Vicki Dau (00:06)
Welcome to Re-Framing Life and Love, where Tom and Vicki guide you on a transformative journey through healing and connection. Together, we explore the profound effects of childhood sexual trauma on adult relationships and share practical tools to help you build a loving partnership. Two things. We do have a trigger warning.
This podcast discusses sensitive topics related to childhood sexual abuse and trauma. Listener discretion is advised. And we have a disclaimer. We want to remind you that we are not medical or mental health professionals. This podcast is based on our personal experiences and what has worked for us. While we aim to provide valuable insights and support,
We encourage you to seek professional advice for any specific mental health or relationship issues which you may have been facing. Now, here is our next episode.
Vicki Dau (01:15)
Hey everybody, welcome, welcome. In today's episode, Tom is going to share his reactions version, his responses to my story that was shared in the last episode. So it might be helpful if you're going to listen to this to hear Vicki's story so you can have some more relevance to you. As we were discussing the idea that I would do this, I told Vicki that it was going to be hard because over the
course of these years so her memories started coming back to her when 18 years into our marriage and we've now at this point in time been married 37 so there's been a ton of healing for us in that period of time and and and we're at a place now where I when she said let's do this episode I was like it's gonna be hard for me to
say how I was responding or how I thought you were during the periods of time when this was going on in our earlier marriage and after the memories came back that period of time and I feel like if I was coming up with the things I would have to try to remember what I would I would almost be like throwing her under the bus because you know there were things and times and actions and behaviors of hers that that were less than what she would want herself to be or do
And so we've gone past that. But we're bringing it up. I'm bringing it up because it may bring confirmation to you of, we're not alone in this, or, that's why this is going on. So that you can find a partner in all of this individually and as a couple to know that you're certainly not alone.
someone else has been in your shoes or very close to those shoes that you might be in right now, but have also been able to navigate and move forward through it and to a great degree out of a lot of it. You never are removed from the memories and the place in your life that you are now because of the abuses that happened to your partner.
But you can certainly be in a place where your life is awesome, which ours is. And we frequently look at each other and say the exact words, I love doing life with you. And that's not something we used to say. It wasn't like we were in a horrible marriage. But wow, living through what we've lived through and being to the place we are now, God and life and the life he's given us and the moving forward out of the pain and being able to now sit and share it.
you is just extraordinary of how God's glory can be in everything that happens. As horrible as the events may have been, wow, what we're able to do with it now. And I'm just looking down at the notes she put because I want to touch base on a couple things. Prior to her memories coming back, so we had been married for 18 years and in that period of time,
We were building our family of seven kids here and three in heaven.
that period so life was extremely busy obviously and so because in our circumstance because of that what were her behaviors so so I feel like she could easily be very short fuse for things would frustrate her
And a lot of intensity with the frustration. High-end intensity. just being like, know, yeah. Yeah, like I literally remember, and you haven't done this in eons, you would get frustrated or angry either with something that I said or did or something that you didn't do right or whatever, and you would literally hit your head. You would literally hit your head. You haven't done that in eons, but I remember that anger response that you had to whatever that situation was, and that was one of the ways that
it exerted out of you was you literally did that to
not finding it hard to yell about something. Those kinds of just not finding it hard. Not not funny. Meaning it was it when something got intense or you were upset you you it wasn't hard for you to just yell about. The intensity would come up right now like to the point where I'd be like okay that doesn't need to be that high end so then I would question her on it.
that didn't go well either because now I was questioning her reaction to something that she didn't agree with. So that was really intense. Emotions were all the negative emotions in that period of time when things would come up in a marriage of raising kids and being married and so in dealing with school and life and all the different things, her intensity levels when things were not good were extremely ramped up.
