Relationships where one or both partners have lived through unwanted or abusive sexual experiences can, like all relationships, be both challenging and rewarding. This page explores core aspects of healthy relationships, some common challenges couples can face, along with practical ways to work through them together.
- Open and clear communication
- Building and rebuilding trust
- Honesty and transparency (not keeping secrets)
- Prioritizing safety
- Understanding and managing emotions
- Handling difficulties and conflict
- Intimacy and sexual connection
- Accessing support
- Finding hope, strengthening the positive, and building resilience
Prioritize your well-being: In reading this article, we encourage you to take it at your own pace and be kind to yourself as you read. The StrongAfter Strength Toolkit and companion resources are here to support you along the way.
Open and Clear Communication
Communication is a core part of any relationship. It’s how we connect, how we share what we’re thinking and feeling, and how we learn what matters to the people we care about.
- Many survivors struggle to talk about what’s going on for them.
- Emotional closeness grows through sharing personal thoughts and feelings, which can be difficult or anxiety-provoking for survivors.
- You may have grown up being discouraged from talking about your inner world, instead taught to be independent, stoic, and to handle things on your own.
- You may not naturally be a big talker (and that’s okay!)
- You may have never told anyone about what happened to you, and even thinking about it might feel overwhelming.
- You may worry about upsetting a loved one or think talking about difficulties will make things worse.
- Talking about practical, day-to-day things might feel easier than discussing emotions or personal struggles.
- You may understandably want to forget the past and focus on enjoying the relationship in the present.
Inevitably, one topic that survivors of abuse struggle to talk with their partner and anyone about is the experience of abuse. Barriers to disclosure are common, and many men feel unsure about what to say, and meanwhile, loved ones may feel unsure how to respond.
For more information, see our companion article: Disclosure: Deciding If, When, and How to Tell.
Keep Communicating and Connecting
Whether someone has disclosed abuse or not, clear, caring communication helps every relationship. Both partners should feel listened to, understood, and supported.
- Set aside time for individual and relationship check-ins.
- Create a safe, nonjudgmental space to express yourselves.
- Talk and listen during everyday moments, like over dinner, on a walk, or while doing things together.
- Practice active listening: understand first, acknowledge feelings, and resist jumping straight to “fixing it.”
- Notice tone and body language, not just words.
- Let each other know you’re present, and be honest when you’re tired or need a pause.
- Use texts or apps to stay connected throughout the day and share small moments.
- Communicate with care, kindness, empathy, and compassion
When we talk about the importance of clear and open communication, we don’t mean to suggest it’s always easy. There are times when we feel short, struggle to find the right words, or things come out wrong. What helps is keeping the lines of communication open, even through those imperfect moments.
Trust and Becoming Trustworthy
Trust is another core building block of relationships. Ideally, we learn about trust as we grow up: how it feels, how it keeps us safe, and how it helps us build healthy connections. Over time, we learn who is trustworthy and who isn’t.
For survivors of unwanted or abusive sexual experiences, trust can feel both deeply important, and also incredibly challenging.
- Abuse involves a profound betrayal of trust.
- That betrayal happens in a relationship context.
- When someone you trusted harms you, it can make you question whether others—no matter how trustworthy they seem—might hurt you too.
- Survivors may struggle to trust anyone, even loved ones, and may feel suspicious when someone says, “You can trust me.”
- Not trusting makes it hard to relax and can fuel hypervigilance and hyperarousal.
- While distrust can feel protective, it can also be isolating and make it harder to build relationships.
- Loved ones may feel hurt or rejected when their efforts to connect are met with skepticism, withdrawal, or distrust.
If any of this resonates, it’s important to know that there is nothing “wrong” with you. Difficulty trusting is a common and understandable response to betrayal, and not a personal failing.
Building Trust
While building trust after abuse and betrayal can be challenging, it’s also absolutely possible. Many men speak about:
- Learning over time that trust doesn’t have to be all or nothing, and that different people can be trusted with different information
- Seeing trust as something within their control, something they can choose to extend or pull back as needed.
