She had a string of bad boyfriends and got pregnant repeatedly while growing up. Her parents were busy/unavailable for her and offered little/no help aside from getting her abortions. I knew about her trouble with boyfriends and the abortions before I married her. she seemed stable and over it.
Lex23,
Just my opinion...
It sounds as if your wife has suffered through a lot of trauma, and she's probably been a victim of rape, maybe even childhood sexual abuse. PTSD can result from trauma, as well as other serious disorders. With trauma, memories are often repressed, so the victim actually becomes more susceptible to further abuse because they have difficulty discerning between safe and unsafe people and behaviors (i.e. poor boundaries).
For a variety of reasons, the repressed memories are often triggered in middle age and that's when the house of cards begins to fall apart. The victim is usually not fully aware just how bad things have become.
From personal experience with my ex-wife, she didn't "trust" therapists at all. It really wasn't just a trust issue, she was afraid that all of the deep and dark stuff inside would be exposed, and in her mind, that would just lead to more intolerable pain. Begging the victim to go to therapy won't help much and it may even push her away.