That was probably the best way to put And do you think it went fast? Like from zero to 50 fast? in the drop of a hat. It was literally light switch, boom, she was in another realm of intensity to the negative. And that's that. But when we when you don't know what's driving that, because we didn't, OK, well, this is the person I married. But boy, that's intense, you know. So that was that that's how life would be. But it wasn't all the time. We still.
loved each other. were having kids building a family, enjoying enjoying each other's company. We didn't not sleep together, I think for almost 25 years. We slept together every single night for 25 years. never had to travel. We wouldn't do things that would prevent us from going to bed together every single night for about 25 years. So we were dedicated to each other big time.
laughs weren't laughing didn't happen a lot but but there was humor there and there was a love because we were we we were we didn't know what was going on in her and what had happened to her but we knew that we were together forever yeah we knew that yeah and so we enjoyed as best we could in that and it was it was a it was a decent period it was a decent life it wasn't a struggling marriage i don't consider it that
But it had difficult times. And when it was difficult, it was intense difficult. I do remember there were times like we're so much better with it now of knowing how to talk through things. back then, actually, and I believe this was before the memories came back. If I got upset with him, I could go days without talking with him. Like days. Do you remember that? I do.
I would not speak to him. I'd look past him. Or attitude or the or she would because we'd have to communicate but we'd because we had kids in the family we're doing in school and blah blah blah but but it would be yep nope you know the shortest possible answer to get to move forward with whatever was going on but nothing beyond that. Yeah and I remember like I'd be snotty to him and then somebody show up at the door hey how are you like she could yeah she could that really bugged you. That was horrible that was one of the hardest things because we literally be having
a difficult conversation, a match, or no speaking, and someone come to the door and you think that that she was in a perfect place, and that was just, that was hard because she could fake it to them, but she wouldn't be pleasant to me at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. No, that's all good. And then, but, but, but we knew something wasn't right. She knew something wasn't right, and that was her
her story prior to this one. But as the memories came back, the beautiful thing that happened was she decided that I was going to be a part of.
this process of the memories coming back. And so she disclosed to me that things had happened to her and I immediately said, okay, let's talk about it. I never left her side in it, I believe. so, that knowing that something was driving these difficult times to be so intense was like,
Refreshing is kind of a weird word, but it was it was good to know that there was something else there. It wasn't just, Vicki's this way. No, it's Vicki's in this place right now and responds this way because of these things that happened to her, these horrible things that happened to her multiple times.
to this innocent girl. And so her deciding that she was going to share this with me and not keep it a secret, for me, probably the single most important decision she ever made in her life because it gave us the ability to give her life, right? Because we worked it then together. So that was the big thing regards to when her memories came back, how we handled it and the fact that
I said, it's hard, I'll listen. I told her, tell me what you need to tell me. If you need to tell me details, tell me details. But I may tell you I need a break for a minute, but tell me the details. And always, she never didn't tell me the details because I knew that would help her by dispensing that stuff that happened to her. It would help be the cleansing property needed for her to continue to move forward on her end of things.
Right. So do you have any comments in regards to that stuff? No, just how supportive you were during the whole process. And I also had to give him space when he had some negative reactions on his end of, that sob and be angry with that sob. She let me be angry. Yeah. She let me be angry, which is anger is not bad.
violence is bad, anger is not bad. So for me to go through the process of being angry with somebody who did a felony act to her, you know, yeah, I'm gonna be upset for probably five minutes at least, you know, so she gave me that space. And I appreciated that because that was important. So that because it's her going through this, then it's me going through this, and it's us going through this. So there's three things going on all the time in this, right?
And so we have to give each other grace in that period of time, so that we as a couple can move forward together in a stronger way. we then decided to tell her extended family. She goes into great detail about that in her story. All I can say in regards to that is we knew it had to happen.
when she decided to do it because it was traced back 80 years on one side of the family with documented personal testimonies. And we were not gonna let that continue into the next generation being our kids and their kids and so forth. So we pulled the rug back on the crap and we told the people and they blacked, long story short, she was blacklisted. We were blacklisted, but that's.
