TW: discussing child sexual abuse

My husband has confided several different childhood sexual experiences with me, about ages 9/10-13 years old. Involving watching porn but also engaging with other kids (step-sisters, friends, cousin) in behavior ranging from watching porn together, oral sex from another male cousin, and group masturbation to completion, and propositioning a friend of his mother’s for sex when he was 10, and I believe he was also abused by an older neighbor boy when he was probably 5/6/7 years old.

I’m a deeply empathetic person and as a mom, sometimes hearing these things is extremely difficult and upsetting for me. I have 2 daughters and I was raised in an extremely secure and caring and intact home. While I understand that these realities exist, honestly, hearing them come from him just rips my heart out. He doesn’t think anything of those things because he says they were just kids and it was all consensual, which I really do understand. But the images that flash in my mind honestly nauseate me to the point of not being able to eat or drink.

In my mind, outside sources like porn and exposure to this behavior groomed them into thinking it was really okay. The same way an adult can groom kids into enjoying and normalizing abuse.

I feel angry at his and the other kids parents for being so neglectful and careless, I hate the world for taking innocence so early, i hate that he can’t recognize this as abuse, I hate that my kids might have to deal with this stuff, I hate everything and I hate having to stuff my feelings down and feel physically ill, but not want to tell him so I don’t offend him. I wish I could go back in time and save him from these things, from losing that innocence so early. I’m trying to just let myself sit with these feelings but my heart feels genuinely broken. It doesn’t even feel worth it to talk about it with him at all but I needed to get this out of my head because I hate that this is always my reaction.