Facing Up to Abuse

The Runzheimer had been married for many years. He was a local church pastor and his wife told him that as a child she had been sexually abused. Many times Bill was committed to doing whatever he needed to do so his wife could get help. But before long he realized she wasn't the only one who needed help. There were so obviously stuck in my life needed to be dealt with pride was among them.

So with the congregation. I shared with them and this was with the doctor's advice.

I was turning out to be the turning in our lives. The defining moment and as much as Pamela needed help I needed help. The difference was she knew she needed help.

I didn't realize where I was this his family life to our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson on Bob Lapine can find us online@familylife.com will hear today from Bill and Pamela Runzheimer about the very difficult glorious liberating journey that God took both of them on in their marriage's and welcome to family life today ask for joining us and I feel like we need to say to those of your listing that what will be talking about today is going to hit home for some of you on a profound emotional level. Some of you were talking about your story today as we talk about the experience of childhood sexual abuse and how that affects your life and your marriage and all that goes on. Some of you who are listening have never told this to anybody you've kept this hidden and and you shared that this was your story. You were a plow hold were you when you were abused and started around three and continued for years probably until around nine or 10 who was the first person you told Dave when we were dating. So in growing up. He didn't tell mommy didn't tell dad didn't tell a girlfriend. I don't think I realized that Shane and embarrassment and down the wages that you carry at this and I just pushed it down and when things seemed better. I thought who wants to bring that up and and you've already shared with us that when you did tell Dave.

Dave was kind of like, oh, that's interesting.

Now I think I had that attitude hate to say now I had some sexual abuse happened when I was younger and that I feel I got it healed me feel good. It if I remember correctly it was a conversation with over a couple minutes and I was like okay I had no concept of what this meant. What it would mean for our future marriage that came later, but it was just self armies like I'm glad I went about this today.

I'm really glad because we give people hope and I would say this if you haven't been affected by this someone you know has been because it really does hit one of three girls and so we are all affected by this. In one way or another and Bob we had mentioned earlier some of the ramifications that come from that and I was very promiscuous because it was more of I want to be in control. I don't want you to hurt me, but I will control you and hurt you and so that's how it played out, and I think that's kind of what I had shared with Dave as well. Bill and Pamela Runzheimer are joining us again on FamilyLife today guys, welcome back. Thank you thank you you guys have started talking to people about this and sharing with folks you got a ministry called marriage reconstruction ministries and this is really at the heart of how your ministering to couples in marriage bill you've written a book called help.

My wife is a survivor of sexual abuse or an adjunct professor at Northwestern University.

You are pastor for 39 years. The two of you been married for more than four decades of got two adult kids and grandkids in your decision to be public about this issue really came out of having to deal with it in the context of your marriage deal with her privately. First, how many years from when you started dealing with the privately till you said were going to open up this story to our kids and of the whole world. Pamela was the best one on that opening up to our our girls sit with us when they were in junior high or earlier.

When I first disclosed to Bell. We went home and that following Sunday, I did feel some sense of release from that anxiety, and so I asked him if I could just give my testimony and, on that Sunday morning and will have grave or that yeah so I shared that something terrible had happened to me when I was 10 because it again.

I didn't think of sexual abuse to be the word that I could abuse and so we shared that so immediately I was safe to speak about it. I did tell Bill I said I think I need counseling. I was trying to row a boat without our boat and for blisters who didn't hear your whole story you were abused by a teacher and that was during elementary school continued while you were in elementary school.

You tried to share this with your parents and tried to share with some friends and nobody really came around and said this is serious and so you begin to think well maybe it's not that big a deal didn't share with your husband until you'd been married for 10 years at the 10 year mark. Somebody said how can I pray for you and you said I was abused sexually you are surprised that you said it because you have even put words like that absolutely had never set it out loud before and bill you were stunned because you had no knowledge that this was a party was passed yes I'm not even sure I could say stunned though because I was ignorant. I just didn't know what that was going to mean or what it meant for her, and you went on from there thinking well it's out and will sure about this without thinking there's probably some scar tissue left on my soul right didn't know that I just that and I think I need some professional help.