That's actually a favor. Thank you for doing that because we don't need to be in those relationships. You don't need to be in relationships with people who are abusive to you verbally, emotionally, mentally, you know, you don't need that. They didn't care about her pain. So why would we care to be in that relationship? We will find and create family where we need to to build our lives around as we move forward doing the things that we feel we're being called to.
and to be in a group of people who will ignore you, talk about you, drag you through the mud, whatever, that's not what, well that is what plenty of families do, not the kind of family we want, or the part of a family that we want to be a part of, so we eliminated it. And it had to happen, thank God it did happen, because life is good because of the decisions we made to stay out of that realm of people. Right?
was very much in a protection mode years. of Vicki. Yeah. Not not telling me things. Choosing to shield information from me that he didn't think I could handle because he didn't want to make things worse because I was already having a hard time. I still I still
deal with, I'm still working that right now, even. You know, we're 18 years past the 18 years of when almost when this memory started coming back. Yeah, wow. And, and, and I'm still I'm still working on that because when you're in 18 years of her or your your spouse or whoever being hyper intense to the negative.
when negative things would come up, why would you want to... and it would hurt me to see her in that place, right? And it would hurt me to see her in that pain. So why would I want to put her in that place? So whenever I could, if there was a way that... because I couldn't do anything about it. I wasn't able to fix it. And so why would I want to add something to that fire that's always... there's always... there were always embers there that...
Why would I want to put gasoline on this if I don't have to? So I wouldn't. there would be things that would come up and I wouldn't share them with her. And then they would come around and she'd find out she'd be very angry with me. You can't trust me. can't trust you. You're not telling me the truth. You're not telling me the whole truth. You're keeping things from me. we struggled with that.
because I did that a lot because I didn't want it. And guys, know you know, I know you know what I'm talking about. You don't want to hurt the person you love who's been hurt so much before in horrific ways that have literally changed the way the two of you have to look at life circumstances. We look through life through a different lens now because of what happened to her. And so if I do not want to ever resurrect those embers, so I'm
learning slow but sure and I've learned and I'm learning to share more and more with her because she has come so far in her healing so that now I can share with her so much easier because she doesn't the embers that were there I guess the best way to say it is if the gasoline of me sharing something thrown on them they don't they they don't flame up because those embers aren't there anymore
can handle things. She's way normal right now. Right. Right. And I don't need a screen protector in that regard. So it was it was and it was always it was meant out of two ways. It was only meant out of love for her. It was meant out of to a great degree for me self preservation because I didn't want to be I was so going through this as the husband of the abused husband of the abused. I was the scapegoat.
So when the crap would come up to her, she took it out on me verbally, emotionally, you know, those ways, not talking to me the opposite of verbally, you know, I was the person who took the hit and the heat out of my choice to do so, so that it could get out of her. So but that's also difficult, right? So so and some side note here, and this could be another podcast in itself. I, I
I at one point and through her counsel knew that I needed to also do work on myself because everyone's got shit. It's just not her who, through these abuses, had a tough life and I didn't have a tough life. Holy crap, there's a whole other story we're not even getting into now. Multiple stories of a difficult life that I had in a completely different realm than the abuse that she went through.
in working and deciding because of her saying to me, you know, I've been working on myself for quite a while here. And you know, this isn't all on me. You've got some stuff too. What do you, what do you think? Maybe we work on you a little bit. And I said, yeah, okay. That's your, your, that's, fair. That's That's I finally said, you know what? This one's not on me. Right. Yeah. And so I did and I do, and I work on myself all the time.
She works on herself all the time so that we can work on us all the time so that we can care for you guys and our family and our friends and our grandkids, everybody. So that's just a sidebar. We all have shit. It's okay to have shit, but work on it. Yeah. And work on it together. As projecting it to other people. Yeah. You gotta own your own stuff. And get, and work it. Work it out, man. Work it out. I'm a...
