No one here can diagnose him... and personality disorders in particular are huge diagnoses (even diagnosticians wade very carefully into that territory, often taking months and months of ruling out other possibilities before giving their diagnosis) .... that said? The PATTERN is classic PTSD behavior.
The ptsd cup explanation
Where choice becomes involved / personal decision time is
how the pattern is filled. How do they choose to manage their stress?
- Do they cheat & start new relationships (like your husband)?
- Do they end relationships & start new ones? (Different thing)
- Do they drink?
- Do they use drugs?
- Do they gamble?
- Do they cut themselves / self harm?
- Do they isolate?
- Do they lash out? (Verbally abusive)
- Do they lash out? (Physically abusive)
- Do they go to bed for a month?
- Do they drive too fast?
- Do they kick into disordered eating? (Starving, binging, binge & purge)
- Do they attempt suicide?
- Do they put themselves in life threatening situations?
- Do they exercise obsessively?
- Do they disappear into their work?
^^^^
These and
dozens of other things (both healthy & unhealthy) all fall under coping mechanisms / the way people choose to deal with too much stress. They basically fall under 3 categories.
1. Thrill Seeking
2. Numbing / Avoidance
3. (Illusion of) Control
I didn’t split the list above into those groups partly out of laziness, but also because many coping mechanisms tick all 3 boxes. Drug use, for example, let’s a person choose their emotions (Control) by (Numbing/Avoiding) what they’re feeling, & is often both dangerous and a rush (thrill seeking).
Cheating is another thing that ticks all 3 boxes in several different ways. The danger of getting caught and losing their marriage (thrill seeking) along with the risk of STDs & pregnancy as well as confrontations with their affair partners’ wives/husbands/possible police involvement/work finding out/etc.; the rush of sex &/or of new love flooding their system distracting and numbing the feelings they don’t want to be feeling; & the illusion of control as they’re the ones choosing partners, times, how much risk to take (you finding out, how close to cut it / whether or not to shower, using condoms or not, physical safety, etc.).
One of the hardest things about cheating? They’re
banking on your pain. They
depend on you being hurt as part of the rush, what makes it exciting to them in the early stages, and then? There “gets” to be this huge emotional cathartic blow out when you do find out. Whether it’s a big fight where they blame you or they get to cry and beat themselves up and beg forgiveness (or both)... it’s a
bonus for them. Big emotional blowout about something of their choosing (instead of about their trauma). No different from an addict choosing an upper to feel amazing and then a downer to feel end of the world. No different from an adrenaline junkie getting the high of the extreme sport and the pain/recovery of the broken bone. Or a cutter getting the rush of endorphins from the injury, and then the distracting pain of the wound.
That someone uses bad coping mechanisms to manage their PTSD? Super common. But also not required. As there are just as many if not more ‘good’ coping mechanisms to manage their PTSD.
- PTSD >>> Reacts strongly to stress
- People choose coping mechanisms to deal with stress & symptoms
- Those coping mechanisms can be healthy or unhealthy, hurt themselves/ others/ no one
So PTSD causes the situation where stress needs to be dealt with, but it does NOT cause someone to free-climb, or shoot heroin, or stick their dick in someone. A person can have impulse control issues, but whether they set the house on fire or eat a pint of Haagen Das? Has vastly different results. Just because the setting is the same, it doesn’t take away the personal responsibility with how they deal with the setting.
A lot of people with PTSD will “try out” a bad coping mechanism
once. They cheat, but instead of the pain they cause & risks they’re taking being thrilling to them? It’s abhorrant to them. So they never do it again, and choose a different coping mechanism. At
least 3 affairs in (that you know of) you know that’s not what happened. He’s banking on your pain. He’s getting off on your pain. Your getting hurt? (Or catching an STD, etc.) is part of what makes this coping mechanism work for him.
He probably loves you very much. But he
also finds it acceptable to hurt you to make himself feel better. A lot of people do. Whether they beat their wives or kick their dogs after a bad day at work, or starve their kids to do drugs because it’s more important they feel better than buy groceries, or commit adultery... you’re an acceptable loss to him. To me? That’s simply not okay. You deserve better. I don’t even know you, but I DO know that you deserve to never be considered an acceptable loss by the person you love.
