Childhood Sexual Abuse & Marriage: When will this trauma finally be over?
Husbands married to wives who are victims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) want to know where they are on the journey of healing and when they’ll get to the destination of resolve. So they ask: When will this finally be over? When will we get through this? How long will this take? The emotional pain […]
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Childhood sexual abuse: A trauma we should not forget
Last Thursday at 7:46 AM (ET), I joined with countless others by pausing for a few moments to pray for people I’ve never met but people I’ll never forget – the families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. I remember the words spoken during the days following 9/11; […]
Take a TourWhy doesn’t God heal my wife from childhood sexual abuse?
Have you wondered why God seems silent and slow to respond? So have I. My wife disclosed her childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to me more than ten years into our marriage. Everything changed. Life seemed to unravel as she began dealing with the hideous reality of what for years had been stuffed within her conscience. […]
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Two Steps to Managing Yourself in the Trauma (Part 2 of “Have you Experienced the Contagious Nature of Trauma?”)
“Trauma overwhelms the brain’s organizational system” according to psychotherapist Steven Levenkron in his book Stolen Tomorrows. The trauma alters the brain’s normal perceptions for those who were sexually abused as children. These alterations are not necessarily permanent but they are profound (p. 152). With childhood sexual abuse (CSA), the brain’s ability to keep the traumatic experience […]
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Have you Experienced the Contagious Nature of Trauma? (Part 1)
My interviews with husbands whose wives are victims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) consistently revealed that trauma is not insulated or isolated with their wives. Researchers Carolyn Maltas and Joseph Shay’s extensive study of the contagious nature of trauma was reported in their work, “Trauma Contagion in Partners of Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse” in […]
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Here’s how you might avoid accidentally pulling the trigger on your wife
In my research of husbands whose wives were victims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), social relationship conflict was at the top of the list – even surpassing sexual frustration – as the most problematic issue in their marriage. A common word used by husbands in my interviews was trigger, referring to how a simple conversation […]
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Three best responses when it appears your wife’s perpetrator gets to go free
The man who robbed my wife of her childhood innocence recently died. Like many perpetrators who work to build their reputation in the community and even in the church, he went to his grave admired by some and abhorred by others. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse are not always able to bring their perpetrator to […]
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