Impact of abuse - Adult relationships

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'Adult relationships are often problematic, it is difficult to trust anyone, intimacy can be very threatening.'

Establishing adult relationships often proved very difficult for many of the survivors and their childhood abuse experiences often left them feeling unable to trust other adults. Some men found intimacy threatening while exposure to adult conflict left others feeling anxious and worried.

For these men their difficulties reflect the complex nature of male sexual abuse and our need for greater understanding and sensitivity to the challenges male survivors face. While recognising these difficulties the survivors' expressions of optimism and hope indicated that they felt they would eventually come through OK and potentially move on to form positive relationships.

'I believe I have a perception about what the goals are in life, forget the money, forget everything like that, the most important thing in life is being happy, having good relationships with family, with friends and with lovers, that's it, there is nothing else.'

'The relationships that I start nowadays I often have to sort through and say “no, no abuse is not a necessary part of the relationships and if you want to do this to me, then go away” it's very hard to do.'

'I suppose some of the effects as an adult are that I have always had a problem with trusting. I didn't emotionally commit to the relationship.'

'Avoidance of establishing relationships. I used to escape from people either physically or through alcohol and drugs.'

'I have put up walls to stop people from getting close to me, people would touch me and I would freeze and I would shake uncontrollably. I used to think I was nuts. One time this guy put his arm around me and inside in my mind I was screaming and I felt like hitting him, I couldn't do anything, I could not move, I was frozen.'

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