It’s hard to sum up everything that has gone on for several years, but I will try to keep this on point. I have never been diagnosed with PTSD, just stress overload. I am a trauma ICU nurse, and while I have rarely felt in danger personally, I have watched people die. I know what burned human flesh smells like. I have tended to their smashed and broken bodies, I have heard their parents beg deities to spare their child and kill them instead. It has affected me in many ways, I have coping skills that require a bit of cold distance, but I cannot always leave work at work. I have woke up with nightmares and flashbacks, sometimes I can’t sleep, constantly questioning not so much what we could have done (because I work with good doctors who really do everything we can), but just somewhere between the heart wrenching sadness for the lost, and utter disgust at the waste of human life due to stupid mistakes, happenstance and cruelty. I feel the compassion fatigue, but I rally against it. I need to care, but I’m afraid to care too much, because it will break me.
To add to this, my husband sufferers from diagnosed PTSD. He is/was in the military, and experienced what happens to humans when they are subjected to the machine of war. I am also a veteran, but I never experienced what I would classify as PTSD while I was in the service. Last year, however, things really fell apart. We fought constantly for about a month. He has a female friend that his relationship became very inappropriate with, if it was ever proper to begin with. They had a past incident where they had kissed before we were married, and she was out of the picture for several years. He then reestablished his friendship with her, and shortly thereafter I came home one morning from night shift to her sleeping in my home. She was alone in the guest bedroom, and he swears nothing happened. So I try my hardest to trust him, but my gut never gives in. That was about a year before the real fighting started. I insisted that things were not ok between those two, and he insisted I was controlling and insecure. I tried so hard to be less controlling. I tried to justify his behavior, to the point where I believed that the fault lied with me, and not with his emotional affair with his friend. Finally, it reached a breaking point and we separated last September. I had a month in our home alone, because shortly after he admitted himself to the VA for residential PSTD treatment. We agreed that when we separated that it was alright if we dated other people, but that didn’t prepare me for the shock of coming home to him having loud sex with a woman that I knew in passing. It was not his “friend” but another person, honestly I don’t think things ever got physical between those two, but I’ll always have a little suspicion. After that shock, I packed a bag and moved out. I dated a few men, had some wonderful sex that I had been missing (my hubby has always had less of a drive than I), and started the road to make a new life. I had forgiven what happened between us, and was ok with just being his friend. Then about a few weeks before our divorce was to be finalized, he begged me to give him another chance. The “friend” was out of the picture, because she abandoned him as soon as it wasn’t all about her. With some hesitation I agreed to give him another chance, but I did not move back home for a few months. I also broke up with my boyfriend of three weeks, who maybe didn’t deserve to be caught up in my mess, but I was honest with him, and tried to keep things casual. I guess you can’t tell people who they can love or not love, but it was really too soon for me.
Now, I’m usually over worked and miserable. I have since found more information about the relationship between him and his “friend” where he called her his soulmate. I wouldn’t have gone looking for it, but he started up with her again. He didn’t hide this from me, and asked for my permission to try to salvage an important friendship. He claims that he drove her away, and lied to her too, and wants to try to make amends for the mistakes he made when he was suffering from the isolation, and also drinking and abusing Xanax that sometimes go hand in hand with PTSD. I hate that he put this on me. He quit drinking on his own because he felt that was a common dominator of some of his poor decisions, but his friendship with her is also a common dominator of our marital problems, but he refuses to quit that. And I don’t want demand it either, I don’t want to be the one to say no, because I can’t stand the thought of him pinning away for that woman. For him wanting to be with her, but unable to, not because he doesn’t want to, but because I said no. Is it so selfish to want someone who never got “confused” about who their soulmate is? I’m so angry and depressed most of the time, that I cannot see a future where I’m happy again. I’m always plagued by doubt; -maybe he just wants you because you pay the bills, -he says he loves you and only you, but he told that lie for a year while he was telling her she was his soulmate, -maybe he doesn’t want to be intimate because he really wants to be with her. All these things my husband will get sad about and swear he’s different, and I want to believe him, but my trust was shattered and I still live under this cloud of doubt. I want to help him, because he is still my friend, I want to help him get better to the point of being able to live independently, but I don’t know if I want to be married to him. I feel like I have to give up the hope of a good mutual love, which is affectionate, and not dependent, for what is left of a marriage that started good, but now feels so broken. I hope that someday things will get better. Well, that’s the summary of my little world. I hope that I can find some understanding here, and maybe some support. Forgive me for being a bit selfish at first, I literally have nothing left inside after caring for patients, working on schoolwork, and trying to support my husband.
