The young couple were planning to marry but they were going through a rough patch.  I wasn’t the only one in our church who noticed the change in body language.  My wife commented on it too.  On Sunday after church I asked the bloke about it.  Frank admitted things were not going well.  A week later at church I took them both aside and said, “You guys have been making some tentative wedding plans, how about we begin some pre-marriage counselling.”  After some hesitation they both agreed so we set a date for our first meeting.

It’s not often that my first pre-marriage counselling session with a young couple is also the last.

That happened on another occasion when it was the young man who had issues.  He had been brought up, tied rather too tightly to his mother’s apron strings.  I spent the first evening – as I always do – helping them to explore love expectations.  I could see that he struggled with the subject.  The next morning he phoned to say he had broken off his engagement.  He felt that their relationship did not have a secure loving foundation and that, in fact, he had come to question whether he really loved his fiancée at all.

In the present instance it was the young lady who had the issues.  She appeared rather loathe to talk about love.  More than that, it was difficult to even get her to open up about herself at all; nor could she think why their relationship had deteriorated to the point where there were some obvious problems.

After about twenty minutes without any real progress I quietly asked her, “Carol, were you abused as a child?”  I had followed a hunch but I wasn’t quite prepared for the emotional Pandora’s Box that my question opened up.  Neither was the young man.  Frank sat there stunned.  He had not the slightest inkling that his beloved had been traumatised by her own father from about age nine onward.

That evening we made some plans to put the wedding on hold and for Carol to get some professional counselling.  Sadly, the relationship ended soon afterwards.

I mention this for two reasons.  First because childhood sexual abuse is such a common problem.  One report I read states that 20% of women and 5 – 10% of men report being sexually abused as children.  That’s sobering.  It means that on average, one in every five women I meet have been sexually abused in childhood... and a little less than half as many men.  Those horrendous figures ought to move us to love and compassion for abuse victims and a determination not to cover these things over.

Secondly, I mention this because it’s tempting to think that abuse victims will get over it.  Not so.  We’re learning more and more that childhood sexual abuse is associated with a wide range of trauma including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  The serious mental health issues involved seriously impacted the relationship of Frank and Carol – which, by the way, are not their real names.

It’s not too hard to figure out how this works.  Safety and security are vitally important issues for young children.  When that safety and security are undermined by an abusive family member the stage is set for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as other mental health issues.

But there’s another factor that comes into the picture.  It’s called attachment.  There is evidence that when there is a strong emotional attachment to its parents then a child copes better with abuse.  It seems to me that this matter of attachment played a role in the lives of my young couple.  I suspect that for Carol, Frank was a knight in shining armour to whom she (in some ways) fled for security from her abusive past.  The difficulty was that Frank had trouble living up to expectations.  Every time he failed to be the perfect refuge for Carol it added another dent in the armour of her protection.

I did point out to Carol that she must make sure not to expect from Frank things she should only expect from God.  God is our refuge and strength – He’s even a refuge from our Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I don’t think that victims of childhood sexual abuse ever really get over it but I have often seen that when such victims put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ it does enable them to handle the special challenges that they face.

John W Westendorp