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Having trouble with my wife

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Hi,

I haven't posted here in a while, but a lot has been going on. My wife is pregnant, and I'm excited to be a parent, but there is a lot of stress coming with it. I'm diagnosed with ptsd. My wife has an extensive trauma history, is undiagnosed, but definetly has signs of ptsd. She doesn't trust therapists, or most other people in clinical roles, so she is not being treated.

I was concerned before that she was emotionally abusive, but if she wasn't then, she is now. She tells me I'm being mean if I even want to be in a different room from her, or take a nap, or even do something by myself. I have an open mike that I go and play music at on Saturdays, and she has been talking me out of going, telling me I'm being mean. She yells all of the time, but if I so much as raise my voice if I'm frustrated, I'm scary and mean. She constantly tells me I'm doing things wrong like: house keeping, sex, holding her, loving her daughter from another marriage, always being at work (even though I have to work an second shift job for childcare reasons, knows I would very much prefer to work during the day, and don't have a choice) and uses that to talk me into not going out. If I talking about trying to get a job during the day, and make other arrangements for child care, she snaps at me, and tells me she only trusts me, and a select couple of other relatives to watch her daughter, and that I'm being selfish by wanting to work in the day time. When she's in a good mood she makes fun of me, and tells me I'm being to sensitive. If I try to express to her that I had a bad day, or am feeling down she suggests I have no right to feel depressed because her past trauma was worse than mine. On the same subject, she pretty much scoffs and anyone with a diagnosis of ptsd, whose trauma she doesn't see was as bad as hers. (not that hers wasn't bad, it was really really bad).

I'm also concerned about her mental health in the pregnancy. She keeps saying she cant sleep because she's afraid someone's going to break in and kill all of us (her x mainly), or her first child is gonna wander out the door (daughter has moderate to sever autism), and that she's woken up by night terrors every 2 hours, and that I'm going to get in a car wreck and die, or that she is. She also very firmly refuses to see anybody about mental health matters, but still goes on about how everybody gets medication except for her. She doesn't want to do anything, except be home with me there.

I know all of this is amplified by pregnancy hormones, but she has always done similar things. I feel like I'm starting to lose myself a bit. It's like I'm not allowed to feel good, and if I do I have to feel guilty about it, because my wife is miserable. Sometimes it's gotten to the point to where I worry that she's going to be emotionally abusive to our child in the future.

I'm not even really looking for advice (though feedback is welcome), I've only talked about this with my therapist, and were working on some coping skills like mindfullness, or other DBT related stuff. I just wanted to get it off my chest to people who aren't therapists. I'm doing my best to be supportive, but I'm getting really worn out.
 
I read your post and it sounds like stress. You do realize, this is the- one person is getting better and the other one is not attempting to, right? The point, of telling you, that you are doing something wrong in "sex" is a no-no, really. That's intimacy and not coffee table talk. She's competing with you for some reason... it has to be about the time you have together.She shuts herself off from the outside so you get all of this, everytime you are in her presence

I dated a guy with PTSD and I'm PTSD and we were just not a good match. I had my attenion on him but truthfully, I was always running away from him. I never held his attention really, the spotlight always had to be on him.. he didn't see anything else. He was a loner and I was a loner.. It's hard to eplain ( I just got diagnosed 3/4 months ago after 50 yars of having it) and I am in therapy, taking meds.. but i think there are different levels to this. He went to therapy but didn't want to change as far as meds... he just wanted to basically stay the same. He had multiple docs that told him he needed meds but knew they couldn't force him.

I just grew tired of the drama. Have you? He did compete with me, was not medicated and the conversation always had to be about him. Never about the hours and long days I put in ( as yours) he bitcfhed about the 30 minutes that it took me to get ready after I put in 40 (plus ) hours of work .I own the business and don't demand respect but got little of it.

So, do you see any patterns in anything I am saying. No meds, no therapy, no friends. Do you you think this pattern will change after the baby is born? I think she will start in on how you don't do anything then.

I do really think there are different levels to this and I know you've heard her story.. but that was a bad sign for me in this relationship, Why does someone have to be worse or not as worse than the other and why does she make fun of you and why do you let her?

You don't have to answer. Merely, things to think about.
 
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How far through her pregnancy is she? Because I'm thinking, ptsd AND pregnant? Shish! Look out! Even the best women can become VERY difficult with the hormonal stuff going on during a pregnancy.

But it sounds like it's got to the point where she really isn't coping. The paranoia about sleep for example. Sleep is like the golden goose not just when you're pregnant, but when you have a newborn that needs feeding every couple of hours...argh!

