My Husband Thinks I'm Pessimistic

[Deleted member 1860]

You are the "identifiable patient" and as such, your husband is using your diagnosis to blame you for everything. Honestly, trail running in the dark is just plain idiotic. I run through my development in the dark, but there is a wide, flat, paved road with hardly any traffic and I've done it hundreds of times in the light so I know the road well. People still express concern for me when I tell them I run at night, but I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't feel confident in what I was doing and experienced with the road.

You aren't being PESSIMISTIC, you are being REALISTIC. There is a HUGE difference! Your husband has the inability to rationally think through things and weigh the possible outcomes when considering whether to do something.

Can you get into couples therapy? He isn't going to listen to you, but may listen to a third party.

 

[The Albatross]

Obviously I disagree with Solara. But it is, for me a matter of a more "generally beneficial" perspective. Cheaper too.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

His world view is confident and safe, mine is not.

I think that is part of the issue. My husband has very little experience with trail running so I wasn't so confident that he could navigate it without getting hurt. I had a hard time and I have experience and it was daylight when I went.

He isn't going to listen to you, but may listen to a third party.

Most of the time we get along great, it's just sometimes it seems that he jumps to my thinking as just being pessimistic and now I think he thinks that's related to PTSD. I think he's more prone to do that when he doesn't like what I have to say even if it makes sense. I am going to eventually bring him to one of my therapy sessions so my therapist can explain PTSD to him and perhaps that will help. I try, but I think it will be better coming from my therapist.

 

[The Albatross]

To him it was an acceptable risk, no matter what your concerns were. I have had to accept that about my own spouse. It is part and parcel of who he is.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

And BTW, I worry planes are going to crash on me too. What's THAT all about? Generalized vulnerability maybe?

I have no idea what it's all about. I used to think it was a completely irrational fear until I read of a plane crashing into two houses in Connecticut last year. That certainly didn't help! There is a sea plane that flies a route that includes over my house and that thing scares me frequently as well as all the usual plans and helicopters which probably aren't many but to me it seems that way. I try not to let that fear get the better of me though.

 

[The Albatross]

Don't get me wrong. I have "preferences", but ultimately his decisions about his own endeavors and hobbies are independent of mine. Most often my concern about his safety are about dependence. He is though his own man, and his world is "safer" perceptually than mine is.

 

[anthony]

I used to think it was a completely irrational fear until I read of a plane crashing into two houses in Connecticut last year.

That is an irrational fear, because the chances of something like that happening to you, or someone you know, is so slim, you have better chances to win the lotto several times over than this affecting you. That is what makes that example you gave irrational on your behalf.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

@anthony - I know it is an irrational fear regardless of it happening to someone else. It just confirmed that it could happen. I have a ton of irrational fears and I treat them as such. I can stop myself from freaking out too much about them, but they are there. I don't stop living in my house just because planes fly over it. The irrational fears got worse for a while after my car accident that triggered my PTSD, but I am back to being able to regulate those and tuck them in a box in my mind labeled "irrational fears".

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I'm not sure why a mod feels the need to point out that she disagrees with me. I thought that was already obvious? Just sayin'.

 

[anthony]

I'm not sure why a mod feels the need to point out that she disagrees with me.

You need to stop associating a moderators post as a member, with their posts as staff, representing an administrative matter. There is a difference, yet you seem to think they're the same. They're not.