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Husband/i Both Cptsd, He May Be Worse Than I Thought...

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cupfish

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My CPTSD healing is more advanced than my husband's, he and I both know that. However, I am getting hints that his family abuse may have been worse than he has allowed himself to recall, because of the magnitude and pervasiveness of his trauma-management behaviors as an adult. The poor guy has CPTSD, social anxiety disorder, and uses passive-aggressive behavior to manage the scary world around him. And he's a genius -- off-the-charts IQ. He claims to trust me, but his actions say otherwise. He's definitely healed a lot, but sometimes getting better in one area means you find a PTSD rat's nest right next to it. (I just identified the passive/aggressive pattern, and I'm not looking forward to working through this with him.)

We can't move ahead without trust, but husband seems unable to acknowledge his defensiveness. If you repress memories more than you thought, how can you authentically heal? Advice welcomed. I'm stumped.
 
Me n my hubby both suffer from c.p.t.s.d. although my hubbies was misdiagnosed as bi.- polar as he was diagnosed before p.t.s.d. was commonly recognized outside of military. Our general consensus is that he has had more time to heal than me but he still struggles with mood swings and anger sometimes. On days where his anger is triggered I generally switch into being the strong calm one which is only fair seeing as he has spent so much of the last 14 months shovelling the wreckage of my life into manageable form and copes f*cking well with only really living with the empty husk of his wife a lot of the time. There are details of his past I don't know as there are details of mine he doesn't know and that's not through lack of trust, both of us have just locked some really pain full shit into parts of our brains that it might cause more damage than good if unlocked. He may trust you just as much as he says he does he might just not be ready to "go there" himself.
 
Very observant. It's amazing to know that other households struggle with PTSD marriages. You seem smart and perceptive....for an empty husk :)
 
Are we married to the same guy? My husband hasn't been diagnosed with PTSD although I have. Everything else you said fits my husband to a tee. I am looking forward to reading the other responses.
 
Now that my eyes are opened that the driver behind passive/aggressive behavior is veiled hostility I have been avoiding him a bit. Not because there is a specific problem, it's the pattern of manipulation through questioning/raising doubts/lecturing/being prickly/never approving others...I'm "on" to his game. Identifying the behavior threatens to really change our relationship....I think for the better, but he's not cooperative about change, at all. Hostility toward family is not okay. No, he doesn't scream and rant, he plants seeds of doubt.
 
Even without a PTSD diagnosis, it's been widely accepted in psychoanalysis theory that a child's shocks are sub-conscious and responsible for symptoms later in life.

It's assumed, I think, that with PTSD, there is "always more" in there. This needn't be a reason to not trust someone.

What does Passive-Aggressive mean to you in his case, and has he been in therapy and assessed for a personality disorder?
 
My husband accuses me of being passive aggressive sometimes and it really really hurts because I ALWAYS straight down the line try my hardest to please him which exhausts me most days as i find being a good wifehard work man. Not that I'm ungratefull to be given the opportunity to be that as he is a truly wonderful man. I don't do manipulation full stop though so every time he accuses me of passive aggressive it cuts like a knife cos I am like one of the the least manipulative people you wiĺl meet so is my husband which is one of the many awesome things about him so when he says it i know it comes from raw emotion. I have spent months evaluating my behaviour in order to identify and stamp out any potentially subconscious passive aggressive behaviour but its honestly f*cking true I'm not passive aggressive Batshit yes but not passive aggressive. Whenever he has accused me i have asked him for specific examples so if you feel you need to talk about this with your husband make sure you have these to hand. Don't let him isolate you though you need a good support network around you right now. I actively encourage my husband to chill with sane mates. However we both have a habit of choosing equally batshit mates so i encourage him to hang out with his batshit mates instead lol
 
Out of respect for my husband I always show him any posts that I write about him. He is not happy with the previous post I put on this thread so i need to set the record straight as he has pointed out discrepancies such as he doesn't accuse me of being passive aggressive he brings it up when he feels I am displaying passive aggressive behaviour he says the most common example is how I regularly flirt with him if i know he can't do anything and make sexual suggestions when we are somewhere he can't touch me but as soon as we are in a position where something could develope I produce every excuse under the Sun not to be touched. I also promise him sex and then don't deliver and to be fair I do do this. A lot. So maybe I am wrong but would appreciate feedback.
 
You are amazingly transparent, and you also deserve privacy. Why do you have to share everything you write about your husband with him? Did you offer this?
 
What does Passive-Aggressive mean to you in his case, and has he been in therapy and assessed for a personality disorder?

Good question. It means a pervasive indirect communication style that veils underlying hostilities. Yes it's a diagnosis but he is not in therapy, he is on an SSRI. Examples: "Why didn't your kids learn manners?....Don't be fooled by one good conversation with your sister.....Why should I admire my son? What has he done for me" Hateful win/lose behavior masquerading as sound advice. Heinous.
 
For the first ten months of our relationship I was hiding a lot of shit from him cos it was too dark and f*cked up for me to accept myself. Fairs fair and it blew up in my face as the truth will do and ever since I have been almost obsessively transparent ( showing him all my texts ect.) being so gratefull of being given a second chance for the first time in my life and desperate not to mess it up. He doesn't ask this of me I'm just happy to give it. There is some stuff that I still find it to hard to tell him about but he doesn't push me nor am I able to really share my body with him and he respects that to so i guess this transparency is a way of showing him intimacy and trust when I struggle to in other ways.
 
Contempt, hostility, anger. He sounds angry. SSRI's might even make that worse, since they are activating.

He's highly intelligent, too, correct?

A colleague who was high functioning, high IQ PTSD was like this (constant advice) which could often appear without solicitation from others. Those who wanted to exploit his narcissistic need to help ("control me, please" types, as my employee was) thoroughly enjoy this aspect of him. I thought, at first, he wanted to be helpful, and he did. But it was simply a facet of a compulsion of his, part of his personality with a lifetime of PTSD, and high IQ. It later revealed a vein of bitterness, similar to what you're describing, and had an overall way of venting his anger and depression.

Sometimes, to his mistress, my ex-employee, he'd text, email, or in person verbalize a torrent of rage toward work policies with mostly expletives. Other times, he would draft a journalistic style email appealing to some ideal (the environment) in order to rant about a current minor issue (students using the auto-open doors letting all the heat out) when in fact his gripe was that his office was cold in the early morning. This was sent to the entire faculty and staff of the college.

I see a pattern of needing to come off as giving sound advice for the betterment of all when in fact his emotion was simply anger and frustration that he felt the need to vent.

I think therapy would help. Instead, the anger is festering and since it could not be vented as a child, and there is so much there from childhood, it needs a vent now.

Therapists try to help the client locate the source and process the root cause of the anger so it is not controlling the emotional landscape so much.

Sorry I went on too long. Just trying to locate a pattern someplace.
 
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