shatter eyes
Diamond Member
Well said. Absolutely agree. This should be like one of those timeless brainy quotes.
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Love vs lust and everything in between
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Freida
VIP Member
Love --- this might help explain it....
I had an old boyfriend look me up a few years ago. We were a pretty big deal back in the day (decades ago!), so he was basically looking to see if we could rekindle that because he and his wife had just broken up. He popped up out of nowhere - wanting to know where I was, what I was doing, if I was still married, was it happy, blah blah.
We talked for a bit, then hung up. Guess who the first person i told was? Hubby. We both kind of laughed about old flames, and that I felt bad for him, and that was that. I've kept in touch with him - it's a running joke with hubby and I that every time he gets a girlfriend he cuts me out of his life, every time he breaks up he comes back around. Hubby is totally in the loop - I have nothing to hide. This is just someone from my past who is sad about their present.
Love? Is you and your SO thinking its really cute that someone looked them up to reconnect. Because you know there is no threat to your relationship
Love keeps you secure in what you have.
I had an old boyfriend look me up a few years ago. We were a pretty big deal back in the day (decades ago!), so he was basically looking to see if we could rekindle that because he and his wife had just broken up. He popped up out of nowhere - wanting to know where I was, what I was doing, if I was still married, was it happy, blah blah.
We talked for a bit, then hung up. Guess who the first person i told was? Hubby. We both kind of laughed about old flames, and that I felt bad for him, and that was that. I've kept in touch with him - it's a running joke with hubby and I that every time he gets a girlfriend he cuts me out of his life, every time he breaks up he comes back around. Hubby is totally in the loop - I have nothing to hide. This is just someone from my past who is sad about their present.
Love? Is you and your SO thinking its really cute that someone looked them up to reconnect. Because you know there is no threat to your relationship
Love keeps you secure in what you have.
Friday
Sponsor
Aside from the normal ebb and flow of love, lust, affection, in any relationship... One thing to keep in mind... Dont know if it’s an issue for you, but it’s a recurring one for me:
I periodically lose all of my emotions, and other times have severely blunted emotions (like when you’re sick, and all you can feel is blah; or when you’re subsumed by a single powerful emotion like grief, that doesn’t allow room to feel anything else)... except here in the PTSD badlands there’s no damn good reason for it to happen (like being sick or grieving), it just strikes out of a clear blue sky.
I made a LOT of mistakes in the early days of handling PTSD & trauma, and this was one of the biggest ones... walking away from relationships because I didn’t love them anymore, and right then in that moment, didn’t know if I’d ever loved them.
I thought it was the honorable thing to do.
If you don’t love someone? Let them go. Let them find someone who does love them, rather than stringing them along out of selfishness or pragmatism.
It didn’t occur to me for years that my emotions always came back, sooner or later, and usually? It was sooner. (This very much dovetails with how I used to periodically nuke my life, because I’d decided I was “done” or some other version of “now, always, forever, never again”. When, come to find? After walking away from my job, apartment, lover, friends, etc. and striking off for parts unknown... I had about a 6 month cap before I wanted my life back, and far more often wanted my life back after 6 weeks or LESS. That’s not forever. That’s a motherf*cking vacation :facepalm: <<< I have a whole dang thread on this somewhere )
So I’ve learned, when my emotions shut off (for no damn good reason) to act as if. I may not FEEL love for someone, but I can continue to act like I do, and treat them like I do. So that when love returns? They’re still there. And so am I.
I periodically lose all of my emotions, and other times have severely blunted emotions (like when you’re sick, and all you can feel is blah; or when you’re subsumed by a single powerful emotion like grief, that doesn’t allow room to feel anything else)... except here in the PTSD badlands there’s no damn good reason for it to happen (like being sick or grieving), it just strikes out of a clear blue sky.
I made a LOT of mistakes in the early days of handling PTSD & trauma, and this was one of the biggest ones... walking away from relationships because I didn’t love them anymore, and right then in that moment, didn’t know if I’d ever loved them.
I thought it was the honorable thing to do.
If you don’t love someone? Let them go. Let them find someone who does love them, rather than stringing them along out of selfishness or pragmatism.
It didn’t occur to me for years that my emotions always came back, sooner or later, and usually? It was sooner. (This very much dovetails with how I used to periodically nuke my life, because I’d decided I was “done” or some other version of “now, always, forever, never again”. When, come to find? After walking away from my job, apartment, lover, friends, etc. and striking off for parts unknown... I had about a 6 month cap before I wanted my life back, and far more often wanted my life back after 6 weeks or LESS. That’s not forever. That’s a motherf*cking vacation :facepalm: <<< I have a whole dang thread on this somewhere )
So I’ve learned, when my emotions shut off (for no damn good reason) to act as if. I may not FEEL love for someone, but I can continue to act like I do, and treat them like I do. So that when love returns? They’re still there. And so am I.
