Happy, you sound like one extremely level-headed and mature person. I know we carry our pasts with us, as you said, but it sounds like you have-- in many ways-- come to terms with yours.
The big elephant is still there, sitting in the middle of your marriage. It's funny (odd, not ha-ha) how people react to someone who has "been to the edge" and survived. Sometimes when a woman has been raped as an adult, her partner gets spooked by her. I felt something of this when my husband died... people look at you like you've been somewhere they never want to have to go. When my late husband returned from Viet Nam, his (then) wife never wanted to talk about it-- and indeed, most of those men did not talk about their war experiences until Desert Storm seemed to raise the curtain on those days. Finally, 30 years after he got back, my husband was able to talk about the war. My husband told me that it was so weird-- one day he's in a helicopter being shot at, and two days later he's sitting in his living room drinking a glass of milk, and there was a conspiracy of sorts not to talk about it. There is a theory that our fathers (I'm 56), the World War II generation-- although in many ways they were/are The Greatest Generation-- raised us while their war time experiences were shoved deep down in their souls with a pile of rocks on top. Maybe this is one of the reasons that my generation-- the Flower Children-- needed to break out. The people who were in concentration camps also wanted to put the experience behind them... understandably so. But it means that lots of us lived with big elephant on the coffee table.
You've been through war, too. I strongly suggest you seek out a therapist to help you get to a very solid place about this stuff. Your husband isn't in any position to offer you the rock-solid support you need. Gradually, maybe you and a good therapist can figure out a way to help him rise to the occasion, so to speak. It doesn't mean you have to tell him every detail, but you need to tell SOMEONE (a therapist) every detail. I started a thread several months ago about immature sexual partners. Some of us like to feel we are being approached and fcuked by a man... but we find ourselves with scared boys... usually through no fault of theirs. If you met my bf's mother, you would easily see why he is afraid of being swallowed alive (!) by a woman.
What is your H's relationship with his mother like? What seems to be her attitude toward sex? Just curious. My bf's mom is 86, runs a bar, and still flirts in very shameless and explicit ways with young guys. I think she's pathetic... and I suspect her customers do, too. The first Thanksgiving we had (bf, me and mom-- bf and I had only known each other four months) she sat at the table in front of me and told my bf giggling that one of her customers always comes in the bar and asks her if he's going to get any pu$$y that night? I just about choked! I don't mind explicit talk, but the setting was entirely inappropriate.
In order to make the omelets you crave, I think you're going to have to break some eggs...
