My wife was abused, sibling incest. (TRIGGERING...TRIGGERING....)

long story short:

I've been married for about 5 months.

my wife has 2 older sisters, a twin brother, and a younger brother and sister.

They never went to school, their father sheltered them from the outside world for religious reasons. He tried to homeschool them but he failed miserably. few reached high school level, and none of them completed.

Her father used to beat them excessively when they were kids, and later their mother disappeared leaving them all with the father. Basically her whole family is dysfunctional.

Basically it was her and her siblings against the world.

before we got married she told me about being abused by men as a child. But the other day I came home from work and she seemed a little "out of it"

She said she felt bad because she wasn't honest about what had happened to her.

First she told me that those things never happened to her. But then.....

She was scared to tell me, but she opened up about her oldest sister doing sex acts on her and her second oldest sister starting when they were very little. Then she told me how her second oldest sister used to force her to do the same things to her.

then she said: "it happened to everyone, and they are all messed up and I feel so bad"

After long hours of discussion it basically came out that these inappropriate sexual sexual behaviors had basically infected all of her siblings and that she may have been responsible for abusing her younger siblings.

She has a lot of blackouts and thinks that she doesn't remember but more and more things are coming out.

Aside from being molested by her older sisters, I know that she had had repeated sexual contact with her twin brother, and full blown sex with her youngest brother. She may have abused her youngest sister in the same way her sisters abused her.

These behaviors were happening among her siblings without her. I know that her twin brother abused their little sister and I know her older sisters were having sex with each other first and she got "initiated" into it.

All of this was happening over a span of years and basically all of her siblings were doing horrible things with each other.

She remembers things happening to her when she was like 6 years old and things continued to happen she thinks until she was twelve. Maybe thirteen according to her.

At some point it all just stopped and no one ever talked about it. She says it is like it never happened.

But when I asked about how her little brother would have been capable of having full blown sex when she was 12 she started crying. so I am really afraid that more details are going to come out. She swears they were just kids, but I can't imagine an 8 year old boy being capable of having sex. particularly because she says it was completely mutual.

basically I'm completely devastated to hear all this. We are getting help, but resources are limited .

I cant look at her siblings the same way. I want to ask her to never talk to them again. But I know that is irrational.

And although I thought that I would be disgusted by my wife I am not. That being said I am having a very hard time being attracted to her sexually. she was standing in the kitchen in her underwear the next day, and I was looking at her like she was a child or something. Not the way I usually look at her. I still love her and want to protect her but I am afraid that this information is going to kill our love life.

I want to trust her and be there for her, but if I find out that she was having sex with her brothers or sister into and through her teen years I don't know if I am going to be able to handle it.

at this point I am able to relate to my own pre-pubescent sexual exploration when considering her situation. I know that her older sisters abused her and that she was sheltered and unable to watch TV or interact with other children. Her parents NEVER discussed sex or sexual health or reproduction or sexuality with any of them..... So she was basically just doing what was done to her. But I am only able to accept it mentally if it was adolescent and exploratory in nature. Albeit extreme.

I don't want to admit it but if I find out that she was having mature sexual relationships with her brothers.... Beyond adolescence. I don't think I will be able to stomach it.

I don't know if I can deal with it if she was satisfying real lust towards her brothers.

I can't. It's too far gone.

It falls into the same category as animals in my mind. It's just unthinkable.

Help me help her.

Help us.

I'm not doing well.

I feel really selfish to say it but I feel like I might have unknowingly bitten of f more than I can chew.

She is still really close to her family, and that dynamic is messing me up.

if some one is abused by a strange uncle or a neighbor or even a father I can draft a clear enemy in my mind but what am I supposed to do when it was kids doing things to kids.

I know the oldest sister is messed up and I have never liked her. no one really does... But I feel like the rest of them are more or less just as innocent as each other.

It's obvious that no one is blaming each other and that it is just some kind of dark disgusting secret that they all want to forget.

It definitely affects my wife and she wants to get help.....

I just think it can't be healthy to continue engaging with family members that you've had ongoing sexual relationships with. Especially if it happened later into the teen years (or not)

I just want to erase her entire family and take her to a therapist to start a new life but things are not that easy. She would probably leave me before she ever got away from them completely. They are all she knows.

I deleted her oldest sister from my Facebook because I couldn't see her messed up sexually charged posts and revealing pictures anymore.

I want to delete her brothers and other sisters but it would start a huge feud.

I want out.

I just want to run away from her.

I just want to forget I ever married her.

I wish this wasn't my responsibility.

It isn't your responsibility ... Nor can you fix it.

