Relationship Moving To A New Place

[ghost 2ghost]

Last week we moved to a new apartment. Where we were before was pretty insulated and separate from other people compared to the new place. Before we were in a guest house not connected to any other dwellings but was in a neighborhood. Now we are in a 2 BR downstairs apartment and I found the place and he liked it but his anxiety has been worse lately due to moving. Last night he flipped out about living here and it's too big and there is a woman upstairs who makes ALOT of noise. Across the upstairs there lives an ex-police officer. My husband doesn't do anything illegal except download movies lol... But he is so paranoid about police and he thinks the man is paranoid about him. The man smokes and sits outside a lot which is why I think he thinks he's watching him. He freaks out if our son or I make a loud noise because he's convinced everyone can hear us. We had some adult time yesterday and he covered the windows and turned out the lights and I had to be basically silent which is hard to do while you're doing you know what... I understand all the reasons he feels like this because of things he's experienced, but I've never seen him this paranoid. Because of op sec I won't say what he did in the army, but his background has something to do with this new freaking out. I don't know how to calm him down. I can usually get him to chill out about his temper or his misunderstanding of something social, and I love him more than anything in the universe but this week has been like I died and went to hell. He doesn't want me to leave the house. He calls me three or four times from work which he didn't used to do... If I go to the store anything i bring in the house has to be in a bag. Makes me carry a pistol. I can't leave while he's sleeping. He's not usually this bad. Has been having nightmares about me leaving or dying and everything that goes wrong or messes up infuriates him and he finds a way to make it my fault. I know he's not trying to hurt me and I have sense enough to know that the new environment is the trigger, but it's been really bad and I can't get him to talk to anyone. He gets mad when I mention him going to the VA. He's started giving me weird deadlines for impossible things and telling me the ball is in my court. Today he started planning a camping trip and he started using terms I assume are military terms and I didn't understand half of it. Like he was giving me orders and telling me how to operate and he got really weird and went back to sleep. He stayed up all night fighting me about things he imagined happened at my family's thanksgiving dinner... I know this is TMI, but I cannot talk to anyone I know about this. I love him but this week has just about killed me. I feel bad because I know he suffers and I know his worries are way different than mine and I respect that and he is good to me. He's not abusive or controlling usually but this week is him as something I have never seen in the years we have been together. Now I'm getting paranoid and having panic attacks and last night i almost thought he was pulling some psychological stuff on me but I cannot talk about stuff like that and I don't know anyone who has to live with this. I'm at my wits end and the worst thing is watching him suffer and knowing we just signed a year lease on this place and he feels trapped here already.

 

[RecedingMoonlight]

First, I want to say that I'm so sorry that you and your husband are going through this.

Second, I understand that he's frightened and paranoid, but at the end of the day, no one is responsible for his emotions except for him. He deserves support, yes, but that doesn't give him the right to be controlling and lashing at you. Have you set boundaries with him? Considering you say he's not normally controlling, perhaps this is the first time this has to be brought up, but telling you when you can and can't leave and what you can and can't do is very controlling, and I can see it probably has to do with fear, and the nightmares are not helping. You have to set a line, tell him that you understand his anxiety, but you have the right to go out when you desire to. Just because he has nightmares of you dying, doesn't mean that you will - nightmares among people with PTSD regarding trauma are fairly frequent and quite startling.

This is going to sound odd, but have you, personnally, talked to this police officer neighbour? I understand that your husband might be adamant of you not speaking to him, but know that his judgement is based off of trauma. I know that some working police officers themselves may have PTSD. A huge part of not feeling trapped is to get out of the house.

Unfortunately I'm not really much help considering my sufferer has fears of abandonment as well...I also struggle with these problems. But all I know is that your husband, no matter how much he is afraid and worried, should not limit you from living your own life.

Probably most importantly: Has he gotten any therapy for his PTSD? Any psychiatrists or therapists he might be seeing?

 

[Friday]

Yah. Stress. Cup.

The Ptsd Cup Explanation

As far as the lease? Wipe it from your mind. Especially in a big complex, units rent out fast / I've never even has to pay a month extra (new tenant in right quick). But even if I had? Sat down and reasoned that It would have been worth paying a few extra hundred a month to pay double rent for a month or three to lower the stress from seriously wrong place.

Snort. The "sat down and reasoned" was the hardest place to get to. When my stress rises? My rationality / ability to deal with 1st world bullshit dramatically lowers. It took getting to the point where I just walked -and was shocked that there were no dun dun duuuuuuhn consequences- to really grok: Right. Civvies. Can come and go as they please. They don't have to stay and tough shit out no matter how intolerable. FFS. >.<

Hopefully? It's just stress from moving, and things will settle down soon. (Music while sex helps. Hell, low level music helps drown out a lot of the new noises that are setting off every damn alarm, but isn't loud enough to drown out noises one should alert to :P Okay. Should, IMO, may not be should for everyone. Be that as it may.) If not? Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. f*ck the lease. Even if it went on your rental history (rare) you'll already be snug as a bug in new place before that happens.

 

[ghost 2ghost]

The stress cup thing helped alot. I told him I just want him to be ok and we don't have to live here. To me, home is not a structure. We could live in a cardboard box and be ok... Thanks for the advice.

 

[Ronin]

We could live in a cardboard box and be ok

That's a very valuable attitude to have.

Good luck on your re-homing, please keep us posted if you feel like it.

 

[ghost 2ghost]

Thank you.
I have a friend who has a house for rent in a better environment. Alot of what is happening here is he is remembering stuff his ex-wife did to be mean to him. They had an apartment and she would slam doors and scream just to make a scene and she would wait for him to fall asleep and leave and cheat on him. I get it, and I told him that today. He got mad last night and couldn't sleep and interrogated me for three hours because I went to get something out of my car and I even told him i was doing it cause if I didn't and he heard the door open, he would be up and that would be worse. He was so mad and now he doesn't trust me because the cop neighbor was outside when I walked outside it just escalated and when that happens I can't reason with him. He wakes up the next day and apologized and he's done that twice this week and usually he does not apologize or even say anything. He just gets mad and stays mad.