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?
You've written a lot about this relationship so it's only fair and honest to admit that it's time to end it.
In all honesty, you' re not only dealing with your own psychological issues, but your physical health as well.
Unfortunately. You are now spending much time and emotional energy dealing with someone who is causing you much emotional pain and heartache.
What you had together may have been special.
However. When he insisted you move in with him, it gave you an opportunity to see and understand more of the man you perhaps didn't know quite so well.
After all, your partner has been dealing with very deep psychological problems brought on by his traumatic life experiences.
He was severely neglected as a child.
He joined the military when he was young - and already traumatised - in order to escape his family.
He then went on to be further traumatised in combat zones.
His marriage will have been affected by his previous family and military traumas, leading on to a difficult relationship with his daughter.
It seems odd that all this hostility towards you occurred after the holiday with his daughter.
Yet what else seems unusual is that he gets his father to throw you out of his house. That's the father who treated him cruelly as a child.
Is your partner being controlled or influenced by others himself?
There's no denying the man in your life needs some professional, psychological help.
However. Let's just be honest and face the reality that this man may not be truthful with you.
Whatever's going on here, you need to focus all of your resources - physical, mental and financial - on yourself.
Much of what you learnt about people, love, life and how you've grown as an individual have come from within yourself.
There's so much emotional pressure worrying about a man who is blatantly causing you distress.
Yes. You are forgiving, sensitive and so willing to please others.
Honestly. You never really knew this man and the true, deep extent of his problems because somewhere along the line - whatever anyone thinks - he's not been honest. He's certainly not been at all fair.
Perhaps things have changed because you're growing, learning and accepting your life situation - meaning you are starting to see all of this from within a deeper, more thorough perspective.
Whatever is going on here, there's one certainty. Time to end this relationship.
This needs to be about you and for you.
Your partner has been dealing with several very deep, lifelong issues including family abandonment, military trauma, marriage and child custody issues.
You have also had your own traumatic life experiences and it could be said that you found a soul mate amongst both your troubles.
However. You've come to realise that this relationship is causing you much personal distress.
The relationship has progressed. However. The knowledge you have about your partner has too.
Whatever's going on in this man's life - it's only going to get worse for you.
End this relationship and let him make the decision to undergo some serious counselling/therapy.
He needs something deeper, more comprehensive than a couple of pills and a letter.
Fair enough. The man has his problems - but so have you. He's not exactly been treating you well.
There's even the question of how sincere he really is.
Again. It's time to finish this relationship.
You are someone who has challenges in your own life and genuinely need to focus all the energy you have on yourself.
Your partner's behaviour and even the accusations he made are something that are coming from very deep inside him.
It's hard to accept but what you have written about your partner is only the surface.
The reason for not coping with the therapy and psychological help is due to this being part of something much deeper inside your partner.
He says you made him feel like a monster. No. You didn't. This is something he feels about himself but can't accept.
He challenges you by asking who the liar really is. Creating self-doubt about your own words and actions. A play on your memory which can be affected by all your own troubles? Did I lie?...Did I say that?.....
It's a clever, manipulative way of creating self doubt and reducing your confidence through questioning.
His accusations - whatever they are - come from within himself and are based upon his own buried memories and connected emotions.
It's all about having to accept the hard truth and which is becoming more apparent as you learn more about him each day.
Even his therapist wanted him to see a psychiatrist. Perhaps the counsellor/therapist already felt there were some very deep issues to work on. Therefore refer him to a psychiatrist and get him medicated. Medication will help. However. Will the meds be enough?
You say you're in the middle of selling your house. Consider carefully.
You're undergoing treatment for cancer. Prioritise and by no means let your partner distract you. Another reason to end this relationship.
You feel like you lost the man you love. Yet in reality, you lost the positive feelings due to your deeper understanding of him.
It scares you when he either makes things up or blames you because - deep underneath - you are learning the truth.
Yes. Agreed. You have PTSD and yet you don't hurt others like he does. However. What your partner deals with is much deeper than the PTSD.
There's much more to your partner's behaviour.
He wants you to continue sending sexual things to him so as to make him feel good.
