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General Calling Spouses Of People With Combat Ptsd

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Sometimes I feel a bit "cheated" by life because I cannot do the typical "young people" stuff with him like going clubbing and this is pretty tame and if we don't even do that.... pretty depressing.
Of course I could do it with another partner but as a married women I just don't want to.

@Lemontree, that's what girls nights out are for. I do loud clubs and concerts with girlfriends, and since I love amusement parks, I do those with my kids. My vet knows he has an open invitation if he ever wants to go anywhere with me, but he also knows that I'll still go and do things that I like regardless of if he wants to go or not. I would make myself bonkers if I sat at home every day just because he was going through one of his hunkered down phases. Also, I think I would probably drive him crazy by hanging out around him during one of those phases full of pent up energy and bored to tears. Now if he is having a bad day and wants me there, then I'll absolutely keep him company. I also don't constantly run around and leave him alone. However, I have to have my own way to escape from PTSD and have some normalcy.

I am going to take a vacation from this boards for a week or so. I realized reading all those stories of rape drags me down.

I tend to stay out of the sufferer threads unless I see something specific on the home page that relates to my sufferer, something I'm researching, or something that I am familiar with. I have way more than enough trauma stories from my own sufferer. :(
 
Do you think if i havent heard from him on sunday it would be okay for me to call as we both agreed on it. ??

If you both agreed to it, it would be fine to call. Also, you seem like you initiated the space thing, not him... he may actually be worried that you don't want to contact him if you don't call him.
 
since I love amusement parks, I do those with my kids.

Me too though I still a little sad Daddy cannot come with us... but it is good to see other are going through the same stuff.

Another question: @holdenmonty is searching for some books about telling his kids (1 years old and 3yo) about PTSD. Do you know of any or know how to tell the kids?
 
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Hmmm... my kids are teenagers from a previous relationship. I just sat them down and told them about PTSD. Luckily my vet is great around my kids and on his own insistence keeps his distance from them when he is symptomatic. I think that is the one thing keeping us from moving in together.. not exposing the kids to day to day life with PTSD symptoms.

I did a quick search on amazon and found some PTSD books geared towards kids whose parents are sufferers. This one looks like it is for smaller kids. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1433810441/?tag=pf03-20.

If you look at the "customers who bought this item also bought" listing under the description of this book, it looks like they have more children's books.
 
Thank you guys. It is so tough sometimes because this weekend was a rough couple of days and I got a little short with my three year and raised my voice and I saw his brain shutdown and fear kick in. I feel so bad when this happens but when I saw the fear it was like a gut check and I stopped what I was doing, got down to his level and explained to him my frustration after I got him to look at me and apologized for yelling so loud.
 
If you both agreed to it, it would be fine to call. Also, you seem like you initiated the space thing, not him... he may actually be worried that you don't want to contact him if you don't call him.

thanks sweetpea- i could tell he needed it thats why i suggested it and he agreed, i think i'm just having some fear that he may get to thinking this week and may start feeling better without me could this be possible?.......Also do you think its normal when it comes to facebook that people with PTSD remove pictures that you as a girlfriend put up he seemed to have not accepted them, they were of me and him he looked miserable in them though. He also didnt accept an invite for march to a friends birthday party in the city which is full of crowd so i would understand that. it just got me worried even though ive initiated the space for him it hurt a little.
 
Also do you think its normal when it comes to facebook that people with PTSD remove pictures that you as a girlfriend put up he seemed to have not accepted them, they were of me and him he looked miserable in them though. He also didnt accept an invite for march to a friends birthday party in the city which is full of crowd so i would understand that

It is sooooo easy to start trying to interpret signs from the universe when you are stressed out and don't understand things. I think women have a big tendency to do this... I know I do. Maybe it's because men aren't as open with their feelings as we are, so we try to interpret their actions. You can't let yourself though, you are going to make yourself nuts. Nine times out of ten it is nothing outside of your head. Really. It seems like men aren't as deep as we think they are. Whereas a woman would untag herself in pics to make some kind of passive aggressive statement, it's more than likely he just thought he looked like a dork in the pictures and untagged himself. Just think of all the bad pics you have untagged of yourself.

I've learned that if I have questions about his actions, I just ask my vet. It saves me a lot of exploration on Mt. St. Molehill... and to call a spade a spade, your sufferer is going to freak out enough for the both of you in PTSD relationships.
 
The womens mind can be so many things these days.

Yeah i kind of ended up putting that in my head that he just looked like a dork but i looked good so its all okay. Haha

Im on day 3 out of the 8 at the moment of "space" i call it mind camp week.....even though i initiated it im having the urge to just flick a text tonight to him just to let him know that im still here for him and that i will be speaking and seeing him soon. What do you guys think? Or because i initiated it and said i woukd speak to him in 8 days should i just leave it?
 
Did you agree to NO contact for 8 days? If so, then my advice would be do not text him. If he's anything like my vet, honesty and sticking to agreements are really important.
 
Yeah we both agreed you are right and he is always about keeping agreements too. I think my fear is that he will forget me
 
I wouldn't contact him until the time you said you would. It may seem more like game playing if you do... like you didn't mean what you said. Of course if he contacts you, that's a different story. He may not have needed the space, and needs reassuring you aren't getting tired of him, etc.

You may want to be careful in the future about telling him he needs space. Sometimes PTSD sufferers need isolation to cope with things when they are overwhelmed... but not all sufferers do, and the ones that do don't do it all the time. I let my vet tell me when he needs space, because who knows what is going on in his head. The only time I initiate a space thing is if I need some personally.
 
Thanks @Sweetpea76

I initiated it because i could tell he needed it aswell as the comment he made " i thought you may have known i needed some space because of my headspace"

I asked him nicely if he needs space to just verbalise it to me. And would respect it But thats why i initiated it this time because of him being so tense and so far away. But thought it was also impotant to set boundaries so i suggested 8 days he was okay with that. To be honest i repeated what i noticed and i think he was relieved. And he did text me when he got home shortly after " home safe try and have a good night" i only texted back " i will and try to focus on yourself over the next few days and will talk to you next sunday x" so it was okay but if course you leave it a start over thinking.... maybe this is it he may realise he doesnt want me... should i have done that or not etc etc the mind makes up so much stuff.
 
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