Hi All, first post, found this place via Google.
My wife (self-diagnosed C/PTSD sufferer) and I have been friends for just over 20 years. We were both in previous marriages in other countries before getting/living together 5 years ago (married 1.5yrs ago). Her traumas are extensive and from multiple spheres, ie child sexual, her health, the health system, parent psychological. She is brilliant, a masterful arguer, and licensed trauma therapist. As a friend she is extremely empathizing, giving and warm, to the point of fault, how could I not fall in love with her.
I blindly flailed around my own life, now knowing myself to be/have been a naive, anxious, co-dependent - my own cross to bear, and it helped me start and wreck numerous relationships.
Getting back to my sufferer, starting an intimate relationship with her was a challenge that my naivete at the time was shocked by. I kept 'causing' angry responses, doing wrong things etc, was feeling constantly criticized. She seemed to always need to be attended to. I would try to challenge, but this always made things worse. We would end up frequently having 4, 6, once even a 10 hr fight(s), this didn't seem good to me, I would freeze/shutdown. Her skill at logic and argument would bowl me over.
This eventually got to a point where I was close to taking my own life from frustration and hopelessness. I did get help and began some medication for anxiety which helped me to start seeing more of what was going on, but it was still all a mysterious mess.
Sometime later I tried to leave the relationship - we took a break. However, I was never left alone long enough for me to gather my thoughts. Through many conversations she convinced me that basically I hadn't been invested enough in the relationship, or applied myself enough. It made sense with my passiveness/co-dependency, so I decided to go 'all in' as it were. I asked her to marry me, I designed the engagement ring myself etc etc.
Fastworward a bit more to us, 4 months after being told we could not conceive, we're pregnent(!). This initiated a realization in her that her mother was actually NPD and should not be allowed contact with our child. In this process I started to learn about NPD, Borderline, and the like from her. A lot of that behaviour started fitting into place for me as ways to describe what I had been experiencing in our relationship. My wife had on occasion mentioned that if she had anything it was C/PTSD, but has always stayed away from getting officially diagnosed as the health system itself has traumatized her on more than one occasion. So I started wondering about these other conditions, but they just didn't seem to fit with her empathy and giving, that I, and others, know her for.
A few days ago I came across a couple of desciptions of C/PTSD behaviour and it clicked in my head.
So now on to my current situation. We both live with my father and our 5 month old daughter in the house I grew up in, not ideal for me given my co-dependent upbringing, but we're trying to save for a house after our rental landlord sold the place we were in suddenly. I had a fulltime job that was a difficult place to work - some systemic bullying. Historically I have worked freelance in the entertainment industry which has always required some long hours, last minute calls to work, and late/early start/end times, but this job was fulltime in the same industry with a particular company. My sufferer has chronic insomnia - we sleep in separate rooms, she uses a window air conditioner, 2 sets of earplugs, a noise machine, and at times, over the counter sleep aids. So I've had to adjust coming and going/work times. more and more this has been whittled down until now I do not go out in the evenings to work or see friends, I have had to leave that job as it caused too much stress for me trying to balance the demands her and the job were putting on me.
The pregnancy added to this requirement for my constant presence. I am always desiring to be supportive of her but money must be made as well, which is something else she is always coming down on me for - but how can I be out making money and staying by her side?? This type of duality is constant in our relationship.
So I am pursuing a different line of work, but am currently stuck in a red tape situation waiting to begin. This puts me available to care for our daughter with my sufferer (who is also on Mat. leave), which on the one hand is an absolutely great thing.
However, due to the insomnia, I co-sleep with the little one everynight, handling whatever happens on my own, feedings/diapers etc., and must wait for my wife to wake up before starting the day. Then I am needed to prepare meals, tidy, and assist her with the baby all through the day. Along with this are regular, almost daily, triggered aggression, and some major crisis to deal with. There has almost always been some onging crisis.
I'm burning out. Neither of us are working day jobs at the moment, and yet I'm burned out.
My wife is doing EMDR for her trauma, but it's slow, once a month or so. She's been working on her trauma for years in different self help ways interspersed with therapy. She is extremely intolerant of anyone disallowing her to have her meltdowns/freakouts, citing it as a denial of her emotions or right to her emotions - that in itself a trigger from childhood.
It is all extremely taxing (I'm also 56). I just try to get through each day, one at a time. I do what she asks, when she asks, the way she asks, whether or not it was different the day before. It's the only way to keep the peace. My anxiety meds actually help me to be calm about how messed up this is.
Writing this now normally would be time enough away from her to warrant a reason, luckily she was up early to feed the baby. I do love who she is under all this trauma, and that pokes through very occasionally, but the idea of leaving is so complicated and cruel.
I know that it's really only one choice, leave or stay. It's extremely difficult. There are so many more incidents, subtleties that I could add, but it would be pages. Thanks for reading this, any advice or perspective would be greatly appreciated.