- Making an intentional choice to extend trust because it allows them to live a more connected life.
- Knowing firsthand how painful betrayal can be, and being deeply committed to honoring trust and showing up as trustworthy themselves.
- Being met with understandable caution or distrust at first, and then slowly building trust over time
- Learning how deeply betrayal can shape someone’s trust in others and confidence in their own judgement
- Boundaries: You respect my boundaries, and I respect yours.
- Reliability: You do what you say you’ll do.
- Accountability: You own mistakes, apologize, and make things right.
- Vault: You don’t share information or stories that aren’t yours to share.
- Integrity: You choose what’s right over what’s easy or comfortable.
- Nonjudgment: We can ask for what we need without fear of shame.
- Generosity: You offer the most generous possible interpretation of my words, actions, and intentions.
(Brown, 2021)
Together, these elements highlight the central role of trust in developing supportive relationships.
Honesty and Transparency, Not Keeping Secrets
Honest, transparent communication helps people get to know one another and develop understanding and appreciation for each other’s interests, needs, and preferences (and to build trust). Honest and transparent communication helps to build trusting, supportive relationships.
- Abuse is carried out and maintained through secrecy.
- Those who perpetrate abuse manipulate and groom children and adults to keep the secret.
- Those who perpetrate abuse often shift the responsibility for secrecy onto the survivor, using fear, shame, or manipulation. This can leave survivors with a long-lasting sense of secretiveness or suspicion that others aren’t being honest.
- Some survivors develop a habit of keeping personal information close because they fear it will be used against them or manipulated.
- Others may hold back because they worry they’ll be judged, unsupported, or rejected if someone finds out what happened.
- Many survivors stay quiet because they don’t want to upset or burden their partner.
Supporting Honesty Through Care and Kindness
When secrecy has been enforced through abuse, being open later in life can feel risky rather than relieving.
- Honesty and transparency, expressed with care and kindness, can help counter the legacy of manipulation and secrecy left by abuse.
- A key challenge is creating a space where both partners feel safe; where being honest means you’ll be listened to with respect.
- In relationships where one or both partners have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences, honesty doesn’t have to mean sharing every detail of the abuse or every distressing thought. Some things are best discussed with a trained professional.
- But honest conversation about what’s happening in the present—shared gently and respectfully—can build connection, strengthen trust, and support a healthier relationship.
Prioritizing Safety
When honesty is met with care and kindness, it lays the groundwork for something essential: safety. A sense of physical and emotional safety helps us relax, speak freely, build trust, and work together through challenges.
Creating a safe, supportive, and caring relationship is in both partners’ best interests. A challenge, though, is that people who perpetrate abuse often appear safe and caring. Recognizing this helps explain why safety can feel complicated for survivors.
Awareness of Triggers
Prioritizing safety includes talking with your partner about what helps them feel safe, both physically and emotionally. Many men who have experienced abuse are aware of certain triggers: people, places, or situations that make them feel unsafe (see our article and podcast Dealing with Flashbacks & Nightmares).
- What reactions might show up when someone feels unsafe?
- What grounding techniques or supports help them get back on track? The StrongAfter Strength Toolkit can be helpful here.
A Preoccupation with Safety
After abuse, it’s understandable that some men become highly focused on safety, especially when it comes to loved ones. Hypervigilance—constantly scanning for danger or feeling suspicious of certain people or places—is a common response.
A man may feel anxious when children aren’t home or when they want to go to sleepovers, camps, or other events, especially if these settings resemble places where he was harmed. This makes sense; he knows firsthand what it’s like to be unsafe.
Helping Others Feel Safe
Building a safe relationship also means speaking and acting in ways that help your partner feel supported. Checking in about what helps them feel safe is key. It’s also important to recognize that behaving unpredictably or expressing anger aggressively can leave others feeling not only worried, but also unsafe around us.
