Relationship Dose She Still Love Me

[Thomas1904]

Hey all


Me and my wife have been together for 3 and a half years and married for 4 months, we met when we were still in high school.

Now she had told me that when she was a kid she had a pretty rough couple of years. She was part of a radical church group who when she was 7 or 8 had a Sunday school teacher who had schizophrenia, and they used to get shown movies of people getting there heads cut off. and told if they didn't 100% follow the church that would happen to them, and shit like that.

When she was about 11-12 they moved to a pretty rough town and she started drinking heavily and doing dope. She almost got snatched of the street twice by strangers. and a year later they had to say goodbye to her mother, because the doctors said her heart was failing. But it ended up being a rare but manageable heart condition (which is hereditary and caused my wife to give up competitive swimming which she loved). About the same time she was in a very abusive relationship with a drug dealer about 18 years old (remembering that she is still only 12). She has told me that he used to hit her all the time but I have a sense that he might have raped her as well but she wont say and I'm not sure.

So all this happened in a couple of years, and she said that she had sunk into a deep depression at about 13 to 14. But they moved town and came to were I lived, which is a lazy beach side town and she got better, and meet me, and everything was swell.

About a year and a half into our relationship I moved out from my parents place and into her house with her family. Every thing was perfect, we loved each other very intensely. She was the type of person who needed lots of hugs and affection, I was always telling her how much I loved her and so on. But about 2 months into living with her family she started to change a bit, a little more closed off but I didn't take much notice of it.

So life went on for the next couple of month, we got engaged and then she started to change even more. I assumed it was the stress of organizing a wedding at such a young age (she was barely 18). We had also stop having sex by this point because she said she wanted to wait for the wedding.

One day she came out and said that she thought she was depressed, which seemed legit because she had been there before, so I tried to help were I can but being only a little older myself and never experiencing anything more than getting a spanking from parents just let it go. so as time went by she got worse and worse and I still did nothing.

Then the wedding came and I can truly say it was the best day in my life. But about a month later things really went south. She had no affection towards me and just sat on the couch reading like literally all day every day. She went to the doctors and they diagnosed her with depression, and she started taking anti depressants. We had tried to have sex on own honeymoon but she said it hurt her to much, and was was trying to get it checked out.

1 month later and not a sign of change and now she was turning suicidal, and the self harm was massive all up her arm. I didn't know what to do. I think went into a bit denial. So her doctor decided she had to go into a psych hospital for mental illness, and about 2 days in there she got a new diagnostic of ptsd. which to her and me made sense because of all she went through when she was younger.

She get terrible nightmares at night of when people tried to grab her off the street, and of the horrific movie she was shown in church

She says she just feels numb now and I find it very difficult to connect to her. She doesn't want to hug and when I leave from a visit I only get a kiss on the cheek. Its becoming unbearable for me, she seems to want her mum more than she wants me. She says that she doesn't think she will ever get better.

Do people get through this and become the loving affectionate people they once were. Does she still love me? Because I love so much and we have only been married for a short time.

Any help would be really appreciated. Cheers

 

[Lucycat]

Hi @Thomas1904 and welcome to the forum. I have no idea if your wife loves you, but nothing you have posted makes me think she doesn't.

This is all so soon after you got married. I don't know if you have read on here about the 'Stress cup'? We fill up on stress whether it is good stress or bad stress and then we overflow. I would imagine that the run up to the wedding will have been shed loads of good stress, so as soon at that is over it all comes crashing down - hence her need for hospitalisation.

I am glad she is getting the help she needs. I would hope with ongoing therapy things will improve for you both. She is lucky to have you on her side! Just remember that just as it takes a long time for the damage to be caused in the first place - over a number of years from what you describe - so it will also take time for her to recover from it. Slowly and gently step by step.

 

[Thomas1904]

So with the right therapy she will get better over time? Thanks I needed to hear that.

I think at the moment I'm not coping with her being away in hospital, I never been away from for more than 2 nights.

 

[Firefly44]

Hi Thomas. You and your wife are going through a really tough time right now and it's hard to know when it will be over. I know you want someone to have the answers-- to tell you how long it will take, what the steps are and let's just roll up our sleeves and do this thing. Unfortunately things are not that straightforward.

I would suggest a few things-- keeping in mind that this based on my experience and what helped me may or may not help her:

- Do your research. Read books like Shockwave and When Someone You Love Suffers from Posttraumatic Stress. Try to understand the experiential and scientific aspects of trauma and PTSD. It's important for you to start to understand what she is going through and to also know how to process your own experience and emotions.

- Acknowledge her pain. Tell her that you probably don't understand what it feels like but that you can see that she is suffering, that she is confused, angry, and afraid. She likely doesn't understand what is happening right now, probably doesn't feel like she can ask for help and even if she could, she probably doesn't know what she needs. All that is normal and takes time. How much time? That depends on her experience, her treatment and a lot of other things.

- Accept that you can be there to support her but you cannot fight her battles for her.

- Accept that you may be a trigger for her. Given her history of abuse by a boyfriend, her body is likely to see you as a threat. Don't take this personally. Our bodies are designed to be keenly attuned to threats, especially after surviving life-and-death situations. People who have survived situations with gun shots may be triggered by the sound of a car backfiring. Someone who survived a car crash may be triggered by going to the mall because that's where they were going before the crash. She may be triggered by the presence of men or by boyfriends as a category.

- Cherish the small things. Being able to sit outside together. Eating ice cream together. Sitting a reading in silence.

- When you get depressed, and you will, remember that it is possible to overcome this. The path is not straight or clear or easy. But it is possible.