What happened at the church when you shared that by the way, a week later assist hello church, I received many hugs. I don't think many people knew more than I did at the time of what this being however they were to find out and you can share with us to find this interesting. Bobby said there's a lot of scar tissue. I would think not scar tissue. Yet, I would say it's more infection. At that point because there's no healing that is taken place adamantly access, and skin dancing at some Pamela realize that I'm not continuing on with my life. It's all about me.

So this point and she started asking me I need more help I be the counselor, so let me set some context here. For those of you to whom my voice might sound young. I'm not young.

I've been in ministry long time so were going back to some errors were for some segments of the Christian church counseling had a figment to end and so is a pastor to have my wife go to a counselor and somehow let that get out me open. It was unthinkable at the time, given the context of things, but I do have personal responsibility here was ignorant and I was arrogant and I really did not listen to Pamela.

I did not support her and all the help that she needed so they years went by like this.

Now God has a way of bringing some things to the surface of the surface and he did. And amazingly I am that up going into counseling after those eight years as well.

So jokes on me when we'd been married for 18 years. I was 39 years old and a person who had hurt me asked for forgiveness and I was not able to get it, but that opened the door and the pain of the sexual abuse was like a tsunami that completely knocked me flat. Immediately I stopped eating. I cried constantly and my behavior became extremely erratic. We would argue I did not know that the anger towards my abuser was being aimed at them and so when I would perceive that he had done something right, didn't trust him. I just spread like a lunatic and so where our home had been one of peace and calm for that six weeks it became like hell on earth. From my point if you I do remember there were a couple instances like the one Bill brought me flowers and I took the flowers in in my mind, the story wise if you think those flowers that can help me. You are Ron and I just threw them across the room. Another time I was like to upset to be able to keep talking so I grabbed the keys to from this we are in the second floor of our upstairs, downstairs apartment and went tearing down the stairs to drive away in a rage screaming back to Bell. You explain this to the girls.

The neighbor in eighth and ninth grade so I marriage for the next I'd say for five years was miscible full of shame and chaos. I ended up at the end of the six weeks in a mental hospital, we found a doctor through friends that knew I was falling apart, who is a Christian who had a lot of experience with trauma and sexual abuse. So he admitted me. I found that that was a very safe place to be for those four weeks. The first night that I was in the hospital on the psychiatric floor. I had begged my doctor to give me a private room and to put it far away that little piece of me that likes aloneness and he did it and so I met the corner of the unit and the doors shut and I had a conversation with God and it went like this loud 1st mile with how I said God if you are ever able to take away this pain I will never ever let you use me again to help another person.

Wait, wait, if you're able to take away I'll never, never let you use me so that's like make me better and I'll quit serving you. It wasn't that I would quit serving him, but first I didn't think he could take that deep pain away and if he could. There was no way I can let him use me to help anybody out, while high pain was so great and in my mind at that moment. As I speaking out loud because I do pray out loud even if it's quiet mumbling to stay focused when I pray that was sort of one of the effects of the abuse that I never knew, and that is that I can't there's a lot of activity in my brain. So if I want to pray. I have speak so I finished by saying God. How could you love a little girl and watch that happen and not do anything all the time that I'm saying those words. I am also saying, I know you're there I was on the third floor and I faced Lake Michigan and psychics at sunrise every morning and for those four weeks I would get up before dawn which is Bill would know I mean like you don't see me before love anything that I choose I would get up before dawn through up the windows and sit on my bed and watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan. Thinking if God can keep the universe running. I know he he sees that's going on lies and then Bill can tell, we immediately started reading Psalms together in that dark time for you talk about the Psalms, though you connect did this erratic behavior. The six weeks of what we would look at and so she had a nervous breakdown.