It may be helpful to check out Dealing with Anger & Thoughts of Revenge.
Confronting Suicidal Thoughts
For some men, suicidal thoughts are part of their lived reality after abuse and can make them feel deeply unsafe. Taking these thoughts seriously—and seeking help, including contacting emergency services when needed—is an essential part of safety.
For more on this, check out our article and podcast Dealing with Suicidal Thoughts, and find support options at More to Explore.
Access Support
If you or your partner is feeling unsafe or concerned about safety, we encourage you to reach out for professional support. You definitely don’t have to navigate this alone.
Understanding and Managing Emotions
Developing emotional awareness and learning how to regulate our responses are core life skills and essential to healthy relationships. When we have skills to calm our nervous system and manage strong feelings, we’re better able to handle distress and stress when they inevitably show up.
- Cultural expectations: Many men grow up learning to contain or suppress emotions, especially vulnerability, fear, pain, and distress.
- Intensity of emotions: Feelings connected to abuse can be powerful and overwhelming, stretching anyone’s capacity to cope.
- Partner responses: Loved ones may struggle to know how to respond, leaving both partners feeling overwhelmed, helpless, and hopeless.
- Self-judgment: When emotions feel unmanageable, people may judge themselves harshly, doubt their abilities, and question their capacity to handle personal or relationship challenges.
Understanding “Fight, Flight, and Freeze”
In seeking to contain and manage these responses, it’s useful for couples to be aware of fight-flight-freeze responses to trauma and how these can manifest at stressful times:
Arguing, defending, or verbally attacking as if survival depends on it
Avoiding conversations, withdrawing, or finding reasons to step away
Shutting down, going silent, or looking “stuck,” like a deer in headlights
Building Capacity and Staying Emotionally Engaged
Everyone—survivors and partners alike—benefits from building skills that help ground them and manage intense emotions, like those that come up as part of a “fight, flight, or freeze” response.
- Understand each other’s triggers
- Know what supports are useful when distress rises (check out the StrongAfter Strength Toolkit)
- Acknowledge and respect the survivor’s own strengths and coping skills
Learning about emotions isn’t only about control. It’s also about expanding our emotional vocabulary, staying connected to ourselves and each other, and living a richer, more emotionally engaged life.
Couples can also strengthen their bond by intentionally creating a “bank” of positive emotional experiences to draw from during hard times.
Because emotional well-being is central to both personal and relational health, we encourage you to explore our companion article: Understanding and Managing Emotions.
Managing Difficulties and Conflict
All couples experience challenges, and every relationship benefits from building skills to manage conflict.
We all grow up in different households and communities, which means we learn different ways of expressing ourselves and handling stress. Some people prefer to talk things through right away (“external processors”), while others need time to reflect before speaking (“internal processors”).
Resolving difficulties in relationships
Conflict with a partner is not like arguing with a stranger who you’ll never have to see again. In a relationship, it’s about trying to resolve something together in a way that leaves both people feeling heard, respected, and supported.
For survivors of abuse and their loved ones, conflict—especially with someone you care about—can be intensely stressful. It may trigger “fight, flight, or freeze” responses, or bring up feelings and memories tied to past harm. It can stir fears of abandonment, heighten anxiety, fuel negative self-talk, or activate unhelpful thinking patterns like catastrophizing or all-or-nothing thinking (see Unhelpful Patterns of Thinking & Basic Problem-Solving).
- Physically calm your body—breathe, ground yourself, and use the tools in our Strength Toolkit.
- Commit to listening and understanding your partner’s perspective.
- Be aware of your own biases, limitations, and possible trauma responses.
- Agree on the purpose of the conversation and your shared goal of finding a positive outcome.
- Stay focused on the issue—not the person—and keep language and tone respectful.
- Avoid adding pressure. Notice signs of overwhelm or trauma activation. If things escalate, take a break and return later.
