A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:I’m 30 married for 9 years to a great husband with a good family. My father died when I was 2 and went thru an extremely traumatizing, sexually and physically abusive child hood. Now that I really trust my in laws and am pretty happy, I find myself having weird sexual feelings towards my brother in law and my father in law. . I know I have issues please don’t bash me. Why? Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, Billy Bathgate +, writes (23 November 2019):
This is not a bash but maybe you need to see a therapist. A trained person will do a much better job of helping you sort this than a group of anonymous amateurs on the internet can.
You know you have issues please deal with them for your own sake.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 November 2019): Sometimes victims of sexual abuse have very confusing sexual feelings because of their experience. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with you or that you genuinely want a relationship with them. Maybe if you trust them and feel safe, it's brought up confusing feelings because in the past the people who you were supposed to trust abused you. Have you had any counselling specifically for this kind of trauma? It might help you unpack your feelings and put them in perspective. A feeling is just a feeling. It doesn't mean you have to do anything about it or that you even really want to.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (21 November 2019):
 No one will bash you here, OP
Why do you have these feelings? It's hard to know, maybe, like Aidan suggested it's a bit of transference where you see the MALES of your husband's family as safe and healthy and thus a bit attractive to you.
So what do you do with those feelings?
My advice is to find a therapist and unpack the past, it might help you with the present.
And my second advice is this, acknowledge (to yourself) that you HAVE them but BE in control, feeling attracted physically/sexually to someone doesn't mean you HAVE to act on it. You need to be aware of you own actions here. If you tend to be more flirty lately with them, maybe it's something you need to cut out.
IS this something NEW that is happening in your life? The feeling sexually attracted to these two other men.
If so, it can also be that you have now been with your husband a good while so things with him are super familiar, stable and predicable, his other male family members might seem a little more interesting in comparison.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (21 November 2019): Why would anyone bash you?
Sexual-thoughts and curiosity crosses the mind naturally; and if your brother-in-law or father-in-law remind you of your past sex-abuser(s); it is likely they are triggers. You are missing a father-figure and positive male role-models in your early childhood development.
You can't really help whom you find attractive; that's quite often an involuntary-response. If mental-disorder is the case, you seek mental-healthcare. In any ordinary situation, you simply have to develop moral filters and set mental-boundaries for the sake of appropriateness and legalities. You know attraction to underaged-children or incestuous behavior crosses lines that are protected and enforced under the law. Attraction to in-laws isn't that unusual.
It's pretty common how you feel. You are feeling guilty, because you have a built-in moral-compass.
Dreams are dreams, and you don't have to place too much significance on them. They are brain-activity during sleep; and are usually cultivated from experiences and thoughts that occur daily, or repetitively, in our lives. Sometimes they are influenced by worry or unresolved problems, and traumatic experiences. Mostly they are a hodge-podge of anything and everything that ever crosses your mind. Curiosity, desire, and fantasy adds spice or intensity to make them more worrisome or appealing!
You have been a victim of sexual-abuse, and it is symptomatic of the trauma to have some manifestation in your behavior. If it has reached a level of obsession, and you feel you're losing impulse-control; you need to seek therapy and counseling.
If you've never been treated since the time the sexual-abuse occurred in your life; and you've been suppressing it all without help, don't be surprised. It's your conscience and subconscious-mind alerting you that it's time to go get mental-health counseling and therapy. If you are under therapy, it should be discussed with your therapist; if it rises to the level of concern and angst for you.
You started and ended your post quite timidly and defensively. It is most important that you seek help as soon as you can. Constructive-criticism, firm advice, and/or opinion aren't bashing. Responses on DC are reviewed by moderators.
If you fear asking for help and opinions leads to some form of reprisal or attack; it's unlikely you will seek professional-help using the same reasoning. Often psychiatric-counseling is rejected or resisted for this same kind of rationale or mindset; which renders the counseling-therapy ineffective. I hope that won't be, or isn't the case.
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A
male
reader, no nonsense Aidan  +, writes (21 November 2019):
No-one’s going to bash you. Here are a couple of thoughts that spring to mind.
First, they are your husband’s family. Maybe you see in them some of the qualities and traits you admire about your husband. So long as thoughts remain just thoughts and don’t become intrusive, don’t worry about it. Keep focussed on your marriage.
Second, attraction takes many forms. We can be attracted to personalities, physiques, styles, mannerisms and all kinds of things. Identifying the nature of those attractions can be difficult. A lot of friends may have had crushes at the start that faded as it became clear that friendship was the best basis for the relationship. When we are drawn to someone and want to be close to them, our feelings can be pretty confusing. Rather than indulge them, the best thing to do is work out what are the fact here. Maybe you care a lot about these people. Maybe they are kind to you. Maybe you want a close relationship with them. All that is possible. That’s probably all these weird sexual thoughts are trying to tell you.
I wish you all the very best.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (21 November 2019): Just keep these feelings to yourself and don't enact them out. It might releave you to know, we all have weird and crazy sexual feelings at times. You are normal just know that these feelings are tricks of the mind resulting probably from some unidentified stress or frustration.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (21 November 2019): HI you r having the sexual feeling because of ur traumatic childhood it might take some suggestion n therapy to get over childhood abuse. and you should try some help to get over ur bad experiences.further the sexual feelings you get towards your inlaws be ok if does affect day to day work and you dont show the feelings towards your inlaws affecting your relation with them. what type of weird feeling you get towrds your inlaws that problems you.
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