OK, here goes. Sorry if this is a bit long. A lot to cover here...
I’ve been married to a woman for almost 10 years. She has recently decided that she wants a dissolution. I suspect that she is suffering from PTSD and have been reading the posts on this forum for a few days now. First I’ll give you a little background.
My wife has had a very traumatic childhood. Her mother has drug her through two divorces and three fathers, two of which legally adopted her. The last one when she was 17. When the going got tough or she didn’t get along with the current husband, she was shipped off to live with her grandparents. They also wanted to adopt her, but came down with cancer and could not deal with a teenager, so they sent her back. One day, she counted that she had lived in 30 different houses. When I met her, she wouldn’t let me leave her apartment because she was afraid I wouldn’t come back.
Over the years, we got her consoling and even went to a consoler several years ago together. Admittedly, I have dealt with anxiety and rage issues throughout our marriage. I fixed the rage issues, but still dealt with hereditary anxiety and panic attacks about money etc.
Things were going very well for us and she wanted to have kids. We agreed when we got married that neither of us wanted them. I had major anxiety about having children and would be very hot and cold on the subject. On several occasions, she wanted to leave because I didn’t want kids. I explained that I was terrified. Anyway, she eventually went off the pill and we could not conceive. We tried various fertility drugs and whatever we could afford. It ended up being her problem. This sent her into a deep depression. I did not know what to do for her. With my anxiety, it was all I could do to pay the bills and keep the house up with her staying in bed all day and playing on the computer. We looked at adoption, but the cost was between $17,000 and $30,000 depending on the agency. As a backup plan, we started taking foster to adopt classes. These were intense 10 hour classes every Sunday for 6 weeks. During those classes, we covered a unit on the psychological problems of kids in the foster system. My wife had a very difficult time.
Shortly after, she would take frequent trips to the college where her brother was and party hard with him and his friends. This became more and more frequent. She also tried to enroll in college to be with her brother who told her he was joining the military., She also wanted me to quit my job and move the east coast because she couldn’t stand being in the town where everybody knew her $hit and she was abused. She started having nightmares and not sleeping. She would be on face book constantly. Eventually, she shut me out and said she wanted to separate because she couldn’t let go of the anger that I abandoned her during her depression. I got her to go to a marriage consoler, but just wasn’t into it and hardly tried. During this time, she looked for anything to be mad at me about. She finally gave up trying to make it work. Because of my anxiety attacks, all I could see was that my wife was leaving me. The consoler got me to go on anxiety drugs and she took off for a week . She came back and said she was done and just couldn’t let go of the anger. After a few weeks of sleeping on the couch, she moved out and took all of her stuff. She would say things like “make me want to come back” and “we can start over”. We got into it on the phone one day and I didn’t hear from her for a month. When she finally came back, she said she wanted a dissolution and had just “fallen out of love with me”. She also says she can never trust me and that I never wanted kids and she should have left years ago, that she can never forgive me and she’ll just want to leave again, etc. She says she can’t believe that I want kids and she doesn’t want that with me anymore.
Anyway, I kept going to the consoler and expected her to go as well. She said she went once and the consoler didn’t think she needed to come back because she didn’t ask her to make another appt. She claims her past visits “fixed her problems” and now it’s just my problems. After the medicine took affect, my fear of children went away and I was good to go. But she said “it was too late and it would have worked if you had gone on meds 5 years ago or even 3 years ago. But now it’s too late”.
So, now she’s applied for college and is going to live with her unemployed brother who just graduated. She’s pushing to speed the dissolution as fast as she can and wants her name off of all loans and mortgages ASAP. She’s been partying and hanging around with college kids. She is self employed in the real estate world. I secretly spoke with her broker. Her work went so down hill and they were so mad that she is sending her license back to the state. She’s been building this career for 6 years and just started to turn a profit. Now, all of a sudden it’s a 180 degree turn and back to college. She is going to be 30 this year. She died her hair and is taking about a tattoo. She even joined roller derby.
So, in summery, I suspect that her PTSD was triggered by the adoption classes as she had admitted to reliving all of her experiences. This set her off and she is running. All of her reasons seem to be justifications for leaving. I realize it’s too late to stop her and I guess she just needs to hit rock bottom at some point. She refuses to see that she has a problem and needs help. Her doctor told her she was going to stroke out if she didn’t control her blood pressure. Does this sound like PTSD to you guys? Or am I the crazy one?
