I think first you need to stop making apologies for wanting help and someone to talk to . It's direct because it needs to be. You cannot help others until you sort yourself every counsellor knows that . It seems as i read this it would be good for you to do so to as if the roles are reversed. When we love truly love someone whether in need or not we put them 1st before all others . Do let yourself be used or be sidelined you are a special person and there are many who know it although you may not be aware of the fact. You may need to be direct to and ask your best friend if you are their best friend also as at times it does not feel that way to you . Don't be afraid you have nothing to fear but fear itself . Here is a good place to start you may have different opinions expressed and you may choose to discard or take on board if you feel it's of value . You need to be well for you and when you are then and only then can you even consider helping another. That's not being selfish it's a coping mechanism . In my time working in mental health i saw so many loving soul becoming unwell because of their concerns for others before self. Be kind to yourself and remember yesterday is history ,tomorrow a mystery all we really have is today and today is a gift which is why we call it the present . Dad taught me that and he is gone but still speaks Robbie
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Relationship Am i even in the right thread?! i just need help!!
- Post starter Veevivianvee
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- #74
Veevivianvee
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Robert thank you so much for your response !
therapy and having someone to talk to is helping me a great deal . i found this whole situation really difficult in the beginning, but now that im working on myself and taking time for me, I'm in a much more positive head space! i have and i still am learning so much from reading all the threads and comments here everyone here has been so helpful and it's really working!
thank you again Robert for your kind comment
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- #75
Veevivianvee
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how do you argue idk i know thats not a good thing. stress cup everything i know and im trying my best at least i was
how do you argue with someone with ptsd without things getting explosive?
how do you argue with someone with ptsd without things getting explosive?
OrangeJulius
Gold Member
Why do you want to argue? What is your goal in having an argument? Are you trying to relay a message? That's not going be productive in an "argument". Are you frustrated and just need to vent? Go ahead and express that, but if it won't be satisfying if you don't "win" then its a crapshoot.
I am not an arguer. For me, arguing does nothing. I am a walk away til I am calm and can think straight kind of person. What was I angry at? Why was I angry at that? Was it actually that thing that I was I angry at or something deeper?
Then later, when we are both in a different mindset I bring it up and we discuss. And sometimes we agree to disagree. And sometimes we have to walk away again and try again later.
Figure out why you want to argue. There may be a better way to reach the same goal.
Freida
VIP Member
You don't. You discuss. Calmly. If you can't be calm, walk away. and yep - that puts it all on you, which sucks. It shouldn't be that way. But think about it this way -- if you had a relationship with someone who was diabetic and you knew they got unpredictable when their blood sugar was low, would you start an argument then? Or would you wait till they were stable?
PTSD is a disease that messes with how I perceive the world. Hubby starts an argument and it immediately threatens my safety. Which is very insulting to him because he has NEVER given me a reason to think that. but. It's how my mind works. I'm almost always in fight/flight mode so it doesn't take much to activate me. We ended up in marriage counseling to learn to fight more effectively because ALL couples fight. But not all couples have someone who reacts like I do. So we had to learn to do it in a way that we could both live with.
If he won't go to counseling? then you have a bigger issue.
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- #78
Veevivianvee
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well i dont want to argue but for some reason it keeps happening .
i think i am using poor choice of words . i do not want to argue with him but i feel like arguments keep occurring. there's so many things that go through my mind when it does happen, such as please don't let me say the wrong thing , should I even be having this conversation. I guess I'm walking on eggshells again . I'm afraid to even have an argument / discussion for fear that things will only get worse between us .
I've done well to be positive he even said so himself. We were able to hangout yesterday and we both had a really good time but by the time we left our date destination, things just went to crap. i feel like the crap was able to outshine the fun time that we had.
there's nothing i want to win or even gain by "arguing" just not sure what to do when it happens :(
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- #79
Veevivianvee
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i wish i knew how to fight effectively...in my mind i just think i have to stand up for myself in this moment or at least let him know this is bothering me .but when i do it's not received very well, and i admit it can also be the delivery. since we got into a relationship we have both known that communication is are biggest downfall. all i want to do is not make things harder on him , especially since i know he is having a hard time with therapy. idk...
