Relationship Partner of 8 years suddenly "needs space" and accusing me of things.

[LittlestBird]

I have C-PTSD from being badly abused, neglected, and sex trafficked as a child and adolescent. My partner also had a rough childhood with neglect from his parents and abuse from his mother, but he has combat related PTSD from multiple deployments into war zones throughout his career.

When I met him, I was 27 and he was 38 and he was in the middle of divorcing his now-ex-wife (who left him to be with a registered sex offender who is a pedophile) and I encouraged him to get custody of his teenage daughter because neither of us were comfortable with a teenage girl going to live with a sex offender. My partner and I really clicked with each other and have been together for 8 years now.

There was a lot of drama with his teenage daughter and she acted out because her mom essentially abandoned her for a pedophile and then I was in the picture and her dad retired from the military to take care of her, so it was a lot of big changes for everyone. It was a big adjustment for everyone and not without its drama from a teenage girl, but we made it through and we were happy and doing well. His daughter is 22, moved out, and almost done with college.

My partner and I have been long distance for the past 8 years with me spending about 60% of my time at his house and half of the time at my own house. A year ago, my partner told me to sell my house and move closer to him or in with him permanently, so I put $80,000 into finishing my basement to increase resale value and we were looking at places to live and excited about our future. He insisted that I move all of my favorite things into his house and he helped me move all of my things in. He really made a conscious effort last year to "be a better man" as he said, stopped texting other women (a consistent problem in our relationship, he almost compulsively texts weird married women behind my back and it never goes farther, but that was bad enough for me) and made a bigger effort to truly listen to me and communicate.

I thought everything was perfect. He told me he was the happiest he has ever been and he was so excited that a "few small changes from him could make such a happy difference in our relationship." We were a couple that everyone we knew was jealous of because we just clicked together and had fun together and it always seemed like both of us having PTSD was actually an asset in our relationship because we were triggered by a lot of the same things and we were good at removing each other from stressful situations before they blew up. I am a HUGE people pleaser from my abusive past and I tend to be very forgiving and soothing towards him, and I let things go pretty easily in general, especially if I love the person who hurt me. I worked very hard to be a perfect girlfriend. He was really the first and only person I ever felt attracted to or wanted to be intimate with, and that in itself was powerful to me and made me feel that he is my soulmate. I never cheated or talked to other men, not even when I caught him talking to other women. I have no desire for another person. I'm actually fairly frightened of most people and it's uncomfortable for me to be around strangers or crowds. I struggled a lot with agoraphobia before I met my partner and he made me feel safe to go places.

In November, all of a sudden, the man that I spent every day of the past 8 years with (if we weren't together in person, we were on video chat and texting; we were close and shared everything) started ignoring me. He went on a vacation to New Orleans with his daughter for 3 days and came back and didn't speak to me for 3 days. When I finally got ahold of him, he accused me of saying bad things about his daughter and his family. I was confused because I hadn't mentioned them at all, and certainly not in a bad way. I asked him to show me the text that had upset him and he was like, "Oh, well, you deleted it," so I asked him to find me the deleted text so that we could talk about it (knowing that there was nothing because I hadn't said anything). He couldn't find it and finally said, tersely, "Well. I made a mistake." That was it. He said he had a terrible time on his trip and he didn't feel good, but that he would feel good when I was back home in 3 weeks. He barely spoke to me and I was so anxious.

When I got home 3 weeks later, he was cold and abrasive towards me. I'd go to hug him or talk to him and he wouldn't even acknowledge me. Days would go by with me just sitting around by myself and him acting like a zombie. The only time he would interact with me was to glare at me and if I tried to talk, he'd stare at me blankly and tell me things like, "I see you crying and upset, but I just don't FEEL ANYTHING. I know I should, but I don't. And I don't want to tell you that I love you anymore because I'm not feeling it and don't want to lie to you." This from a man who would text me that he loved me dozens of times a day and was always so affectionate, romantic, and attentive, who wanted to talk to me and touch me constantly before this, who would insist on staying on video chat with me if we weren't together in person... The loss destroyed me. The change and the suddenness of it.

