How to support a partner who has been sexually abused
Mint Lounge | Irrespective of how long back it may have occurred, sexual abuse impacts intimate relationships. Here’s how partners can support survivors.
When 32-year-old Samira walked into a therapist’s office for the first time, she was already divorced. Although she felt emotionally invested in a couple of men she had started dating after her separation, every sexual interaction left her frustrated. It was like being back in bed with her ‘detached’ husband.
It took her therapist only a couple of sessions to discover that Samira had been sexually assaulted as a child, a memory she had erased as an adult. Her body, however, had carried the trauma for years, and this had impacted her intimate relationships, including her marriage.
“It wasn’t a happy marriage to start with, but maybe my history of abuse made things worse,” Samira says, adding “I didn’t visit a therapist earlier as it was a taboo in my husband’s house. And, like most women in India, I too was conditioned to keep my sexual trauma under wraps.”
Therapists reveal that women who have experienced sexual abuse in any form, as a child or an adult, often find the corresponding trauma to be all-pervasive.
