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Taking Charge
When You're Not in Control
Sleeping with
a Stranger
How I Survived
Marriage to a Child Molester
by
Patricia Wiklund, Ph.D.
Introduction
What's a Nice Girl Like You. . .?
It is too
great an audacity already now to draw a picture of the
world, since there are still so many things which we cannot
remotely anticipate.
Einstein
Writing a book about a burning social issue which is also a
burning personal issue gives rise to a variety of motivating
factors. At first, I was just angry and I wanted to get
revenge. I was angry at myself for getting into this
situation, and for feeling so ineffective at getting out of
it. But, the problem with using anger as the motivation for
writing a book is that it doesn't have the staying power
that writing a book needs. Anger is acting out and looking
back, not pushing forward.
Then, I thought by writing this book I would get
understanding for what had happened to me. Even people who
knew me well, or who cared a lot about me, had a difficult
time understanding what I had experienced. Most people don't
know, or can't see, the impact that being married to a child
molester can have on your life. One close friend of mine
could only say, "How difficult and sad it is for your
ex-husband." She barely knew him, and yet her sympathy was
for him, not me. I was deeply hurt that she could not
understand or even see how difficult and sad it was for me.
Over and over again people would say what I said was
happening to me wasn't true, couldn't be happening. They
didn't believe me. I had to have known, I had to be
mistaken, I was wrong, they would say. My story wasn't
true.
It was at this point that I started to think of myself as a
hidden victim. But that was problematical too. I had strong
needs for control, for being in charge. And I had strong
needs for being seen as being in control. Seeing myself, or
letting others see me as a victim, didn't feel good. Seeing
myself as a victim implied I didn't, or couldn't, take
charge of my own life. It defined my life as the woman who
was married to a child molester. His inexorable behavior
defined my life.
My own recovery was another motivating factor. This has been
the most traumatic experience of my life. If I could get the
story out, talk about it, hash it through, as writing a book
would entail, I would be able to work through my hurt and
anger, my sadness and grief. I was a "trained professional,"
but all my training neither prepared me nor helped me deal
with the pain I experienced. I felt so alone, like I was the
only person who had ever gone through this experience.
Writing it down would help diffuse the loneliness and
pain.
Most importantly, I see this as an opportunity to help
others. When I was going through the experience, I found few
supportive resources. Even my own therapist, while
sympathetic, didn't seem sure of how to help me. Most
therapists have not dealt with or are willing to deal with,
this issue. While increasing amounts of information and
studies have been done on victims of sexual abuse and
perpetrators of sexual abuse, there is still little, if
anything, written which addresses the needs and issues of
spouses or partners of child molesters.
When spouses or partners are mentioned in the professional
literature, they are often portrayed as responsible for the
perpetrator's sexual acting out. The spouse is either the
cause of her husband's frustration, or his need to act out,
or colludes with his acting out as a way of avoiding her
sexual responsibilities.
In victim literature the spouse of the molester is usually
accused of colluding with the perpetrator. She is seen as
neither protecting the child from the sexual advances of the
perpetrator, nor aggressive enough in stopping the abusive
behavior.
"Mothers' groups" focus on the relationship between the
mother and the abused child. But seldom, if ever, are there
groups which focus on the woman as the spouse of the
molester, and how she has been victimized by the
consequences of her partner's abusive behavior. There is no
place, and no sympathy, in the child abuse field for us.
In the end, I suppose, my motivation for writing this book
was probably a combination of all of the above.
There are still days when I get so angry, or when I feel so
sad about the experience, that my desire for revenge, albeit
unattractive, wells to the surface. On those days, I just
want him to hurt as much as he has hurt other people. There
is still a part of me that wants other people to understand
and appreciate the hurt and anger I went through. I want to
provide some solace to other women who are living through
this. They are not alone. There is someone else who has
survived what they have experienced. There is someone else
who understands. We are not alone.
In the end, maybe it was none of these "motivating factors"
that pushed me. This was a story that demanded to be
written. I didn't want to do it. I put my notes away for
months on end and then would pull them out, flip through
them, look at what I had written, write some more, and tuck
away the file one more time. To say that I was, and am,
ambivalent is an understatement. In the end, I think the
book probably wrote itself, not just from my story but from
the stories I have heard from other women in therapy groups,
awareness groups, conferences for victims of sexual abuse,
and sometimes, just in chance meetings. Early on, in my own
experience, when the pain and the anguish was still very new
and I was still being very secretive, I happened to meet by
chance another "hidden victim."
I stopped one day for lunch at a deli in my neighborhood.
With the combination of a busy lunch time crowd and
beautiful weather, I considered myself fortunate to find the
last available table on the patio. I was just starting to
eat my sandwich when a woman stopped and asked if she could
share my table. Within moments, we were talking about the
beautiful day, how nice it was to be outside, and how we
both ended up at the same deli. I am not sure how the
conversation shifted to where else we had been that day, but
within moments we were talking about how we had both been to
see our divorce lawyers that morning and how divorce was not
"Plan A" when we were designing our lives.
As we talked about our marriages and the reasons we were
leaving, we were both astounded to discover that both of our
husbands had been sexually involved with children. The dam
broke and we talked as if we had been lifelong best friends.
As I finished lunch and was walking away from the table, I
realized I never even asked her name, nor had I volunteered
mine. But, her name wasn't important to me; my name wasn't
important to her. What was important to both of us was that
we had found someone else who was the spouse of a child
molester. Someone who was uniquely qualified to understand
our pain. Somehow it made all the difference, just knowing
that I was not the only one. Someone else was not only going
through the same situation, but understood what I was going
through. Names didn't matter, but the shared experience made
such an impact on me.
Stories of sexual molestation, unfortunately, are found in
every neighborhood. The variety of statistics are alarming:
approximately 20% of American families experience child
sexual abuse. Of the 2 million cases of child abuse each
year, about 300,000 are thought to involve sexual abuse,
with the child in the most danger in his or her own home.
One-third of the run a ways in the United states come from
families where sexual abuse has occurred. Two to four
million cases of wife battering occur annually, and in 40%
of the cases, child abuse also occurs. These are not just
statistics and headlines, but stories of lives in quiet
desperation.
Since the day of the chance meeting in the deli, I have
talked to scores of women who have been the spouse or
partner of a child molester. Everyone's story is its own
version of hell. It is for these women that my story could
no longer stay hidden. This book is for us.
For additional information,
you may complete an information
form or contact
Dr. Pat Wiklund directly at:
P.O. Box 391416
Mountain View, CA 94039
(650) 938-8562
(650) 938-0880 fax
Email: Pat@patwiklund.com
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