That's what I have it you were connecting the two. Your abuse, absolutely. The idea of the. The pastor's wife is going to the psych ward less regard started breaking me the stuff in my life that needed to be dealt with and pride was among them. So with the congregation. I shared with them and this was with the doctors advice he didn't want everything revealed once he said just let your people know that she's reached complete exhaustion physically and just needs this time for emotional rest and that became the exclamation by the time a year had passed we had shared everything with the congregation at the time she's in the hospital I gave that limited explanation which I'm sure raise a lot of questions and people, but for some reason God was enabling me to be okay with that. At the time because I knew that this but I did not know, but it was turning out to be the turning point in our lives.

The defining moment and as much as Pamela needed help I needed help.

The difference was she knew she needed help.

I didn't realize where I was. So how did that journey take place them in your getting help, which is typical you know if you've been abusing you go to counselor. They have been trained to a good degree to know what to do with you, but there was no one for my daughters.

For now, so I was assigned to a different counselor in the same clinic that bothered me a little bit I thought should we be going to the same counselor I understand now why was just talking to another husband the other day, whose wife was a survivor and she said I want to get us in the marriage counseling together. I said look, you're already in individual counseling so she keep it that way for now because I know that there are things within the husband that need to be addressed and there were certainly things in me. One of the things that occurs in the family system were abuses occurred is that the survivor becomes labeled as the identified patient.

She's the one, or if the husband is the one that's been abused. He's the one that has the problems in the family system kinda buys into that, but that's a fallacy I had deep issues that needed to be dealt with as I sat down for counseling. Eventually those things came to the forefront and were dealt with so we needed healing of our marriage, yes, but we were two wounded people who needed God's individual work in us first and then the marriage could come together again about one year issues that needed to come up and be healed besides ignorance and their pride goes pretty deep for controlling their word temptations that I was not dealing with. Well I wasn't proving myself to be trustworthy. The Pamela there were ways in which I was drawn lustfully outside of marriage thought life and even desiring wishing and all of these things that were so privately held within me and this is so common with those of us that have been sexually abused were hyper sensitive and aware of those little nuances and we've had to live her entire life, watching for signs of safety or threat.

And so I would recognize the lack of safety and when we would try to discuss it ourselves. Let just turned into a big atomic bomb, but the counselor was able to sort that out and much healthier way than I would've ever been able to do for Beth, how are you different. At the end of four weeks in the psych ward then you had been when you women, first I had been put on some medication that sort of brought the anxiety to a dollar roar. My doctor was reminding me that I was going to get through it and that was helpful. It why because all I could think of, from the time I was very little I always had this belief system and I don't know where it came from, other than abuse. If I died, nobody would cry. Then I would cry just silently packing but the tears being warm in my cheek and my pillow being soaking wet thinking nobody will cry I die and then as I got older and I had shared about the abuse and the pain started to hit for real then I wanted to die at the end of that four weeks. I thought the doctor said you'll need long-term therapy in my mind that meant nine months because I thought it's a long time when you're pregnant nine months and so that's truly what I thought.

I thought at the end of nine months will be through this lot.

Then the nine months I was seeing my doctor maybe to three times a week, crying for an hour and going home screaming all the whole drive home because I didn't know why I despise screaming because I was still hurting, so that went on for several years after a years time.

I felt very suicidal at the anniversary of that hospitalization has had back in the hospital that happened another time.

The next year and that also is the time of year for the abuse that happens each share what was going on in your mind where he reliving what happened to you what kind of battle were you facing and I think these panels was fighting for my life to stay alive to find out what God was going to do. It wasn't even that I would replay the actual abuse as much as my nightmares were dragging me into hell and then to wake up and have to fight Satan with my mind and Scripture.

I was exhausted and I am telling I just had you like card after card like what I thought today that I'm semi or Scriptures that that's got you through. I would read things like this.

Isaiah 46, three. I have created you and cared for you since you were born I will be your guide through all your lifetime. Yes, even when your hair is white with age. I didn't say anything about dying and complete. I have what I made you and I will care for you I will carry you along and be your savior, and so I would speak truth and it was years of doing that and then eventually I would be able to say when I would have a thought you'd be better off dead on your girls get better. I would be able to say out loud that is a lie. God has made me I am his. It is a lie and I pretty much do that every morning before I get into my day. I don't memorize the things that I speak because I don't want them to ever be just done by rote. I actually just sit with my cards and beat them. I want you to help me as a husband because like you, I would think nine months should fix this. And so for you to say, years and years and you have to go back a couple of times so the hospital as you're telling the story. I'm not thinking whether something really wrong with Pamela.

