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Relationship I don't want to but I feel like I have to make the hardest decision of my life

I have had to learn to stop taking things personally. He is sick. I do not manufacture drama. I do not feel the need to defend myself when he is being delusional. I know who I am.

I have also learned that I am the only one responsible for my happiness. If things were to end, which they very well could, then I would be OK. I love him madly, and I would grieve, but I would be OK. I will not sacrifice my mental health to keep a miserable relationship limping along if it gets to that point.
 
Thanks to the advice I received here and Reddit, I've just decided to basically go on about my life as best I can for my sake and the sake of the fur babies. I just told myself that she is already gone and I am trying to recover myself from this deep pit. I am not at the point yet where I am going to a lawyer but I am at the point that I will not do anything regarding her situation. I'm trying to do this for a couple of weeks and see how it goes for myself then stop and assess where I am at before deciding on the next steps. I still pray every night that she will see what she is doing and want to talk about what happens next with us but I can't really see that happening. So for the next couple weeks its just me and the animals. It sucks really bad because I feel like my wife has died, even though I know she isn't, thats just the sense of loss of I have right now.

I will say tht Prozac and Xanax are helping with this. Never in my life thought I would need meds to function but I hit that point.
 
So I just decided to check randomly the country records office and saw where apparently she filed for divorce on the 17th of this month, still havent received any paperwork or anything on my end.


I guess that is the end of it then.

I can't believe I'm at this point with the woman I love so much and who I thought would be my soul mate.
 
So I just decided to check randomly the country records office and saw where apparently she filed for divorce on the 17th of this month, still havent received any paperwork or anything on my end.


I guess that is the end of it then.

I can't believe I'm at this point with the woman I love so much and who I thought would be my soul mate.

It's awful that she didn't text you at all or give you a headsup, but maybe it's a blessing at this point that she is setting you free. Now you know for sure what she wants and is doing and hopefully you can start doing the things that you need to truly be okay within yourself and to recover from all of this. Instead of spending so much energy worrying about her and trying to figure out what is happening, you can start looking towards a future and figuring out what makes you happy and what you need.
 
Logically that makes sense but it doesn't make it any easier unfortunately. I try to think logically about it all, but I just can't stop thinking about the last 11 years and how all of that is just gone. All I can seem to do is just sit here between bouts of shock that it's actually ending and completely breaking down and crying like a baby. It's just all so much. I'm still sitting here in our home with everything just as it was when she left 7 or 8 months ago with all her stuff, the animals etc. I've been praying for all this to end. Just never thought it would actually be this way. I really feel like the woman I love, my wife, my absolute best friend has died, just because of the way things are now with all her stuff still in our home and whoever this woman is that she's become.
 
I understand. I relied so heavily on my partner of 8 years and thought our life was all figured out and I was happily looking forward to the future we had planned. I am literally selling my home because he told me to move in with him, and he just suddenly turned into a different person who "can't feel anything except numbness mixed with fear," he started accusing me of things I never said or did to justify hurting me, and he wanted me to move my things out and can't give me a straight answer for anything anymore. The person that I talked to nonstop and shared everything with for 8 years is now someone who can barely text me or hold a 20 minutes phone conversation with me once a week. I've said the same things as you, that it's like my person and my best friend and my future just suddenly died and I am in shock and lost. It's a heavy and confusing grief.
It's okay and good to cry. It's okay to go to therapy to get help in processing your own grief and trauma, when you are ready. I wish that there were more that I could do or say to help, or that I had better advice to give. You do have to cry and hurt to get through to the other side; I know that. ((hugs))
 
I'm very sorry for both of you @Texengland and @LittlestBird .

I think the depth of hurt is what drives the feeling of justification in hurting the other person (even if the hurt is caused really by someone very different than you in the past). Then you fail to see the other person in front of you, let alone empathize. But that justification is unfounded, at least in the reactivity or hurtfulness at the very least. Communication might still result in ending it, but sometimes not. It depends. I think it usually comes from a place of deep hurt, and no effective way to ask for needs to be met or express what's happening, but unfortunately the other person isn't usually the cause of that depth of hurt (although they can be sometimes). The fear they will be is often the driver though, IMHO.

I think I might be ready to make the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my life and that is to divorce the absolute love of my life, my wife.
^^ It sounds like you both felt unheard and unloved, as you both seemed to have been thinking the same thing.
I just decided to check randomly the country records office
^ Would it be randomly, or because you hoped to find some footing, know which direction to head? (It's very hard to live with some things unresolved, or even becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy). There's no shame in recognizing that, if you did hope to. She shouldn't have left you in silence, or worse. Most people wouldn't have had the patience you've had, and I'm sure it came from a genuine place.

I am very sorry for your pain. I wish your partners could have met you in the middle, when you were both willing to try. You are right, they have to make that commitment themselves. And own what is their's, and value the relationship and you.
 