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- #80
Sweetpea76
VIP Member
I always ask myself, do I want to be right? Or do I want to be happy?
I don't need to defend myself. I know what I did or did not do, what I think or do not think, etc. If he wants to bitch or complain about me he can bitch at the wall. I don't defend myself... I do disengage and walk away. It's always something petty and stupid, and I'm not lowering myself to it.
And you know what? When he calms down, he knows he was wrong.
Arguing or defending yourself is like throwing gasoline on a fire. You just cannot do it. It NEVER works. NEVER. Nothing gets accomplished.
The trick to not arguing if arguments seem to always happen? Learn to disengage. Lashing out can be common with sufferers. Don't escalate the situation. Disengage.
I don't need to defend myself. I know what I did or did not do, what I think or do not think, etc. If he wants to bitch or complain about me he can bitch at the wall. I don't defend myself... I do disengage and walk away. It's always something petty and stupid, and I'm not lowering myself to it.
And you know what? When he calms down, he knows he was wrong.
Arguing or defending yourself is like throwing gasoline on a fire. You just cannot do it. It NEVER works. NEVER. Nothing gets accomplished.
The trick to not arguing if arguments seem to always happen? Learn to disengage. Lashing out can be common with sufferers. Don't escalate the situation. Disengage.
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- #81
Veevivianvee
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i never asked myself that question.
disengaging is something i truly need to learn to be able to do . there's so much i have to work on with myself and it all keeps showing in this relationship. i hate that more than anything. i know that this problem escalated because of my insecurities from a past relationship. it's not fair to have that be apart of this relationship. im trying so hard to get it together ,one day im doing really well and the next I've done something that seems to make all my previous effort meaningless.
OrangeJulius
Gold Member
Yes! Disengage! In my relationship, more often than not whatever it was comes up once in that moment and then its over.
For example, we have an unspoken divide of house chores....his domain is bathroom, I have the kitchen, and we share the living room and bedroom. Now we both still wipe up each others areas (I'll do a quick wipe up of the bathroom counter and toilet when I have friends over and it hasn't been cleaned recently enough).
So, towards the end of his longest isolation to date (at least longest with me) he hadn't cleaned in a LOOOONG time. I hadn't either because I was elbow deep in self care and keeping the rest of the house livable, feeding us, and the dog etc (I hate bathroom cleaning....its always last on my cleaning days....and therefore never gets done...and therefore always first on his cleaning days).
I hadn't been engaging him because of his isolation. I was in the kitchen doing whatever and he comes in to talk to me. He laughed at a joke he made....I had to stop myself from crying because I hadn't heard him laugh in so long and it felt so good to talk.
The end of the short conversation was much less pleasant. He said his friend wanted to come over the other day while I was working and couldn't because the bathroom was dirty (like...disgusting kind of dirty). He gave me this whole song and dance about how he's not really social and so having to turn down a social opportunity wasn't in his best interest. And ultimately, in a very stern voice, (he never yells at me) he told me that the state of the bathroom was completely unacceptable and that I can never let it happen again so his friends can come over whenever they want. Like I'm the only one using the bathroom and the only one capable of cleaning it.
Sooooo....was I pissed? Abso-f*cking-lutely. Could he have told his friend to come over in an hour so he could clean before he got there? Yes. Could he have hung out at friends house instead? Yes. Could they have met somewhere neutral? Yes. Is it MY fault the bathroom was dirty? No. Is he incapable of cleaning? No.
But would pointing ANY of these things out to him in that moment do anything productive? Nope. In that moment is gonna be anybody's fault but my own? Nope.
