Spousal Support

I was exchanging emails earlier this week with someone around the issue of trying to support a spouse who is a survivor. Obviously, being the survivor in my marriage, I’m not the expert on how to handle this, but I was able to offer some insight into typical male survivor behavior and mindsets that I hope will prove useful.

It did get me to thinking a couple of things, though. One, where are the good web resources for spouses or significant others of abuse survivors? Do you guys know of any worth sharing?

Secondly, as survivors, what are some of the things you wish your significant other knew about? What are the most important things they need to know to help you? What mistakes should they avoid?

Thirdly, for those of you who may have survivors as significant others, what are your thoughts? What do you think are the most important things that you know? What mistakes have you made?

Any and all input is appreciated!

Tags: childabuse, spouse, survivors

Similar Posts

  • New links

    Don’t know if anyone’s noticed that I added a couple of survivor blogs to the blogroll, End of Abuse and The last one. As always, if you know of any blogs by abuse depression or disability survivors, please pass them on!

  • Just showing up

    There’s a saying, that I know from somewhere, but I don’t remember where, that goes something along the lines of “Half of life is just showing up”. Last night was a pretty good example of why this is true, and why it’s important. The woman who acts as the library liaison with our Friends of…

  • |

    Getting it Done

    One of the things I, and other survivors, struggle with is change. Change creates stress, and makes us uncomfortable, and if there’s anything survivors crave, it’s the comfort of what we know. New things tend to throw us, creating uncertainty and we have learn since early ages to try and keep things as certain as…

  • Survivors or Addicts?

    Recently, I had an email exchange with another survivor who had been spending some time in online forums for survivors, and running into a bit of a roadblock. Unfortunately, it was a roadblock I’ve seen in some online forums before, and is one I’ve the reasons I don’t spend that much time there any more….

  • Full body smile

    My wife has a description of what we call my neice’s “full body smile”, and she’s right. It’s something that far too many adults don’t know how to do anymore. We’ve really lost the ability to simply feel the unbridled joy of a particular moment. We tend to think of people who do it as…

2 Comments

  1. Wow, Mike, this is cool! You’ve always got such thought-provoking posts. Shucks, I know there is a great book written for support/significant others by Laura Davis and/or Ellen Bass, of “Courage to Heal” fame, but I can’t remember the title of it. It’s good. As far as Internet support, I have a feeling that’s a pretty wide-open niche.

  2. As a spouse this is the website I go to for help. I feel comfortable. I don’t know where to go on the internet and I don’t want to get lost on the way. Its hard to ask for help.

    Most important thing I know is that I know. I do not want to make any mistakes. That is why I am here I guess.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)