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We did, and I accept a lot of the responsibility for her feeling unheard and unloved. She was misdiagnosed with BPD many years ago and I tried researching that and to understand what I could but while some of it seemed spot on other bits of it didn't seem to relate at all which left me more confused. Once she got the diagnosis of CPTSD and I started researching that everything started to really line up. I myself have issues with picking up on emotional subtilties and used to tell her just tell me what you are feeling or thinking because if you say you're ok I'm going to think you're ok because I know I have a hard time with non verbal indicators. I've always had issues with that which kind of goes back to my own VA therapist mentioning testing for Aspergers along with a butt load of other indicators. Knowing what I know now about CPTSD I know that me asking that of her was asking for the impossible due to the situations in the past. Another issue I have is always being in my own head running in circles, which came across to her as being upset with her or something else negative. I thought my support of her and helping her achieve her goals was me showing her how much she meant to me, but I know now that it wasn't near enough. Where I thought I was succeeding by action or just being quiet in my head and thinking I'm giving her space, I was actually failing by not communicating and verbalizing to her the way I actually feel in my heart and not showing her in actions that were conducive to somebody suffering the horrible things she went through could process. So yeah, I know she felt unloved and unappreciated and I know that is my fault. I have told her that I know where I failed and I take full responsibility for my failures in not showing her much she means to me. I know how things came across to her at times, but I also know that those appearances in no way represented how I feel about her.

I still tell her that up until the day the papers are signed that I am still here for her and that even after the papers are signed that I will always love her because its true. I'm extremely worried about her because of the path she is on and her history.

I checked mainly because of just a gut feeling. There was really know indicator in change in her behavior or silence, just a nagging feeling I had. Its been a bad week, got the divorce petition served Thursday afternoon and then Friday evening our cat died suddenly out of the blue. Just took him this morning to get his paw prints and to get cremated so we can have him back. So, yeah its been a crappy few days here in Texas for me.
 
I understand. I relied so heavily on my partner of 8 years and thought our life was all figured out and I was happily looking forward to the future we had planned. I am literally selling my home because he told me to move in with him, and he just suddenly turned into a different person who "can't feel anything except numbness mixed with fear," he started accusing me of things I never said or did to justify hurting me, and he wanted me to move my things out and can't give me a straight answer for anything anymore. The person that I talked to nonstop and shared everything with for 8 years is now someone who can barely text me or hold a 20 minutes phone conversation with me once a week. I've said the same things as you, that it's like my person and my best friend and my future just suddenly died and I am in shock and lost. It's a heavy and confusing grief.
It's okay and good to cry. It's okay to go to therapy to get help in processing your own grief and trauma, when you are ready. I wish that there were more that I could do or say to help, or that I had better advice to give. You do have to cry and hurt to get through to the other side; I know that. ((hugs))
There has definitely been a lot of tears shed these past few days, Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be helping. When you mention the person you loved and your best friend feels like they died, that is exactly how I feel. Its a grief that I'd imagine feels much like that of widower. I was just thinking about that last night. It's like my wife and my best friend who I know and love is dead and has been replaced by a hard protective shell in the same body. You mention the anger, and I have read other accounts that are similar and I wonder if any of the sufferers here could shed some light on that. It seems like the partners get the release of the pent up rage because sub consciously they know that person is a safe outlet for them and that there wont be the repercussions as experienced in the past and not always realize the hurt they are causing for those that love them dearly?

When I read this part ((hugs)) the other day it broke me because a hug is something I could use right now. Thank You and ((hugs)) to you too!
 
The crying is helping, even if it doesn't feel like it; it's genuinely good for your body to relieve those feelings physically. You've gone through a huge loss and deserve to cry, grieve, and process it. I cried for basically 3 months straight at the start of my partner's breakdown and I still sit down and cry from all of the pent up stress once or twice a week and have a good cry and a nap. It sounds completely useless and untrue while you are hurting so deeply, but time does heal and it will start to give you clarity. The emotional intensity will start to dull as you accept what is happening and you will start to find other things, people and thoughts to fill your time. I've accepted that my partner needs space, even from me, and that he's trying to do what he needs to keep himself afloat. I can respect that. I don't want to be stressing him out and making things harder for him. No matter how much I want him and his attention and I want things to "go back to how they were," I can't force something that he isn't able to give, and trying to do that would make me abusive and insensitive and still get us both nowhere. Giving your wife the divorce and space that she needs is probably the most loving thing that you could do right now. I still am sorry for your loss, though, of your marriage and your kitty :(.
 
I agree the crying does help with the pain, what it doesn't help with is the confusion. I just wish she would communicte even just a little bit. I've told her if this is what you truly want then I understand but I'm also afraid that she is doing it for other reasons. In the past she has said I deserve a better wife who can give me what she thinks I need, but I told her that's my choice to make not hers. If she feels like she is doing this for me as opposed to herself I would really like to know and be able to talk about it. I know she is in a very self-protective/avoidant state by how cold and distant she is being which is completely out of character for her. I also worry about how she will do completely on her own without somebody who truly loves her to fall back on if need be and if she will continue into a darker place. The loss and grief I feel hurts but my concern for her is the worst part of all. I just hope she knows that I will always be there for her in some way if she needs me, even after the divorce.
 
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