Instead I said something vague like "yes its dirty" or "oh bummer you didn't get to see him" and then took the dog on a walk. It never came up again. I never cleaned it. And I'm sure it will get dirtier than usual on his next extended isolation period.
*shrug* Sometimes thats just how it goes. Just remember when its a ridiculous accusation.....its not you. Sometimes its hard to know what battles to pick. I usually go for the ones that come up more than once and I have a strong position one way or another. I let the other stuff go. And as the youngest child in my family with a sibling with a VERY strong personality.....it comes much more easily to me than it would for others.
Now, if I feel disrespected that's different. I bring those things up later. But that's only happened once and he admitted he went about it in the wrong way and used certain words in the moment....and that wasnt how he actually felt. And as soon as I brought it up he knew exactly what I was going to say.
For example, we have an unspoken divide of house chores....his domain is bathroom, I have the kitchen, and we share the living room and bedroom. Now we both still wipe up each others areas (I'll do a quick wipe up of the bathroom counter and toilet when I have friends over and it hasn't been cleaned recently enough).
So, towards the end of his longest isolation to date (at least longest with me) he hadn't cleaned in a LOOOONG time. I hadn't either because I was elbow deep in self care and keeping the rest of the house livable, feeding us, and the dog etc (I hate bathroom cleaning....its always last on my cleaning days....and therefore never gets done...and therefore always first on his cleaning days).
I hadn't been engaging him because of his isolation. I was in the kitchen doing whatever and he comes in to talk to me. He laughed at a joke he made....I had to stop myself from crying because I hadn't heard him laugh in so long and it felt so good to talk.
The end of the short conversation was much less pleasant. He said his friend wanted to come over the other day while I was working and couldn't because the bathroom was dirty (like...disgusting kind of dirty). He gave me this whole song and dance about how he's not really social and so having to turn down a social opportunity wasn't in his best interest. And ultimately, in a very stern voice, (he never yells at me) he told me that the state of the bathroom was completely unacceptable and that I can never let it happen again so his friends can come over whenever they want. Like I'm the only one using the bathroom and the only one capable of cleaning it.
Sooooo....was I pissed? Abso-f*cking-lutely. Could he have told his friend to come over in an hour so he could clean before he got there? Yes. Could he have hung out at friends house instead? Yes. Could they have met somewhere neutral? Yes. Is it MY fault the bathroom was dirty? No. Is he incapable of cleaning? No.
But would pointing ANY of these things out to him in that moment do anything productive? Nope. In that moment is gonna be anybody's fault but my own? Nope.
Instead I said something vague like "yes its dirty" or "oh bummer you didn't get to see him" and then took the dog on a walk. It never came up again. I never cleaned it. And I'm sure it will get dirtier than usual on his next extended isolation period.
*shrug* Sometimes thats just how it goes. Just remember when its a ridiculous accusation.....its not you. Sometimes its hard to know what battles to pick. I usually go for the ones that come up more than once and I have a strong position one way or another. I let the other stuff go. And as the youngest child in my family with a sibling with a VERY strong personality.....it comes much more easily to me than it would for others.
Now, if I feel disrespected that's different. I bring those things up later. But that's only happened once and he admitted he went about it in the wrong way and used certain words in the moment....and that wasnt how he actually felt. And as soon as I brought it up he knew exactly what I was going to say.
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- #83
Veevivianvee
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ah!! lol this was kind of funny as i personally like cleaning the bathroom. i wish we fought about things like that instead of the things we do actually fight about. in my case i felt disrespected not so much what he did just that he lied to me , before i thought he had lied about some things but i was wrong. This Time however he actually lied and i had flashbacks of a really bad relationship i was in and just snapped.it bothers me that he did something wrong but everyone keeps giving me the you should apologise speech
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- #84
Sweetpea76
VIP Member
Don't apologize if you didn't do anything wrong. Just disengage. "I love you, but I'm not going to continue this conversation because it's going nowhere." Then remove yourself from the situation. The end. No drama. Disengage.
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