He didn't speak to me at all on Christmas morning and wouldn't open my gifts. I asked his father to visit (a mistake, I later realized, because he's dealing with a lot of anger about his father neglecting him as a child) because, a few weeks earlier, my partner had made a comment about looking forward to his dad coming to visit in the new year, and I thought that it would cheer him up and that his father could help me with him.

Long story short, he got even more angry and aggressive with me when his father arrived, and he had his dad essentially throw me out of our home. I was in shock because, a few months earlier, this is the same man who wanted to live with me forever and begged me to move all of my things into the house. Now I had to scrape together $5,000 to move back out and my best friend had to take off work to help me.

I researched therapists and found my partner one and made him an appointment and he is thankfully going once a week and has been going once a week for the past 2 1/2 months. We agreed that he would talk to me on Wednesdays if he felt good enough and that I could send him a letter about my feelings on Wednesdays. I'm also allowed to send him funny videos (and he said I could send him nudes and videos of myself, but I haven't felt comfortable doing that recently).

A couple weeks ago, my partner suddenly started accusing me of things that I definitely did not do, things that essentially accused me of abusing his daughter (and I was abused and would NEVER try to hurt a young person or exclude them or anything) and made me out to be a liar who manipulated things, without having actual examples. He said he "reached his limit with me" and that I "made him feel inappropriate with his daughter," but I never did or said anything wrong and he can't come up with actual examples.

I am a people pleaser. I always tried to take care of everyone else and denied my own needs and never fought with anyone or caused any trouble. I wrote him a letter about how the things he was accusing me of were not true and actually could not be true and pointed out that he was accusing me of some things that he actually DID do and I had evidence to defend myself for several things.

Then he said I made him feel like a monster and I destroyed him and broke him down, and that maybe HE is the liar and the manipulator if I am not, when I was really just trying to defend myself and point out the truth to him, and I did it in a very loving way and told him that nothing was his fault and I understood how bad he feels right now... The good thing is that, after reading my letter, he brought it to his therapist and his therapist insisted that he see a psychiatrist and get on some medication, and he has an appointment for that tomorrow, with his regular doctor to get a referral to a psychiatrist.

I told him that one of the things that helped me a lot to control my PTSD was going on trazodone to at least address my insomnia, and I know my partner has always had awful insomnia. I'm hoping that my continued support, the therapy, and medication can get him back into a healthy place, but I'm also really scared and confused and not sure what to expect from here.

I'm also worried that I'm supporting in the wrong ways or going to do something that hurts him or that I'm going to keep going downwards myself.

He told me that he "needs space, needs more space" last time we talked, so I am trying to give him that. It just.. sucks. I also have PTSD and he has triggered my abandonment issues and fears pretty severely and I am honestly struggling very badly. I'm still in the middle of selling my house like he asked me to. I also found out that I have thyroid cancer and need more scans and treatment and I just feel incredibly frozen. I'm losing huge gaps of time again and I know I'm not getting things done in my life and I feel, not numb, but something worse and more scary and desperate.

It's like I suddenly lost the man I love, our home together, and our whole life together and I don't know what to do. It scares me so badly that he is making up things about me and trying to blame things on me when I really didn't do anything.

And I have PTSD and I've never done this isolation and hurting other people thing, so what he is doing now is not exactly familiar to me, even though I do dissociate.
It's been confusing, because he can't tell me that he wants to break up, but sometimes he's like, "Didn't we already break up?" So then I ask him to break up with me if that's what he wants and he won't. And he tells me he still wants me hitting on him and sending sexual things to him because it makes him feel good.

He still gets jealous and doesn't want me talking to other men. On that topic, it also really messed me up that his male friends found out we were having trouble and a lot of them started hitting on me and one in particular told me lies about my partner, told me that my partner was calling me his crazy ex-girlfriend and that my partner wished I would just go away and that my partner was never serious about me. It didn't sound like things my partner would say and he isn't even that close to this 'friend,' and my partner denied ever saying any of those things and demanded to know who the guy was.

