This is my first post and I'm really not sure how to go about this.... so just going to lay my cards out on the table...
About 7.5 years ago I moved in with two women who I was friends with, and eventually started dating one of them. I bring this up because we were already fairly close friends and I had no idea she had PTSD. We've been engaged for just over a year now, and we've been dating for nearly 7 years. For the first 3-4 years of our relationship, she was VERY good at "hiding" how severe her PTSD was, and because of this... I didn't understand the severity and seriousness of how I needed to support her and avoid certain actions/situations.
When I say "hiding", I'm not trying to blame her for anything. In fact, I'm still amazed/impressed at how well she handled everything on her own and still blame myself for not seeing many of the signs of how much worse it was than she portrayed. I just believe that this has complicated matters because I (who has never been depressed or had PTSD) got very comfortable after nearly 4 years of how our relationship had gone and thought everything was great. It was around this 4 year mark that she started to realize that she needed help in order to fully let down her barriers/boundaries and truly try to give me 100% of her love/support.
She has been in therapy weekly since and has made vast progress/improvements and has committed herself to confronting/dealing with everything in lieu of pushing away and "hiding" these issues as she had done in the past. I truly do appreciate and respect that she's doing all of this even as she's apathetic and depressed.
I love everything about her, including how strong/resilient she is because of everything she's been through, but lately these issues have caused a greater strain on our relationship. I feel like we can't have any disagreement without her feeling as though I'm yelling at her or that I've triggered something. She also hasn't been able to engage in sexual relations recently due to flashbacks/triggers.
I guess I don't know exactly what I'm looking to get out of posting this, just mainly to vent/get advice from others who have been/are going through similar situations.
About 7.5 years ago I moved in with two women who I was friends with, and eventually started dating one of them. I bring this up because we were already fairly close friends and I had no idea she had PTSD. We've been engaged for just over a year now, and we've been dating for nearly 7 years. For the first 3-4 years of our relationship, she was VERY good at "hiding" how severe her PTSD was, and because of this... I didn't understand the severity and seriousness of how I needed to support her and avoid certain actions/situations.
When I say "hiding", I'm not trying to blame her for anything. In fact, I'm still amazed/impressed at how well she handled everything on her own and still blame myself for not seeing many of the signs of how much worse it was than she portrayed. I just believe that this has complicated matters because I (who has never been depressed or had PTSD) got very comfortable after nearly 4 years of how our relationship had gone and thought everything was great. It was around this 4 year mark that she started to realize that she needed help in order to fully let down her barriers/boundaries and truly try to give me 100% of her love/support.
She has been in therapy weekly since and has made vast progress/improvements and has committed herself to confronting/dealing with everything in lieu of pushing away and "hiding" these issues as she had done in the past. I truly do appreciate and respect that she's doing all of this even as she's apathetic and depressed.
I love everything about her, including how strong/resilient she is because of everything she's been through, but lately these issues have caused a greater strain on our relationship. I feel like we can't have any disagreement without her feeling as though I'm yelling at her or that I've triggered something. She also hasn't been able to engage in sexual relations recently due to flashbacks/triggers.
I guess I don't know exactly what I'm looking to get out of posting this, just mainly to vent/get advice from others who have been/are going through similar situations.
