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July 29, 2020 7:59 pm  #1


The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

Hello-

This is a heavy topic so please consider this a trigger warning.

I was listening to the terrific SSN podcasts and came across the interview with Kimberly Brooks Mazella.  She is a straight spouse and psychotherapist.  At some point in her research, she discovered an amazing fact - that among men who marry GID wives, there is a 4x higher than national average exposure to childhood sexual abuse.  This struck me as a particularly revealing bit of information.  For the last couple years, as my marriage and career fell apart, I was trying to figure out the link between my own experience as a child and my experience with my GID narcissist emotionally abusive wife.  I felt in my core that there was a link, but I couldn't figure it out.  And when she said it in the podcast, the light went on.

I did everything I could to please my GID narcissist emotionally abusive wife, and as everything I tried was met with more abuse, it eventually destroyed me.  My first sexual experiences were non-consensual and initiated by a female teenaged babysitter who was much much older than me.  These are obviously related experiences.

Are there others who have made this connection before?  Is it just too deep to discuss here?  Is there a path forward?

 

 

July 30, 2020 11:53 am  #2


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

Victo, 

This is a good conversation topic.  Not to deep for this group. 

I know Kimberly, she's is a great resource for straight spouses.  

The 4x statistic doesn't surprise me.  I would absolutely believe that gay's who transitioned later in life would state that sexual abuse as a child led them to where they are today.  Personally though, I wonder how true that is.  One thing that is common in our spouses is that many of that harbor extreme guilt for lying to us and hiding their sexuality.  They don't usually share that with us.. they try to hide it as well, but it exists.  A very common thread is that they try to find ways to reduce their guilt and make excuses that would lead others to not judge them so harshly.  Claiming bi-sexuality is common.  Claiming that they were straight most of their life but just recently discovered this new change is another common excuse.  Stating that their sexuality is due to childhood sexual abuse is another common theme I hear.  There is still a stigma in society about LGBT.  They still get judged harshly and are treated badly, so many of them try to find an excuse for why they are.. hence the sexual abuse claims.  

If only they could just be who they are without fear..  they wouldn't marry straight people to try to hide and this group would no longer be necessary. 


Another aspect of this discussion is trying to understand what makes a person LGBT.  Are they born this way or made this way or do they freely chose to be this way????   Are all of these possible?   If a person is genetically programmed to be LGBT, then the sexual abuse they might have suffered through wouldn't have made them gay. Did they put themselves in bad situations then as children?    If you aren't born LGBT genetically, then there could be external experiences that push you that way..  Certainly sexual abuse would do that.  What about traumatic loss of loved ones or other big events?    Could personal choice lead a person to desire same sex?  I'm not sure why anyone would want to put themselves in a minority that is treated poorly, but I guess it's possible?

What do you think Victo?   Everyone else?  


-Formerly "Lostdad" - I now embrace the username "phoenix" because my former life ended in flames, but my new life will be spectacular. 

 
 

July 30, 2020 12:07 pm  #3


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

"there is a 4x higher than national average exposure to childhood sexual abuse"

I have never experienced sexual abuse, but my father was a physically/mentally/emotionally abusive raging alcoholic.

Perhaps there's a link with abuse in general? I really don't know. Just throwing it out there.  

 

July 30, 2020 3:04 pm  #4


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

Thank you, Phoenix.  I think what Kimberly Mazella was talking about was the link between childhood sexual abuse and then becoming a straight spouse later in life.  Her research did not include the numbers on gay-in-denial spouses who were sexually abused as children and later entered marriages with unsuspecting straight spouses.  Mazella's findings clearly pointed to a strong link between men being sexually abused as children and later ending up as an unwitting straight spouse in an emotionally abusive mixed orientation marriage to a female GID partner.

She mentioned in her statistical findings that 60% of these mixed orientation marriages contain emotional abuse by the GID spouse toward the straight spouse.  That is staggering - and suggests a link between narcissistic emotional abuse of straight partners and being gay-in-denial.  But I don't want to shift focus to the GID spouse.  They are the abusers, and while they have likely absorbed plenty of negative energies regarding their own sexualities, they are still abusers.  They don't get a pass here.

I want to talk about the straight spouse experience being drawn into emotionally abusive relationships to GID partners.  Is there something about being the victim of childhood sexual abuse that leads directly to winding up the straight spouse in an emotionally abusive marriage to a GID narcissist?  

What Kimberly Mazella did NOT break down in her findings was the percentage of straight spouses within the 60% that experienced emotional abuse in their marriages who had also been sexually abused as children.  What is the link there?  

In my own journey to healing, I realized I had to go back much further to begin to address my own issues with emotional, physical and sexual abuse.  

Was I but a moth to the flame?

     Thread Starter
 

July 30, 2020 3:29 pm  #5


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

Edited to delete my post after reading Lily''s post.  I have 100% certainty that what happened to me happened to me. 

