I am the ex-spouse of an incest survivor and, through our marriage, I too became a victim. I am a male, I'm 53 years old. I have four kids and they live with me. Two are still teenagers and two are adults now, but they are going to school and working. I have a lot to say about how incest impacted my marriage and my children. Okay, I will try to put some of my history into something that makes sense.

My ex-wife and I were married for 23 years, and we have 4 children (all boys). In the beginning, things were a little bit shaky. We decided to get help and went into counseling together. It wasn't long before we started dealing with the incest.

Sue (not her real name) told me about her father and what he had done to her. I started to learn everything I could about incest and survivors of incest. I took a very proactive position, which much later hurt all of us.

I started doing her work, i.e., I became as angry at her Dad, if not more so, then she. I wanted (us) to put this behind us and for her to start a healing process. As I look back at it, she couldn't do what the counselors (we went to a few different ones) suggested, which was to confront both her Mom and her Dad, and emotionally "blow them away" -- until he would admit it was all his fault -- and her mother would admit that it was going on -- and that she did nothing about it while it was happening -- and that her husband was responsible.

For weeks afterwards, nothing was said or done about it, except for one time her Dad said, "I know in my heart it wasn't all my fault." At some point, they began going to church and felt "cleansed".

We stopped seeing them as much as before, but when we did get together, it was as if nothing had ever happened. This used to make us mad, but Sue still wanted a relationship with them. So this went on for a few years like that.

Meanwhile, I started going to school and found out a whole lot more about incest. It was therapeutic for me, and I would share what I learned with Sue.

Things were okay, but there still was something missing in our relationship. We tried counseling again, only this time it was with a Christian counselor. He seemed to be doing really good with Sue and with me. He was doing couples counseling with both of us and Individual counseling with her.

At some point, she began to drink. At first, it was just a glass or two of wine, nothing real bad. But then I would come home and find her drunk. This went on for quite awhile. In the meantime, the counselor moved family and all out of town. I didn't know why until after he was gone. He was having sex with her!

You know, I didn't blame her, I blamed him -- because he earned her trust and then violated it. So she became a victim again.

Things never were right. She divorced me and moved to another state and left the kids the house... everything. She married within one month after our divorce.

I don't know if telling you all this helps, but it certainly does put a prospective on things. I will continue this another time if you want me to. Just tell me when you have enough time. There is more to the story.

Thanks again,

Marv