4 Secrets I Learned

I am creating a movement to end the silent suffering of wives supporting their husbands through childhood sexual trauma.

• My Story
• Exhausted, hopeless and out of control.  Not sure what I wanted anymore.
• I realized that providing effective healing for my husband involved closely examining my internal processes when it came to supporting his journey.
• Instead of totally losing control in the situation, I discovered many things that were within reach for me to regulate.

My goal:  Provide you with real life tools for taking control of what you can to stay healthy and strong through the recovery process.

• If you stay until the end, you will get free access to some of my favorite tools that will help you implement some of the things that we're going to talk about today as well as give you more information on additional ways you can learn and connect with a community of wives.
• These tools are what I wish someone was able to get me eight years ago, but I could never find.
• Advice from someone who had been there.

What I learned:

• The survival techniques my husband developed to survive his childhood created problems in having a healthy and loving relationship.
• Providing healing involved me looking at how I internalized things.

The Hard Way

• Spending timeless hours researching the limited data there is out there for supporters of childhood trauma and how the trauma impacts relationships.
• Piecing together a support system through trial and error.
• Puting your husband and family first until you're too exhausted and depleted to be much support.
• Waiting for that magic time when everything would just be better.

The Easier Way

• Saves you time by allowing you to take a deep dive into how your particular marriage has been impacted by the childhood trauma.
• You can discover the many things that are within your reach for you to control.
• You will build resilience in your marriage, giving you the ability to recover from setbacks.

The chance of a relationship surviving the trauma process increases if both parties have an idea of what they are getting into.

The Stages of Trauma Recovery

• Crisis Stage - Your husband might be thrown into a crisis as he starts to really look at what happened to him.
• Middle Stage - Your husband decides to deal with the abuse and he'll enter a stage of very hard emotional work.
• Recovery stage - Through the efforts of going through the first two stages, your husband will start to recover the trauma recovery process.

Despite all the caring and good intentions, recovery is a very risky time for relationships.

But recovery is a time of crisis, but the crisis is *temporary.*

• "You are under no obligation to stick it out through the hard times. Staying or leaving is your choice. Not all relationships can stand the strain of the recovery process. Those that manage it are irrevocably altered. We don't know what the precise outcome will be, only that it will be healthier, though not necessarily easier. It will therefore have to be reassessed as a brand new relationship and both partners will have to decide whether it makes sense to continue."
• "Victims no Longer" by Mike Lew

4 Secrets for Loving Your Husband in His Recovery

• 1.  Resist the urge to fix it.
• 2.  You don't need to join him in his pain.
• 3.  You may need to reconsider your definition of strength.
• 4.  You can be the light.

Secret #1: Resist the urge to fix it.

• I had to learn that the emotions and the feelings, the mood swings, the withdrawal, the things that my husband was experiencing were things that needed to happen, that these feelings had to come to the surface.

They were NECESSARY for him!

• Your instinct is to help and to try to suppress those emotions and to try to make your husband feel better
• Even in some cases, take responsibility for some of those feelings and emotions and anger that he's feeling.
• Our job is not to fix those emotions, but rather to allow him room to have and get through those feelings.
• And your support alone, will help ease the trauma recovery process.

Example 1: Withdrawl

• Occurs because your husband has so many emotions coming at him that he needs time and space to sort out these overwhelming emotions.
• They don't know what to say. In fact may be trying to PROTECT you from the pain and trying to avoid letting their feelings explode in your direction.

What can you do?

• Reassure him that you care about him.
• Let him know you are available when he is ready to talk.
• Give him the time and space he needs, without taking it personally.
• Tap into your support system.

Example 2: Mood swings

• Recovery has times of rapid, visible progress, periods where not much seems to be happening, and times where old behaviors come back.
• Your husband can fly high one day being very optimistic about the progress, and the next day be sunk into despair.
• One moment they can be very tender and loving and the next moment explode in anger.

What can you do?

• Allow him room to have and get through these feelings.
• Celebrate the good times and be there for the hard times.