This is a distraction to get away from his underlying issues, yet still be able to take sexual pleasure without feelings of guilt. Making or sending silly videos may be his way of encouraging you to take your mind off things, calm down and in turn enables him to manipulate you further.
Sending private pictures of yourself may even enable him to use those pictures whenever he feels the need to place you in a position where you may feel pressured to do as he wants.
What amazing friends.... They learn you're having problems in your relationship so start hitting on you.
What's wrong with a comforting ear?....
Unfortunately. The sad, cruel reality is he may have told his friends horrible, negative things about you.
Therefore creating further animosity by using his circle of friends as a barrier to protect himself.
Maybe by saying these things about you, he's doing so in order to give the impression that you are the one at fault, the bad person and problem in his life. For him, it's safer than having to openly admit that someone else will soon be leaving him because he's too insufficient a man to keep the relationship together.
Perhaps he's trying very hard to save his reputation amongst his friends and feels it is the only way he can achieve this.
He feels inadequate, vulnerable and fearful of being humiliated. Even now - after all these years - he's still haunted by his past.
Your partner will have heard his mother's (and other family members) telling him he wasn't good enough. Right from leaving home, to joining the military, whilst in active service and through to leaving. Maybe even connecting his responses to the traumatic events in combat to his mother's derisory comments.
Perhaps upon leaving the military service, he felt unworthy and inadequate - as if still being told he wasn't good enough to be able to continue.
This all goes back to his boyhood and there may have been problems during his teenage years as well.
That little boy being punished by his mother has always been - and still is - haunting him.
Even his marriage and family life, always being haunted by the voices quietly telling him he's not sufficient enough as a man.
All these years later - even when he finds someone special - those voices still haunt him. He fears the failure, resentment, abandonment as the relationship progresses....He fights by using these gentle, controlling ways in order to reduce your self-esteem in the knowledge you could leave him.
The thing is....The only way he'll be able to overcome this will be some very intense therapy to help him overcome the events he experienced as a child.
He really needs to face and accept those initial fears if there's any small chance of you continuing this relationship.
It seems as though he's somehow manipulated the situation so you feel this is all your fault.
The therapy will break him down because there are so many complex issues he's currently dealing with.
It's going back to having to accept that his behavior is caused through his own problems.
However. Much of what he is doing to you is not justifiable and raises the question...Are his problems the reason or the excuse?
Reading further on, it's obvious the relationship and your partner are the cause of much hurt and anxiety.
He's blaming you for the problems concerning his daughter. Perhaps some reflection on his own behalf may lead him to understand why his former wife chose a convicted sex offender over him.
Why did his wife see a more positive life for her and her daughter with someone who mis-uses sexual pleasure so as to destroy a life?
More questions seem to remain as to whether or not this man is telling the full truth.
Let's be fair. Should his own questionable parenting skills be your problem?
Having to write a letter to your partner each week in order to help work things out between you....
Write a letter directly...... From you. From your very own point of view and about how you really feel about his behaviour.
Then move on to specifically point out that you have your own problems to deal with.
Your partner also raises the question of who is the liar and who is bad. Is it you, the daughter or him?
A clever, manipulative question to create a form of challenging ultimatum.
Teenagers may tell many lies....Yet somehow, there may be truths within the lies. It's hard to say because there seem to be many conflicting issues regarding his former wife and daughter.
He's blaming you for the mistakes he made as a father.
You're suffering both physically and mentally to a point where you are regressing to all your previous life issues.
The depression, anxiety, night terrors, anorexia and all the other problems are being brought on because of this mentally challenging relationship.
The burden you undertake is not just your's (caused by your partner) but also his burden as well.
The power to make you feel good or not comes from within yourself and it is you who decides.
It seems that his behaviour is the result of the trauma he experienced during childhood and there may be a significant element in all of his issues - and that is his father walking out on the family when he was just four years old.
Whatever your partner's father was - as a man - could comprise of many things. However. Your partner's mother only instilled upon him the bad points about his father, leading your partner to believe he was the result of what was bad about his father.
His mother starved and beat him because she felt that he was just like the father who abandoned his family. This abandonment was possibly the first major contributor to your partners problems. At the same time, his mother was angry because she felt that he'd be the same as his father.