My wife (self-diagnosed C/PTSD sufferer) and I have been friends for just over 20 years. We were both in previous marriages in other countries before getting/living together 5 years ago (married 1.5yrs ago). Her traumas are extensive and from multiple spheres, ie child sexual, her health, the health system, parent psychological. She is brilliant, a masterful arguer, and licensed trauma therapist. As a friend she is extremely empathizing, giving and warm, to the point of fault, how could I not fall in love with her.
I blindly flailed around my own life, now knowing myself to be/have been a naive, anxious, co-dependent - my own cross to bear, and it helped me start and wreck numerous relationships.
Getting back to my sufferer, starting an intimate relationship with her was a challenge that my naivete at the time was shocked by. I kept 'causing' angry responses, doing wrong things etc, was feeling constantly criticized. She seemed to always need to be attended to. I would try to challenge, but this always made things worse. We would end up frequently having 4, 6, once even a 10 hr fight(s), this didn't seem good to me, I would freeze/shutdown. Her skill at logic and argument would bowl me over.
This eventually got to a point where I was close to taking my own life from frustration and hopelessness. I did get help and began some medication for anxiety which helped me to start seeing more of what was going on, but it was still all a mysterious mess.
Sometime later I tried to leave the relationship - we took a break. However, I was never left alone long enough for me to gather my thoughts. Through many conversations she convinced me that basically I hadn't been invested enough in the relationship, or applied myself enough. It made sense with my passiveness/co-dependency, so I decided to go 'all in' as it were. I asked her to marry me, I designed the engagement ring myself etc etc.
Fastworward a bit more to us, 4 months after being told we could not conceive, we're pregnent(!). This initiated a realization in her that her mother was actually NPD and should not be allowed contact with our child. In this process I started to learn about NPD, Borderline, and the like from her. A lot of that behaviour started fitting into place for me as ways to describe what I had been experiencing in our relationship. My wife had on occasion mentioned that if she had anything it was C/PTSD, but has always stayed away from getting officially diagnosed as the health system itself has traumatized her on more than one occasion. So I started wondering about these other conditions, but they just didn't seem to fit with her empathy and giving, that I, and others, know her for.
A few days ago I came across a couple of desciptions of C/PTSD behaviour and it clicked in my head.
So now on to my current situation. We both live with my father and our 5 month old daughter in the house I grew up in, not ideal for me given my co-dependent upbringing, but we're trying to save for a house after our rental landlord sold the place we were in suddenly. I had a fulltime job that was a difficult place to work - some systemic bullying. Historically I have worked freelance in the entertainment industry which has always required some long hours, last minute calls to work, and late/early start/end times, but this job was fulltime in the same industry with a particular company. My sufferer has chronic insomnia - we sleep in separate rooms, she uses a window air conditioner, 2 sets of earplugs, a noise machine, and at times, over the counter sleep aids. So I've had to adjust coming and going/work times. more and more this has been whittled down until now I do not go out in the evenings to work or see friends, I have had to leave that job as it caused too much stress for me trying to balance the demands her and the job were putting on me.
The pregnancy added to this requirement for my constant presence. I am always desiring to be supportive of her but money must be made as well, which is something else she is always coming down on me for - but how can I be out making money and staying by her side?? This type of duality is constant in our relationship.
So I am pursuing a different line of work, but am currently stuck in a red tape situation waiting to begin. This puts me available to care for our daughter with my sufferer (who is also on Mat. leave), which on the one hand is an absolutely great thing.
However, due to the insomnia, I co-sleep with the little one everynight, handling whatever happens on my own, feedings/diapers etc., and must wait for my wife to wake up before starting the day. Then I am needed to prepare meals, tidy, and assist her with the baby all through the day. Along with this are regular, almost daily, triggered aggression, and some major crisis to deal with. There has almost always been some onging crisis.
I'm burning out. Neither of us are working day jobs at the moment, and yet I'm burned out.
My wife is doing EMDR for her trauma, but it's slow, once a month or so. She's been working on her trauma for years in different self help ways interspersed with therapy. She is extremely intolerant of anyone disallowing her to have her meltdowns/freakouts, citing it as a denial of her emotions or right to her emotions - that in itself a trigger from childhood.
It is all extremely taxing (I'm also 56). I just try to get through each day, one at a time. I do what she asks, when she asks, the way she asks, whether or not it was different the day before. It's the only way to keep the peace. My anxiety meds actually help me to be calm about how messed up this is.
Writing this now normally would be time enough away from her to warrant a reason, luckily she was up early to feed the baby. I do love who she is under all this trauma, and that pokes through very occasionally, but the idea of leaving is so complicated and cruel.
I know that it's really only one choice, leave or stay. It's extremely difficult. There are so many more incidents, subtleties that I could add, but it would be pages. Thanks for reading this, any advice or perspective would be greatly appreciated.