[s3riouslySOconfused]

I am engaged to a wonderful man. We suit each other perfectly, but we both bring a lot of baggage to the relationship, and until recently I didn’t know exactly how much my fiance had.

We both are pretty self deprecatory, I am a recovering anorexic and he was violently abused as a child by his step father (something I knew from the beginning). I always attributed his low self esteem to this, and he always said he was plagued by his older brother, someone he claimed to be his closest friend, up and leaving with no notice when he was a senior in high school. But recently we had gotten in a lot of small fights because I thought he had been withholding things from me (I caught him in a few omission-lies about previous girls). He always told me there were aspects about his past he wasn’t proud of and “hated” himself for, and last night he finally opened up about them. I was prepared for him admitting to sleeping with this weird girl he always said he’d been friends with but adamantly denied having sex with, just that she had an unhealthy obsession with him for no reason (which I never bought) -which he admitted to and I was PISSED. But there was more…much more.

He admitted that his brother sexually abused him, raped him really, and threatened his life if he ever told anyone…so he never did. Then he explained that after his brother left, he finally had control over his life and didn’t know what to do so he became sexually promiscuous…and he had to convince himself that he wasn’t gay so he had gay sex to prove it to himself. He swears he has never been attracted to men, and I have heard of this coping mechanism before in sexually abused men, but I still can’t get over it.

I’ve been crying non stop. I promised him if he opened up to me I wouldn’t judge him or look at him differently, but I just CAN’T. I just feel so inadequate now…and I don’t know…just weirded out. I want to be supportive more than anything but I feel betrayed by the promiscuous exploits with women he admitted to lying about AND the gay experience.

I don’t know how to cope for the life of me. I love him more than anything, but I don’t know how to not let this effect our relationship (specifically our sex life). HELP?!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

It would help to know how long you’ve know him and how long you’ve dated him and how long you’ve been engaged.

But not knowing that, I can tell you that you’re still getting to know who he is, and your engagement is premature. You’re weeping because you feel trapped — but you’re not. Not really. I know you’re engaged to be married and you may even have a wedding date and a venue booked, but you’re very clearly not ready to be engaged because you’re finding out more about this man than you knew before, and some of what you’re learning is very important. You need to put a hold on the wedding and maybe even the engagement.

Decide if his withholding this information is a deal breaker for you. I know that’s easier said than done, but this is what you have to do to move on with your life — one way or another. Your fiance has some significant trauma in his life and if he hasn’t processed it and worked through it, he will — with you and within your life together. Everybody brings baggage to the table, but the trick is finding someone with compatible luggage, or “matching luggage” as I like to say. Nobody will have the same emotional baggage, but it’s not clear from what you write that you’re going to be okay with his past and the way he’s handling it.

I’m also not sure how old either one of you is, which always helps me advise readers who post questions, but your desire to be supportive needs to take a back seat to your figuring out if you want to continue in this relationship and if this is someone you want to commit your life to. I know that this may sound cold, and you want to help someone who’s had a worse life than you, but you’re not someone who can cure his problems — these are problems HE has to work through and while you can be supportive and helpful, you can only do so IF you’re okay about being with him. So first things first!

I hope this helps. Let me know how it goes, and please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 😀

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