Surviving Sexual Abuse: A Partner's Story

Two and half years ago, I publicly disclosed that I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and rape.  Since that time, I've become an advocate for survivors of sexual violence, and I've used my position as a high-profile athlete to keep this issue front and center in the media. What many people do not realize is that the real reason I'm still standing today is that for the past 29 years, my wife, Mary-Anne has supported me wholeheartedly and unconditionally.  In a special blog post, you will finally get the opportunity to hear Mary-Anne's side of the story as she writes candidly about her experience in supporting me through the disclosure process.

The following article originally appeared in Her Magazine.  

I have been married to my husband JP for 28 years. He is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, rape and is a recovering addict. As part of his recovery, JP has documented his journey and shared deep personal insights on his popular blog Breathe Through This. People often ask how I survived those tumultuous years.  Here is my story.

We married young; I was 20, JP 21…

I was starting in my career and JP was still attending university. I swear in those early years I thought he would never leave school. When he got close to finishing an undergrad program, he would switch his major which required new courses.

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 JP’s drinking was evident from the start of our relationship. What started as binge drinking on the weekends developed into regular intakes of large amounts of alcohol. Nine years into our marriage, I started to notice his slow and steady withdrawal from life, from me.  He stopped reading, something he loved to do, he no longer held my hand or wanted to be close and he drank each night until he passed out.

I am the type of person that puts her head down and powers through difficulty, not wanting to face the issue head-on until it’s over. So that is what I did until the day he called and asked to meet me at work. We walked to a nearby park and I knew he had something bad to tell me, maybe our marriage was over, and maybe he was leaving me. Never in a million years did I think he would say, “I just spent the morning on a subway platform trying to throw myself under each train that came into the station.”

The Roller-Coaster Years

My world came to an end and the next 5 years were a roller-coaster through hell. JP was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and manic depression. The doctor prescribed medication and instructed him not to drink, but he did. He went to a number of psychiatrists, many of whom fired him because he wouldn’t participate in therapy. He was up for a wild adventure one day and darkly despondent the next. He often stopped taking his medication and wouldn’t tell me until the depression hit with a vengeance. So I started to monitor his medication intake, a role we both despised.

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We had started a family two years after we got married. Our son was turning 6. JP’s unpredictable behaviour and my crazy attempts to control the situation were taking a toll on all of us. I remember meeting a friend for dinner and tearfully confessing, “I think I have to leave.” It was one of the darkest moments of my life because I love this man with all my heart and I could see how lost and hurt he was. But then things slowly started to get better. JP entered AA and went to regular meeting. He started to run each morning, and for the first time held down a full time job.

Fast Forward 20 Years

Fast forward 20 years and life today is pretty good. We continue to have the ups and downs associated with surviving childhood sexual abuse (CSA), but we both recognize it for what it is now. Our 25th wedding anniversary was spent in training learning how to facilitate discussion groups for CSA survivors and their partners and it struck me that on the day that I promised “for better for worse” I didn’t realize that it would be the worst that made us better!

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Childhood Sexual Abuse – The Disclosure Process  

Bread crumbs… looking back, this is how I would describe JP’s disclosure process. We had more dialogue on the issue of CSA than most couples because I worked with children then and often spoke about incidents of abuse that I encountered and training that I attended. JP mentioned once in the early years of our marriage an interaction with a hockey coach that was inappropriate, but never disclosed details and to be honest I didn’t ask for any.

Unable to verbalize the trauma himself, I think he was leaving clues, waiting for someone to ask the question, but never once did I or any of the professionals working with him ask if he had experienced childhood sexual trauma. Everyone focused on the addictions and the mental health, never looking for the root cause.

The Catalyst

Two years ago a seemingly innocent conversation with his sister broke something inside him. He told me the details of the sexual abuse he experienced as a child that night and we cried and held each other. The next day he announced it to the world via social media – he had kept the secret in a box for so long, it was a way of making sure the lid never got put back on.

With the skills and strength that he had developed over the years struggling with addiction and mental health, JP was able seek the support he needed. Entering The Gatehouse program, one of only two programs for men in the whole country, was a turning point. In a room without the assistance of clinicians, survivors shared their stories, just one man supporting and listening to another. It was incredibly healing for him and gave him the strength and tools for the next disclosure.

Rape – The Next Disclosure

Almost a year after the initial childhood sexual abuse disclosure, JP had developed a large following on a blog that he was using to process his journey and was often approached by reporters to share his story. One such invite asked if he felt he had anything to contribute to a podcast on rape. He told me about the request and I thought it an odd match, but again I didn’t question. The difference this time was that after he did the interview, HE was able to ask if I wanted to know why his experiences contributed to the issue of rape. That evening he told me that two years after the initial sexual abuse, he had been raped by two young men in a North Toronto ravine.

Disclosure doesn’t happen the same way for each survivor, and I am not sure if learning about what happened bit by bit was easier or harder than hearing it all at once. It was just the way JP was able share the story with me.

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The Impact of the Disclosure on Me 

Learning about the CSA was not as devastating to me as the disclosure that he had tried to kill himself. I was scared for him and worried about what impact the disclosure would have on his stability but I was also proud of him, for being brave and strong enough to face his past.

What I didn’t bank on was the disclosure’s impact on me, on my self-awareness. Soon after JP started attending the Men’s Group at The Gatehouse, I signed up for a pilot that wanted to reach out and support the primary relationships in survivors’ lives to help them understand the trauma and give them a place to talk about their reactions. The first night as we sat in a circle and each spoke about our experiences, I was overwhelmed by the wreckage and pain that child abuse had on not only the lives of the survivors but on the lives of their partners, parents, children and friends. I was taken aback by the anger of some of the participants. Anger at the abuser, I understood, but there was anger at their partner for not disclosing sooner, anger about what their lives could have looked like if this had been “dealt” with years before, anger at them for keeping such a big secret often for years.

I didn’t feel anger, I felt fear. I felt intense fear that when JP finally faced his true fears he would no longer need me – the person that had always fixed things for him. We had been married for 25 years, we had roles and JP wanted to change things up. What if those changes didn’t include me?

What I Learned About Myself

This process made me take a good hard look at myself.  What need was I fulfilling inside myself by playing the “fixer” for 25 years and why was it so scary to relinquish “control”?

The universe has strange ways of revealing the path forward and 8 months after the initial disclosure I was out for an early morning run when a man grabbed me from behind, restrained me and sexual assaulted me. I had never experienced such fear and total loss of control. I always assumed that if something like that were to ever happen that I would punch and scream… but I just stood there, not able to make a sound. I have learnt that you cannot compare experiences and judge whose was worse, but my experience gave me a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be a child, to be so powerless, and to have no voice. It shook everything I thought I knew about myself.

For a few months I became the one who “needed” someone – a role that I was not familiar or comfortable with. I have always been a people pleaser and have since discovered that much of my self-worth was derived from figuring out what others need and being the one that provided it. JP and I were the perfect couple, each feeding the other person what they needed – for him – an escape from facing his truth, me – a way to feel worthy.

It was during this time that we realized that if our marriage was going to survive, we both needed to change. Maybe that is a benefit of marrying so young… we grew up together and are not the people we were when we married. Over the years there have been a number of incarnations and this is just one more. For me, I am trying to focus on being whole, not perfect.

Advice for Partners of Survivors

Patience, disclosure is not the end of the story; it’s just the beginning of a narrative.

Listen deeply, to discover what truly scares you.

Forgiveness for not asking the question, for not speaking the truth.

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