- Recognize that holding onto resentment and agitation harms both the relationship and your own mental and physical well-being.
A valuable skill in any relationship is learning how to disagree in a way that still feels safe and constructive.
- Soften the start of the conversation
- Name, inform, but don’t blame
- Use “I” statements instead of “You” (“I feel…” vs. “You did…”)
- Describe what’s happening without judging
- Be polite and show appreciation
- Don’t store things up
(Gottman Institute: Six Tips for the Six Skills of Managing Conflict)
https://www.gottman.com/blog/manage-conflict-the-six-skills/
If you’re struggling with conflict or communication in your relationship, we also encourage you to check out the online booklet Renovate Your Relationship
Intimacy and Sexual Intimacy
Healthy intimacy—both inside and outside of couple relationships—supports our overall well-being. When people hear the word intimacy, they often think only of sex. But sexual intimacy is just one part of a broader emotional and relational landscape.
- Intimate moments
- Emotional intimacy
- Physical intimacy
These forms of closeness can bring joy to our lives and sustain us during difficult times.
A challenge for some heterosexual couples is that women often have close friends with whom they share emotional intimacy, while many men do not. For some men, the intimate partner relationship becomes the only place where they express or experience intimacy. This can unintentionally increase pressure on the female partner and the relationship as a whole.
Sexual Intimacy
Sexual intimacy can bring great joy and pleasure in relationships, and be experienced as an ultimate expression of deep love and connection.
Having been through an unwanted or abusive sexual experience does not automatically mean that intimacy or sex will be difficult. Many couples in which one or both partners are survivors build fulfilling, intimate, and sexually connected relationships.
- Being triggered by physical closeness or touch
- Difficulty feeling emotionally connected during intimacy (especially if they experienced emotional grooming)
- Confusion or mixed feelings during sexual intimacy
- Discomfort with certain sexual activities, positions, or types of touch
- Memories or trauma responses emerging during sex (freezing, flashbacks, intense emotions)
- Pressure from stereotypes that men should always want sex or always “perform”
- Feeling comfortable with the physical act of sex but struggling with closeness or emotion
- Seeking validation, comfort, or reassurance through sex
- Challenges relaxing, becoming aroused, feeling vulnerable, or exposed
- Distress, shame, or guilt about sexual desire, pleasure, or responses
All couples—whether or not they have a history of sexual abuse—can face challenges around intimacy and sexual intimacy. With support, care, and communication, these challenges can be navigated and improved.
We encourage you to explore our article and podcast, Developing Intimacy.
Accessing Support
We all need support at different points in our lives. Reading this article or others like it may be a step in navigating current challenges. You may also benefit from accessing support from a qualified professional.
Everyone deserves support
In building a strong, caring relationship, it’s important that both partners feel supported, both within the relationship and outside of it. Each person is more than the label of “survivor” or “supporter.”
We each have our own histories, stresses, preferences, hopes, and challenges. And at times, every one of us can face difficulties that are easier to navigate with support.
Gender-responsive services
Not all personal or relationship challenges are rooted in unwanted or abusive sexual experiences. Gender expectations also shape how many men experience distress and seek help.
- Feel pressure to solve problems on their own
- Worry about how other men will judge them for struggling
- Are less likely to see a doctor or access health and mental health services
- Have lower mental health literacy and may mask difficulties
- Consume alcohol, tobacco, and drugs at higher rates
- Avoid therapy or hesitate to disclose trauma
Supporting survivors often involves identifying which challenges stem from abuse and which come from other life pressures, including those shaped by gender. After reading this page, you might consider taking a small step, such as researching support options or scheduling a general check-up with a local doctor. Some resources are available on our More to Explore page.