Presumably she has a gp at least that she sees about the pregnancy. Do you feel like you could atart the conversation with her about possibly speaking to her gp about how she's coping? It may not fly the first few times you suggest it, but if you keep at it, just gently when she goes off her tree, turn the conversation back to where it needs to be: honey, you really seem to be having a much harder time with this than seems healthy, maybe you could speak to your go about that....?

Maybe if she doesn't want to hear it, it could still be something she might think about? Consider? Possibly? Because there does come a point, even with a pregnant lady, where sometimes they need a gentle reminder that no, this time you've actually gone too far, and I love you to bits, but that's not cool...

The conversation doesn't need to start in terms of ultimatums. But it sounds like maybe it does need to at least start. Because once there's a child in the mix, it's going to become even more important that there's a minimum standard on acceptable and unacceptable behaviour being modelled, yeah?
 
She is 14 weeks today. I've suggested therapy as a possibility periodically over the last five years. Just before we got married I suggested we do some pre-marital counseling, trying to frame it as like a routine pre-wedding thing. She became very stand-offish saying: "Why do you think we need therapy?!". She maintained pretty steadily that therapist don't do anything, and it doesn't work for her. (Only times she's been before is when it was court ordered after her divorce, and once when her mom told a therapist she was suicidal just before she turned 18 to keep her from striking out on her own). The only practitioners of anything she is seeing right now are midwives for prenatal care. She's afraid that she'll have to go to a hospital, and they'll push her into having another c-section. She doesn't really like clinical people in general. I'm afraid that if I give her a hard ultimatum, I'll just get something new that she can bring up for years to hurt me. (which I will elaborate on in the next paragraph)

On the competing, she keeps bringing up times I left her before we were engaged, even though I have told her that it hurts me when she brings them up, and they were years ago. One of the times I was in the emergency room for psychiatric reasons, and told them not to let her in. When I inevitably did let her is she seemed mad that I didn't call and talk to her before going there, rather than seeming the least bit concerned. Another time only happened cause she went into my phone and read a text thread where I was venting about her to a friend, and she neglects to mention that when recounting. Just tells me how horrible it was I left my phone off all night. And she also drove to my mom's house where I was staying (1 1/2 hour drive) with her daughter cause she couldn't get through to my phone.

On the coping skills issue, I don't think she want's to just teach coping skills. She cant ethically tell me to leave her, or stay with her. We talk about and make pro and con's lists about staying and leaving too, I think the skills are just more for the mean time. I also have depression and anxiety diagnosies, and cope with that in other domains as well like work.
 
Hmmm. Lots of flags yet there / here you are. Obviously she doesn't think it's a problem and has managed thus far to avoid stressors. It is, I would think, a realistic thing to consider that if you give a "hard ultimatum" and she's pregnant that it would give leverage for years.

However, you entered the relationship anyways, why? Sometimes getting back to that is assistive.
 
I don't know. I told myself shes been through a quite a lot of long term abuse in her life, and I didn't want to make it worse. I guess also when I wanted to leave her before I got so wound up that, in the moment, it just seemed easier. She also has times when she tells me how great I am, and how lucky she is to have me. There's an ebb and flow to her abuse, or at least there was until she was pregnant. On top of that, even a long time before I met her, I never wanted to be the one making noise, or making things hard, cause my dad, and brother filled that role rather frequently. I was walked on a long time before I met her. As for right now, I feel like I can't leave my child, and I can't leave my wife with her being pregnant. If I did leave now there would be a bunch of custody issues to work out, and even with joint custody, primary residence usually goes to the mother, and I just want to be like fully involved, full time parent. On top of that she makes quite a bit more than I do. And from a more general point of view, I hate the idea of the trauma people go through defining the rest of their life. I guess that's what I would foresee happening to her if I left. Still, as I mentioned I'm getting real, psychologically, worn out.
 
Understandable, and this is a consequence (likely but not absolute) of being non confrontational. For you it may be a repeat pattern, and you may have picked an emotionally unavailable or unwell partner to redo/revisit the dynamic. But now there is a child involved. Really complicated. What do you foresee happening to YOU if you left? Interesting where your mind went.
 
I would probably feel like I could rest. Like I could go out for a couple hours, and not feel guilty about it. Like I wouldn't feel like I was doing everything wrong all of the time. Like I could work during the day, and arrange child care like a normal person. I also might feel guilty about leaving, and I wouldn't really have a good support system in the area I'm in now. Other issue is:anywhere I could stay would be at least an hour and a half away. My job is up here, and my child will be up here. I don't know if I could afford a very good place near where I am now, to name some logistical stuff.
 
"Why do you think we need therapy?!".

Maybe it would help to try answering this question. It's a legitimate question, and you seem to have a fairly comprehensive answer. The difficulty for you is going to be in the way you deliver the answer, because it's clear from what you've written that you have a range of very valid reasons as to why some kind of therapeutic assistance may be beneficial at this point, necessary even.
 
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