I have PTSD related to a lot of sexual abuse and, in this low moment, it really felt like a lot of men stepped up to be predatory vultures around me and my partner, trying to manipulate me into wanting to sleep with them and to abandon my partner. It feels disgusting to me and it hurts me.

It has all really messed me up.
Does anyone have any extra advice or anything it seems like I am missing? Is it okay for me to keep sending him letters on Wednesday and just be here? Is it okay for me to argue with him if he says something about me or things that happened that weren't true, or do I let him believe whatever he wants? Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Teasel]

I'm sorry, he is not treating you with respect, his friends are not treating you with respect. I think the longer you hold on to this, the more pain you'll be in.

I do feel for you, I know it's hard when you still want someone. I hope you can let go of him and start living your life for you. Take care

 

[EveHarrington]

It sounds like you are not good at recognizing red flags in people.

No relationship is perfect so every time I hear a story where someone says “the relationship was perfect” I automatically know that the person wasn’t thinking realistically. This is the first guy you’ve had those lovey dovey feelings for so you couldn’t recognize for whatever reason that period would cool off or whatever. (It ALWAYS cools off.)

You are a people pleaser which means the relationship was inherently unbalanced, and I can see that in your writing.

How long would you be with him at his house? (60% tells me nothing). My guess is that he could tolerate a relationship for a few weeks but then needed to be alone. I’ve seen this in other couples too where they think everything is great but in reality it’s not because you don’t have long periods of time under the same roof.

 

[LittlestBird]

It sounds like you are not good at recognizing red flags in people.

No relationship is perfect so every time I hear a story where someone says “the relationship was perfect” I automatically know that the person wasn’t thinking realistically. This is the first guy you’ve had those lovey dovey feelings for so you couldn’t recognize for whatever reason that period would cool off or whatever. (It ALWAYS cools off.)

You are a people pleaser which means the relationship was inherently unbalanced, and I can see that in your writing.

How long would you be with him at his house? (60% tells me nothing). My guess is that he could tolerate a relationship for a few weeks but then needed to be alone. I’ve seen this in other couples too where they think everything is great but in reality it’s not because you don’t have long periods of time under the same roof.

We both work from home, so that 60% of the time was every second of the day spent together and we were both always very clingy with each other. He never wanted me to leave, but I had to because I still had responsibilities at my home and medical appointments that I had to go to, so I'd stay with him for 4 months at a time, away for 2, back for 4, type of thing. When I was gone, he insisted on staying on video chat with me all day, which I was also good with because I missed him too. He actually tended to get triggered and angry when I was gone, not when I was there, which is why this was surprising and why he originally brushed off his feelings with, "I'll feel better when you're back home," but then he didn't feel better again when I was back and it was like he turned on me for that. I didn't make him feel better like I usually do, so I became the problem instead. He never did well 'alone' and this is the first time he has ever asked for space, which is why it's alarming and new to me. In 8 years, he was desperate not to be alone, and now he is hurting and says he needs space. He keeps telling me that I cannot be there because if I'm there, he will break down and feel things and he "can't afford to not be operational." He says he feels angry after his therapy (which I totally understand because therapy absolutely drains and breaks me down too) and doesn't want me around when he's angry, and he feels that if I were there, he'd just break down crying and he still has to work and can't be crying all the time and falling apart. It's hard for me because I want to take care of him and cannot.
I also did not say that the relationship was perfect; I said that I thought everything was perfect at that point last year because we were at a point where he acknowledged how he had hurt me in the past, apologized for it, and was making noticeable changes in his behavior and communication and told me that he was happy with the outcome of those changes. We were both very excited about the future and everything we had planned for 2023. Clearly I don't think things are always "perfect" 24/7 because we both have our struggles, but we were in a perfectly happy and exciting and hopeful place last year, right before he fell apart completely.
I wouldn't say that I'm not good at recognizing the red flags in people, but I am very forgiving and accepting of other people's issues... I have severe trauma issues and I recognize that most of the world has had some sort of trauma and past issues and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

 

[Sideways]

Does anyone have any extra advice or anything it seems like I am missing?

