I think for her, confronting her mother on it gives her a sense of "moving on" - if that makes sense. And let me clarify - there was no heated, yelling confrontation. Rather, a brief series of text messages in which she basically told her that she has unlocked old memories about everything that happened and that he suggests that she go get counseling. Which, her mom is doing. I know that she is not out for a pound of flesh - she is more interested in her own healing and I think part of that for her was informing her mother. For now, she is keeping her distance from her as she works her way through it. I think she just wanted her mom to acknowledge that it happened because she has lived her entire life NOT doing that. I kind of liken it to that scene in Forest Gump where Jenny goes back to the house that she grew up in and was abused and started throwing rocks at it -- and collapses in tears in the dirt -- and then Forest says in the voice-over "I guess sometimes there just aren't enough rocks".
As far as "men are pigs" goes, it wasn't a man. It was a very masculine gay woman. Hence, looking in the rearview she has had some very pronounced gender-role issues that ALWAYS existed. As well as issues when people make jokes about a straight person being gay (which is basically an olympic sport for guys). Remember she once out of the blue said to me "You have to promise me that you're not gay" -- after meeting a friend of mine. But then refused to tie it back to her childhood in any way?
The more that I research, talk to my C, and talk to her - it is becoming clear that she was not deliberately hiding it from me. She clearly had PTSD and had erased the memories - which is not uncommon for survivors of that kind of abuse. After a few difficult things happened during this reconciliation attempt, it all came back....and I mean it REALLY came back. It's like she had taken all of that, locked it in a safe, and swallowed it whole. The safe sure as hell wasn't airtight and bits and pieces of that pain came out throughout our relationship....explosive temper at times...inability to communicate and show affection....social withdraw.....I could go on. My C has told me a million times that pain does not go away -- it just comes out in other places/ways. As you implied, 25, this abuse was a third member of our marriage that I did not know about.
We are trying to heal our M, and I am trying to help her heal and cope with all that is coming back to her. I must admit, however, that it is exhausting -- any thoughts on how to support someone through this would be appreciated. Especially when working on the R.
