First of all, I want to make it clear that I am still and even more attracted to him because he trusted me and shared his trauma with me.
My boyfriend was having a severe nightmare, insanely shaking and crying in sleep. I woke him up to calm him down. said he gets a nightmare sometimes. Then he told me he was assaulted by a man 6 years ago and he went to therapy for 3 years. He was drunk and his drinks were spiked.
I had been assaulted/forced into unwanted action before too, but it wasn’t a big trauma for me. But I think as a straight man being sexually assaulted by another man would be a different experience.
If there is any male on male rape survivors, it would be really appreciated if you share the ways your girlfriend/wife helped you.
I would encourage him to get back into therapy
I don’t really have any advice and have never experienced anything similar, but I want to say thank you for treating him like a human and not acting like he’s somehow less of a man, which might be the biggest issue for him to overcome mentally
Yeah, this OP. He’s lucky to have you. Definitely support him to getting back into counseling.
Yes, I’ve never told anyone I know in real life. Your best bet is to ask him how he wants to be supported and then follow through. No one here is going to give you a better answer than he will.
Oh I’m so sorry. And I agree with your advice.
The Dublin rape crisis centre reports that 1 in 6 contacts to it are from men. You are not alone.
All of us need different support.
He may need regular counselling/therapy, but either way, there’s not going to be a blanket answer.
If he trusts you enough to talk about it, ask him if you can help in any way.
Tell him he isn’t what happened to him, and that you love him. Shower him with praise and love for his vulnerability, every time you do, you will be helping him heal. Therapy is nothing compared to a woman standing by you and loving you despite being made less than by someone. It is absolutely different for men. We are supposed to be strong, powerful protectors. When someone does that to you as a man, it’s complex. It can feel physically good which is really defeating despite not actually wanting any of it.
Your job is to create the space where he can heal, using love. Just make that space, and mirror his potential and freedom despite what happened, not reinforcing what was done to him through rejection or abandonment.
Women like you give me hope, I have dealt with some less than kind lovers in my past, I wish they cared in the way you are right now. I don’t speak for all male survivors, but thank you.
– Childhood sexual assault survivor
Treat him like a human, not a victim.
This is so important.
Survivor here.
It’s been 20 years since it happened for me (I was 8)
I still have nightmares.
The biggest thing that helps is just having that safe place/person when I wake up or I get a random flash back by something mundane
You being there and comforting him when things pop up is a huge help. Just continue being the safe place for him
Yes. I was raped and tortured multiple times by a man, until recently I couldn’t even acknowledge that it had ever happened. My wife of six years knew I was tortured, hard to hide it with all my scars, but she didn’t definitively know I had been raped.
Your boyfriend is a stronger man than me. I repressed the memories for years and didn’t let anyone help me. I’m telling you this because you need to know just how hard it is to be open about this to someone you love and care about, if you haven’t already then you need to tell him how strong he is and has been for so long.
For me personally, I need to be weak. When it gets too much for me and I start showing signs of PTSD, then I need to be able to let go and be a pathetic mess and have my wife hold me, love me, and remind me that she loves me unconditionally. I didn’t know this was what I needed at the time, it happened because she was desperate to support me like you are with your boyfriend. I resisted and resisted, but she kept telling me that she was there for me and would help me in any way she could, whenever I needed her.
Eventually something just broke inside me and I let it out, I was able to be vulnerable and let it all spill out the way I needed to. She listened to me, saw what I was feeling and gave me the love and support I needed. When he’s ready to let it out you need to do the same, until he is, just keep reminding him that you love him and that you think more of him for telling you the truth. Tell him you want to be his support, that you want to help him feel better, however that may be. Whenever you see he’s getting upset about it, just gently remind him that you’re here if he wants to let it out.
DM if you want to talk more.
God damn. I hope I have a wife like yours someday. Your kind of disclosure feels impossible to me. It feels like my only option is to armor up, and when I break, hope to god I do so in private.
The best thing my wife ever did when I told her was her not treating me any different afterwards.
Maybe it’s different with your boyfriend, but for me even sympathy feels awful.
Don’t be my wife, she knows that I was assaulted as a child, something happened recently, I was touched by a woman, I told her & she slapped me. I felt helpless & little like I was when those things happened.