General Is He Doing The Same With Me As He Did With Her?

[Lidia]

@Pencil , I am really not surprised you say that. All the signs would lead to think that (including the fact that he texts rather than phone, most of the time). All my friends said the same at first and I challenged him on that very early on. When I brought it up, he got really sad and his face changed shape...then he explained how he hardly feels that he can keep up with me when he is well, never mind when he is not. That he is needs to take things slowly. That he never thought he was going to fall again after losing his fiance' and that he felt guilty towards her for his feelings towards me...

I am so worried about him by now that, to be honest, if I discovered he was two-timing I would be relieved, as I could just drop him without thinking twice about it!

The truth is, he hardly ever expects to have sex with me. He seems more interested in getting to know me over coffees every day and in getting a hug before going home. He is slowly slowly becoming more affectioned with me in public. He is starting to be comfortable with people noticing that we are together all the time in the place of work. Also, he is in the public eye now because his band is starting to do gigs. Nothing would stop me from turning up. Finally, I could easily contact his ex via Facebook (I know who she is) and ask her.

What suggests PTSD is his behaviour, at times kind and relaxed, other times guarded. His being so full on and close to me at times and other times so cold, distant and a bit aggressive. His constant "I don't deserve you", his reacting so sweetly when I show signs that I will accept him implicitly. It is hard to describe all the little things he does that make me feel he is not a two-timer but has issues...I would be surprised (and relieved!) if I discovered he is a player. Does this make sense?

 

[Lidia]

@NovemberStar , I fully agree with what you said in terms of his need to get better first and heal and then we can be together properly.

He said that the girl he was with before me was the only one he had since losing his fiance', so he is not going from person to person as such. He had her, then left her for me. And yes, we did not have a break, which made it much harder to start a new relationship together. He said that. He said that the very reason he wanted to take things slow and steady is that we both came out of long term relationships and we needed time to heal from the guilt of letting go of our former partners.

I guess what you say is what is trying to do: take time to heal before he is able to move forward, both alone and with me. It's just that it was a big shock for me to see him going from this guy madly falling for me to this rational person that needed time. But that is the best to make things work in the long run, so I agree.

I offered him to not be together until he gets his head straight but he refused. He said he did not want not to be with me. Not sure why...perhaps he is afraid I will not go back to him?[DOUBLEPOST=1400319113,1400318820][/DOUBLEPOST]@NovemberStar , he has acknowledged he need help. This is a step forward , in my view. I hope in time he will accept to see someone as opposed to self-medicating.

 

[Pencil]

self-medicating.

How is he self-medicating?

I'm sorry @Lidia, but there is something way off about his behaviour, and I really don't think it is PTSD. He is too consistently inconsistent, which points away from PTSD. With 'consistently inconsistent' I'm referring to being unavailable over weekends, going to his mother's place once a month, shutting down when he is away from you (with someone else?) and allowing only texting, and not calls; being siamese twins at work while keeping you away from his home life and everything it contains. There is a clear pattern here, and as far as I know, PTSD does not have this kind of regularity and predictability.

I honestly think you should start thinking about this very differently. You suspect he has PTSD - he has never been diagnosed. Did he mention PTSD to you or is it a conclusion you came to? You say he admits he needs help. What does he think he needs help for? He says you both need to get over the guilt of dumping your exes. But you don't seem to feel guilty (and I'm not saying you should). So what he is doing is thinking for you, prescribing to you that YOU need time because YOU feel guilty. But it is clear from your posts you don't feel you need time, you want to jump into this relationship boots 'n all. What I'm trying to say is that it seems to me that he is defining your reality for you. If he is doing it with this one little thing, how many other areas of your reality is he defining for you?

I'm really sorry, but none of this seems to me to be the way he SAYS it is.

 

[Lidia]

@Pencil ,

I am not saying I exclude the possibility that he is doing that. Time will tell. Meanwhile, I am not having him here in my home until he invites me to his place. After all, that is what he said last time, that he should invite me to his place and that it is not fair that he comes here all the time. As I say, you are not the only person that has said those things to me.

I have deduced he has PTSD because it is so easy to trigger him. If he is upset because he thinks he has upset me, he disappears. He regularly needs to escape from his office because being with people gets too much for him. His job involves getting a lot of phone calls, which are mostly hassle, so he now associates the phone ringing with panic. However, during vacations he is rather different. He calls, he Facetimes, he sees me in the evenings, he is happier, etcetera.

