of childhood sexual abuse and women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted were emboldened last week. On Monday, a Huffington Post entry communicated that the “#MeToo quickly became the top trending Twitter hashtag” as sexually abused and assaulted women were emboldened to inform the world that they too had been affected by this blight. According to…
Men who are married to victims of childhood sexual abuse might experience a marriage in which it seems like they’ve been married to two different women, especially if their wife’s disclosure of the abuse occurred several years into their marriage. Brent’s wife was outgoing and adventurous during the first ten years of their marriage. But after her disclosure of childhood…
Husbands married to wives who are victims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) want to know where they are on the journey of healing and when they’ll get to the destination of resolve. So they ask: When will this finally be over? When will we get through this? How long will this take? The emotional pain for wives as survivors and…
Last week’s blog referred to the process known as grooming in childhood sexual abuse (CSA). The perpetrator grooms not only the victim but also the community. Having groomed the community, it is possible for the perpetrator to be respected before ever being suspected. Sadly, when the victim discloses CSA, the victim is too often suspected of lying or blamed for…
Bill Cosby was an even better actor than I thought he was. Cliff Huxtable, whom Cosby played in The Cosby Show, was a man with admirable family values and honorable morals. Wow, that was great acting! In more recent years, Cosby has toured the country propagating a message about people taking personal responsibility for their actions. But what Cosby portrayed…