Please don't feel like you have to keep yourself in an unhealthy dynamic.

You don't.

And, if the only person who can be saved is yourself, then by all means - SAVE YOURSELF!

That's exactly what I did!

Sincerely,
Pfrog!

Marriage is a responsibility. I truly believe that.

I have to honestly try to help before I flee.

At the same time there are just some lines that shouldn't be crossed. Incest as a victim is one thing, mutually agreed upon incest or incest as a perpetrator are both entirely different.

We are sober, healthy and otherwise responsible people.

But.....

I need to dissect this to find out what was actually going on. I need to feel completely sure if it was adolescent confusion or genuine adult sexual perversion.

You are absolutely right, I can't fix anything. I told her that this was going to ruin us unless she did her part. I can't drag her through the process. I don't want to leave her but if she doesn't seek the help she needs I can't do it for her.

We need to seek help as a couple, but I think she needs some serious help on her own.

This is the second serious relationship I have had that was stained with an abusive past and sexual trauma and confusion. My first relationship didn't end well. I wasn't equipped to deal with it.... this time it is more serious and I am far less equipped to understand the situation.

God help me.

You're right, marriage is a responsibility, but not to the detriment of ones physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.

It sounds as if you are approaching this very responsibly and reasonably.

And, your trying to save the marriage is admirable.

I hope things work out well for the both of you.

You seem aware of the task ahead, and I wish you strength and wisdom to carry you through.

I'm sorry you are going through all this....but I really feel for your wife and all her siblings. You are telling me that you hate your wife's eldest sister. Please understand....it was not her fault too. She was thrust the responsibility of raising her siblings....that was a job beyond her. She may have been sexually abused.

She deserves as much sympathy as your wife's other siblings and your wife. They all have grown up to be dysfunctional adults and that's why they are deviant. You can't be a normal adult if something so traumatic happened in your life.

If you wish to chart out a clear enemy in your head - chart out your wife's irresponsible psycho dad and their selfish mom, who just abandoned her children.

You said that you wish your wife would never see her siblings. On the contrary. They need to talk about it....because only then you can expect some resolution. They actually need to go for a group therapy....so that they can normalise their relationship.

If you find money to be a problem....why not try online consultation.....I think it is cheaper. But all siblings need to resolve this together....it can't be swept under the carpet. There are a few outsourced psychotherapy....it might be cheaper. (please search "feel talk".)

But this kind of thing is too big for people to deal on their own.

As far as you......please, for a while put sex behind. Think of it as a crisis moment. Give it some time...dark clouds will pass. And I agree with you....marriage is for better or worse, till death do us apart. Be there for your wife as a friend for a while. Slowly things would go back to normal....maybe better. Also, it would be good if the wife and siblings can complete education. It opens mind and gives a sense of normalcy and structure. Also, it can bring better pay.

Good luck!!

P.S - If the psycho dad is alive....why not ask him to pay up.

Wow this is a lot to take in.

Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.

This is a lot to deal with, so being in the state you're in is understandable.

Repressed memories are common, so do not be surprised by this. The reason they are coming out now is because she feels she is safe enough to remember them.

While I understand that marriage is a responsibility, and do not think you should cut and run, I do think that you also need to take care of yourself. Get YOURSELF into therapy, because taking on your wife's trauma is the last thing you need right now.

She has trusted you a lot to tell you this. And she wouldn't have been upset if she didn't think that it was wrong.

I think - and this is guess work - that what they did was a way of protecting themselves. Perhaps there was more than just physical abuse going on in that house that no one remembers.

Please get your wife into some kind of care NOW!! If things start getting worse, such as she starts losing time, acting in ways other than herself and then not remembering it, having sever flashbacks that she doesn't remember properly or where she starts hallucinating, or is seriously depressed *look up signs and symptoms because sometimes its hard to tell* or suicidal please take her to the ER and get her into inpatient.

Something this complex needs professional opinions and helps.

Good luck.

ps, seeing her as a child and not being able to be intimate with her is normal and makes a lot of sense. I think you are taking on her trauma and reacting to it as if you had gone through it. At least a little bit. Which is why I insist you get help.

Wow - that a load of information to process. It has to be incredibly difficult. I think you need help to process this information too. Your wife and her family members also need help. I'm not sure why they abused each other, or how it started but maybe it started with her father or mother?.

I myself was sexually abused and raped by my grandfather and cousin. It went on for a few years. I never admitted or acknowledged it. Blocked it out until later years. So I understand where your wife is coming from, I also have that fear... if my other half knew the extent of the abuse would he ever find me sexually attractive again or look at me in the same way.