I'm a better person now because I started working on myself and that let me then be able to respect her healing.
that we, I could share more knowing that she could handle it and then the relationship grows even stronger and better, right? Yes. Yeah.
that's just a segue into how's it going now. How's it going now? And we've said this
We say this to each other a lot. We said it in last podcast. It is not uncommon for one of us to look at the other and say, I really enjoy doing life with you right now. And you never are gone from what happened to her. We are never gone. She's never gone from that. But we are above and beyond the devastating effects that it caused on her from a standpoint of pain and me and her sharing with me the pain.
those things are gone now, right? Can you say that from the standpoint of it affecting us? Like I don't wake up in the morning going, my God, I feel so crappy because of what happened to her. And yeah, that's not a thing, but I will say it's a lifelong journey because different circumstances will come The death of someone, the, hear something about somebody said this about somebody or whatever. And
or this came up about this. so there's circumstances that come up. But we said this, and they keep saying that in our last podcast was the skills that we have learned, we process so much faster. And so it's just the thing. It's a thing we overcome and get through and move on. Yep. And we do. And life right now is totally awesome.
But it's totally awesome because we put the work in, respect each other, we love each other, and we don't quit working on it. It's a couple. We don't quit working on ourselves as individuals. And we know that God has a place for us that is always good. So and he wants us to prosper. He wants us to increase. wants us to enjoy abundances of all sorts that he gives us. And we are doing that. We are.
Well done, you. So that's that's my response to the last podcast that she shared her story. That's that's my my side of that process. Finding out what happened to her and sharing with me and then us moving forward to where we are today. It is our intention that us sharing our stories maybe make you feel like you're not alone.
And that it's possible to make your life great Let me also just Caution you not to compare yourself to anyone else one of the things I found that I've seen with survivors is Mine wasn't as bad as hers. she had three people abuse her I only had one or mine lasted from this to this or I Don't compare your story. That's why in the first
our episode, we defined it as to what it is. And abuse is abuse. One time can affect you the rest of your life. And so don't diminish that damage, honor it and move forward. Don't continue a victim mentality. You've got to own it, but honor your wounding and then empower yourself to move forward.
Because you're here right now means you're a champ. Period. If you're here right now, you are a champ because you've come this far. After whatever it was happened to you happen. And you are still here. So you are a champ. So what we're saying is, a happy champ. We can help you do that. Right? mean, champ. Seriously. I mean, you you. That's that's yeah.
Something that came out of Tom's story was the husband's survival guide. And it is a digital guide that he created for husbands from a husband to husbands. It's a simple digital guide. You can get it. Go to teamdau.com and click on the store tab and get it. Get a copy of it. There are 34 topics. And there's like the front of a card, a back of a card. And then there's a little short
less than a minute video explaining everything and take some action do I also created a helping your husband help you, Survival Guide for Wives, not Survival Guide, but helping your husband help you guide for wives to help us know how to help our husbands help us better. Yep. And I do it every day. I have it on my phone. And I do it every day.
And so we encourage you guys to go get yourself a copy. Husbands get the one for husbands, wives get the ones for wives. Use it. You will not regret it. It is such a help. Amazing. It's so simple, quick, easy to use, but can change your entire life. And that sounds corny, but it is not. The things in there, the little tiny tidbits that you can put in place and implement can change everything.
did for us. And so we wrote it down. Yeah. Yeah. And made the videos. Yep. So would love for you guys to get your own digital copy of it. And we encourage you to subscribe and like video and share it. never know who has not said a word about anything to anyone. And maybe you will affect them in a positive way.
We're here to support you guys, create a kind of another family unit. You bet. You bet. Until next time, this is Tom and Vicki embracing love and fostering hope.
Vicki Dau (25:01)
Thank you very much for joining us on this episode of Reframing Life and Love. We hope you found the inspiration and actionable insights to enhance your relationship. Don't forget to subscribe for more empowering discussions.
