Are your Relationship Issues Due To Your Husband's Childhood Trauma?

How do you know if some of your relationship issues could be due to your husband's past childhood trauma? A traumatic childhood leaves profound marks on a person's emotional health and the coping mechanisms that they used to survive their childhood can show up in adult relationships. So let's discuss how you can navigate this journey with empathy and understanding.

Disclosure

But before I get to that, I do want to talk about how men in particular disclose childhood abuse at a much greater age than women do. There may be situations out there where you suspect that your husband has experienced childhood trauma, but that your husband has not been able to express this to you or talk to you about it.

So what do we know about disclosure?

• The average age that men disclose particularly childhood sexual abuse is an average age of 52 years old.
• Men are the least likely to report being assaulted, though they make up 10% of all victims.
• Most sexual abuse of males begins before puberty typically around 10 years old.
• Between 70 and 90% of males who have been sexually abused report not telling anyone at the time. 
• Males disclose being sexually abused in childhood on average 22 years after the assault 10 years later than females.
• Men report their first in-depth discussion 28 years after the sexual abuse, and the first helpful discussion 30 years later.

That can lead to many relationships where you are in patterns that you don't understand.  You as a spouse not knowing this history, can be confused and in some cases begin to doubt your own sanity before the full picture comes into surface. These statistics show us that there may be a lot of us out there who our spouses have had a traumatic childhood and we just don't know about it.

My Story

Before I talk about the signs that you can look for that may indicate that there was some childhood trauma in your husbands past, I want you to know about why I am so passionate about this. My story began 13 years ago, when I married my dream guy on a beach in Hawaii. We had a stepdaughter and we were looking forward to having more children. After we were married, I started to notice some things that I just didn't understand. First, my husband had terrible insomnia. That means that he was sleeping anywhere other than our bed, and also was getting maybe three to four hours of sleep a night.  After I started to notice the insomnia, my husband had a really strong need to control his environment. Things that looked very compulsive as far as where the blinds were placed, or how long our showers were. Things like this started to actually become quite a problem in our relationship. And then I noticed a lot of emotional responses that I just did not understand.  Things that I thought were very normal things to ask my husband, like taking out the garbage or putting away the dishes after dinner would result in really heated arguments. Those were some of the things that I noticed and it was only when things got too much that my husband was finally able to reveal a terrible history of childhood abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church. At first, I was really excited to have something that we could work on.  Something that I could put my fingers on that were reasons for the things that I were seeing. But what I quickly learned, was that this was something that got worse before it got better. And there was a lot that my husband and I had to learn and heal before things got better.

Now fast forwarding 13 years, my husband and I are now in a happy and healthy relationship. We have been able to heal from the past and we want to help others who are in the same situation. I was looking everywhere for resources for spouses, especially of male trauma and I could find very little and I want to create a community of women so that we can stop suffering in silence and we can start to talk about how trauma affects relationships.

Signs of a Traumatic Past

So what are these signs that may indicate that a traumatic past is causing some of the patterns and behaviors that you're seeing in your marriage?

- ** Avoiding discussions about childhood**  Does your husband skip over conversations about their childhood? Do they say things like "things were very normal" or "things were fine" or just avoid the conversation altogether? This could be a sign that there is just something in the past that they don't want to let you in on yet.  

- **Control the relationship dynamics**  Control is another avenue that survivors use to cope with their abuse. This is control that makes a person feel safe. When survivors were abused as children, they had no control over what happened to them. As adults, they use control to protect themselves. Many survivors will want to control the flow of the relationship. They may carefully carefully manipulate the dynamics such as how close they get to you and what you think of them. Maybe they limit how often you see when another.  They want to control how the relationship works in order to put themselves in a position where they perceive they can't be harmed physically, emotionally, financially or otherwise. 

 - **Push people away** Other survivors don't use any of these outlets, and instead just push people away. When you try to go deeper in a relationship they pull back when you reach inside to see what's there. They evaporate like vapor, never allowing you near enough to truly see their vulnerable side.

 - **Extreme emotional reactions**    You may see extreme emotional reactions, things that routine parents or other couples can work through can become very heated arguments. They often feel like they haven't been heard, or they don't like feeling that they're being blamed. And these are all stemming from the abuse where they have guilt for the abuse that occurred to them. And in some cases if their disclosure was discounted, they may feel that nobody listens to them. 

  - **Withdrawal**  This is almost a dissociative symptom involving some sort of psychological retreat, where this survivor disconnects from their surroundings and even themselves. This is different than just needing a break after a fight. This is what I call a flip of the switch where all of the sudden there is this retreat. That nothing that you can do or say will bring them out of it.

  - **Compulsive tendencies**  Obsessive compulsive tendencies can also be a response to that loss of control that we talked about earlier that when the abuse was occurring, they had no control over their situation. So they may want to control their environment.

  - **Mental health issues and substance abuse**  Depression, anxiety, the use of mind altering substances is all much greater in men who have experienced trauma in their childhood.

It's important to note that all of these signs can be attributed to other factors as well and only a professional will be able to diagnose with certainty. But knowing and seeing some of these patterns as a spouse, can help you try to figure out how you can deal with these in a healthier way.

So what can you do if you suspect that there's a possibility that childhood trauma is creating some of the behaviors that you're seeing?

The first thing would be to try having a conversation and approaching it with empathy and understanding. There is often an overwhelming feeling of shame by a male who has experienced childhood trauma. They would rather take the secret to the grave with them, then tell anyone about it. So having these conversations may need to occur over and over again. Just letting them know that you will always love them, no matter what has happened to them in the past, that you can handle the truth no matter what it is, and that you will be there if he is ready to talk.  This requires a lot of patience and unfortunately, there is nothing that you can do to make this process go any faster. Our job is to create a safe environment for your husband to tell.

Don't Lose Yourself

What I want you to know is that I don't want you to lose yourself in this process as a supporter of someone who has experienced childhood trauma OR if you suspect that your husband has experienced childhood trauma! You can't lose yourself.  Your experience as the partner of a male survivor is different from that have other partners. This is not something that scheduling date nights and finding your love language will fix. You've probably had crises of faith, anger at your spouse, anger at the abuser, issues with extended family.  These are things that we cannot put a band aid on and pretend that everything is okay. We have to bring these issues to the surface and confront them head on. Even without disclosure, there are things you can start doing today to gain more control through the chaos.

Questions to Reflect Upon:  

1. Have you noticed any unusual behaviors or patterns in your husband's actions or reactions that might suggest a history of childhood trauma?
2. How comfortable is your husband discussing his childhood or any traumatic experiences from his past?
3. Have there been any specific instances or triggers that led you to suspect childhood trauma as a factor in your relationship issues?
4. How has your husband's childhood trauma affected his ability to trust, communicate, or emotionally connect within your marriage?
5. What are your long-term goals for your relationship, and how do you envision working together to overcome the challenges posed by childhood trauma?

Conclusion: 

There is an enormous demand for us to start discussing and dealing with this and stop being silent. That is what this blog is all about. If this is you and some of this resonates with you, I want you to check out my website. I have resources for spouses and partners of male survivors that are experiencing some of these unhealthy patterns and are struggling in their relationship. There are things that you can do that you can start today to start moving towards a healthier and happier relationship.

If you're looking for a more detailed step by step game plan, you need to check out my "Permission to be Selfish" five day video course. This course will jumpstart you towards getting out of this rut that you're in towards becoming healthier and happier in your relationship.  Sign up Now!