Do you feel like you’re investing enough energy in your own recovery, knowing that no matter how much we try, we can never heal someone else? You have a lot going on at the moment, even without the relationship issues, and that calls for more use of supports…?

Is it okay for me to keep sending him letters on Wednesday and just be here?

Yes, if it’s helpful to you. Until he tells you otherwise.

Is it okay for me to argue with him if he says something about me or things that happened that weren't true, or do I let him believe whatever he wants?

Is there any point to arguing?

Is there possibly other options? I rarely argue with folks IRL. That doesn’t mean that I “let them belittle whatever”, though. I can state my position assertively, along with my boundaries (treat me with respect) without engaging in arguments.

I can also simply disagree, and leave it there (which can be the most powerful option sometimes!) - “Wow! I really disagree with what you’ve said. I don’t think I want to pursue that conversation.” Making a point of ending the conversation at that point, gives the other person space and time and genuinely reconsider what they’ve just said, the very obvious impact of it (you’ve just walked away - is that what they intended? Or wanted?), and whether there’s a different way they want to approach things.

 

[Urumqi]

Have you ever read literature regarding narcissisism (covert) and gaslighting? Does any of it resonate? Because you have both ptsd and “people pleasing” tendencies, you would have a lot of empathetic and understanding friends on this forum if you were to start believing/ wondering that your boyfriend’s recent behavior is a devaluation. Also note, there is an uncomfortable amount of overlap between suffers of ptsd and narsisstic behaviors.

 

[LittlestBird]

Do you feel like you’re investing enough energy in your own recovery, knowing that no matter how much we try, we can never heal someone else? You have a lot going on at the moment, even without the relationship issues, and that calls for more use of supports…?

Yes, if it’s helpful to you. Until he tells you otherwise.

Is there any point to arguing?

Is there possibly other options? I rarely argue with folks IRL. That doesn’t mean that I “let them belittle whatever”, though. I can state my position assertively, along with my boundaries (treat me with respect) without engaging in arguments.

I can also simply disagree, and leave it there (which can be the most powerful option sometimes!) - “Wow! I really disagree with what you’ve said. I don’t think I want to pursue that conversation.” Making a point of ending the conversation at that point, gives the other person space and time and genuinely reconsider what they’ve just said, the very obvious impact of it (you’ve just walked away - is that what they intended? Or wanted?), and whether there’s a different way they want to approach things.

When I say arguing, I mean more in the sense of simply "disagreeing." I don't ever raise my voice or get aggressive. I mean when he is accusing me of something and clearly isn't functioning in reality, is it okay for me to say that no, I did not do that and that didn't happen, and here is proof of what I am saying? Or do I let him believe in whatever delusions he is having and hope he comes out of it on his own? When he accused me of excluding his daughter, for example, I brought up several times where they excluded me and I tried to include her and asked her to always be doing things with us and asked him to give me an example to the contrary, of a time where I excluded her. He doesn't have any examples and gets almost frantic and agitated and starts saying things like, "Well, if YOU aren't the liar and the manipulator, maybe I am!" My "arguing" tends to be in that one letter a week where I challenge the nonsense he has been saying and lay out the truth for him to try to digest. I was trying to explain to him that the human brain does not remember things super accurately and maybe no one is the liar, but we can talk things out and remember the truth together. He has gotten very negative and fixated on someone out of the three of us (me, him or his daughter) being a liar and that one of us has to be bad. His daughter lied a lot as a teenager, which is normal for a teenager, but he's fixated on going back to 6-ish years ago and now trying to blame me for things that she did and said. It's really strange to me. Like we've gone back in time and he's trying to rewrite what happened to make me the bad guy instead of just accepting that teenagers lie a lot and hide things and he was afraid to ever tell her no. I don't feel like it's right to just sit there and listen to him make up things, particularly about me, so I disagree and explain why he's remembering things incorrectly, but I wasn't sure if that's okay to do. I know when I've been confused and agitated, it has always helped me to ask my mother or someone else what actually happened and they calm me down and help bring me back to reality and the present moment... I know it's hard to stay grounded in reality when your brain is stuck in a terrified, hypervigilant mode. I also don't know, but I suspect, that he's fixated on petty teenager drama from 6 years ago to avoid having to think about what is really bothering him right now and addressing his combat trauma and his own childhood trauma...