Partners as active supporters and advocates
Partners can sometimes feel exhausted by a loved one’s reluctance to seek help, discouraged by negative self-talk, or overwhelmed by behaviors that seem self-destructive. Many feel frustrated when they see how abuse has affected their relationship. As one partner said:
- Gently encouraging and supporting the survivor to access help
- Being honest about concerns, always with kindness
- Working together as a team to acknowledge strengths, challenges, and next steps
- Researching and gathering information to help plan a path forward
- Connecting with a therapist, doctor, or other health professional individually or together
- Modeling healthy help-seeking, because we all need support sometimes
Support for Partners and Loved Ones
Being there for someone who has experienced trauma and abuse can create ripple effects in your own life. It’s important that partners also prioritize their well-being, stay connected, maintain daily routines, engage in activities that relax and recharge them, and access the support they deserve.
Perhaps you are reminded of your own experiences
If you’ve experienced trauma or abuse, hearing about your partner’s experience may be triggering or distressing. While your lived experience may help you empathize in unique ways, it is equally important that you receive appropriate support.
Hope, Building on the Positives, and Enhancing Resilience
As we’ve noted throughout this article, relationships can be powerful sources of encouragement, connection, and healing. While abuse can bring significant challenges, it’s important not to lose sight of individual and relational resilience, hope, and recovery.
Many people who’ve had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences have built healthy, emotionally connected, fulfilling relationships and meaningful lives.
Realistic hope
When facing challenges, it helps to stay realistic, positive, and hopeful. Being honest about what’s hard reminds us that meaningful change takes focus, determination, and perseverance.
Hope and commitment—combined with honesty delivered with empathy and compassion—can create real change and sustain you during even the hardest times.
Being realistic also means acknowledging that survivors of abuse can overcome challenges and contribute in powerful, positive ways as partners, parents, friends, and community members.
Traumatic Growth and Vicarious Resilience
In recent years, research has shown that after traumatic experiences, personal and relational growth can emerge.
- Greater appreciation for life
- Closer, stronger, and more intimate relationships
- Increased personal resilience and inner strength
- More empathy, compassion, and altruism
- Greater awareness and use of personal strengths
- Re-evaluating life priorities and possibilities
- Creative or expressive growth
(Tedeschi, Growth After Trauma, 2020)
Recognizing growth does not mean the trauma was a good thing. Rather, it acknowledges the strength survivors bring to their lives and relationships. As Toby, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, shares (quoted in Lewis, Kiemle, Lowe, & Balfour, 2021, International Journal of Men’s Social and Community Health):
People who live alongside and support survivors of abuse and trauma often describe not only the challenges they face, but also experiencing vicarious resilience, which is growth that emerges through witnessing another’s strength.
- A deeper understanding of the world, suffering, and humanity’s capacity to overcome adversity
- A greater sense of meaning
- Increased appreciation for relationships
- Greater compassion
- Expanded understanding of different cultures
- A stronger sense of fulfillment, purpose, or joy
(Barrington & Shakespeare-Finch, 2013; Gibbons, Murphy, & Joseph, 2011; Splevins, Cohen, Joseph, Murray, & Bowley, 2010, as cited in When Compassion Hurts: An Introduction to Vicarious Trauma and Resilience, Dr. Angela Dixon, 2019)
Final Thoughts
- What do you value and appreciate most about your relationship?
- What challenges are you currently facing?
- What has helped you overcome difficulties in the past?
- What sustains you, both individually and as a couple?
- If certain difficulties eased or disappeared, what would you want more of in your relationship, and how can you start moving toward that now?
- What daily activities support your overall well-being? Where might you find more information or support?
A healthy relationship isn’t about never facing challenges; it’s about building a solid foundation and learning how to navigate those challenges and grow together.
Although unwanted or abusive sexual experiences can have a profound impact on one’s relationships, with support and compassion, it’s possible to recover and build supportive, caring, and resilient relationships.
Disclaimer: The information on this page is general in nature and is not a substitute for professional advice. We encourage you to prioritize your safety and well-being and to consider seeking support from a qualified healthcare professional if needed.