To add to this, my husband sufferers from diagnosed PTSD. He is/was in the military, and experienced what happens to humans when they are subjected to the machine of war. I am also a veteran, but I never experienced what I would classify as PTSD while I was in the service. Last year, however, things really fell apart. We fought constantly for about a month. He has a female friend that his relationship became very inappropriate with, if it was ever proper to begin with. They had a past incident where they had kissed before we were married, and she was out of the picture for several years. He then reestablished his friendship with her, and shortly thereafter I came home one morning from night shift to her sleeping in my home. She was alone in the guest bedroom, and he swears nothing happened. So I try my hardest to trust him, but my gut never gives in. That was about a year before the real fighting started. I insisted that things were not ok between those two, and he insisted I was controlling and insecure. I tried so hard to be less controlling. I tried to justify his behavior, to the point where I believed that the fault lied with me, and not with his emotional affair with his friend. Finally, it reached a breaking point and we separated last September. I had a month in our home alone, because shortly after he admitted himself to the VA for residential PSTD treatment. We agreed that when we separated that it was alright if we dated other people, but that didn’t prepare me for the shock of coming home to him having loud sex with a woman that I knew in passing. It was not his “friend” but another person, honestly I don’t think things ever got physical between those two, but I’ll always have a little suspicion. After that shock, I packed a bag and moved out. I dated a few men, had some wonderful sex that I had been missing (my hubby has always had less of a drive than I), and started the road to make a new life. I had forgiven what happened between us, and was ok with just being his friend. Then about a few weeks before our divorce was to be finalized, he begged me to give him another chance. The “friend” was out of the picture, because she abandoned him as soon as it wasn’t all about her. With some hesitation I agreed to give him another chance, but I did not move back home for a few months. I also broke up with my boyfriend of three weeks, who maybe didn’t deserve to be caught up in my mess, but I was honest with him, and tried to keep things casual. I guess you can’t tell people who they can love or not love, but it was really too soon for me.
Now, I’m usually over worked and miserable. I have since found more information about the relationship between him and his “friend” where he called her his soulmate. I wouldn’t have gone looking for it, but he started up with her again. He didn’t hide this from me, and asked for my permission to try to salvage an important friendship. He claims that he drove her away, and lied to her too, and wants to try to make amends for the mistakes he made when he was suffering from the isolation, and also drinking and abusing Xanax that sometimes go hand in hand with PTSD. I hate that he put this on me. He quit drinking on his own because he felt that was a common dominator of some of his poor decisions, but his friendship with her is also a common dominator of our marital problems, but he refuses to quit that. And I don’t want demand it either, I don’t want to be the one to say no, because I can’t stand the thought of him pinning away for that woman. For him wanting to be with her, but unable to, not because he doesn’t want to, but because I said no. Is it so selfish to want someone who never got “confused” about who their soulmate is? I’m so angry and depressed most of the time, that I cannot see a future where I’m happy again. I’m always plagued by doubt; -maybe he just wants you because you pay the bills, -he says he loves you and only you, but he told that lie for a year while he was telling her she was his soulmate, -maybe he doesn’t want to be intimate because he really wants to be with her. All these things my husband will get sad about and swear he’s different, and I want to believe him, but my trust was shattered and I still live under this cloud of doubt. I want to help him, because he is still my friend, I want to help him get better to the point of being able to live independently, but I don’t know if I want to be married to him. I feel like I have to give up the hope of a good mutual love, which is affectionate, and not dependent, for what is left of a marriage that started good, but now feels so broken. I hope that someday things will get better. Well, that’s the summary of my little world. I hope that I can find some understanding here, and maybe some support. Forgive me for being a bit selfish at first, I literally have nothing left inside after caring for patients, working on schoolwork, and trying to support my husband.