I gave him a choice, I still do. If he can not handle it, he has the right to leave without having any obligations towards me. If you cannot handle this, if its too much for you to deal with, weighs down too heavy on you. You have the right to leave too. Your mental health is important too. I would urge you to get serious help for your wife also. I hope it works out for the best for you.

Thoughts and prayers with you.

She needs help and you need help as a couple.

You also need help for you.

I urge you to discuss the situation with a counselor who is for you and you alone.

This...this is a Hell of a lot to take in, even for myself as an outsider for the situation. For you, it must feel insurmountable. I'm going to offer what I can...I wish so much I could simply give you the keys to this and have you and her stroll away into the sunset, but that is something I cannot do. Understand, this may take a very long time for both of you...for you to be able to see past and for her to obtain healthy closure on, if that can be had. I'm not going to lie and tell you this is going to be an easy road. But all roads do have an end, no matter how far or how harsh.

I want you to think about yourself for a moment when you were a kid. Think about how you were introduced to sex as a concept. I'm going offer a very stereotypical assumption here, but I'm going to guess you got the standard "birds and bees" talk...you know, "when two people who love each other very much..." sort of thing. Your view on sex was shaped by how you were exposed to it. Parents and how they raise their children have an egregious impact on how their children form opinions on things, be it religion, politics, manners and morals, and in a remote way, sex.

Keep in mind the "healthy" way sex was introduced above. Now, imagine your wife's introduction to it. She never received the "birds and the bees" talk, never learned the mechanics from her idiot of a father (forgive me there, but I've zero tolerance for people who'll use religion to ruin someone's life. As a Christian, it sickens me that people can use something meant for such good to accomplish such horrific evil ), and never learned under what pretenses two people engage in such activities. Now, we introduce the older sister, who has the advantage of time. She has figured out, most likely, that physical stimuli "down there" feels good, and depending upon her age, has began the transformation into a woman, with all the things that entails. Your wife was introduced to sex under A) the notion that "what feels good is okay," which is in itself a common thing among children who're discovering their sexuality B) no constraints about what is proper and improper sexually and C) that if her sister and her can share this, then it must be okay among the siblings. It's a sad, sad thing to look at, but there is a logic behind it. Granted, it is a horribly wrong, horribly misguided logic, but it is there. Your wife's introduction to sex shaped, for those formative years of her life, her views on sex, and how she approached sex. It up and stopped about when I would expect it to...at 12-13, as you said, children develop away from stimuli based sexuality into a more adult notion of sexuality...not fully formed yet, of course, but enough to know that something "isn't right" about what's been going on. No one talks about it out of repression, and the relationship they have today is what it is out of a sort of mutual "burying" of these memories.

My point is this: Your wife, and the others, did what they did and suffered through what they did ultimately at the hands of a complete and total failure of parenting. Her father was an abusive, sick man, and her older sister was left with responsibilities unbecoming of her age and left alone to discover how to grow up. The result is this sad situation we see before us. *

As far as helping you two go, it's important you understand her perspective...I don't think your wife is to blame. If you understood my unerring, total hate that I feel toward anyone who is responsible for SA towards anyone, you'd understand that I do not say that lightly and without ample evidence that is able to convince me of vastly extenuating circumstances. I blame her father, ultimately...I trust he's out of the picture? I hope? Perhaps burning somewhere in the lowest pits of Hell? That would be nice. It's he who is to blame. I don't think your wife had the capacity to understand what she was doing. Now that she does...I can't imagine what she feels now. I think the distinction here is conscious choice. Conscious, informed, and understanding choice. Your wife did not have the capacity for that at her age and under her circumstances. Were I convinced she had such capability, I would consider your wife a monster, at best. With the information I'm working under, I see her as a victim of God awful circumstances wrought by the failure of her father and the abuse of her sister, and a survivor of those circumstances.

You must understand, it wasn't "real lust." I don't think she committed incest, in the sense of a conscious action. I think her level of sexuality was on par with a child who can be found with his or her hand down their pants at inappropriate times. It's not sexual for them. It just feels good. I think your wife was operating under the same basic, primal modality...the difference here is that she lacked the parental framework needed to keep her safe from things like this. I don't think she was committing a conscious, informed decision. I think now she understands how bad things really were...hence her crying, her shame, and her guilt now.

It's going to take time...I don't expect you to be able to simply digest this and move on, and I don't think she's going to expect you to either. I think this is something akin to her greatest inner demon, and I don't think she simply bears this as a small weight on her shoulders. I know you said resources are limited, but stick with whatever resources you have...for you, it may help to seek a therapist in order to work past your own feelings. For her, she needs someone who can professionally help her confront her hellish childhood and work past it.

