Relationship Do I.....?

[ladare]

Hello all,

My husband and I have been married for two years. He has been to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He recently got out of the army and has been diagnosed with both ptsd and tbi.

Our sex life has gone down the drain! We NEVER have sex anymore. Its as though he hates touching, cuddling, or kissing. I'm 22 and he is 24. He tells me that he just doesn't feel like it anymore. We used to have a very fulfilling intimate relationship. I try initiating things and I just get turned down time and time again. It is so hurtful. I can't help it, but my mind is starting to wander: is he not attracted to me anymore? is there someone else? is it really just everything that he is going through right now???? It makes me feel so terrible inside. I feel so afraid to even try anymore because the feeling of rejection is too much.

We have our first marriage counseling appointment this Tuesday. Is this something I want to talk about? Whenever I have tried to talk about how unhappy I am with our sex life--he immediately gets offended and shuts down. I hate to make him feel inadequate, but I am really unhappy. Has anyone here experienced this? How have you dealt with it? Did it improve for you????

This song by Luke Bryan sums everything that I am feeling pretty well:

Baby, what are we becoming
It feels just like we’re always running
Rolling through the motions everyday
I can lean in to hold you, or act like I don’t even know you
Seems like you could care less either way
What happened to that girl I used to know
I just want us back to the way we were before

Do I turn you on at all when I kiss you baby,
Does the sight of me wanting you drive you crazy,
Do I have your love? Am I still enough?
Tell me don’t I, or tell me do I baby
Give you everything that you ever wanted
Would you rather just turn away and leave me lonely?
Do I just need to give up and get on with my life
Baby, do I

Remember when we didn’t have nothing
But a perfect simple kind of loving
Baby those sure were the days
There was a time our love ran wild and free
But now I’m second guessing everything I see

Do I turn you on at all when I kiss you baby
Does the sight of me wanting you drive you crazy
Do I have your love, am I still enough
Tell me don’t I, or tell me do I baby
Give you everything that you ever wanted
Would you rather just turn away and leave me lonely
Do I just need to give up and get on with my life
Baby, do I

Still give you what you need
Still take your breath away
Or light up the spark way down deep, baby do I

Do I turn you on at all when I kiss you baby
Does the sight of me wanting you drive you crazy
Do I have your love, am I still enough
Tell me don’t I, or tell me do I baby
Give you everything that you ever wanted
Would you rather just turn away and leave me lonely
Do I just need to give up and get on with my life

Tell me baby do I get one more try
Do I, baby do I


Thanks
-ld

<Edited for text formatting and paragraph breaks.>

 

[SeekingSerenity]

Take heart ladare, this is in all probability his PTSD.

Read all about it, there is a lot of information here, lots of it via the home page.

My Beloved (a sufferer) finds it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to even tell me that she still loves me. It hurts so bad, I know. But finding the understanding that its not because she no longer loves me, but because its the PTSD not allowing her to find those emotions right now, has given me a peace and a hope for the future.

Don't push him right now, I know this sounds silly, but back off just a little bit. Give him space to breathe, and you will see a difference quite soon.

(((((hugs))))) I know its not easy, I've been there, I'm still there, it sucks. But I love her enough to do it.

 

[amethist]

Hi ladare.

This may sound a bit harsh, so my apologies before I begin if it does.

Please forget the intimate side of you marriage for now, it will be extremely difficult for your husband to even think about that right now.

The intimate side of a relationship is one of the first things to go and one of the last to get back, when any kind of depressive illness is involved.

The more you push him, the more he will feel inadequate, well that's how my husband described it at one point. So dont push anymore, leave it alone, until he is in a better place in his own mind.

Make the best of when this does happen, but dont make a fuss either. It will come back, but it could take a while.

Take the intimate side of your marriage, as the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Concentrate on understanding what is happening to him, and taking care of your self.

It does get better, but no one can tell you how long it will take. It could be months, it could be years, all you can do is, read, listen, watch and learn.

Amethist

 

[ProudWife99]

Ladare - I do understand what you're saying. It is such a difficult topic, especially for men. You can't know the amount of stress it causes him to be unable to satisfy you and that stress can be so overwhelming he instead decides he just doesn't "feel" like it.

I know it is almost unbearable, but what amethist said is completely correct. When in a relationship with someone suffering from PTSD we are making tons of sacrifices. One of the things that goes first is intimacy.

I know for me I felt unattractive, unwanted, and pretty disgusting. I had to keep a very open mind, remind myself often that his response to me does not define my worth, but how I feel about myself. It is not a quick fix and discussing it with him (even calmly) will only continue to stress him out. He cannot be what you want him to be in that area right now. There is no way of telling when that aspect of your relationship will return. You have needs and they are understandable, but sometimes we must accept that they CANNOT meet our needs right now. If we think of it in terms of a choice we will forever be even more unhappy. Think of it in terms of what he is capable of, not what he is choosing to offer. Hang in there! I've been there and I'm happy to say that it DOES get better it just takes a while (or a really, really long time).

