I am a 38 year old woman who has been with a male 39 year old sexual abuse survivor for 2 1/2 years. His abuse occurred around the age of 6. I don't know much about it as he has not been ready to discuss it with me beyond telling me it happened. We are supremely compatible and for much of our relationship were both very much in love. There has always been a bit of a sexual distance -- he says I scare him, somehow (Makes sense to me, profound intimacy must be even more frightening for a survivor.) He wants to make love to me when he thinks about it when he is away from me, but then when he is with me the desire subsides. Anyway, we have worked with this, found some mutual satisfaction, I always felt that patience and total acceptance on my part was the way to go and
that gentle talk from time to time would test if he was ready to go further. He has periods of Depression which come and go, exacerbated, of course, by money problems (lots, he's an artist), cultural problems (he's french living in America). And I know his abuse history lurks at the bottom of these dark places. And I am always afraid that as they leave him feeling little he will do
something desperate to make himself feel. But I always thought we could escape what has been his history in the past -- 2 year relationships, then he finds a problem and leaves. We have gone 2 1/2 years. This past month, at the end of a depression, he went home to Paris. He came back alternating distant and highly emotional, said he had had an identity crisis in France and doesn't know which country he belongs in, doesn't know what is real in his life or his feelings. I discovered that while there he had had an affair. Not someone he could be with, as she is married; but to him, while very sad that he hurt me, it wouldn't have happened if we were going well. But that he was with me, staying fighting it out. That he was with me and so loved me. That is was actually the first time in his life that he felt like he was the one with the problem in the relationship, that he didn't want to just walk away as he always does because we have do much. I, unfortunately, fixated on the affair and kept looking for emails and couldn't get past the fact that they secretly spoke every day, that there was still a romantic connection, even though I knew it was false and that ours could prevail. Had I ignored it I think our stability would have one out in his perceptions. And so the slide started. He asked me to wait until he went back to Paris to try and figure out the issues which led him to the affair and the identity crisis. I did. He's there now. I, unfortunately, haven't given him the space I should and have had too many hysterical phone calls which have pushed him away further. He says he doesn't know what will happen when he comes back, but admits it doesn't look good. He is trying to take care of himself over there, and I can't be involved in that. But this separation and the likelihood of ending us when he returns destroys me. I have made many mistakes in dealing with this, we both have -- but I don't have the damage in my past he has and need to be able to be stronger and be there for him. Is there anything I can do to save our relationship? I know he truly loves me, he has many times told me I am the best thing that has ever happened to him, the first to truly love him unconditionally and the first he has felt a true mind match with. Actually, I think he loves me enough that he has had to get away from me to let his old patterns get stronger so he can end the relationship, something that never happened before. He would just leave. When he is with me our love gives his entrenched fears and patterns too much of a battle. I know leaving me is simply giving up to his fears, falling back in to the 6 year old place, and that the only way he can be in a long term relationship is if he fights the need to run and confronts intimacy, and that this is the relationship that could be strong enough for him to face his issues. I believe we can get to the other side. But I fear in his time away and with my desperate clinging phone calls I have let him believe the love is gone. I have given his patterns the ammunition they need against us. Plus there's so woman over there, a distraction from what he needs to look at, who offers that pesky new person excitement that initially
makes long term deep affection seem dull and stale, especially, I think, for survivors. Any thoughts on salvaging this? Is is too late? I deeply deeply love this man, and he has loved me well in the past. Is there any way to reach him in the dark place where he doesn't know himself or what is real? If his patterns and pain have convinced him the love is dead is there any way to prove that the lovely is only masked?
Please help, I want this beautiful, gentle man to have a beautiful,
gentle relationship. He has given me much in our time together and I have grown in many ways. Can we still grow together?