For Husbands of Sexual Abuse Survivors: Insights from Patrick DeMuth

I’m part of the launch team for Mary DeMuth’s new book We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis (affiliate link), available August 13. I’ll write a post about the book next week. You’ll also be able to hear from Mary when she joins us for an upcoming podcast episode. She is a sex abuse survivor who has become a strong advocate for other survivors.

One of the things she talks about (in both the book and the podcast) is how we can support survivors in their journey toward healing.

This post is for one particular group of people who want to know how to support survivors—men who are married to women who have survived sexual abuse. My blog is for wives, but sometimes the best way to minister to wives is through the husbands who love them.

So guys, if your wife is a survivor of sexual abuse—or if you think she might be—this is an important post for you to read.

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Husbands of sex abuse survivors have a front row seat from which to witness some of the damage caused by sexual abuse. Some of that damages splashes onto husbands, too.

I’ve often received heartbreaking emails from these men asking for help understanding what their wives are going through. They want to know what they can do to help. They ask how they can cope with some of their own feelings of powerlessness to prevent the past from having happened, or how to deal with the sexual difficulties that often show up in their marriages.

I’d like to share a wonderful resource for both female sexual abuse survivors and their husbands: Mary DeMuth’s book Not Marked: Finding Hope and Healing after Sexual Abuse (affiliate link)—and it’s this book that informs today’s post.

One of the things that is especially helpful about Not Marked is that her husband Patrick weighs in with what it actually looks like to support a survivor.

Patrick has generously given me permission to use the words he wrote for that book to write a post for husbands.

I’d like to arrange his comments in a way that addresses the three most common questions I receive from husbands of abuse survivors:

1. How can I help my wife feel safe?
2. How can I get my wife to tell me what happened with the abuse?
3. How can I deal with my own feelings about the impact of the abuse on the sexual intimacy in our marriage?

Guys, if you’ve had these same questions, read on for wise words from another husband who has walked this journey.

Patrick’s words are in italics below. I want to be clear: he was not answering these specific questions. Rather, these are the most common questions I receive from husbands of survivors, and I’ve chosen excerpts from his writing for Not Marked that might be helpful to other husbands with those same questions.

How can I help my wife feel safe?

Many men have shared their feelings of powerlessness with me. They want their wives to know that even though they were abused in the past, now they are safe.

One of the gifts I gave to Mary was making sure she felt safe and cared for. Not only her, but when we had children I made sure that they would be safe, no matter the circumstance. In reality, I don’t have that much control. We had to have babysitters. We let our kids stay over at friend’s houses. There were times that we wondered if they were truly safe when they were out of our sight. I wasn’t always able to do a thorough and even any kind of background check. I thank God that He has protected them. But I think that my concern for their safety was something that she never felt she had growing up. Knowing and seeing that I wasn’t a casual father and husband was something she treasured.

I also get very angry about what these kids did to Mary. I wish I was there to protect her when it happened, to be a hero standing in front of her daring these boys to get through me to get to her.

How does your wife see that you take her safety, and that of your children, seriously?

How can I get my wife to tell me what happened with the abuse?

Husbands often express confusion or even frustration about their wives not telling them the whole story of their abuse. How can they know what to pray about, or what to avoid doing so they don’t remind their wives of a difficult memory?

To ask someone who had been abused to share their story with you can be an overwhelming challenge. As Mary says, there is so much shame and self-condemnation that goes along with being a victim of abuse. Add to that the almost pathological mistrust of people, it is a recipe for bottling it up and hoping it never surfaces.

When I got married, I knew of Mary’s abuse, but I didn’t know the details or the extent, much of which she only remembered as time went on. Perhaps you are married to an abuse victim but you didn’t know that was part of his or her past. Perhaps your spouse has never even shared anything about it to you personally. You want desperately for your spouse to be healed and you know that if they can share it with you, they can begin that journey. So what can you do?

The most important thing is to become someone who is trustworthy. If you are not someone your spouse trusts, she will never truly share her heart with you. If you don’t treat her emotions and story with respect, if you refuse to change your behavior when it causes “triggers” in your spouse, then you will never have the intimacy you hope for.

I really didn’t learn the lesson about being trustworthy until we had been married about 12 years. That seems like a long time, but I had some growing up to do. The way Mary eventually found me to be trustworthy was based on at least these four things:

1) I didn’t change the subject when she decided to talk about her abuse – I actively listened and also validated her feelings.

2) I began to own my own “stuff.” It was important that she knew I was not perfect. It was important that she knew I was not her counselor but a fellow-struggler.

3) I was vulnerable too. This is a hard one for guys, at least this guy because vulnerability is a sign of weakness. It could be used as a weapon against me sometime. It takes a lot of trust to be vulnerable.

4) I actively changed the way I behaved if it was causing her to remember her abuse. If there were things I did that caused these triggers, I had to consistently and intentionally work at not doing those things. This can only happen with humility and a deep concern for the other person—in other words, selflessness.

I say there are four things, but following these four steps may be only the beginning. Each person and couple are different with unique dynamics. Perhaps there is a lot of confession and forgiveness that needs to happen on your part. Perhaps there are circumstances that need to change in order for communication to truly begin. Perhaps even professional counseling is needed. To be a person available and trustworthy means you are willing to do anything for that person, and no matter what comes out of her mouth, you will neither run away nor share it with anyone else.

What are you doing to become more trustworthy in your wife’s eyes?

How can I deal with my own feelings about the impact of the abuse on the sexual intimacy in our marriage?

