To ask my DH to try counselling to save our marriage?

[Thisorthatwhoknows]

Trigger warning - male rape

Bare with me as this is long. You may have seen posts from me before as I’ve reached out a few times for help.

I’ve been married for 8 years, with my DH for 12 years. We have 2 primary aged DC. 5 years ago, just before the birth of our 2nd DC, my husband was raped by 2 men. This resulted in him contracting herpes and HIV from. He nearly died from HIV as it was undiagnosed for 2 years. His way of dealing with the rape was to self medicate using drugs and alcohol. Our relationship has fundamentally changed as you would expect.

He recently admitted to feeling resentful towards me and at best neutral. I feel that from him too. We have no emotional or physical bond anymore and he can be quite verbally nasty when he’s been drinking. Lockdown has exasperated the drinking and my anxiety is through the roof.

I’ve asked him to try a trial separation and consider specialist counselling as I honestly can’t see a way forward for our relationship otherwise. He’s flatly refusing and feels like I’m giving him an ultimatum. But I don’t know what else would work. We tried marriage counselling but they said he needed help before we could repair the marriage. This was 3 years ago.

What do I do? I don’t want to abandon him but equally I’m married to a man I don’t recognise and who resents me. Help...

Did he tell you about the assault at the time? It's just you said he was undiagnosed for two years? Have you also been checked ?

@LaurieFairyCake

Did he tell you about the assault at the time? It's just you said he was undiagnosed for two years? Have you also been checked ?

He hid it from me for 6 months. It wasn’t until I got thrush and he thought I’d got herpes he told me. I’ve been checked and thank fully I don’t have either. He did get checked straight away but didn’t go for the follow up HIV test, hence didn’t get diagnosed until he was seriously ill.

He's refusing to do anything (on his side) to change the status quo.

He's left you with no other option but to separate.

It’s not at all unusual for people to not disclose rape for quite some time, and being raped doesn’t make you gay or bisexual - what an awful attitude towards someone who has been assaulted.

I’d be stressing the need for him to get therapy to help him cope with the trauma of his experiences, if he won’t you have a difficult decision to make.

Why is he resentful of you? Did he elaborate why that is?

This is very sad, op, but I would stop wasting time and end your marriage. The effect this dysfunction will have on your children is catastrophic.

But yeah l would call it a day. He doesn’t appear to want to help himself and it doesn’t appear to be working between you

When I was reading your other thread yesterday I thought your marriage needed to end, I'm afraid. You are suffering far too much and the knock on effect on your DC is huge too.

He sounds fairly deeply traumatised. Unsurprisingly.

I can also see how it feels an ultimatum to him (it is really) and why he'd refuse. Trauma strips away our sense of control over our own lives and can make any subsequent loss of control no matter how slight (e.g. being told his marriage is over if he can't / won't do xyz) acutely painful and traumatic. Hence the refusal. It doesn't help but his reaction is exactly how I would expect a traumatised person to respond - one of the pillars of treatment for trauma is giving the person back their sense of control and autonomy.

That said, if he's not able to pursue trauma therapy and the situation is causing you (and the children?) harm then sad as it is, I wouldn't class it as you "abandoning" him if you left to protect yourself and/or the children. Or lived apart.

It is a horrible situation with no good answers. I don't know what I would do in your shoes.

You can't fix or heal him op. Only he can do that. All you can do is look out for the needs and welfare of your DC. It's time to call it a day.

It's horrible that this happened to him and of course it's damaged him. But he cant expect to take that pain out on you. And you dont have to let him.
He needs councelling for him and for you and for your kids, they xant grow up seeing this as normal

It's a horrific situation and counselling should be one of the options of course. Its understandable that he has reacted as he has.

But I have to say it sounds as if your DH has not done a great deal to help himself.

You can support and be understanding to someone in these circumstances for so long but there comes a time when you have to put your own mental health and that of your children first. It may be that you've reached this point and if you have, you shouldn't stay out of misplaced guilt or loyalty.

@guineapig1 give yourself a talking to. Those are the most offensive posts I have seen on MN for a while.

@Thisorthatwhoknows this is such a hard situation. I remember your earlier posts. I think in your shoes I would go ahead with the trial separation. It doesn't sound like he is ready to get help but you also need to look after yourself. How do you feel about him apart trom his treatment of you? How did you feel about him before he was attacked?

Has he had any professional support or counselling since it happened?

Hi OP I remember your posts about this and think we've chatted before. It certainly sounds he's struggling and of course you aren't being unreasonable to consider separation and ask him to try anything that might help him with the knock on effect that it will help your family. I'm sure the last couple of years have been quite devastating for both of you.

Trying to see it from both sides, (and taking HIV out of the mix for a minute) as someone who was in an unhappy marriage for many years it was best for me and our kids that we split. Then as someone living with HIV it can be really very difficult for some to come to terms with an HIV diagnosis and the way it was contracted that make it even harder. It does sound like he has several issues to address and although specialist counselling might certainly help this needs to be his choice. It might well be that the rape needs addressing first before he can come to terms with being HIV+. Sometimes resistance and denial can lead to disengagement with care and during the current pandemic things have become even more difficult.

If he's open to considering counselling his clinic should have given him some links for this. You could also give him these details if he doesn't know about them:

This would probably be most helpful to him initially and should cover everything to do with HIV including how it was contracted, alcohol and drugs. Everything is confidential and non judgemental: www.tht.org.uk/our-services/online-services/online-counselling-people-living-hiv
This is an online forum for people who've received an HIV diagnosis where they can safely share, learn and help come to terms with an HIV diagnosis: www.tht.org.uk/our-services/online-services/my-community-forum
There's also Plushealth, a charity that offers online 1-2-1 peer support to all those living with or affected by HIV (including partners, parents etc): (click on peer support) www.plushealth.org.uk/index.html

Completely different circumstances but my DH treated me awfully for 2/3 years and made me very ill as result. I did give DH an ultimatum tbh that he needed to do therapy, that I didn't expect him to become a different person or get 100% better but he needed to try.

His excuse until then was that therapy made him to upset and he used to cry 🙄

It took me telling him I was leaving to reconsider and it took him a week before he had his epiphany and asked me to reconsider.

It took me years to actually forgive him his behaviour towards me and actually let my guard down and love him again.

The situation is damaging your DC, maybe you just need to reframe it that they are your priority and you can't have them witnessing his self destructive behaviour daily whilst he refuses to engage with something that could really help him.