gracelessheart
New Here
Hi everyone. I’ve been following this forum as a guest, and I’ve recently decided to share my story to vent to those who understand and in hopes of hearing how others would have coped in my situation.
Last year, I met an amazing man online. He is active duty military. To put it short, we hit it off right away, and he soon drove six hours to visit me in my hometown. Unfortunately, I am a full time student, so he was the one to visit me most of the time. He was understanding about this.
Things seemed perfect—always passion, fun, and adventure. He was always the gentleman. His friends told me how much of a good influence I am in his life, and how he has changed for the better. He would bend over backwards to be close to my family. We talked about marriage, kids, and what city we would be living in in the future. We were a team, and we loved each other deeply.
He speaks of his experiences overseas in Afghanistan very openly with me and has shared the things he both enjoyed and regret. He also made it clear that he does not like being in crowds or hearing particular sounds. He's confided in me about how rough his upbringing was having both alcoholic and abusive parents. Despite this, he’s always made it a point to be balanced in mind, body, and spirit. However, there would be nights he would get very drunk and call me full of anger about things that seemed minuscule (like people trying to comfort him) or full of sadness about his regrets overseas. He would constantly say he’s a bad man. He would apologize the next morning once he’s sobered up, but would not talk about it further.
As we were nearing a year together, he began to change. Some change was positive: he would drink less alcohol and eat healthier, as these are habits I promote (I’m a nursing student, it’s basically in my blood!). But lately, he has underwent a lot of stress from his job and is basically being forced out of the military. He became more quick to anger and made speaking to me seem like a chore.
He visited me during a holiday, and would refuse to do anything we planned (and agreed on) before he arrived. He changed all of our plans! I went with it, but of course, I was a bit bothered because he knew how excited I was to try the things we had planned. I spoke to him about how it hurt my feelings a couple days later.
Big mistake.
He called me later that night and told me I was suffocating him. He said drinking less and eating healthy makes him feel like he has no control over his life (I was thinking he can't be serious?). He then began to insult the things I had wanted to do on his last visit. He then told me “I’m throwing away 8 years of the military, so I don’t care about throwing away this relationship.” And he broke up with me. Just like that.
I reached out soon afterwards and told him that despite everything, I'm always here for him. He contacted me 2 weeks later and said he was sorry for not giving me a chance, but he is just emotionally numb. Complete 180 from the man he was when I first met him. He says that he still loves me, and he speaks to me everyday, but it is just to tell me things like “Going to the gym” or “I ate healthy today. I had a salad and am drinking more water.” Which are the things that I promoted that drove him up the wall… Some days, he is more open and playful than others. Just like old times.
I’ll take what I can get.
He’s never been formally diagnosed with PTSD, but I believe the signs are there. He hasn’t had any psych eval since he came back from his deployments. Somehow he has slipped through the cracks with that. He refuses to be seen for one too.
I don’t know if I should move on or wait for him to have his full range of emotions back? Sometimes he's "there", but oftentimes he's not. How can he get the help he needs? Any advice, insight, or even words of encouragement are much appreciated.
Last year, I met an amazing man online. He is active duty military. To put it short, we hit it off right away, and he soon drove six hours to visit me in my hometown. Unfortunately, I am a full time student, so he was the one to visit me most of the time. He was understanding about this.
Things seemed perfect—always passion, fun, and adventure. He was always the gentleman. His friends told me how much of a good influence I am in his life, and how he has changed for the better. He would bend over backwards to be close to my family. We talked about marriage, kids, and what city we would be living in in the future. We were a team, and we loved each other deeply.
He speaks of his experiences overseas in Afghanistan very openly with me and has shared the things he both enjoyed and regret. He also made it clear that he does not like being in crowds or hearing particular sounds. He's confided in me about how rough his upbringing was having both alcoholic and abusive parents. Despite this, he’s always made it a point to be balanced in mind, body, and spirit. However, there would be nights he would get very drunk and call me full of anger about things that seemed minuscule (like people trying to comfort him) or full of sadness about his regrets overseas. He would constantly say he’s a bad man. He would apologize the next morning once he’s sobered up, but would not talk about it further.
As we were nearing a year together, he began to change. Some change was positive: he would drink less alcohol and eat healthier, as these are habits I promote (I’m a nursing student, it’s basically in my blood!). But lately, he has underwent a lot of stress from his job and is basically being forced out of the military. He became more quick to anger and made speaking to me seem like a chore.
He visited me during a holiday, and would refuse to do anything we planned (and agreed on) before he arrived. He changed all of our plans! I went with it, but of course, I was a bit bothered because he knew how excited I was to try the things we had planned. I spoke to him about how it hurt my feelings a couple days later.
Big mistake.
He called me later that night and told me I was suffocating him. He said drinking less and eating healthy makes him feel like he has no control over his life (I was thinking he can't be serious?). He then began to insult the things I had wanted to do on his last visit. He then told me “I’m throwing away 8 years of the military, so I don’t care about throwing away this relationship.” And he broke up with me. Just like that.
I reached out soon afterwards and told him that despite everything, I'm always here for him. He contacted me 2 weeks later and said he was sorry for not giving me a chance, but he is just emotionally numb. Complete 180 from the man he was when I first met him. He says that he still loves me, and he speaks to me everyday, but it is just to tell me things like “Going to the gym” or “I ate healthy today. I had a salad and am drinking more water.” Which are the things that I promoted that drove him up the wall… Some days, he is more open and playful than others. Just like old times.
I’ll take what I can get.
He’s never been formally diagnosed with PTSD, but I believe the signs are there. He hasn’t had any psych eval since he came back from his deployments. Somehow he has slipped through the cracks with that. He refuses to be seen for one too.
I don’t know if I should move on or wait for him to have his full range of emotions back? Sometimes he's "there", but oftentimes he's not. How can he get the help he needs? Any advice, insight, or even words of encouragement are much appreciated.