This.
Married right to, emotions are overrated altogether... Being with someone & decent to them is too precious to bet it on as flux things for a baseline.
bellbird
VIP Member
For people here with a SO/romantic love, how long (ball park) did it take for you to fall in love?
If you/ your SO had PTSD before this point, how did it change falling in love, for you?
If you/ your SO had PTSD before this point, how did it change falling in love, for you?
Friday
Sponsor
I don’t worry about any of that.
The moment I start looking at some overarching all powerful thing directing the course of all men’s lives? I may as well become a nun.
Whether people are blaming god or society or whatever they’re helpless to do anything about, doesn’t really make a difference to me. It’s lumping everyone into this uniform box, eschewing any kind of individuality, delight, or personal responsibility. I’ve met the most amazing people in the most unlikely and mundane of places. I’ve even fallen in love with a few of them. But I’d never have gotten to know them, or known any of that, if I’d already predetermined they suck, because of <insert overarching all powerful creator of suckiness here>.
I can imagine the world full of idiots... and I’d be right.
I can imagine the world full of assholes... and I’d be right.
I can imagine the world full of almost anything... and I’d be right... as the world takes all kinds, and is filled with all kinds of people and experience. The only time I’d be wrong is to imagine the world without any particular group. Although enough genocides have tried. In the end, they all fail.
...but it begs the question... Out of all the mysteries and wonders of the world? Why am I spending my time imagining idiots and assholes? O_o Arent there enough of them out in the world? Do I have to spend my time thinking about them, too???
So I don’t worry about people I don’t like. Or why they’re like that. Or how many of them there are. They can roam the plains like bison for all I care. The people I like to spend my time on? Thinking about, doing things with, endeavoring to seek out? Are the badass awesome amazing ones. Who will probably always be in short supply, but always worth finding.
I can imagine the world full of idiots... and I’d be right.
I can imagine the world full of assholes... and I’d be right.
I can imagine the world full of almost anything... and I’d be right... as the world takes all kinds, and is filled with all kinds of people and experience. The only time I’d be wrong is to imagine the world without any particular group. Although enough genocides have tried. In the end, they all fail.
...but it begs the question... Out of all the mysteries and wonders of the world? Why am I spending my time imagining idiots and assholes? O_o Arent there enough of them out in the world? Do I have to spend my time thinking about them, too???
So I don’t worry about people I don’t like. Or why they’re like that. Or how many of them there are. They can roam the plains like bison for all I care. The people I like to spend my time on? Thinking about, doing things with, endeavoring to seek out? Are the badass awesome amazing ones. Who will probably always be in short supply, but always worth finding.
somerandomguy
VIP Member
Um ... the very first time I saw my wife, on our first date. I saw her out the window, and she smiled, and I thought, "Holy shit, I'm gonna marry her."
People should probably not follow my example on anything. But we've been married more than 11 years now, so ... I dunno.
Friday
Sponsor
Does past tense count?
For most of the real partners I’ve had, I fell in love almost immediately. DITTO for most of my closest friends. Can’t explain either. Some kind of je ne sais quoi.
My exHusband took months, and I never expected to fall in love with him, caught me completely by surprise. I’d never even have dated him (not my type), much less kept dating him when I didn’t love him, except I was trying to do things “right” :rolleyes: Stop living on instinct, stop sabotaging “good” relationships, stop making other people’s decisions for them. Argh. Ah well. 20/20 hindsight and all that. In many ways he was exactly what I needed, at the time. As much as anyone needs a lying abusive treacherous POS in their lives. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
LOL ... So at this point in my life? I’m with you @somerandomguy, whether you recommend it or not! If there isn’t something there at first sight? I’m not going to trust it.
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Deanna
Diamond Member
It was love at first sight for my boyfriend but not for me. Or, I didn't know he was attracted to me. But I never do, I don't get it or see it. Then the relationship has to grow into trust. ( like somerandomguy said)
We're both PTSD, so that makes the relationship interesting. I wasn't diagnosed when we met. I was really out there, so I changed some things on my own ( quit smoking, started working out). But it was a very rough two years for him ( before I got diagnosed)
We're both PTSD, so that makes the relationship interesting. I wasn't diagnosed when we met. I was really out there, so I changed some things on my own ( quit smoking, started working out). But it was a very rough two years for him ( before I got diagnosed)
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shatter eyes
Diamond Member
Lucycat
Sponsor
I had been dating my husband for one month before we got engaged. We married a year later. That was 34 years ago and we are still happily married.
my trauma was before that, and I did not know I had CPTSD then . I cannot say how it changed things as essentially it was always there.
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