Hi all,
This is my first post, but I have been reading and relating to posts for a while now. I have been in a relationship with a veteran suffering from PTSD for four years now.
We met just after he got out of the military. 9 months ago he found out that I had emotionally cheated on him (texting an ex who came back to work where I was working). This obviously devastated him. At the time that the emotional cheating happened, my partner was applying to graduate school across the country and I was sure that he was going to leave me. Our communication was severly lacking at the time as well. I am not justifying what I did, I kow that it was a horrible mistake on my part. He also disclosed having talked with another girl which bordered on emotional cheating as well (although it was not one of his ex's). Anyways, after finding out he took some time (3 weeks) to think about things and said that he forgave me.
We both did some individual counselling and started to move on, we moved into the city and both landed good jobs. He recently started to see a good counsellor specializing in military issues and has come out and said that he still thinks and obsesses about what I did to him and that he doesn't think he can get over it. He says that he cannot trust me (even though I have given him full transparency - all my passwords, and have been open and honest with him about any guy that tries to contact me). He has been out of the apartment for about a month now, at first he didn't want to to couples counselling, then he said that he did, now he says that he feels too much pressure to do it as he is discovering the severity of his issues and couples counselling on top of his own individual work would be too much for him.
In talking with him last night he disclosed that his trust issues with me go deeper than what I did, he doesn't trust or love himself. He knows that his PTSD exacerbates our relationship issues and that if he was a "normal guy" he probably wouldn't be so affectd by it. I love this person more than anything, and I only want to be with him and work on things but his rejection kills me. What do I do?
This is my first post, but I have been reading and relating to posts for a while now. I have been in a relationship with a veteran suffering from PTSD for four years now.
We met just after he got out of the military. 9 months ago he found out that I had emotionally cheated on him (texting an ex who came back to work where I was working). This obviously devastated him. At the time that the emotional cheating happened, my partner was applying to graduate school across the country and I was sure that he was going to leave me. Our communication was severly lacking at the time as well. I am not justifying what I did, I kow that it was a horrible mistake on my part. He also disclosed having talked with another girl which bordered on emotional cheating as well (although it was not one of his ex's). Anyways, after finding out he took some time (3 weeks) to think about things and said that he forgave me.
We both did some individual counselling and started to move on, we moved into the city and both landed good jobs. He recently started to see a good counsellor specializing in military issues and has come out and said that he still thinks and obsesses about what I did to him and that he doesn't think he can get over it. He says that he cannot trust me (even though I have given him full transparency - all my passwords, and have been open and honest with him about any guy that tries to contact me). He has been out of the apartment for about a month now, at first he didn't want to to couples counselling, then he said that he did, now he says that he feels too much pressure to do it as he is discovering the severity of his issues and couples counselling on top of his own individual work would be too much for him.
In talking with him last night he disclosed that his trust issues with me go deeper than what I did, he doesn't trust or love himself. He knows that his PTSD exacerbates our relationship issues and that if he was a "normal guy" he probably wouldn't be so affectd by it. I love this person more than anything, and I only want to be with him and work on things but his rejection kills me. What do I do?
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