I will try and empower her so she can be heard. I have a strong personality and that makes her relive her past, though she is reluctant to validate my opinion.
Oh JohnJohn,
You can't empower her. She has to empower her self. She has to choose to heal (and god it is hard to heal even if you are 100% committed, but if you aren't really trying then I don't see how progress can be made.
You can't keep looking after her in this type of parent mode because it is not good for you or her. (Only my opinion and may not be helpful at all.)
You are allowed to be yourself and have your own personality. If she has a problem with this then she needs to take responsibility work on that. She needs to go to therapy to sort out her issues. She also needs to take responsibility for the situations she chooses to put her self in.
If you do all the work for her and moderate even the person and personality you are when you are around her, then why would she change? She can just say PTSD and you bend over backwards, do a few somersaults and look after your child to boot.
Whilst you are so mega focused on your partner you have to consider how much is your child missing out by having one parent emotionally absent because of "PTSD" and one parent emotionally absent because they are care taking and rescuing the other parent. Even if you can't set boundaries for your self you do need to consider and set them for your child.
She needs to take responsibility for her own life.. Why did she choose you as a partner? Was it because you have a need to rescue other people? Or did she see someone who is so kind that they would look after her? My sense, from what you have written, is that you are being taken advantage of as you are so willing to take up her load and she allows that to happen or she makes it happen by floundering as she knows you will pick up the slack.
If you always do things for a child, they never learn. Dealing with difficulties is part of the deal of being alive. It is part of being an adult.
We both deserve to be heard and everyday I learn a bit more. Without effective communication I believe we would have continued distancing ourselves from the relationship and subsequent understanding where we stand and what we need.
It has to be a two sided thing though JohnJohn. No matter how much work you do and how hard you try, if she isn't committed to her own healing process it is not going to work out that well.
I appreciate everyone's perspective, the more information I have the better. Now I need my wife to feel confident enough to tell me and I need to help empower her, so she knows that I care about her feelings too.
I think you are demonstrating over and over to your wife that you care about her feelings. I think focussing on your feelings and how this all is effecting you would be the best bet for you to see the situation a bit more clearly.
I know when I have been enmeshed with people I lose all perspective.
This may or may not be helpful. I hope you stick to therapy and start to stand up for yourself a bit. I would also consider how this is all affecting your child. Do you want to teach your child to behave in a helpless manner so they seek out a partner who can rescue them repeatedly later in life?
Having you time each week and some hobbies or activities that are fun and not based around caretaking your wife would be important in my mind. If your wife sabotages these activities by having crisises at those times then I think you have your answer of how you can tell if someone is using their PTSD as an excuse not to take responsibility for their own lives.
Having you time with your child each day - doing something as simple as going for an half an hour walk - would mean that your child starts to get some more parenting and is not as over looked in the drama of PTSD.
Then doing activities together as a family and not focusing on what your wife can't do but doing things that she can do would be a good activity to schedule in regularly. The rule for these occasions can be no heavy duty talk about trauma and focusing on letting your child be the centre of attention some of the time.
If your wife has dramas that means she can't participate and/or support for you having your life and your child being paid attention to and having quality parent and child time, then it is time to talk turkey and make some decisions on how you are going to set strong boundaries around this.
Good luck,
