@Laura 2 , gosh...I am so sorry to hear that...and, again, I suspect that is how my boyfriend may feel...he keeps saying that he feels barely able to keep up with me when he is well, never mind when he is feeling down.
And I'm sad to read about your BF's difficulties and how it's affecting you.
I similarly feel that I have nothing to give anyone these days. I've even turned new friendships away because I couldn't bear the moment when I would have to reveal how disabled I am and explain the whole history and how it feels etc. (And then, most people just don't understand PTSD - and why should they if they've had no experience?)
You're right on the button I believe: people who love each other don't need performances. Though, personally, it's very hard now for me to believe that people like me let alone love me....it's a trust thing or, rather, a deeply shattered trust.
I have a truly wonderful friend who's stuck with me through thick and thin. We've known each other for 20yrs or so, so she knew me before I became disabled and then acquired the hate crime stalker which all produced PTSD.
The way she treats me is exactly as she did before, she's never lost sight of ME (when mostly people can't see past the disabilities and support needs which obviously they perceive as potential burdens or hurdles at least).
Somehow, although she didn't get it for a long while, she and I still have a friendship of equals and she never makes me feel inadequate when she helps me and genuinely never demands anything of me. Which makes it much easier to give my attention, affection, thoughts etc. to her, because her expectations are only generalised wanting the best for me and that one day it'll all come right. She just instinctively seems to get it that I don't want to be taken care of but just to be understood.
It's an amazing, rare talent : a service-to-others mindset and I am sure it qualifies as love, real love in the agape/philia sense. (May God - or whoever is running the show- bless her!)
But that's a friendship and not a Relationship which naturally puts a number of other important demands and expectations on the other partner. In a Relationship with someone with PTSD I could imagine that the service-to-others mindset could become too onerous and unfair. I don't know. Except that I couldn't envisage even starting a Relationship now because of the trust problems and being terrified that my new partner would melt away on seeing the real difficulties I have. I'd also be worried about him being interested from a sort of unhealthy co-dependent point of view - like, 'what does he want with someone who's so wrecked?!'
I suppose, at the end of the day, for me it's actions that matter the most and not reassurances.