I don't feel like I am investing much of any energy into me currently and I don't feel like I even have much energy in general. I feel like I am still in shock. I still wake up looking for my partner and remember everything that happened and get violently ill. I thought that I was over a lot of my problems, but they are all back for me in full force (the not sleeping, the night terrors, the anxiety and panic attacks, being afraid to leave my home and having crippling panic attacks when I do try to leave, the anorexia, feeling like I'm not sure where I am in time, losing time, feeling depressed and just not wanting to move or do anything, the random fear and despair, the urge to self-harm, being indecisive, and so on). The return of my own symptoms has been crushing for me in general because I thought that I was somewhat recovered from a lot of those symptoms and apparently I was not; I was just happy and safe enough with my partner that they stopped existing for a while or were at least dulled significantly. It makes me feel like a failure in some ways. It also makes me realize how dependent I am on my partner and that he had so much power to make me okay or not okay. This has all really messed with my sense of safety, that a man could be madly in love with me for 8 years and one day he's telling me how much he loves and adores me and can't wait for me to come home and then literally the next day I am just nearly nothing to him and I didn't do anything wrong to "lose" that love. I've read threads on here where people do that, they just suddenly stop caring about other people and throw away their partner and a whole life together and do not care, and I don't really understand it because I have PTSD and I am not like that and can't imagine loving someone and caring for them one day and then the next day just shrugging and moving on. I've felt numb like that, but I could never look my loved ones in the eyes and tell them, "I see you're upset and I just don't care about you. I just don't want to spend time with you. I just don't feel love for you." I couldn't stand hurting them.

 

[LittlestBird]

Have you ever read literature regarding narcissisism (covert) and gaslighting? Does any of it resonate? Because you have both ptsd and “people pleasing” tendencies, you would have a lot of empathetic and understanding friends on this forum if you were to start believing/ wondering that your boyfriend’s recent behavior is a devaluation. Also note, there is an uncomfortable amount of overlap between suffers of ptsd and narsisstic behaviors.

I've had several people over the years tell me that he sounds like a narcissist, but I don't think that the diagnosis fits. He tends to have very low self-esteem from being abused as a child and tends to feel inadequate. He shies away from compliments and doesn't believe them. He doesn't take advantage of others so much as he avoids others and is always wanting to do people favors and then get away ("his good deed for he day" he calls it). There have been many opportunities where he could brag about everything that he has done in the military and all of his medals, but he wouldn't even wear them and declines to put on his uniform for special events and doesn't even ask for a military discount at places (and, where we live, almost every store offers a military discount). He has the struggles of someone with combat PTSD and who was abused and neglected by their parents as a child. His mother would starve him and beat him while doting on his sisters, blaming him specifically for 'being just like his father' who ran out on them, even though he was only 4 when his dad left. He had a very bad childhood and joined the military to get away from his family who kept telling him he was too stupid to finish college and it was a waste of time for someone like him and the only place he was going to wind up in is jail. He has no delusions of grandeur and is instead often very down on himself.
I would, however, agree that he is someone who has always tried to gaslight me, especially right now. There have been many times where my feelings clearly did not matter to him as much as his own or his daughter's, I started recording and writing everything down and documenting things to refute his rewrites of reality (why I am able to do so even now with him accusing me of doing things several years ago), he denies that he said and did things to me and doesn't want to talk about them further even though I do have proof, I'm always the one apologizing for how he feels, when I've tried to talk about things that were serious and hurtful in the past, he has been quick to say things like, "If things are so hard for you, why don't we just break up, then" knowing that I have a fear of abandonment and I would shut up immediately, and nothing ever happened the way I remember it or with the emotion that I remember it, and there was a lot of walking on eggshells and making sure I didn't ever say the wrong thing or triggering thing, but he certainly didn't do that with me. So there are things like that. In order for him to not be triggered and for him to not feel negatively, I had to sugarcoat and adjust a lot or just be quiet altogether.
The devaluation is 1000% happening to me right now. He is desperate to blame me for how he feels right now and trying to find a way to make his bad feelings all my fault instead of understanding that he has PTSD and is pushing me away for no reason, he feels there must be a reason, and it must be my fault. I have not done anything wrong in our relationship, I don't lie or cheat, and I am a people pleaser who did nothing but try to take care of him and his daughter. Him trying to devalue me now and making things up about my character and my actions over the years is what is messing me up really badly.

