Hi Nikie,
A home schooler! Wow, there is some serious belief, ability and commitment!
Can I begin to separate out the separate issues? An elephant might be big, but its easier to chew and swallow one bite of it at a time, than it is to try to chew the whole thing at one go.
First part, what issues are there and then which ones belong to whom?
Your husband's anger is his, and his alone. You cannot make him angry any more than you can take a pee for him. The anger is in his head, and it is his decision to do it.
He may well have learned to use anger to try to control other people's actions from his family, from school, military conscription...
He may also be fearing, perhaps even unconsciously, some sort of drastic outcome, and anger might be his way of trying to prevent it.
I'm not going to criticise him too much
What I will ask is,
Is his anger the most effective way to achieve the ends which he seeks?
I would suggest that it isn't the most effective way. That it may well be making the ends which he seeks, less obtainable.
Please by all means feel free to print this and show it to him, if you feel it could help.
Trying to avoid what is in your husband's head, and hence un knowable to you, is an impossible task
It's a task that takes you away from the things that you can control and the things that you can learn to control.
Our lives are hard enough, without trying to control others lives. I don't know how to post links from this machine, but if you search for " detachment, al anon". You'll find a short. PDF about detaching from trying to control others. It's primarily aimed at the families of alcoholics, but it applies to any sort of co dependency ( trying to control others).
Now to your PTSD.
What you are experiencing, is what a normal caring person experiences after the sort of terrible event you experienced.
You are clearly not a bad person. A bad person would not be experiencing what you are experiencing right now!
There are a bunch of us here who know something of Africa. I know a little, Cashew knows it far better than me, some members such as
@Pencil still live in Africa.
We know that the violence and the fear is so much closer than it is in Europe, America Oz, kiwi land etc, that people and animals on the road are sometimes difficult to see, sometimes unexpected, and sometimes an outright and direct threat of ambush and worse! That anyone who drives in Jo'burg for any length of time has either seen or been in a carjacking. We know that a home invasion is often far worse than just robbery.
We each got here through shit that by definition was more than we could take. You are not weak or bad.
Your shit doesn't mean that you must die before your natural time. We are here to heal, and to share as we heal.
Sending you a private message.
@