I’ve been married to a woman for almost 10 years. She has recently decided that she wants a dissolution. I suspect that she is suffering from PTSD and have been reading the posts on this forum for a few days now. First I’ll give you a little background.
My wife has had a very traumatic childhood. Her mother has drug her through two divorces and three fathers, two of which legally adopted her. The last one when she was 17. When the going got tough or she didn’t get along with the current husband, she was shipped off to live with her grandparents. They also wanted to adopt her, but came down with cancer and could not deal with a teenager, so they sent her back. One day, she counted that she had lived in 30 different houses. When I met her, she wouldn’t let me leave her apartment because she was afraid I wouldn’t come back.
Over the years, we got her consoling and even went to a consoler several years ago together. Admittedly, I have dealt with anxiety and rage issues throughout our marriage. I fixed the rage issues, but still dealt with hereditary anxiety and panic attacks about money etc.
Things were going very well for us and she wanted to have kids. We agreed when we got married that neither of us wanted them. I had major anxiety about having children and would be very hot and cold on the subject. On several occasions, she wanted to leave because I didn’t want kids. I explained that I was terrified. Anyway, she eventually went off the pill and we could not conceive. We tried various fertility drugs and whatever we could afford. It ended up being her problem. This sent her into a deep depression. I did not know what to do for her. With my anxiety, it was all I could do to pay the bills and keep the house up with her staying in bed all day and playing on the computer. We looked at adoption, but the cost was between $17,000 and $30,000 depending on the agency. As a backup plan, we started taking foster to adopt classes. These were intense 10 hour classes every Sunday for 6 weeks. During those classes, we covered a unit on the psychological problems of kids in the foster system. My wife had a very difficult time.
Shortly after, she would take frequent trips to the college where her brother was and party hard with him and his friends. This became more and more frequent. She also tried to enroll in college to be with her brother who told her he was joining the military., She also wanted me to quit my job and move the east coast because she couldn’t stand being in the town where everybody knew her $hit and she was abused. She started having nightmares and not sleeping. She would be on face book constantly. Eventually, she shut me out and said she wanted to separate because she couldn’t let go of the anger that I abandoned her during her depression. I got her to go to a marriage consoler, but just wasn’t into it and hardly tried. During this time, she looked for anything to be mad at me about. She finally gave up trying to make it work. Because of my anxiety attacks, all I could see was that my wife was leaving me. The consoler got me to go on anxiety drugs and she took off for a week . She came back and said she was done and just couldn’t let go of the anger. After a few weeks of sleeping on the couch, she moved out and took all of her stuff. She would say things like “make me want to come back” and “we can start over”. We got into it on the phone one day and I didn’t hear from her for a month. When she finally came back, she said she wanted a dissolution and had just “fallen out of love with me”. She also says she can never trust me and that I never wanted kids and she should have left years ago, that she can never forgive me and she’ll just want to leave again, etc. She says she can’t believe that I want kids and she doesn’t want that with me anymore.
Anyway, I kept going to the consoler and expected her to go as well. She said she went once and the consoler didn’t think she needed to come back because she didn’t ask her to make another appt. She claims her past visits “fixed her problems” and now it’s just my problems. After the medicine took affect, my fear of children went away and I was good to go. But she said “it was too late and it would have worked if you had gone on meds 5 years ago or even 3 years ago. But now it’s too late”.
So, now she’s applied for college and is going to live with her unemployed brother who just graduated. She’s pushing to speed the dissolution as fast as she can and wants her name off of all loans and mortgages ASAP. She’s been partying and hanging around with college kids. She is self employed in the real estate world. I secretly spoke with her broker. Her work went so down hill and they were so mad that she is sending her license back to the state. She’s been building this career for 6 years and just started to turn a profit. Now, all of a sudden it’s a 180 degree turn and back to college. She is going to be 30 this year. She died her hair and is taking about a tattoo. She even joined roller derby.
So, in summery, I suspect that her PTSD was triggered by the adoption classes as she had admitted to reliving all of her experiences. This set her off and she is running. All of her reasons seem to be justifications for leaving. I realize it’s too late to stop her and I guess she just needs to hit rock bottom at some point. She refuses to see that she has a problem and needs help. Her doctor told her she was going to stroke out if she didn’t control her blood pressure. Does this sound like PTSD to you guys? Or am I the crazy one?