I'm thinking there's something really wrong with me and thinking this should be over a few months can I answer yeah it wasn't until the 1970s. Good clinical psychologist were beginning to recognize the long-term effects of sexual abuse and then in the 90s began to recognize that is, they were hearing the stories of war veterans coming back from war and the stories of sexual abuse survivors that the long-term effects, they were hearing were very similar, but there's a extra complexity thrown in for survivors of sexual abuse and it's called complex trauma for war veteran, you expect the enemy to be shooting at you, you don't want to but you expected first survivor. It's the person who supposed to be there caregiver not an enemy that is the one who is abusing them and it becomes a very complex situation. Here's my answer to your question, we would never say to a war veteran. Why can't you just get over it would be unthinkable to us and we need to take on that same attitude for survivors whether they be male or female survivors of sexual abuse if anybody wants to get over it. They do but it is a process that for some reason got his chosen to use to work some deeper good in tour lives. I'm thinking there may be as many women who are interested in reading your book as there are husbands you wrote this for husband's help.

My wife is of a survivor of sexual abuse. I'm guessing a lot of wives are to say I want to see what yours my husband's book.

That book addresses 10 questions husbands have that out of my research, I began hearing these questions over and over again. I had every single one of those 10 while and Pamela would be quick to say you know what those are my questions to what the normal marriage. When do I get my wife back should I stay or should I go. Why doesn't God heal my wife. When will this be over.

Why can't you just get over it. Those are the questions you're addressing in the book, and I'd encourage any husband whose wife experienced sexual abuse and again the statistics that we've seen our one in three wives has experienced some kind of direct sexual abuse as a child.

Get a copy of this book.

Read through it yourself. Read through it with your wife enter into what has to a been a significant trauma for her and be the husband. God has called you to be here the book were talking about is called help.

My wife is a survivor of sexual abuse by Bill Runzheimer you can go to our website. Family life today.com to get your copy or call to order one 800, FL, today is our number again. The title of the book is help. My wife is a survivor of sexual abuse by Bill Runzheimer order online@familylifetoday.com or call to order 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F as in family L as in life and in the word today knows we have had this conversation today about how important it is for us to invite others in to the challenges were facing to have a safe community of people who can support us as we go through difficult times. As we process what's going on in our lives. I was thinking about many of you as blisters who have gotten in touch with us and asked us to pray for you and we do that regularly got an email from a listener recently who said pray for my marriage for my children. Her finances for my physical and mental health.

Somebody else said pray for my anxiety during this difficult season, so we also pray for the restoration of my marriage and my family somebody else and were trying to have children.

The doctors say we can't were trusting God and seeking his direction so many burdens that people are experiencing, and so many of us need a community we can connect with and to the extent we can be a part of that community with you. We want to do that family life today exist to help effectively develop godly marriages and families and we do that by providing you programs like family life today.

We do that through the resources we develop our website, our events, but we also do that by connecting with you has blisters. So as you have prayer requests were here for you and will pray for you and we will say a special word of thanks today to those of you who support the work of family life today on an ongoing basis are legacy partners who every month. Help us cover the cost of producing and syndicating this radio program and doing all that were doing her family life today.

We are grateful for you if you're a longtime listener you've never made a donation or if you'd like to become a monthly legacy partner join the team that makes family life today possible for so many people every day you could do that online@familylifetoday.com or call one 800 FL today and just said like to be a legacy partner part of the family life team. We look forward to hearing from you tomorrow. We want to talk about the hope and the healing that is available for people who have been down this road experience this kind of bill and Pamela Runzheimer back with us again tomorrow to be back as well. I want to thank our engineer today. Keep on with our entire hosts David Wilson about see you back next time for another family.

Family life today is a production of family life of Little Rock, Arkansas crew ministry help for today hope for tomorrow