We had our last showing yesterday. No buyer. Looks like we will be here til spring. It's like 5 below so no one is moving now. Which is totally fine with me. We are for sure moving though so I'm trying to detach. My husband wants to put things behind him - he is actually now the driving force and I get it. I hope he doesn't just run from it emotionally and lets himself feel it... our daughters thing. Sorry to those of you who don't know about it... she was abused by our neighbor so we are moving away from him and the memories and all that. I don't know how guys handle this stuff - I just ball my eyes out. He bottles it up :( Any tips would be helpful on understanding the guys way of thinking and feeling and how you get through awfully painful things. I do agree that moving away and having a fresh start will be helpful, but I also let myself go through the stages of greif - and still am. I don't see anything with him. He talks about the court hearings and stuff without showing emotion. Praying for him is helping ME some. xxxoxoxox
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
I'm so sorry to hear that.....For what it's worth....I try not to show it...And ball my eyes out when I'm alone. Trust me....I'm sure the pain is there.
Tasha. Your husband may seem cold on the outside, but he's burning on the inside. The lack of emotion is him holding back his basest instinct; to wreak pain and destruction on the worthless piece of rat excrement responsible for this terrible thing.
I am so sorry for a terrible situation and I will lift you all up in prayer. .When I was active I probably would have ended up in jail. In recovery I would also be praying, crying and seeking the God of my understandings continued grace and mercy.. I could only suggest some outside support also. When we found our 17 year old son was an active, hardcore Heroin addict we spent over 7 years in trial and tribulation and it was only our strong faith, my active membership n Nar-Anon..and.... with others and sought spiritual help with my church family and other support groups. .I trained in Martial arts, played drums in Rock and Roll Bands and ran Marathons to alleviate some pent up emotions, ,but WE are all different...All decisions we made during that trying period(my son now 27 in his fourth year of recovery)we debated, ometimes totally disagreed on our journey forward, we.rayed and joined as one in our decisions At times I was able to relate, oher times I needed space, but we never stopped our communication...I pray you find peace...Pain shared is pain lessened..........
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Hi Tasha...Yes...I too am very sorry that this had to happen to your daughter and your family. We had a slightly similar situation (sexual assault) that happened in our family, but the victim is an adult and not a child. The person is suffering from some depression but getting through it with counseling, and doing better. You've asked for input from males on how we address or handle emotional pain. This is only my point of view, mind you, but I think that females tend to feel it....and us guys tend to want to try to fix what's wrong. Again, I'm no psychologist, but that's pretty much what I've seen and experienced. Another common male approach to anything that makes you feel powerless is to get angry....which only gives you the false illusion that you're not powerless anymore. That never works to kill the pain because it only causes your inner pain to increase because we both know how much anger and rage hurts and destroys us inside. Have you tried to get him to talk about it? That may not work right now. As for now, he'll probably only want to talk about the stuff he can deal with, like the courts, and police, and things like that. But, my guess is, the feelings will come out in some way. While I have no real answers to this, I hope you won't mind if I make a suggestion. Call me crazy but it can't hurt...and it might even help. Take a chance and ask your husband to pray with you. Tell him it's something you need. Ask him to do this for you while you hold his hand. At first, keep the prayer somewhat short. And, if he's willing, ask him to do this with you every day. It may bring you both closer together. You have my prayers and we both know that God is with you in this...keep on talking to Him dear. Blessings on your family, Mike D.
Aloha Tasha and Mike D pretty well explains what I have experienced and I am a former therapist and also worked with men of violence. I am a past man of violence myself. Women feel thru it...Men attempt to think thru it which for me has never worked. Trying to think it thru is part of the PTSD disorder for me. Thinking thru it never brought clarity or solution. If there is or was a "think thru it" process I would love to hear it. If we could think our way thru or out of it...we would have done so already hey? I didn't learn about emotions until I was in the VA Alcoholism Counseling Program as an elder person. Learing that "Emotions are inside reactions to outside events" was rocket science and I stopped trying to express feelings with thought pictures...something bad happens to me...he asks me "how do you feel about that"? my response is "I feel like shit" and his response is "So you feel like a warm lump of dog poop laying in the front yard" and I look at him as if he didn't get it. After he gave me the definition of a feeling I turned in rage and yelled "That makes me feel so effing rageful I could kill something"!! The short of it was/is I am not good at expressing "feelings"...metaphors/thoughts I do most even when they are not accurate.
As for your neighbor I once participated with a client mother of two teen daughters and a son in putting her exhusband away for 35 years in prison for sexually abusing the daughters. I "felt" a rush as the sheriffs led him from the sentensing session thru the door in waist chains, shackles and handcuffs to the prison van. I "felt" happy he was gone and "happy" the family got justice. I "felt" grateful my VA counselor taught me what I was feeling otherwise my thoughts might not have might have been about doing him myself...I use to do that. Pray you and your husband find consolation...might not there be a cell and sentence for this person also?