 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 30, 2020 6:53 pm)

 

July 30, 2020 3:31 pm  #6


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

Well see the thing is how can that therapist be so certain of her statistics.  How prevalent is child abuse – my thinking is that most of us have had some sexually inappropriate things done to us by the time we are 14.  Just the way things are.  All the things that happen fast and quietly in corners.  

All this stuff under the carpet, in the basement - the skeletons in the family closet they used to call it.

The school I went to, this is around 1970, I remember the headmistress saying to me that it was hard to find any Latin teachers when she was faced with the way the latest one was behaving, and I said to her no problem I just won’t go to class.  She did end up having to fire him though.  

Before that, at the primary school, I was one of the two girls in my class starting to develop early.  I got surrounded by a whole bunch of boys one play time.  They didn't hurt me physically but it is a hurtful memory, (not so hurtful any more now).

And also - you know the thing is if it happens to you when you’re really young what certainty can you have that it actually happened?  But there you are and you find yourself asking questions - What effect did it have.  What has it done to me.  And I think we all get into knots about it a bit - my belief is we’re basically quite resilient and the main point - it’s chalk and cheese, how you feel about yourself in relation to someone who is using you or to someone who is loving you.

When someone has had a near drowning experience it leaves a memory that resurfaces when they find themselves back in the same situation, in deep water.  Their memory is reminding them of what happened last time, the danger they might be in.  So as the swim teacher I would engage them in a funny conversation, stay close but play around a bit and it was only minutes before the laugh would come and the tension relax and I could see them recognising they were having a new memory, this time of enjoying themselves in deep water, and simply that has a tempering effect.

Even though you are hampered by the pandemic in finding a nice girlfriend you are still making things better, laying down better memories for yourself.   Homeostasis - just naturally like the way we sweat when hot, or the skin mends over a cut - we are self-healing.

 

July 30, 2020 10:03 pm  #7


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

Look I don't understand why my post was so misunderstood!  I am simply referring to that fact that whatever abuse might have happened in infancy you don't have clear memories of that, you can't.  I can say I have this feeling it happened.  I can say that there were things I picked up, that there was this feeling the whole family had that my father was guilty towards me.  But I can't say I actually know what happened.  Whereas I remember exactly what happened on the playground.

Re the layering of experience - yes it is for real - no I don't think you ever forget the near drowning experience but that ptsd response to being in deep water is tempered by the pleasure of the later good experiences.  It happens quickly and then the person is relaxed enough to learn how to handle themselves in water and in a little they are so good at it that their whole focus is on the enjoyment in swimming.  

Like having a scar - a loving finger tracing a scar gives pleasure, and you feel differently, good about yourself instead of bad.

And so yes I really do totally agree with you Longway - honesty - opening up with people who care and letting the bruises show.  Letting them be cared about by someone who loves you, that is the best thing can happen.  But like it is now - just letting the air in and being there with yourself - how I am in all honesty, the love that I feel - my sense is it is already helping me a lot, before I even know it as it were.   

Last edited by lily (July 30, 2020 10:09 pm)

 

July 30, 2020 10:22 pm  #8


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

Lily,
  You wrote: "you know the thing is if it happens to you when you’re really young what certainty can you have that it actually happened?"
  If you'd said "I" instead of "you" I wouldn't have taken it as an invalidation of my experience.  I admit that I am highly sensitive on this issue.  It took me a long time to be able to speak the truth of what happened to me publicly, and before I did a lot of soul searching and research into so-called "false memory" syndrome, so I have always been very careful not to say anymore of what happened to me than what I can clearly say I know.  

 

July 31, 2020 7:54 am  #9


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

Victo wrote:

Thank you, Phoenix.  I think what Kimberly Mazella was talking about was the link between childhood sexual abuse and then becoming a straight spouse later in life.

Victo, Sorry I did misread what you were talking about. 

That's a different and also very interesting point. 
I wonder what the connection is between being sexually abused as a child and then becoming a straight spouse.  Perhaps the experience as a child creates a personality type that GID people look for in a mate.  Maybe the sexually abused child becomes extremely empathetic and compassionate?  Maybe the abused child becomes much less demanding in their sexual needs and accepts the GID person without questioning what another person would find odd?
 


-Formerly "Lostdad" - I now embrace the username "phoenix" because my former life ended in flames, but my new life will be spectacular. 

 
 

July 31, 2020 9:44 am  #10


Re: The link between being a straight spouse and sexual abuse in childhood

to OOHC - ah the dreaded pronoun.  You know the interesting thing to me is that where I grew up, England, we never had a problem with it as children - we'd use 'you' as the common pronoun quite happily and no one misunderstood and the grown ups would say you must use 'one' but if you did use one then that was being up yourself, or should I say up oneself, and frowned upon by your peers.  

Yes it is a difficult topic for all of us.  I don't like talking about it much either - I said 'very young' rather than infant because I find it hard to say but if I had it would have been easier to get my meaning.

Longway - ah, yes understood.   again, totally agree.

 

Last edited by lily (July 31, 2020 9:49 am)

 

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