Difficult Childhood Archives

Hi, I am a student who goes to Texas A and M University and I met the most amazing woman of my dreams about 7 months ago. She is everything that I could want in a wife, but she has a past that I have been struggling with ever since we started dating when she told me everything. I know I was meant to love this woman, but I am tired of her past still bothering me. It is not fair to my girlfriend or myself for her past always bothering me.

Her father left her mother once her mother became pregnant with my girlfriend, so she(my girlfriend) didn’t have a father for the first 9 years of her life until her mother married her current father. Also, she was sexually molested by her grandfather constantly from 4 to 6 years of age. Once she became a teenager, she was in 3 different relationships with guys who she gave oral sex to many times because she wanted to feel loved. She never felt truly loved as a child and I know that some of these later actions may have been caused by her difficult childhood without a father. Finally, she got into a fourth relationship with a guy who was not a very good guy at all. My girlfriend later found out that he had had sex with 32 previous women. Anyways, she gave him oral sex as well, but he kept asking her to have sexual intercourse, so she finally gave in and lost her virginity to him. Once they began having sex, she took plan B on two different occasions because their condom had broken. Consequently, she got on a birth control pill. She finally broke up with him, and I finally met her through church. She never felt loved, but always felt used in these relationships. I know all she wanted was to be loved, so that is why she did all these sexual things with these men. They would ask her for oral sex, and she would give it to them because that is what she thought was expected of her, and she didn’t know she was better than that. She told me everything before we became a couple, but I still can’t help but think about her past sexual relationships with other men. She has told me over and over how sorry she is for what she has done, and we both feel like we will become married one day. I truly do love this woman with all of my heart and soul! It just kills me and hurts my heart knowing that several other men have USED my future wife for their sexual pleasure in a way that I cannot stop visualizing in my head. Her future husband should be the only man who shares such intimate sexual experiences with her, no one else. I truly feel like I have forgiven her, but I can’t stop being bothered by three things:
1:She isn’t a virgin (and I am, so I can’t ever be her first)

2:She will always have those many sexual experiences and memories of other men no matter how much we love one another, and I am worried that it will always bother me that she knows several other men besides me, in such a sexual way.(and those other men will always have the memories of her giving them oral sex) I should be the only one who knows her in that way…

3:I feel like I have loved my future wife (whoever she may be) my entire life by remaining chaste for her, while if we do end up getting married, I will feel like she didn’t love me before meeting me since she did not remain chaste for me. I feel that one of the reasons I have such a tough time with her sexual past is the fact that I do not have a sexual past at all. My girlfriend is the only woman that I have loved. She will be all of my first and last sexual experiences, but I will not be any of her first sexual experiences.

My questions are,
1. What can I do to “get over” my girlfriends past with other men to stop my pain?
2. How can I begin to not think about or imagine what my girlfriend did sexually for those other men?
3. Is there something I can do to help me accept that she will always have those many sexual memories and experiences with those other men?
p.s. I truly do know I was meant to marry this women, so breaking up is not an option. I was meant to give her the love she has never had in her life, and I am sorry this was so long but this has been bottled up inside of me for so long, I need some help. I have talked to her about all of this a few times before, but it always hurts her to know I am hurting because of her sexual past. I am tired of bringing it up to her since it hurts her so much. Anything you can tell me is helpful. Thank you so much!

A: You are missing the most important point. Your girlfriend has never, ever had sex as an expression of mutual love. The sexual experiences she had were merely physical. In many ways, she wasn’t really even there at all. In order to tolerate what was happening to her, she had to emotionally check out. With you, she’s found someone who can love her and cherish her and who she can love and cherish in return. Tender, loving sex is as much a new experience for her as it is for you. In that sense, you are both “virgins.” You can show her something she only dreamed about in the past: that she can trust the man she loves to be as concerned about her needs as his own. So – please. Stop making a past unpleasant physical activity a barrier between you. That’s like holding it against her for being forced to do hard physical labor and pretend she liked it. Love each other. Enjoy each other. And make romantic sexual memories of your own — memories you will both want to remember.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

I had a difficult childhood. My mom had six children I am the second to the oldest, which we all lived with my grandparents. My grandfather were physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive. I never could understand why my mom didn’t work harder or do something to take us out of that environment when I was younger. As I got older I kind of understood why. She worked so hard and every time she got paid my grandfather wanted her money which left her stuck in a position of never moving us out of that environment. My mom were sexually abused by my grandfather at the age of 5. She had 4 siblings which he sexually abused all at a young age, even the boys until they were grown. That effected my mom mentally and emotionally.

Coming up as a child my mom were involved with many men, most were a lots older than her. My siblings and I really don’t know who our fathers may be, she told us but none of the fathers were involved in our life.I can’t remember being penetrated by my grandfather unless it have erased itself from my memories but I do remember my private areas being touched. I grew up watching my mom perform sexual acts with men until I were 10 yrs old.

I grew up poor, some days no food, no clean clothes, or no bath. I remember my mom stealing food in order for us to have something to eat. When I was 12 I started stealing food so my younger sibling wouldn’t be hungry. Due to being poor, children at school teased and hit me daily at school. I never wanted to be notice by kids or teachers so they wouldn’t hurt me in any kind way. I never talked or played with anyone, I just stayed to myself at school hiding in some corner. I felt sick every day knowing I had to go to school and felt sick every day knowing I had to go home.

The man who supposed to be the father to me and my oldest sister told us he didn’t want to have anything to do with us so stop calling him because his wife don’t want him to have anything to do with us. That hurted so bad, all I wanted him to do was to take me to McDonalds. Every weekend I waited for him to change his mind about us and show up to take us to McDonalds.

I never had a man to love me. Because of that as an adult, I constantly let this guy for 8 yrs and counting do me wrong and I settle for whatever he puts me through. All I want is for him to love me, I can’t seem to understand why a man can’t love me.

I have two wonderful children whom I love dearly. I try to be happy for them but inside I am miserable. I feel stuck and life is passing me by. I am very much overweigh and feels that no other man will ever want me. I am terrified to go in front of other people because I know they may talk about me. I feel so clueless and dumb to a lots of things and situations. I am well educated but no job. I panics everytime I go on an interview or maybe they don’t chose me because of my weigh. I don’t know what I can do to make my life happier for a change.

What a hard, hard way to grow up. Now that you are a parent, I think you understand why your mother couldn’t leave her parents’ house. She had nowhere to go. From her point of view, some home was better than none. As an abused person herself, she didn’t feel good enough about herself to think that she deserved better. Like you, she wanted to be loved. Like you, she settled for whatever “love” she could get rather than have nothing that looked like love in her life. I suspect she had so many children because babies do give us unconditional love. What a sad, sad life she had.

Fortunately, things are different since the time when you were growing up. For the last 30 years, therapists have been figuring out how to help people heal from an abusive childhood so that they can take charge of their own lives. Your past does not have to determine what you present and future will be.

You can recover and give yourself and your kids a better life. Locate a therapist who specializes in adults who have been abused as children and do the therapeutic work you need to do. Your doctor can help you find one or you can make some phone calls yourself. You deserve to become the emotionally healthy and loving person you are meant to be. Your children deserve to have a mom who takes care of her own emotional business so that she can really be there for them when they need her.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

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Trouble with letting go of my girlfriend’s sexual past

Dysfunctional childhood is affecting my life as an adult