Customer Reviews

Ghosts in the Bedroom: A Guide for the Partners of Incest Survivors

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are other good books out there for couples dealing with the afteraffects of childhood sexual abuse, but I recommend reading this book first. It's a quick read and packed full of information. The author gives a quick overview of what lies ahead for the couple, what to expect and how to handle the survivor's changing behavior, the importance of us as partners to look inside ourselves for our own issues and areas for improvement, skills for good communication, suggestions on resolving conflict, coping and overcoming difficult situations, etc. Also good for a survivor to read. It helped my partner and I understand each other more clearly. It gave me hope to "hang in there" with my partner and know that with time, and both of us working together, we have a good future ahead of us free from the afteraffects of past abuse. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Of the books written about survivors of sexual abuse/incest (and I've read almost all of them over the past 25 or so years), Ken Graber's Ghosts in the Bedroom is the finest and clearest I know of for partners of incest survivors. It is concise and well organized, and it raises and addresses questions that those who love, or are in a relationship with, a survivor need answered. I recommend it highly to anyone in such a relationship and also to those men and woman who are themselves victims/survivors of sexual abuse and incest.

I think anyone considering this as a starting point is way off.I am a partner of a survivor. There are three books which I have read at this point. "What about me" and "Allies in healing". I feel that these latter two were the books which I gained the most from.

This book is very clinical in it's approach.Great for a threrapist. Not good for the reader. The other two mentioned come from a much more human place. "Me?" is written by the partner of a survivor, "Allies" by an authority on the subject and a survivor herself. Do yourself a favor, start with one of the other two, then come back to this one. After all, it is all about arming ourselves with info isn't it? Read them all, just read this one last.

If you find yourself confused, and frustrated, with your partners behaviour due to childhood sexual abuse, and you haven't really looked at any books yet, this is a good starting place.

This book is not too long, but loaded with good insights and well written. It is also very honest and forces us as partners to look at ourselves. It is noteworthy that Graber forces us as partners to think about the reasons we may have been drawn to childhood survivors of abuse. Perhaps it is not what we want to read or think about, and maybe it doesn't apply to everyone, but these are good questions to be asking...This is why I highly disagree with reviews that criticize invcluding a focus on the partners' behavioral patterns. It is well worth thinking about.

Overall, i think this book, if anything, will make you feel like you are not alone and in the least can serve as a "friend" when you are feeling confused.

Lastly, its positive that this book does not advocate saving the relationship no matter what. Everybody's situation is different.

Again, I highly recommend this book if you would like have a little more insight regarding your relationship and willing to take an honest look at yourself too.

The title of this book is misleading. Only about 10% of the book is targeted toward partners of incest survivors and not childhood sexual abuse survivors in general, and it isn't a very long book. A lot of the issues I thought a book for partners of incest survivors in specific would discuss weren't addressed or only grazed on. I didn't feel like it had a lot of sound and non-obvious advice for helping my partner deal with some of his more complicated emotions or my own feelings in regards to his abuse. I felt like a lot of the book was just repeatedly saying, "Be careful, don't be co-dependant! You're probably co-dependant if you were attracted to a victim of sexual abuse! In fact you probably were abused yourself! Reading books alone won't help you, get into a 12 steps program or see a therapist!" as far as your own emotions went and as far as helping your partner it could be summed up as, "Don't be needlessly harsh, cruel, and insensitive!" Aside from that the focus seemed narrowly set on survivors who were traumatically abused by parents. The only mention of sibling-sibling abuse seemed to write it off as more likely than not harmless if the children were in a similar age range, downplaying the potential for damage if the abuser is only a few years older and things were fairly consensually even if the younger sibling was being robbed of a well-paced sexual development. Other issues only briefly mentioned were the complex emotions partners might have to face when interacting with the involved family member(s) once they've obtained knowledge of the abuse and seeing their partner continue to remain close with their abusers, survivors still having unwanted lingering attractions to their abusers, and the emotions of survivors who never repressed the memory and felt abandoned when they got old enough that abuse ceased. Overall I would have to say the book didn't help me very much, I wouldn't really recommend it unless I knew a person was having trouble understanding the facts and misdirecting their anger about the events on their partner instead of their partner's abuser.

This book does a FAR better job of addressing the needs and concerns of partners than Allies in Healing (the book recommended by our marriage counselor, and by most others). The two most appealing features of THIS book were Graber's directness about the need for the partner to examine their own role (positive and negative) in the relationship, and about the potential for harmful "replay" behavior inside and outside the relationship.

As another reviewer griped, Graber does devote pages to codependency, and the 12-step culture from which it came. It is NOT the focus of the book, and the reader can benefit from this book while remaining skeptical about this "condition". More bothersome is his presentation of extramarital relationships (for both) as a possible interim solution.

The greatest value is Graber's experience as a partner, enhanced by his training as a therapist (Allies in Healing is written by a survivor, and reflects that perspective). This is the book for partners to read first, and is an important counter to the survivor-centric thinking that invades a partner's life.

As a primer pointing out the issues a female survivor of incest must confront and experience, this book can serve as male partner's reference. It also mentions potential issues the partner can confront as well. However, I cannot recommend it as an in depth treatment of partner issues. Having purchased this book on the recommendation of a partner reading list and the reviews here at amazon, I was sorely disappointed. As a female partner, I did not find any useful strategies or discussions to aid the partner in coping with partner issues such as excessive caretaking, boundary setting or balancing of the partner and survivor's interests. The Laura Davis book, Allies in Healing was more helpful in this area.

There's good material in this book, but the overriding theme gets old- that if you are involved with an abuse survivor, you must be screwed up yourself with some sort of dependency "disorder." Co-dependent, Primary dependencies, secondary dependencies- they are all here. A far better book is "Allies in Healing." It provides constructive information for helping your partner, and yourself.

The first and best book I found to help guide me through my wifes journey from abuse victim to survivor. Frank, honest & brief, Mr. Graber unviels many of the mysteries that partners of abuse survivors experience. This book helped me determine my role in this journey. I read this book many times, and reread specific sections when faced with things I did not understand. While this book is not in any way spiritually based, I must say God Bless Mr. Graber.

As the partner of an incest survivor, do you feel like a neglected victim even though your life has been drastically affected by the aftermath of sexual abuse? Do you feel left out in the cold as you watch them go through recovery? Do you feel isolated or rejected, and think that no one else will understand your problems?

Then this book is for you. Although the impact of incest or sexual abuse can destroy relationships and test long-standing commitments, the information in this book may be the key to holding your relationship together through the journey to recovery.