So it was Friday morning I started to try & manage situations differently with my sufferer. She had taken something I had said the night before, turned it into something else, got defensive about it & has since dug her heels in about her stance despite how unrealistic & illogical it is. I said that I had explained myself & that I wouldn’t keep doing so & that what she did with that then was up to her. She angrily told me how we were over (again) & I allowed her to take that option without rising to the bait.
Sunday night then she text to tell me how much she loved me. I of course told her how much I also loved her. This led to her saying how we should be together & happy. I asked her if she understood where I was now, how I felt about the situation. She needed it explaining.
“I’m in love with you. I want to be with you. But the illness is destroying us & being given far too much time & devotion & that’s what I can’t keep doing anymore. It has to change.”
This was met with the “yes, but...” response. The “but” being that I don’t respect her, I don’t listen to her, I am “ridiculously” putting everything on her, I don’t take any responsibility for what happens, I never change, etc, etc.
Now as much as I have a lot to learn & am not claiming to be a perfect human being by any stretch (!), suffice to say I would suggest I have ample evidence over our 2.5 years together to say that those things aren’t really true. In fact, the way her illness has treated me over the course of the relationship, I would say that she suitably described exactly how I feel in fact.
Please don’t think I am claiming to be infallible when I say these things, but I really have tried so hard for my sufferer this last 2.5 years (& with her children). I have made a lot of effort & tried harder than I have ever tried with any partner & I have tried to handle things as best as possible with no outside help. I now read about how to deal with sufferers dealing with traumas; how to listen when they need to talk, don’t push when they don’t, take what they’re saying seriously & never be dismissive, etc, etc. Most of what they advise is what I was in fact doing. I truly love this woman & I don’t find it a stretch to empathise massively for her or offer her genuine support. That to me is the easy bits of all this. The problems for us fall down in day-to-day life where so often I fear her logic & reason about things is being skewed & then turned against me.
I told her I still believed that she can change her approach & her reactions to things. That she can start to take what I say & do for what they mean & not just what she instinctively believes about them & then vehemently sticks to.
I also told her that I can’t help with this, as much as I would love to be able to. That I can only support her but the changes need to come from her. I said again that help was needed.
I guess what I find hard is that when every mention of her suspected CPTSD (undiagnosed & untreated - this is only our theory we have come to) is met with the immediate “yes, but you do all this...” etc, etc, it makes me feel like she isn’t ready to really address the true scope of how bad she is & how much it is destroying our relationship. It’s deflecting it away from where the real problems lie.
I try to explain why I believe that a lot of those feelings she has about me come about because of the illness tho. Which then leads to her thinking I’m both arrogant & dismissive of any criticism she makes about me. This leaves me between a rock & a hard place. If I accept what she says about me, the illness wins & she will be justified & she will possibly be less inclined to seek help. If on the other hand I don’t accept what she says about me, I am an arrogant arsehole who “thinks he’s better than everyone” & unwilling to change a thing for her. There’s nowhere for me to turn it feels.
What I chose to do Sunday night (& I very politely explained what I was doing so that there was no ambiguity) was to inform her that I could sense her tone changing & that I was not going to defend myself against things I know not to be true anymore and this was the new approach I would be taking. That when she was ready to talk to me properly I would love to hear from her & that I still loved her. She sent a few more “get out of my life/you don’t love me” type comments but I didn’t respond to them. It’s been another couple of days of silence since but I feel like this is all I can do now until she is willing to get help or at least show me a willingness to try change things.
I am sure I have not handled things perfectly, but I am trying to learn to approach things differently in the last 5/6 days since finding this website & reading people’s advice. Does this sound like a more “correct” way to deal with things?
Sunday night then she text to tell me how much she loved me. I of course told her how much I also loved her. This led to her saying how we should be together & happy. I asked her if she understood where I was now, how I felt about the situation. She needed it explaining.
“I’m in love with you. I want to be with you. But the illness is destroying us & being given far too much time & devotion & that’s what I can’t keep doing anymore. It has to change.”
This was met with the “yes, but...” response. The “but” being that I don’t respect her, I don’t listen to her, I am “ridiculously” putting everything on her, I don’t take any responsibility for what happens, I never change, etc, etc.
Now as much as I have a lot to learn & am not claiming to be a perfect human being by any stretch (!), suffice to say I would suggest I have ample evidence over our 2.5 years together to say that those things aren’t really true. In fact, the way her illness has treated me over the course of the relationship, I would say that she suitably described exactly how I feel in fact.
Please don’t think I am claiming to be infallible when I say these things, but I really have tried so hard for my sufferer this last 2.5 years (& with her children). I have made a lot of effort & tried harder than I have ever tried with any partner & I have tried to handle things as best as possible with no outside help. I now read about how to deal with sufferers dealing with traumas; how to listen when they need to talk, don’t push when they don’t, take what they’re saying seriously & never be dismissive, etc, etc. Most of what they advise is what I was in fact doing. I truly love this woman & I don’t find it a stretch to empathise massively for her or offer her genuine support. That to me is the easy bits of all this. The problems for us fall down in day-to-day life where so often I fear her logic & reason about things is being skewed & then turned against me.
I told her I still believed that she can change her approach & her reactions to things. That she can start to take what I say & do for what they mean & not just what she instinctively believes about them & then vehemently sticks to.
I also told her that I can’t help with this, as much as I would love to be able to. That I can only support her but the changes need to come from her. I said again that help was needed.
I guess what I find hard is that when every mention of her suspected CPTSD (undiagnosed & untreated - this is only our theory we have come to) is met with the immediate “yes, but you do all this...” etc, etc, it makes me feel like she isn’t ready to really address the true scope of how bad she is & how much it is destroying our relationship. It’s deflecting it away from where the real problems lie.
I try to explain why I believe that a lot of those feelings she has about me come about because of the illness tho. Which then leads to her thinking I’m both arrogant & dismissive of any criticism she makes about me. This leaves me between a rock & a hard place. If I accept what she says about me, the illness wins & she will be justified & she will possibly be less inclined to seek help. If on the other hand I don’t accept what she says about me, I am an arrogant arsehole who “thinks he’s better than everyone” & unwilling to change a thing for her. There’s nowhere for me to turn it feels.
What I chose to do Sunday night (& I very politely explained what I was doing so that there was no ambiguity) was to inform her that I could sense her tone changing & that I was not going to defend myself against things I know not to be true anymore and this was the new approach I would be taking. That when she was ready to talk to me properly I would love to hear from her & that I still loved her. She sent a few more “get out of my life/you don’t love me” type comments but I didn’t respond to them. It’s been another couple of days of silence since but I feel like this is all I can do now until she is willing to get help or at least show me a willingness to try change things.
I am sure I have not handled things perfectly, but I am trying to learn to approach things differently in the last 5/6 days since finding this website & reading people’s advice. Does this sound like a more “correct” way to deal with things?
