Hello all,
I hope this is the appropriate place to ask this sort of question.
To summarise, things very recently ended with my ex-girlfriend of 7 months, who for a long time I loved and ould not imagine that things would ever end like they have now.
She has PTSD from an extremely abusive relationship when she was in her early teens - I believe with her first boyfriend. I am so affected by this knowledge even now which as far as I'm aware she never shared with anyone else that I don't want to go into specifics, but essentially this resulted in her suffering horrific sexual violence which has clearly damaged her even until today, around 9 years later. She still suffers nightmares, moodswings, and intermittent periods of self-harm and borderline suicidal ideation.
Anyway, for the first 4 months everything was absolutely fine and rosy, we both loved each other, met each other's family, and she herself told me I was easily the best boyfriend she'd ever had, a sentiment echoed by her sister. From the sounds of it she has been in several relationships where she has been mistreated and cheated on since although nothing near the level of the first. It was actually a running joke about what our first argument would be about.
Unfortunately this is a long distance relationship which is obviously more difficult in the first place. But anyway, there was an incident 3 months ago which should have been the first warning sign - see, this girl lives in student accomodation completing a masters, so another girl who is a friend of mine, through which I originally met my ex-girlfriend, lives with her. Although they only met under 2 years ago they quickly became best friends, until recently again. Essentially, I was informed that our mutual friend encountered my girlfriend with her ex-boyfriend in the corridor, going into my girlfriend's room. This guy lives in the same building although on a different floor, is basically just scum from what I hear, and I thought we had agreed they would just not see each other. Later on our mutual friend heard some "noises", and also banged on my now ex-girlfriend's door several times, worried about what was happening, but noone answered. She told me about this the next day over the phone.
As I write this now I see how f*cked the whole situation sounds but obviously we believe what we want to believe, and I didn't want to believe that the person I thought I knew was someone else entirely. Somehow she convinced both myself and our friend that all that happened was a heated argument where they "sorted some things out", but in retrospect her entire reaction was totally wrong. She reacted with indignant anger that anyone could even think she'd do something like cheat, which is not how I, and I think anyone else, would normally react, and somehow, ridiculously enough, I even found myself apologising for not trusting her more.
Anyway as I say I should have probably cut my losses there, but fast forward 3 months and I think things are going well for both of us, although to be honest things were never the same after that. We argued more often, our sex life changed, and I guess I just didn't trust her in the same way anymore.
Just very recently, in any case, sadly enough just after Valentine's Day which we both agreed was an amazing day, I really started to feel like I was being emotionally abused. She was going through a more depressive period, which I understand happens sometimes and I try to support her in any way I can, but somehow everything I said was wrong. She started to make out like everything was my fault, that I was putting my own feelings first and was just not being a supportive partner. The thing is, I actually started to believe this also, I believed I was being selfish and felt feelings of guilt and shame all the time.
In the meantime without my knowledge she was still hanging out with her ex-boyfriend much more often than she let on despite the fact I thought we had agreed she wouldn't do this anymore. Our mutual friend didn't initially tell me about this because she was equally stressed out by the whole situation, that someone she thought was her best friend was acting in the way she was. Additionally, I have found out now, she was actually doing a similar thing to this girl - when my ex was initially confronted about the way she was behaving, she made out to both me, and our friend, separately, that we shouldn't want to control her, we should trust her, we were just projecting our own insecurities, and I think we both started to believe this.
In any case after we both spoke to some other friends separately, the abnormality of this behaviour and her manipulative nature became more clear. I won't go on any longer as you are probably all getting the idea but anyway we recently ended things, and it was not a nice breakup, conducted over text, her still denying everything and saying hurtful things to me, I'm pathetic, I never loved her, it's my choice not to believe her, etc.
The thing is though, I still can't really reconcile in my head how the person that she seemed to be could actually be someone else entirely, someone capable of cheating and flat out manipulation and deception... especially given her past experiences. It's like the person I loved was never the reality.
I mean as I type that up now, and when talking to my friends, it just seems obvious, there were so many warning signs. I had a brief read through the article on Psychological Manipulators on Wikipedia and honestly I could just see so much of it was what she had done to me in the past. I also looked into ways to spot deception a little, and again, the thing that caught me here was how sometimes if deceitful people are asked a direct question, like "Did you cheat on me?" they will answer with a statement, like "I would never do that to you", the exact words of which she said to me.
But again, I know that most of her other friends and all of her family would be just absolutely shocked and in disbelief, as I am, at the idea that she would behave like this given the things she says and the person she seems to be externally. I know that, unfortunately, she will be able to quickly turn them against me, probably saying I was just too paranoid, insecure, didn't trust her. Even now although I do see what it looks like, I still wonder was I correct in my assessment of the situation... I imagine our mutual friend also who lives in the same building as her is having similar thoughts even though she has a much more direct view of what is going on, and says that she just hates her now for what she has done to me.
So I guess what I am asking is... can PTSD do this to someone? I am not even totally convinced she realises what she's doing or means to hurt anyone, but I just can't fathom at all what is going on in her head if I am correct in my perception of things, which I am now quite sure that I am.
It's a shame because when things were good they were really good but obviously if she is the kind of person that she seems to be things just couldn't go on.
Anyway, any input would be appreciated.
