Relationship It's The Little Things, Right?

[queen]

Last night, my combat vet went to have another sleep study done. [I've talked a little bit about him before, but just quickly, we've been dating over 3 months, he told me within the first 2 weeks that he's got PTSD, and it's been a series push/pull since then, with a lot of emotionally-unavailable stuff on his end, and worry/questioning/attempts at understanding this new world of PTSD-relationship stuff on my end. Oh, and we haven't had the "relationship talk" cause he sorta freaks out/avoids when serious topics come up.]

Anyhoo, he had a first sleep study done about a month ago, and was unable to qualify for treatment (I don't know all the details, but essentially he didn't meet the threshold for diagnosis/treatment, etc). However, he went back to his doc and they scheduled another one cause we're all pretty sure he's got sleep apnea (along with a host of other stuff that affects his sleep). Fast forward to last night.... He called me from the clinic an hour before as he's filling out paperwork, and says that he's got a questionnaire for me, his "regular sleeping partner". So we went through it together on the phone and then he had to go cause they were hooking him up.

After we got off the phone, I started tearing up. I don't know why, but I just had this flooding of emotion. Feeling special that he asked me at all (remember, he had this done a month ago, we were still seeing each other then, but he didn't ask me those questions at that time), thankful that he trusts me enough to ask me things that I've noticed, hopeful that this is progress for him/us.... Thinking about it now is getting me a little emotional actually. I just really appreciated it as positive movement forward, and a big step for him. Is that a weird thing to be so affected by??

 

[Sweetpea76]

Not at all... any step forward is enough to make you smile. :)

 

[F-18Wife]

Hi Queen, Q: does your partner drink any form of alcohol within 3 hours of going to bed?

I found that if my spouse did he would literally trash half the night and get rotten sleep thereby contributing to a rotten next day. I did some research and found a few studies that stated if someone with PTSD drank wine, beer or anything alcoholic within 3 hours of going to bed it would help them fall asleep..... but it quickly becomes a REM interrupter about 3 hours later and exacerbates dreaming issues.

I presented this info to my husband who read it and agreed to try it. He stopped drink in the evenings altogether.... good nights followed, then one evening he had a glass of wine.... 1 am trashing happened. That was enough for him and he stopped drinking anything alcoholic in the evening. He happily enjoys a beer in the early evening or afternoon but now has no issues abstaining from that "helpful" glass of wine before bed.

So, you might give that a whirl and see if it helps.

 

[queen]

@F-18Wife He does drink alcohol but it's not every night. I will definitely let him know about this though. It would be interesting to track and see if he sleeps worse on the nights he drinks vs. abstains. It's so difficult because it's multi-faceted. There's the sleep apnea (stopping breathing), and then there's the nightmares, insomnia, thrashing/kicking, restlessness, and disorientation. I feel so bad for him, because I know how I feel with little to no quality sleep. He lives this way every day. :tdown::cry:

 

[F-18Wife]

For the leg trashing you might try putting a bar of soap in the bottom of the bed about ankle height under the fitted sheet in a sock, not between but right next to his legs .... they are finding that people with restless leg suffer and a night thrasher bumping into that bar of soap when they start to kick their legs, it wakes the brain slightly and for some reason stops the leg trashing. It's as if the brain wakes up long enough to recognize whats going on but not enough to totally wake the sleeper.