Childhood abuse caused 40-year trauma in this man’s love life

The abuses suffered by a man had a lot of repercussions in his life. At the age of 47, the Englishman who uses the pseudonym Matt Carey is ready for the first time to become romantically involved with someone after years traumatized by the violence he was subjected to.

In an interview with Radio 4, BBCMatt shared the relationship between his history of childhood abuse and his current love life.

At the age of 8, while playing football with friends, Matt decided to go to the public toilet in the town where he lived on the coast of England.

It was at that moment that two men followed him. According to Matt, one of them went on to praise him for his performance in the match. However, since he didn’t recognize them, Matt felt uncomfortable talking to strangers.

One of the men said that Matt had waved at them during the game, something the boy denied. The men insisted on the story and called the boy a liar for saying he didn’t know them.

It was at that moment that one of the abusers pretended to feel pain in his groin and related the discomfort with Matt saying that the pain was the boy’s fault for having hurt his feelings.

The man then asked Matt to massage his groin to see if the pain subsided. The little boy realized that something was wrong, he started to cry, but under pressure he followed the commands of the adults.

“I remember going home after what happened and my mother asking if there was something wrong with me”, recalled the now adult man who still suffered successive abuse after the episode in the bathroom. In all, according to Matt, there were more than 30 attacks.

The marks of abuse suffered by Matt in childhood made the boy create a shield in his love life.

In the interview, he said that after the abuse ended he promised himself that no one else would ever hurt him.

One of the consequences of his decision was that he always found it difficult to open up to another person.

“For most of my adult life, I had real issues with sexual intimacy issues (…) I would just run away from any girl who showed interest or approached me. My fear was that at some point she would want to have sex.”

In addition to the fear of sex, Matt was also afraid to tell intimate questions about his life. For many years, the Englishman wondered how he would explain that his difficulty in relating to other people came from a trauma of abuse.

However, things have changed. With the help of family, friends and therapy he is ready to date someone and is even venturing into dating sites.

“A lot of the shame I felt from the abuse is behind me, so I don’t feel the need to apologize for the side effects I experienced,” says Matt. “I accept that I’m scared, but I also feel happy that there’s a chance my life won’t boil down to that abuse. They are not everything in my life.”