I hope I was of some help. I would beg of you to PM me if I can do anything else for you...her past saddens me more than I can begin to tell you, and it pains me to see you suffer so.

Many hugs,
Harley

I would like to say that as an abuse survivor and now an educator, I know that sexual abuse does not happen in a vacuum. If your wife and her family did not have access to tv, computers, the outside world, her older sisters had to have exposure to sex acts by someone, possibly their mother, father or another close relative. I would be very surprised if at least one or both of her parents(as well as other family members) either suspected or knew what was going on. Your wife may have complex PTSD, among other things, but I am not a doctor or a therapist and it may be a good idea for her to see both, if she is able. Sexual abuse is very difficult to talk about and it can bring up a great deal of shame, pain. and fear. I am so very sorry this happened to her. She is in a lifelong journey of healing and you are in a position to offer her support. You may also want to speak with a therapist if you are able to. I am glad you wrote in. I met my current therapist back in 1996 when she led the support group I was in. She eventually became my individual therapist and I saw her once a week. During the hardest part of my recovery work, I saw her 3x a week(for about 3 years) and now I go 2x. Eventually I will only go once a week but it is a big time/money commitment as well as emotionally intense at times. My therapist always tells me that although the work is painful, the actual abuse is over and I am the adult now. Your wife will need you, if you think you are able to be there for her(I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for both of you, especially your wife) by listening and allowing her to share what she is able to share, then you are off to a good start. My own therapist is a survivor and I know there are many other wonderful therapists(can you find one who specializes in trauma?) out there. We are here to listen and help, if we can.

Please PM me if I can offer any additional support. I am not a therapist but I am on my own healing journey and know many other survivors who are also thriving.

Dear Sir: I am going through much the same as you. My wife of 50 years now told me before we were married that she was not a virgin. I loved her and wanted to marry her anyway, and told her so. After our marriage I asked her more about the loss of her virginity, and she confessed after I had guessed several persons it might have been, that it was a cousin she had lived with for a couple of years after she was orphaned. I know she must have been depressed having lost her parents at an early age, and I have been able to handle the thoughts of it for years, but for so me reason it has started bothering me a lot the last few years as our sex lives have slowed down due to age and physical ability. I too had visions often of her having sex with this cousin that would interfere with me enjoying sex with her. Since our libidos were quite distant (mine much greater than hers), it caused me to feel she didn't enjoy sex with me, didn't love me, and any number of things a person of low self esteem might be concerned with. I still fight these things on practically a daily basis. I love her, don't want to leave her, and don't like bringing it up to her, but I don't think I have ever gotten the answers to the questions my mind wants to know. I just wanted to let you know there are others having similar problems to yours, and that's why I'm here too. I want to find out what I should do next.

As someone who can relate to your wife, I know she needs help. You need to be there for her if you love her, but you need to help yourself first and get resources you need to help her.

In regards to your saying "At the same time there are just some lines that shouldn't be crossed. Incest as a victim is one thing, mutually agreed upon incest or incest as a perpetrator are both entirely different."
When you are abused as a child, especially sexually abused by your family members it can seem to outsiders and people who haven't experienced it that it was mutual. But that isn't the case. Those children are all victims. You just can't know at that age what is right and wrong, especially if something like that is being forced on you. It fractures your mind. I definitely don't think you can agree on incest ******* unless both parties are legal adults, especially because it's a family dynamic you grow up in. You don't know anything else.

Frankly, to me, it sounds a little selfish because you're saying your relationship is "stained" with an abusive past. It's not your past to deal with, it's her past for her to deal with. Imagine how she feels right now. She told you because she trusts you, it's obviously bothering her, and she probably wants help.
If they are all she knows, it can be hard getting out of that family dynamic and cutting ties with them. I'm currently trying to figure out the same thing, and I know firsthand that it's hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to face in my life.

It can take a lot of time, and a lot of talking to understand her. But please be gentle with her and don't force/ persuade her to talk about it if she doesn't want to. She'll seek you out when she needs the help, as she's done before.

Take the time you need for yourself to maybe do research on those types of pasts, to better understand your wife's childhood, and by all means take time to strengthen yourself. Care for yourself. Your health is important, most definitely. but I just urge you to think about how extremely difficult it is for your wife, and don't let this turn your wife into someone you're disgusted by because honestly it's not her fault, and that wouldn't have been love on your part in the first place.