Secondary Survivors
CW: rape, violence
This is an article about secondary survivors.
When I found out about a secret my wife had kept from me for more than 10 years, a firestorm of emotion ripped through my mind. Over the days and weeks that followed what became clear to me was that the rape my wife had endured was a secret she had intended to take to her grave, a secret she had compartmentalised so well and buried so deep that it was impossible to have guessed anything was wrong or that anything required “processing”. But it was clear that the whole ugly mess had been thrown into a dark corner of her memory, and processing wasn’t high on her list of priorities.
And that sort of fucked with my head, because it left me thinking that if it wasn’t rape, then perhaps she had actually cheated on me?
That’s when I learnt about what it means to be a secondary survivor, and understandably there is much less online material and literature for the partners of the primary survivors. Yet the ripple effects of this sexual assault created a trauma in my mind, and eventually my body, which appeared to surpass any effects that were evident in my wife. I still have panic attacks, I fear for my wife’s safety, I worry daily that some sick psychopath hiding in plain sight would try to rape her again. Even in moments of joy a shadow hangs over me.
Things got tricky when I asked my questions. It was clearly traumatic for my wife to recall a lot of the information she had suppressed, yet I felt it was even more traumatic for myself not knowing the truth.
I suspect that we only survived that intense period of my questioning her because we love each other so much. For the record, for anyone who is ever in the position I was in it is advisable to be patient for as long as you are able to withstand it.
The rapist was someone I had known and someone I had trusted. He had somehow deluded himself into thinking my girlfriend of four years actually loved him and not me, despite ample evidence to the contrary. He is also someone that still works at the same company as my wife, but thankfully the company is large enough that they have not crossed paths since that incident.
As a secondary survivor, there are some things I learnt and perhaps some things that all secondary survivors need to know.
The first one is, you’re going to feel cheated. Not cheated in the sense that your partner cheated on you but cheated of the opportunity to protect your loved one. You will have (surging out of a fight response) a raw and primal rage to be directed at the scumbag that has hurt your partner. Only that scumbag is nowhere to be found and the energy inside you has the potential to explode and cause damage to yourself and your loved ones if it is triggered by something totally unrelated to what happened in the past. Don’t let it. Talk to friends and counsellors you trust and dispel that energy. (Please note: every situation is different and if your loved ones are faced with a real and immediate danger, take action). Let the ripple effects stop with you. Be the strong dam that stops the ripple effects going further downstream, especially if you have children.
Remember that living well is the best revenge. Confronting the rapist without your partner’s knowledge is not going to end well for you or your loved ones, especially if the rapist is not bothering your partner anymore and is unlikely to bother her in the future. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. In all likelihood, you will fantasise about taking all sorts of violent and non-violent action against this person, but as with other aspects of supporting the victim it is imperative that legal action is only taken when the victim consents to such a course of action.
For the record, I have wanted to do everything from torturing the perpetrator slowly, gunning him down, burying an ice pick in his back, and of course a cricket bat to the head seems to be a common favorite fantasy. I’ve wanted to post his photo online and advertise his rapist status, call the police, troll him on social media, and make trouble for him. But in the end, I’ve got too much to lose and too much to risk on the off chance that telling someone off might make me feel better. The pain and the anguish I’ve felt are immense, but it could be worse if I do any of those things I’ve mentioned above.
You will probably be agitated if you feel your partner (the victim) hasn’t processed this. You may feel like they should really deal with this and talk it through with someone. Unfortunately, not everyone is like that and the inbuilt survival mechanisms like compartmentalisation and dissociation can be preferable to processing this shit.
A religious friend of mine who has been through a similar situation as me told me: “God is the surgeon, you’re just the nurse”. It’s not your job to poke and to prod.
In relation to this theme, I found that the hurt and the pain I felt over this whole thing broke my heart. I felt like my heart was bleeding and I felt God say to me “don’t waste the love that comes out of that wound. Pour it out over your wife and your family. And when you feel empty, I will fill it back up.”
Not every secondary survivor will be religious, but I feel there is wisdom in this imagery and it helped for me to think about it this way.
Rape is about power and control, and my wife did all she could to maintain the illusion of power and control. She doesn’t use the word rape to describe what happened and prefers to use phrases like “I didn’t want it to happen”. So that messed with my head too, because the logical part of my brain had concluded on the basis of all the evidence in front of me that it was rape, yet the unprocessed and ill-defined description offered by my wife stirred up the emotional part of my brain. I felt myself tortured by the rapist’s delusional words, describing the act as “making love” and my silent screaming response to that being “it was rape, you dumb fuck!”.
Quite spontaneously, my mind pictured my wife coming alongside me saying “it WAS rape, and I might not say this anywhere but inside my husband’s imagination, but he should know that I am with him and he is not alone.”
So, as a secondary survivor, remind yourself (if you have the luxury to be comforted by such love as I do) that you are loved by your partner, the primary victim.
Finally, it might be useful to write (but NOT send) a letter to the rapist as an exercise in catharsis. I’ve found that being as dignified as you are able to in the language of the letter helps to take back some power and control.
To read Warren’s open letter to his wife’s rapist, read here:
