Finding difficult to love my wife after she was raped by armed robbers

. Last December while on our way to spend the Christmas holiday in the village, our bus was not only waylaid by armed robbers, but the women on board, including my wife, were also raped. Only the very elderly women escaped this torture. Although I knew my wife was two months pregnant, I asked her to abort the child after what I witnessed. I didn’t want the blood of those robbers to mix with that of my unborn child. I will never be able to accept such child as mine. Since then, I haven’t been able to come close to her. The few times I tried to touch her, images of what those men did to her and all the women on board of that bus will immediately come to my mind making it impossible for me to go any further. This has been on for more than eight months now. Our first child clocked three in April. I don’t know if I will ever be able to make love to her again without remembering that horrible incident. She is now asking for a divorce as a result of the way I treat her. She said I am being cruel and that I have gotten another woman to take her place in my bed. I won’t lie there have been various women to take care of my emotional needs. I have tried explaining to her and all our family members who have intervened as a result of what she told them about our marriage to give me more time. I love her so much, actually I met her a virgin. She has always been a good and responsible woman. It is just that I don’t know how to get that thing off my mind. But I don’t want her out of my life or home. Like I said, she is the best wife any man can ever have. From all indices she is ready to quit and move on with her life. I am so confused and don’t know what I really want any more. I am so disappointed. Please help me. Confused Husband. Dear Confused Husband, The first thing to do is to try to put yourself in your wife’s shoes. How would you feel being raped in public while your husband stood watching helplessly? How would you feel being told by the same man to abort an already existing pregnancy on account of the dehumanisation you suffered in the hands of those robbers? Also try to imagine her pains at being denied the comfort she needs to recover such humiliation by the same man who did nothing to protect her honour as a woman? If there is anybody who should be disappointed, it is your wife, not you. While you acted with common sense on the day of the incident, because there are no heroes in the graveyard, but you are now acting with gross insensitivity to your wife. She deserves your compassion, support and understanding to overcome her double shame. Don’t forget some men would have elected to die rather than allow any man put their wives through such horror. If she is not condemning you for being such a coward at her hour of need, why should you revile her for being a victim of her gender? You didn’t stop at denying her your compassion but also asked her to abort the child that could have helped her to recover quickly. You were, and not being fair to this woman. She didn’t ask to be raped. No woman enjoys the forcefu a stranger on her person. For a woman who has known no other man, kept herself for her husband, she must be going through so much emotional turmoil. What she needs isn’t what she is getting from you. By denying her your compassion and presence, you are unwittingly taking away everything that meant something to her until that unfortunate incident. Your attitude towards her is worse than what she suffered that day. A woman can face the world if her man is there by her side, helping her to recover as well as putting on her again her garment of honour. Had you done that, this incident would have been fading in your memory by now. Your stubborn refusal to let go is what has kept the memory of that day fresh in your mind. Those men are no longer responsible for what is happening in your home; rather you are the one now at the wheels of the vehicle destroying your home. Your wife needs you not just as her husband but also as an understanding friend, a partner and helper. Even if you are not up to making love to her now, at least be the friend she needs now. She is going through so much and may not even need you to touch her intimately but to provide her with a compassionate heart and willing shoulder on which to lay her troubles. You must understand that violation didn’t happen in secret, it happened before other men. Though she wasn’t alone, but do you even understand the shame of being made to do what is entirely private in public view, made to expose her dignity to other men who watched in cowardly silence? If the truth must be told, it is your pride and manhood that was raped that day, not hers. If she is not hating you or mocking your claims to be a man, it is only because she is very much in love with you and too much of a good woman to give you a piece of her mind. That she is asking for a divorce is because you leave her through your actions with no choice. She has gotten to the limit of her endurance. What manner of mind-set would make you leave a woman for eight months without coming near her or offering her the comfort she needs to recover. Your attitude has left her with nothing worth fighting for in your home. As it stands now, not even the presence of her child can make her stay with a man who so obviously hates her with the passion he once loved her. You are lucky. Some less strong willed women would have since tried to kill themselves or go out of their home to find a man willing to make them feel clean again the same way you are doing in the arms of other women. It will take a while for her to forgive your rejection of her. If you cannot stay off sex, what makes you think she can? Should she decide to look elsewhere for sexual satisfaction, would you be able to blame her? If you want your home back as desperately as you sound, woo yourself back in her heart. Time is what you no longer have, so perish the plea for it. Sincerely, if you don’t act now, you might as well kiss her and your marriage goodbye. Eight months is a long time to leave a married woman who stays in the same house with her husband in the cold. If you are not careful the next time you will look her way she will be in the arms of another man, this time not unwilling, but with her consent. Therefore, the first thing to do is ask yourself the reason for your attitude. Deep down, who are you really angry with – yourself or those men? The fact that you watched helplessly as these men desecrated your wife and your marital vows. Did you feel jealous? Did she make a move or sound that you think suggested she liked it better with them? Frankly, these are issues you have to sit down to deal with on your own before going to her to make peace. Granted the sight of another man raping one’s wife can be very hurtful, but something is making it impossible for you to forget it. There is no moving for either of you, if you are not honest with what is really niggling you. By admitting it to yourself, you set your marriage free to move on. Without you first being at peace with yourself, it would be almost impossible to give peace to your wife and marriage. Once you are clear, go to your wife to talk. First apologise for your attitude. It will make her receptive for discussions with you. By the time you finish explaining to her, her heart would have thawed sufficiently for you to make whatever move you deem necessary in the pursuit of recovering your home. Usually, the gathering ominous clouds will clear once you make this first move, but it behoves you to go the extra mile to rid your marriage of every remnants of this unfortunate incident. You both need the presence of God to heal properly. Ask for His presence in your home, lives and marriage. With Him, nothing shall be termed impossible. Good luck.

Genetic sexual attraction

Genetic Sexual Attraction: husband and
wife discover they are brother and sister
The phenomenon can happen in
siblings separated at birth and is
experienced in up to half of post-
adoption reunions
A Brazilian married couple have
discovered that they are brother and
sister on live radio

A Brazilian married couple, who have
both searched for their mothers who
abandoned them as children, have
discovered the two women they were
looking for was in-fact the same person
while live on air, making them brother
and sister.
Adriana, 39, and her husband Leandro,
37, who did not want to share their
surnames, have known each other for 10
years and now have a six year old
daughter together.
Both Adriana and Leandro, who live in
Sao Paulo, had been searching for their
mother for a number of years. Leandro
knew his mother was called Maria, and
that she had abandoned him at the age of
eight. He was brought up by his step-
mother.
View of Sao Vicente, southern coast of Sao Paulo,
Brazil
Adriana knew her mother was also called
Maria, and that she had been abandoned
at the age of one. She was brought up by
her father.
The couple thought that their mothers,
who they believed to be two different
women, should the same name was a
“coincidence,” as Maria is a common
name in Brazil.
But Adriana’s refusal to give up the
search for her mother led her to calling
into to Brazilian radio station Globo
Radio, and eventually managing to speak
to her mother on The Time is Now
programme, which specialises in finding
lost relatives, the Mirror reports .
At the end of Adriana’s conversation with
Maria, her mother revealed she also had a
son called Leandro, who did not know
her.
Adriana, shocked at the realisation that
her husband was also her brother, said: “I
don’t believe that you’re telling me this.
Leandro is my husband.”
The phenomenon that Leandro and
Adriana have experienced is called
Genetic Sexual Attraction, and it occurs
between “two adults who have been
separated during the critical years of
development and bonding and are
reunited alter as adults,” according to a
GSA website, which has now been turned
into a GSA support-based forum.
In 2003, the Post-Adoption Centre, which
offers information and counselling to
people undertaking adoptee reunions, and
which at the time was seeing 3,000 clients
a year, estimated that up to half of
reunions were accompanied by anything
from temporary attraction to obsessive
sexual obsession, according to the
Guardian. A study by University College
London found similar results.
The attraction that occurs between
separated family members can been
defined by people not having experienced
what is known as the Westermark Effect,
a hypothetical psychological effect that
suggests people who live in close
domestic proximity during the first few
years of their lives together means they
become desensitised to any later sexual
attraction. People who experience GSA
have supposedly not had this critical
period of desensitisation together.
“Now I’m scared to go home and find out
Leandro doesn’t want me anymore. I love
him so much,” Adriana told her mother
on the radio.
The couple were reportedly never
married legally. Adriana said: “Only death
is going to separate us. All this happened
because God wanted it to happen.
“Of course it would have been different if
we had known all this before, but we
didn’t and we fell in love.”
Their case is not isolated, and the more
extreme cases of GSA are prone to
making national headlines; in 2008, the
story of a pair of twins who were
separated at birth but who later married
was widely covered. They had been
adopted by different families and
completely unaware they were twins until
after they were married. The marriage
was annulled.
And GSA was even used as plot line in
Neighbours in the early 2000s, when the
character of Serena Bishop becomes
immediately attracted to a new character,
Luka Dokich, before discovering he is her
half-brother.
In the case of Adriana and Leandro, they
are determined to stay together, despite
what “anyone might think”. Their attitude
to their relationship reflects the findings
of Dr Maurice Greenberg, who spoke to
the Guardian in 2003, said it is essential to
determine GSA as incest only in terms of
biology, as the relationships that occur –
even when sexual - are between two
consenting adults.
Adriana said: "At first we were really
knocked by it all, but we had a family
meeting and told everyone that we are
going to stay husband and wife, whatever
anyone might think.
"We have so many plans together.
Nothing is going to break us up. Nothing