When your spouse has CPTSD too there are a bunch of complexities -- and a lot is also simplified as we understand each other really well. In our marriage my husband can't seem to let go of his hypervigilance when it comes to trusting me. For example, we were watching TV in the bedroom last night, the neighbor kept running his power washer, I grumbled, and went to make a sandwich. Husband thought I went to holler at neighbor. Uh, no. The relatively trivial assumptions of my poor judgment add up, making me work really really hard to verify and inform and try and set his mind at ease that I am not going off the res. I probably have fallen into a poor pattern of trying to please him even when his lack of trust is clearly unfounded. But I love him to pieces and want to please him.
More difficult is when hypervigilance has him invent things that I said. The pattern is clear: he feels threatened because he feels I am slamming how he handled something, so he begins to argue with me about what he THINKS I said - which is always always untrue. He makes up what comes out of my mouth, and builds a big argument on this. What it looks like to me is that any whiff of me not being 100% supportive = trigger, which manifests itself as his crazy, invented argument built around something I NEVER SAID.
Case study: Our water bill posted a ridiculous $700+ amount with a transaction date from 2005, when we didn't even own the house. He went to Water Dept, guy there was pushy and basically said "you owe us." Hubby didn't have glasses and couldn't read supporting docs from Water Dept guy. I saw them, it's still not clear that we owe this, hubby went hypervigilant saying that I disapproved of how he handled the situation. Not at all. I was mad at the Water Dept and told husband that the documents provided yesterday by that department were not clear, at all, he will see this when he can read the papers. Sigh. Off to Dysfunction Junction. Today he is really cold.
Last night I realized that he continues to parse each of these events not into a pattern, but keeps them separate and discreet in his mind. This enables him to ignore the pattern of mistrust and inventing what I say to him. Last night said he never realized the pattern. Folks, we have had this same stupid go-round at least 50 times, and every time I have to keep at him that HE IS INVENTING WHAT I SAY.
I don't know what to do here. It's so bad that even disagreeing with him on something stupid is making me nervous and anxious, because the tightrope to properly communicate with him is too hard to walk. I am very smart, employed, analytic, honest, God-fearing, loyal, faithful, balanced and committed to my marriage. My CPTSD is well understood, I hate it, but I know when it rears it's ugly head. I am not out of control. He can trust me. But he won't. What to do? thx thx
More difficult is when hypervigilance has him invent things that I said. The pattern is clear: he feels threatened because he feels I am slamming how he handled something, so he begins to argue with me about what he THINKS I said - which is always always untrue. He makes up what comes out of my mouth, and builds a big argument on this. What it looks like to me is that any whiff of me not being 100% supportive = trigger, which manifests itself as his crazy, invented argument built around something I NEVER SAID.
Case study: Our water bill posted a ridiculous $700+ amount with a transaction date from 2005, when we didn't even own the house. He went to Water Dept, guy there was pushy and basically said "you owe us." Hubby didn't have glasses and couldn't read supporting docs from Water Dept guy. I saw them, it's still not clear that we owe this, hubby went hypervigilant saying that I disapproved of how he handled the situation. Not at all. I was mad at the Water Dept and told husband that the documents provided yesterday by that department were not clear, at all, he will see this when he can read the papers. Sigh. Off to Dysfunction Junction. Today he is really cold.
Last night I realized that he continues to parse each of these events not into a pattern, but keeps them separate and discreet in his mind. This enables him to ignore the pattern of mistrust and inventing what I say to him. Last night said he never realized the pattern. Folks, we have had this same stupid go-round at least 50 times, and every time I have to keep at him that HE IS INVENTING WHAT I SAY.
I don't know what to do here. It's so bad that even disagreeing with him on something stupid is making me nervous and anxious, because the tightrope to properly communicate with him is too hard to walk. I am very smart, employed, analytic, honest, God-fearing, loyal, faithful, balanced and committed to my marriage. My CPTSD is well understood, I hate it, but I know when it rears it's ugly head. I am not out of control. He can trust me. But he won't. What to do? thx thx