 

[Ladyhope Somerset]

Welcome LD,

Losing out on the sex, cuddles and kisses, all the intimacies of a loving relationship, the loving words and touch, well it's devastating and very sad. It's a huge blow for both your egos but there are so many more important things for you both to learn about how to cope with and lessen PTSD symptoms.

The most important thing for your husband is to get professional psychiatric/psychological help and for you to learn as much as you can. I'm sorry there is no quick fix but expressions of love, sex and intimacy will return. ;)

LHS

 

[Pale Warrior]

Hi ladare, it makes me sad to read of someone else going through what OH and I have suffered, it's vile.

You are so not alone, and so not to blame. I am sure your beloved would do anything he could IF he could. If he is anything like mine the worst thing you can do is to push him or apply pressure, I tried too hard in the begining and the marital bed became an ice box.

Things have thawed considerably, after 4 years of therapy for him & 1 year for me. So all I can suggest is to think long and hard about the comments above and arm yourself with knowledge of the subject.

You may have to find your own dispacement activities and remember to hang on to the moments when he does give some contact/love/warmth. PTSD is a game changer, but be aware it can get better with time and the right therapies.

 

[ladare]

Thank you all so much for your responses and support. I like view of intimacy as "icing on the cake." It also gives me hope that so many of you have said it got better for you. I definitely need to learn more about PTSD (that's a reason why I joined this forum), and buckle up for this journey. It also helps to not feel so alone and lost in this whole process. It is comforting to know that I am not the only one going through all of this with a loved one. I want this to work with him so badly. What it all comes down to, is that I'll love him no matter what. This is all just so confusing and emotional.

We had our first marriage counseling today. We are both willing to go, but to be honest I felt worse after I left. We didn't even get to intimacy issues. It was as if we were just stating everything that we dislike about each other in front of a stranger! I was crying the whole time--its hard for me to disclose any of my relationship problems to friends & families....imagine how I felt talking about all of this to a lady I don't even know! The first thing she wants us to work on is eating dinner (at the table) 3-4 times a week together. We are both in school and working so its hard to cook sit-down meals everyday. We mostly just round-up anything we can and eat in front of the TV together. So, I guess this is where we are going to start. I am also going to try and give him plenty of space if we have an argument. Usually, I need instant gratification in an argument. Meaning I like to settle things immediately. He usually shuts down. Our counselor told us to take a "time-out." We need to give each other space and the re-group. After the session, I felt horrible. But I am open to this whole process.

Thank you for your support
-ld

 

[Pale Warrior]

Question:

Is this relationship counselor qualified/exerienced in PTSD?

That aside, in the early days my trigger was so sensitive, my cup so full, if someone had tried to tell me when or where to eat my meal I would have asked them to shut the "flip" up or come round my house and cook it for me. Red mist....

I remember the first councelor I got to see, she made me so mad: spitting, cussing, door punchingly mad. My sufferer was totally physically disabled, PTSD'd out the building, with psychotic episodes (he thought he had been abducted by aliens) and she wanted me to write a poem. A frigging poem? Then it was a picture.... ditto response. Then she suggested I leave him... red rag.

There was one thing I was not going to do (even if I privately thought about doing it) and that was leave him. We had had 7 wonderful years, he supported me through my own healing, he was the love of my life and he was lying there in pieces and some woman I didn't know was telling me I should get out for my own good.

Best of luck, ladare, it can get better.

PS Eventually I did have to bail out for everyone's sake, but that was 10 years later when he could walk and self care and it was for 2 weeks so he could sort himself out (and I wouldn't harm any more innocent doors in the process :))

 

[SeekingSerenity]

Hey ladare,

Sometimes the "tasks" we are given by our counsellors don't make much sense to us. I have found that when I just trust in my shrink and do what he says, that things do get better. You'll probably find that eating a meal together will promote talking, which is always a good thing. Especially if you remember to follow the advice and take a "time out" when confrontation happens.

 

[ProudWife99]

Ladare- I hear and feel your frustration. The first thing my T said to me when I first went in (in tears, much like you) was "Do you love him enough to let him go?" I wanted to punch him! I'm not here to let him go, I thought! I'm HERE for you to help me figure out how to stay. I was so disheartened I didn't even want to go back.

What I did learn over the course of time is that we cannot attack the "big monsters" in our relationships first, no matter how much we want to. It sounds to me like just spending that amount of time together with no distractions a couple times a week is a good step towards building intimacy. You'd be suprised how difficult it was for my husband and I to sit across from each other and find something to talk about because we were both simmering about all the things we were unhappy about. We had to work past those boiling points and relearn how to just talk to one another without the arguing, accusing, and hurt.

Like SeekingSerenity says above, sometimes it doesn't make sense, but it can be beneficial.