 

[Urumqi]

Him trying to devalue me now and making things up about my character and my actions over the years is what is messing me up really badly.

I'm really sorry you're going through this. This confusion must be gut wrenching. Do you think you've been trauma bonded? Also, it's common for us with ptsd/cptsd to exhibit a lot of narcissistic tendencies especially when we are dis-regulated and/or have not taken steps to begin our healing. Hang in there, focus on your needs, and begin to ask whether there are any boundaries you can create to help satisfy your own needs.

 

[LittlestBird]

I'm really sorry you're going through this. This confusion must be gut wrenching. Do you think you've been trauma bonded? Also, it's common for us with ptsd/cptsd to exhibit a lot of narcissistic tendencies especially when we are dis-regulated and/or have not taken steps to begin our healing. Hang in there, focus on your needs, and begin to ask whether there are any boundaries you can create to help satisfy your own needs.

I've worried sometimes that we have elements of a codependent relationship wherein I take care of him and ignore my own needs, wants and thoughts to keep him happy and calm. I have always had to just let go of a lot of things that hurt me to keep the peace. I don't want to start hating on our entire relationship, though, because there was a majority of the time where he made me feel good about myself, cared for, happy, and doted upon too. He made me laugh a lot and we enjoyed most of the same hobbies. I love him very much and would love for him to get healthy and for us to go to couple's counseling and start rebuilding things. We were in a healthy, communicative place last year before this happened, which almost makes it all worse, because it got my hopes up really high.
He is going to therapy once a week, but I think that is slow going because he told me his therapist hasn't really talked to him about his PTSD yet (which is clearly the main problem) and he refuses to do EMDR therapy and somehow the therapist is the one who told him, "Maybe you just reached your limit with your girlfriend. Sometimes we just can't take anymore." And he keeps parroting that "limits" thing at me even though it makes no sense and he can't come up with an example of anything bad that I did to reach this mysterious and sudden limit. So that's a mess because I literally didn't do anything wrong and it took the therapist over 2 months to realize that my partner is having problems that have nothing to do with me and that my partner isn't functioning in reality anymore. My partner said he took one of my letters into therapy and that's when the therapist was suddenly like you need to see a psychiatrist and be medicated. At least my Wednesday letters got him that far.
He also had a doctor's appointment yesterday to get a referral to a psychiatrist, but he wasn't able to make it through the entire appointment because he got "too angry," so they split his assessment into 2 more weeks... I am somewhat frustrated at how slow this whole process is going, but I guess it shows how deeply wounded my partner is right now that he can't even make it through a single appointment.
He really upset me tonight because I would love to get a text from him that tells me something fun or interesting or asking how I am doing for once or telling me what's going on without me asking or sending me pictures of our cats without me having to ask, but he texted me, "When you packed the glasses, did you take the marvel ones?" It has made me feel very angry. Getting kicked out of our home and having to pack up our life together was traumatic for me and expensive. I don't even know what glasses he is talking about, but it seems like such a trivial, ridiculous thing when I am hurting and struggling so much.
I had my own therapy session today and my therapist wants to get me into an 8 week outpatient program where I'd just spend the day at the hospital. So I need to fill out all of the forms for that and try to pick myself up off the floor a bit.