I am not sure he has PTSD, this is my intuition. But he certainly behaves strangely. For example, if I get close to him too quickly (jump on him, hug him suddenly, etc.), he gets startled and pulls back. He cannot possibly fake that, I guess.

As I say, if he is faking this all, he is a great actor and I will happily move on. Time will tell.

 

[Lidia]

@Pencil , also, he is not that regular. You asked me how often he goes to his Mum's and I said about once a month...but that is an average, it is not that regular. His behaviour is also not that predictable, although I have detected that he gets worse when under pressure. The very reason I am always on edge is that I never know what to expect next. I never know when he will be in a good or bad mood.

He is not defining what I should think. He is behaving the way he feels is right for him, which is selfish, of course, because I don't get to get on with the relationship at the pace I feel is right for me.

Thanks for reminding me that this could be another explanation, though. I will look out for potential signs that he is actually a great player...

 

[Pencil]

Meanwhile, I am not having him here in my home until he invites me to his place

That is a good place to start - for getting this relationship on an equal footing, for setting boundaries, and to get to see how he reacts.

I hope I'm wrong. It's just that I went through a 4 year 'relationship' totally believing all the rationalizations that later appeared totally flimsy and unrealistic - and proved to have been the wool that was pulled over my eyes. I hope this is not the case for you.

 

[Lidia]

@Pencil , gosh...that must have been horrendous to go through and I cannot begin to imagine how you must have felt afterwards. The idea that we cannot trust our own intuition and judgement is horrendous, because it means that we cannot trust ourselves. I send you a gentle hug. I hope you are over this now? If you want to chat about this some more, I am here for you. I hope you did/do make allowances for yourself, in that love has that strange power to distort our perceptions. But, equally, we have the capacity to get our senses fully back once we 'wake up'. It is part of the journey, nobody should be hard on themselves for falling into such traps...

You see, as someone with issues of my own, I always think the worst. Although I give myself totally on the face of it, I fundamentally never fully trust the man I am with. If anything, that has been a major source of pain for past partners of mine, that I can never fully trust them and I always think they are cheating on me (I expect that to happen given how insecure I am about myself...I never feel good enough for the man I am with).

 

[Pencil]

Thanks Lidia. It was so long ago that I can now actually laugh at it all.

 

[Lidia]

I'm glad to hear it, Pencil. :-)

 

[Tinyflame]

I'm sorry dear @Lidia , I feel inclined to agree with the possibility of what @Pencil said. But that is not for me to know. Some parts of this- his 'explanations' perhaps?- don't sound like ptsd. Or, they sound too self-aware, too 'brave' of him to state that early in the relationship, almost? Especially as a man (I don't mean to sound sexist, just from what I know of 'men'/ my male friends). He sounds like he's got you in a catch-22: if you don't 'agree' somehow he is not 'at fault' because it's his ptsd/ emotional limitations. If that makes sense? :(

Hugs for you.[DOUBLEPOST=1400344562,1400344472][/DOUBLEPOST]Ohoh, I hope the above made sense, I missed a whole page of posts. I'm sorry! :wideeyed: :rolleyes:

 

[Lidia]

@Junebug , it may well be possible... He never said he has PTSD, by the way. That is my own diagnosis but it could be wrong...

I really am not excluding that possibility. I guess it will become clear over time. He never excuses himself because of the issues. He just hides away and then, when he returns and he realises I am hurt, he gives some explanations. I can hardly discern now what is his own explanation and what is my own interpretation, to be fair.

I think also there may be contextual issues here in his ability to be willing to share such personal thoughts. He was home-taught by females, only has a sister and his dad left the family early. So he is a very gentle type of man, very sensitive. Not the 'macho' type. As for his being 'self-aware', some of the things he said were not just offered spontaneously but emerged through my probing of him during times when he is relaxed. In a sense, I had to get some of these things out of him. Again, that is no guarantee that he was being sincere.

He did, however, disclose things about himself that are very personal and deep very early on (his terrible accident). But could he fake the anger, the face distorted by the pain? Honestly...he would have to be a great actor to do that. And, as I said to Pencil, if I discovered that that's the case, my life would be made much easier because I would move on swiftly, knowing that I have not missed anything other than a great act. Does this make sense?

 

[Tinyflame]

No, I don't think 'acting', just for your sake hopefully not in his mind justifying not being entirely honest to you. Ptsd has nothing to do with not being honest.