This question is one that husbands sometimes feel guilty asking. Without joyful sexual connection, they are missing out on the depth of what God designed sexual intimacy to be. They feel unloved, even though they logically understand that abuse is the reason their wives struggle with sex.

Expectations. When I don’t get them met it puts me in a pretty foul mood. If I don’t get the raise I’m expecting, if I call a meeting and everyone is late, if the service or food I get at a restaurant aren’t up to snuff, I get a little angry. Sometimes a lot angry. This is an area in my life I daily struggle. I have high expectations of people and when they don’t meet them, I put up a wall of judgment. Not a good character trait, I know. But I am sure I am not alone.

So getting married was no different. I had expectations of Mary that frankly we had not talked about before marriage. I am not sure how that conversation would have gone anyways. All I knew is that once we were married, everything was legal. I had no problem turning the evangelical switch that sex is naughty before marriage but everything goes afterward. My expectation was that she would feel that same way. The problem was she did not seem that into it. It felt like she was having sex out of duty not out of desire. As a result, I felt unloved.

You don’t get married to feel unloved, and I had a difficult time understanding why she felt this way. I thought eventually the Christian guilt would subside, but it didn’t. I tried to connect with her in other ways. I remember giving her a word picture about what it felt like for me. I told her it was like I was in a swimming pool enjoying the water and she was on top of a diving platform too afraid to jump in. Even though she could see it was fine in the pool, it felt like she was unwilling to engage. This helped her see my struggle, and to gain a little more trust.

But I also had to work on my own expectations of her, and the anger I held onto when she didn’t meet them. God has worked miracles in my life in this area. One thing He brought me back to Ephesians 5:25. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (ESV). This is a heavy, heavy imperative. The church, I am sure, often fails to meet Christ’s expectation for his Body. But what does He do? He loves her. And I need to be in a place in my relationship with Him where I can demonstrate understanding and grace the way He does, not holding on to anger and grudges and resentment.

Husbands also want practical advice: “How can I handle not having the sex we should be having?”

Because of Mary’s ministry and vocation as a writer, she has often shared her story in different ways and in different settings. She wrote an article about this topic for a magazine that has now expanded into this book. The magazine asked if I would write a few paragraphs giving my perspective as the spouse of an abuse victim. I was surprised how many people responded to the article and particularly the little bit that I added. The question I got most of all was, “How do you handle not having the intimacy and sex with your wife that you should be having?”

This is a loaded question of course. It presumes a lot of things, such as the expectations one has of one’s spouse when they get married and what is the appropriate amount of intimacy and sex in a marriage. It also presumes that I am “handling it” well. The truth is, if I were in the situation where my wife did not have any desire for me or desire for sex at all, I would not handle that very well. I believe intimacy and sex are a crucial component of marriage, and if they are completely absent, a case could be made that it is not a true biblical marriage. If my wife showed no desire to be healed and no desire to have a full and satisfying marriage with me I don’t think we would still be married.

Mary’s desire for healing is one of the reasons why I am able to persevere when things are difficult. When I see her wanting to follow God’s will, it carries a lot of credibility with me. It doesn’t mean that she has to perform and achieve; what it means is she wants to want to. Her brokenness and frailty in this area provides me an opportunity to be gentle, kind, patient, and self-controlled, which just happen to be fruit of the Spirit.

 I do not espouse to the idea that men are driven sexually beyond their ability to control it. It may feel like that at times, but Scripture says otherwise. It says that when we are tempted, God always provides a way out. It says that with the Spirit indwelling us we are empowered to control our base instincts. I don’t consider myself a super-Christian or holier-than-thou. But I do believe that if your spouse is willing to heal, and is turning to God for healing, that you have the resources to be the spouse he/she needs to help overcome the pain and wounds of abuse.

What does it mean to love your survivor wife as Christ loves the church? What fruit of the Spirit can you demonstrate in the way you deal with your own feelings?

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Guys, if you are married to a sexual abuse survivor, know that you are not alone.

According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network), one in nine girls experiences sexual abuse or assault. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center puts the number closer to one in four girls.

When you are married to a woman who is a survivor, it doesn’t matter what the statistics are. What matters is the woman to whom you made vows.

Your efforts to support your wife’s journey toward healing will not be easy, but they can become a vital part of your own faith journey.

I’d like to close this post with Patrick’s words about his journey.

Mary and I met in church, and our Christian faith was a central factor in our friendship and in our lives as we looked toward the future and what God wanted to do with us as a married couple. For me, being a believer in Christ is the foundation for how I approach our relationship. It means that I have to take His Word seriously, even when it means that it costs me my expectations of what my wife would be like after we were married.

I was, thankfully, never abused so it has been difficult for me to relate to her at times. If I have a problem I just compartmentalize it. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that a problem as serious as abuse cannot be crammed into a file in the back of your mind. At least not in a healthy way. I found myself giving her advice like, “Just don’t think that way,” which as it turns out, is not very helpful.

My journey with being married to an abuse victim is really a story about Jesus changing me to be more like Him. To hear her with His ears, to respond to her as He would respond, to love her as He would love her. He continues to change my heart in ways that are less selfish and demanding, to more empathetic and generous. Not an easy journey, but one I committed to Mary, to those who attended our wedding, and ultimately to God who brought us together.

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I would like to thank Patrick DeMuth for his generosity in allowing me to use his words for this post.

All of Patrick’s words were written for Not Marked: Finding Hope and Healing after Sexual Abuse (affiliate link), by Mary DeMuth. If you are a survivor or are married to a survivor, this book can give you hope.

Image credit | Ben White at Christianpics.co