I haven't been on here in a while, mostly because things were really looking up for my sufferer and I. We've improved our boundaries, he's back in bi-weekly therapy, and his panic attacks are getting less.
But the last week has been hell. There are issues with honesty in our relationship. Early on (almost 1 1/2 ago) I caught him communicating with a few other female acquaintances and he lied about it. He promptly ceased all contact (so he says) and deleted all of his social media accounts.
Needless to say, however, I've been somewhat suspicious since and I do need reassurance and room to ask questions and talk about it when I need to. However, whenever I broach the subject (by voicing my thoughts and fears,) he is quick to deflect the conversation to how shitty he is feeling, how isolated he is (we're long distance at the moment,) all of which he believes will ease my fears about his faithfulness, but doesn't. To the contrary, feeling shitty and isolating sounds to me like he's very likely to reach out to other people.
Once I try to reroute the conversation to the matter at hand, he becomes extremely anxious and eventually has a panic attack. At that moment, I'm so mistrustful and scared, I can't give him what he needs (reassurance, maybe a hug.) Now he has become adamant that he can't trust ME to give him the space he needs when he has a panic attack talking about these issues, which, in turn, makes him anxious to talk about these issues to begin with. It's like a cat biting itself in the tail.
He says the topic itself is a trigger. My distrust is a trigger. It doesn't seem to filter in that I have had every right to be mistrustful...
I want so badly to trust him. I don't doubt he has panic attacks and flashbacks so bad everything else just moves to the background. But a part of me is worried and scared there is more to the story - that there IS something going on and his resulting anxiety is not limited to his fear he'll have a panic attack or my mistrust being a trigger, but that he is hiding something.
I do not know what to do anymore. I have no idea how to regain trust and it looks like I'm losing his...
But the last week has been hell. There are issues with honesty in our relationship. Early on (almost 1 1/2 ago) I caught him communicating with a few other female acquaintances and he lied about it. He promptly ceased all contact (so he says) and deleted all of his social media accounts.
Needless to say, however, I've been somewhat suspicious since and I do need reassurance and room to ask questions and talk about it when I need to. However, whenever I broach the subject (by voicing my thoughts and fears,) he is quick to deflect the conversation to how shitty he is feeling, how isolated he is (we're long distance at the moment,) all of which he believes will ease my fears about his faithfulness, but doesn't. To the contrary, feeling shitty and isolating sounds to me like he's very likely to reach out to other people.
Once I try to reroute the conversation to the matter at hand, he becomes extremely anxious and eventually has a panic attack. At that moment, I'm so mistrustful and scared, I can't give him what he needs (reassurance, maybe a hug.) Now he has become adamant that he can't trust ME to give him the space he needs when he has a panic attack talking about these issues, which, in turn, makes him anxious to talk about these issues to begin with. It's like a cat biting itself in the tail.
He says the topic itself is a trigger. My distrust is a trigger. It doesn't seem to filter in that I have had every right to be mistrustful...
I want so badly to trust him. I don't doubt he has panic attacks and flashbacks so bad everything else just moves to the background. But a part of me is worried and scared there is more to the story - that there IS something going on and his resulting anxiety is not limited to his fear he'll have a panic attack or my mistrust being a trigger, but that he is hiding something.
I do not know what to do anymore. I have no idea how to regain trust and it looks like I'm losing his...