I hope this is the appropriate place to ask this sort of question.
To summarise, things very recently ended with my ex-girlfriend of 7 months, who for a long time I loved and ould not imagine that things would ever end like they have now.
She has PTSD from an extremely abusive relationship when she was in her early teens - I believe with her first boyfriend. I am so affected by this knowledge even now which as far as I'm aware she never shared with anyone else that I don't want to go into specifics, but essentially this resulted in her suffering horrific sexual violence which has clearly damaged her even until today, around 9 years later. She still suffers nightmares, moodswings, and intermittent periods of self-harm and borderline suicidal ideation.
Anyway, for the first 4 months everything was absolutely fine and rosy, we both loved each other, met each other's family, and she herself told me I was easily the best boyfriend she'd ever had, a sentiment echoed by her sister. From the sounds of it she has been in several relationships where she has been mistreated and cheated on since although nothing near the level of the first. It was actually a running joke about what our first argument would be about.
Unfortunately this is a long distance relationship which is obviously more difficult in the first place. But anyway, there was an incident 3 months ago which should have been the first warning sign - see, this girl lives in student accomodation completing a masters, so another girl who is a friend of mine, through which I originally met my ex-girlfriend, lives with her. Although they only met under 2 years ago they quickly became best friends, until recently again. Essentially, I was informed that our mutual friend encountered my girlfriend with her ex-boyfriend in the corridor, going into my girlfriend's room. This guy lives in the same building although on a different floor, is basically just scum from what I hear, and I thought we had agreed they would just not see each other. Later on our mutual friend heard some "noises", and also banged on my now ex-girlfriend's door several times, worried about what was happening, but noone answered. She told me about this the next day over the phone.
As I write this now I see how f*cked the whole situation sounds but obviously we believe what we want to believe, and I didn't want to believe that the person I thought I knew was someone else entirely. Somehow she convinced both myself and our friend that all that happened was a heated argument where they "sorted some things out", but in retrospect her entire reaction was totally wrong. She reacted with indignant anger that anyone could even think she'd do something like cheat, which is not how I, and I think anyone else, would normally react, and somehow, ridiculously enough, I even found myself apologising for not trusting her more.
Anyway as I say I should have probably cut my losses there, but fast forward 3 months and I think things are going well for both of us, although to be honest things were never the same after that. We argued more often, our sex life changed, and I guess I just didn't trust her in the same way anymore.
Just very recently, in any case, sadly enough just after Valentine's Day which we both agreed was an amazing day, I really started to feel like I was being emotionally abused. She was going through a more depressive period, which I understand happens sometimes and I try to support her in any way I can, but somehow everything I said was wrong. She started to make out like everything was my fault, that I was putting my own feelings first and was just not being a supportive partner. The thing is, I actually started to believe this also, I believed I was being selfish and felt feelings of guilt and shame all the time.
In the meantime without my knowledge she was still hanging out with her ex-boyfriend much more often than she let on despite the fact I thought we had agreed she wouldn't do this anymore. Our mutual friend didn't initially tell me about this because she was equally stressed out by the whole situation, that someone she thought was her best friend was acting in the way she was. Additionally, I have found out now, she was actually doing a similar thing to this girl - when my ex was initially confronted about the way she was behaving, she made out to both me, and our friend, separately, that we shouldn't want to control her, we should trust her, we were just projecting our own insecurities, and I think we both started to believe this.
In any case after we both spoke to some other friends separately, the abnormality of this behaviour and her manipulative nature became more clear. I won't go on any longer as you are probably all getting the idea but anyway we recently ended things, and it was not a nice breakup, conducted over text, her still denying everything and saying hurtful things to me, I'm pathetic, I never loved her, it's my choice not to believe her, etc.
The thing is though, I still can't really reconcile in my head how the person that she seemed to be could actually be someone else entirely, someone capable of cheating and flat out manipulation and deception... especially given her past experiences. It's like the person I loved was never the reality.
I mean as I type that up now, and when talking to my friends, it just seems obvious, there were so many warning signs. I had a brief read through the article on Psychological Manipulators on Wikipedia and honestly I could just see so much of it was what she had done to me in the past. I also looked into ways to spot deception a little, and again, the thing that caught me here was how sometimes if deceitful people are asked a direct question, like "Did you cheat on me?" they will answer with a statement, like "I would never do that to you", the exact words of which she said to me.
But again, I know that most of her other friends and all of her family would be just absolutely shocked and in disbelief, as I am, at the idea that she would behave like this given the things she says and the person she seems to be externally. I know that, unfortunately, she will be able to quickly turn them against me, probably saying I was just too paranoid, insecure, didn't trust her. Even now although I do see what it looks like, I still wonder was I correct in my assessment of the situation... I imagine our mutual friend also who lives in the same building as her is having similar thoughts even though she has a much more direct view of what is going on, and says that she just hates her now for what she has done to me.
So I guess what I am asking is... can PTSD do this to someone? I am not even totally convinced she realises what she's doing or means to hurt anyone, but I just can't fathom at all what is going on in her head if I am correct in my perception of things, which I am now quite sure that I am.
It's a shame because when things were good they were really good but obviously if she is the kind of person that she seems to be things just couldn't go on.
Anyway, any input would be appreciated.