He may be putting the most horrific aspects on a shelf in his mind. We often put those things on hold, and deal with them later. Some repress and actually block it out.
I have opened the volumes of my past shelved pain as time has gone by. It is dealt with in tolerable doses.
I can't imagine a more painful thing than what happened to your family. I am not so sure I would not have terminated the person. As ex navy amphib warfare, it would have been a distinct possibility.
You guys are living in grace to handle it so well. Your love and support means so much to him. You are a life saver. The love and support of your family will be like medicine for your daughter too.
So sorry this sort of thing happens.
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"I spent a lifetime in hell and it only took me twelve steps to get to heaven."
"Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you."
Often times, men will readily show anger instead of sadness. They don't do vulnerability well. He may feel like he has to be the one that "holds everything together." Kind of like the captain of a ship or a plane...Someone that can't take time to panic, cry or whatever because he has to steer the ship or fly the plane.
Men often oversimplify emotional things while claiming that women overcomplicate them. In all likelihood, you guys are probably falling somewhere on the continuum in this dynamic, but in a healthy way because you balance each other out and are not ready to kill each other (hopefully lol).
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Great responses, and I am so sorry that happened in your family justadrunk. Your husband probably is trying to hold his hurt and anger in so he won't hurt the guy and end up in jail himself. . My family dealt with that on a smaller scale....It was a teen who is the nephew of my ex and my daughter was 4 and when I was reading a book to her about good and bad "touches" she told me that this person had touched her top inappropriately. Of course I raised a stink about it to my husband, who didn't want to "start" anything but I told him either he would bring it up or I would. No one believed it. My husband's mother said she had never been so hurt before, (it was all about her and everybody else) and never wanted anything to do with us again. They accused me of making it up and convincing him that I was crazy. I ended up going to therapy because they thought I needed to be committed and being a stupid, drunk fool that I was back then, I did it to bring so-called "peace" back into the family. I needed therapy for that kind of thinking and they were right about one thing--I was crazy. I live with the guilt that I betrayed my daughter and put others' needs in front of her own just so they wouldn't be "mad" at us. But that teenager was never alone with my daughter again.
It is a shame that you have to uproot your family to get away from that beast and I hope that time will heal the pain your family is going through, and especially the pain your daughter is having to deal with. You are putting your daughter's needs first and I feel like your husband is dealing with his pain the way a lot of men (and some women) do and that is to hold it in because maybe he feels like he will fall apart if he doesn't.
One thing I'm seeing for sure from all your support is that I need to go to him. Maybe he feels like I will crumble if he does and he can't. I can get it together enough to be supportive to him and not just my daughter. I don't feel like crying for hours every time I think about it anymore. I'm sure he is trying to also protect me from hurting more and that was wrong of me to be so selfish. I'm not sure what it would be like to see him cry. I saw him crying at the kids birth but that was different. Thank you everyone so much, each of you - big hugs back to you. xxxxoxoxoxox
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
before he was my sponsor, my sponsor came intoa meeting homicidal. he had found out that the 2 lil girls living next door were being molested by their own dad. my sponsor want to kill the dad. whtah he did was take that energy and used it to help the 2 girls and let God take care of the dad.
I am truly sorry you all have to go through this, but im certain that this is a very good time to communicate with both your hubby and daughter. talking about how you are feeling what you are feeling and asking them how they are feeling what they are feeling is a good thing,IMO.
One thing I'm seeing for sure from all your support is that I need to go to him. Maybe he feels like I will crumble if he does and he can't. I can get it together enough to be supportive to him and not just my daughter. I don't feel like crying for hours every time I think about it anymore. I'm sure he is trying to also protect me from hurting more and that was wrong of me to be so selfish. I'm not sure what it would be like to see him cry. I saw him crying at the kids birth but that was different. Thank you everyone so much, each of you - big hugs back to you. xxxxoxoxoxox
Think you hit the nail on the head about he will feel if you will crumble if he does. I think you need to cry and not try to hold it in. You need some release from the pain and tears are good for that. My ex told me that he cried in the shower after his dad died because he didn't want to fall apart in front of me and at his work. I don't think you are being selfish at all, and in fact from your postings, think you are one of the least selfish people I know. I also think that you have an enormous amount of faith and strength which will help you get through all of this.
This was hard to read. But jad us blokes hide our emotions from the outside world. We tend to hide away and let vent on our own. But eventually we all seek out those who love us and let the torrent flood out.
This will happen. You'll be ready.
Big hugs to you all.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
