Hey if the loving and intimacy Sarah has described that has passed between her and her man goes under the category of being used for sex, then I wish it was me he was using when I was Sarah's age.
Sarah please understand - PTSD is the Devil incarnate. It is Hell on earth to suffer from, just as it is to live with when the person you love suffers from it. When you are suffering, you can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't breathe. You spend a long, adrenaline fuelled, sublime night with someone and feel high with every moment it lasts. Then, while they are sleeping beside you, you start to come down. The fear and the self-doubt comes back. All the negative emotions PTSD keeps razor sharp are once again cutting you to shreds. By morning you feel like a rat and wish you hadn't gotten in even deeper than you already were. You start to fear what you will do to yourself. That's when you start to fear what you might do to the person you just made love with.
Being the person he is with, I am guessing you know the rest.
He was in Iraq, one of the most dangerous Godforsaken places on earth. Children are sold live across the border for the sick, western organ market. Young girls are 'rescued' for a fee, only to find they have been sold into slavery. Women are openly stoned to death in the streets for all kinds of trivial misdemeanours. Men dig their own children's graves in the hard, bitter earth and wail prayers for their murdered babies, child-victims of the brutal conflict in the middle of f ....ing nowhere.
There is constant shelling from God only knows who aimed at I don't know what. After 10 long, blood-soaked years of war there isn't much left. The entire region is nothing but sand, heat and murder and has been a basket case since no one can remember when. It is a constant source of amazement to me ANY of those boys come back alive. And it defies belief anyone could expect them to be the same person they were when they do..
In that light Sarah I seriously doubt honesty is his problem and even if it were on the list, I doubt it is in his top 10 of issues right now. War can change people forever in many different ways. Only you and he can answer the question of what that means for the two of you.
Sarah no one knows you like you do and from the sound of it, there isn't any other girl who knows him quite as well as you do. Take what all of us on this forum say with caution but take all the support and information you need. Then make your own decisions.
My thoughts are with you Sarah. You hang in there girl and never stop believing in yourself.
And never, never give up on love.