Example 3: Crying

• Emotional reaction to the feelings that are coming to the surface.
• What can you do?
• Welcome and celebrate the tears.
• Allowing him to move forward by getting out the pain and the suffering and the sadness of what happened to him.
• Try not to embarrass him or distract him.
• Do not make a big deal of the crying.
• Say very few words, or in most cases nothing at all.
• if your husband feels supported with this, he will cry as long as he needs to.

Secret #2: You don't need to join in the pain.

• Your husband may start to experience feelings of anger as he begins to accept the unfairness of what was done.
• He may start to understand that what happened to him is not his fault.
• What you may find is that he will start searching for who is at fault.
• After becoming aware of all that he lost to the abuse, he may feel and express resentment.
• **For those who have suppressed so many emotions for their entire lives, this may be a very unfamiliar experience, and it can be vented inappropriately on you as one of his closest supporters**.

What can you do?

• It's perfectly acceptable  to validate his right to feel those strong emotions, **WITHOUT** accepting that you had anything to do with them.
• Say things like:- "It wasn't fair."
• "It never should have happened."
• "You have every right to feel angry and resentful helped."
• By not accepting the anger that doesn't belong to you, you are actually helping him focus the anger on where it belongs, on what happened to him.
• Use that anger for recovery instead of this vicious cycle with you.

Secret #3: You may need to reconsider your definition of strength.

• What is your current definition of being strong?
• Being numb to everything that was happening? Stoic? Just pushing through?
• Your perception of strength may need to change.
• Strength = Vulnerability and Resilience

"What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, because you become softer."

I encourage you to:

• Take the armor off
• Let your husband and those around you know that you are struggling
• Get the support that you need and take care of yourself.
• Your husband may end up placing more demands on your time and energy.

What you can do?

• You cannot be there all the time.
• You get to decide how much time is reasonable that you can put into this and limit yourself to that.

Secret # 4: You can be the light.

• You are NOT abandoning him.  You are of no use if you are burned out.
• It was my job to let my husband know that childhood trauma survivors are not doomed to fail in adult relationships.
• He deserved to be happy and have a successful relationship despite what happened to him.
• By me being that light and showing him what was possible, this was mirroring the light that he needed during the darkest times.

"If you can see past a person's anger, sadness or fear to recognize the hidden need, you open up new possibilities for the relationship." - Dr. John Gottman

Dos and Don'ts

Don't:

• Try to fix it.
• Join him in his pain.
• Just push through.

Do:

• Validate his right to feel his strong emotions without accepting the blame, without accepting that you cause them.
• Insist on providing a healthy model of self respect.
• Take your armor off to talk.
• Try to provide him with a picture of life beyond the abuse.

It is extremely painful to watch someone you love suffer.

• Trauma is treatable.
• Trust your caring and include yourself in that caring.
• Recovery as a process and not a project with an end result.
• Through recovery, it is possible for the abuse symptoms to diminish, for self esteem to increase, and your relationship to be more satisfying.

How to Become a Resilient Wife Through Childhood Trauma Recovery

• Ways that we can continue to work together.
• **Read:** My Story! "Resilient Wives: A Guide for Wives Supporting Their Husband Through Childhood Trauma Recovery"
• **Watch:** My online course!

What do you get?

• Course layout - broken out into four sections with a total of ten modules.
• Multiple tools and resources.
• Downloadable worksheets and assignments after each session to help you implement the process.
• Accountability action lists to keep you on track.
• Library of books and articles for educating yourself on the childhood trauma and recovery process.
• Checklists: Identifying Triggers, How well you are setting boundaries?
• 30 days of affirmations for wives supporting their husband.

Bonuses:

• Inspirational messages in your inbox every Monday.
• Care assessment quiz to see how you score and identify the areas you need to focus on to better take care of yourself.
• Creating an online community of spouses who are married to trauma.
• My process will get you real results.
• You will have the guts, stamina and skills to better support your husband through the childhood trauma recovery process.
• You will learn where you can take control, where you can look at your own personal internal processes for better supporting not just your husband, but also yourself.
• Finally, I want you to know that trauma is treatable.
• There is hope.
• With the right support, you and your husband can heal in mind and body from the effects of trauma.

Let's put an end to the silent suffering together!