In reality, your partner's mother looked at a small boy and was constantly reminded of her own feelings of being left alone to care for a young family. She looked at the small, innocent boy who didn't understand what was going on due to his young age. Yet his mother could only see the father of that boy.
In all fairness. Was the father really all bad? Does your partner only have information about his father that is based upon what his mother had told him? Do his sisters or other family members have any different views?
Did his father feel a desperate need to get out of the family life? Perhaps couldn't tolerate your partner's mother?
Was the representation he had of his father the whole truth of who the man was?
When your partner was still young, he saw his sisters being doted on and looked upon by your mother as a dominating figure in his life. All these women left your partner (as a child) feeling inferior, inadequate and longing for some resemblance of family life.
As soon as he was able, he joined the military to find purpose, independence, dominance by male superiors as role models (for the father he never had). He wanted a form of family life that he longed for which included and treated him with respect.
Sadly. The effects of combative service will have embedded further trauma to what was already a traumatised young man, leaving him even further scarred by life events.
The chances are, his combat related PTSD is made worse because his suffering may coincide with the memories of being told he wouldn't succeed.
Therefore, your partner may relate his PTSD with the memories of the negative, derisory comments made by his mother.
Although the combat PTSD will have been the result of active service, some of the depression, anxiety, feeling inadequate and his other behaviour may be through associating the combat PTSD with his childhood.
Your partner sees the women within his family and marriage all playing dominant roles, all commanding respect, all being doted on, all leading their own independent lives and abandoning him.
With you, he used the lessons from his past by playing the game a little more slowly - so as not to rush things and risk another disappointment through being abandoned again.
The long distance worked for you and him. From his point of view, this agreement had benefits because it gave him time to learn about your strengths and weaknesses whilst getting to know you. He had that element of control by taking the time and distance to quietly gain your trust.
Looking at you from your partner's perspective, he saw someone who was different to the others in his life. To your partner, all of the women in his life appeared to be so happy without him.
A little boy saw his mother appear so happy when with his sisters and created a significant impression on his life. His sisters lead their young lives without him and now have moved on.
Then his marriage in which his wife seeked happiness with another man. His daughter appears content to not be in his company. All of these women appear - even if in his own thoughts - to blame your partner for the wrongs that occurred in their lives and seem to have given the impression they are happier without him.
Admittedly. What your partner believed about all these people in his life was his own interpretation and seen all from his point of view.
Then he met you. Someone different. Someone able to relate to his troubles and whom he could share these with.
He saw you in a different light and there before him was someone so unlike the others. The others were happiest when he wasn't in their lives and they seemed to overlook how he suffered alone.
With you, he found a soul in whom he could confide and above all else..... He saw someone who was happy to be in his company.
Then he decided he wanted you to move closer because he thought he finally found someone special who understood him.
Yet somehow, your partner's conflicts put up a barrier that made him feel paranoid, jealous, controlling and making these accusations.
Perhaps he genuinely felt a realisation that history will repeat itself, so decided to take what he considered to be control.
There may be a fear of you being more independent than he seriously believed, creating this urge to control you.
The therapist doesn't seem to fully appreciate your partner's issues for the complex depths they are.
Hence suggesting the psychiatrist as soon as one of your letters was presented.
Yet here you are, trying so hard to love this man when you have so many problems of your own.
There's just no way around this to be very honest and accept you must end this relationship for your sake.
Thers's so much written on here about your partner and his life story yet there's so much going on in your life that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
You can use the term co-dependent within your relationship but co-dependency can be used for any form of relationship. Relationships do depend upon each other.
This is not co-dependency - which is in reality, an equal setting. This relationship is very one sided and in particular very much about him.
The time has come for you to end this relationship and finally accept it's over.
Give serious consideration to ending all communication unless you can come to some compromise. Unfortunately. Even if you do, it's more than likely you'll just go back to deeper involvement again.
You very urgently need to focus on your physical and mental health as priority.
This relationship will only pull you into his crisis zone and your life will be swallowed into his oblivion and you won't get out.
In fairness. Your partner seems to have many qualities that are perhaps very descretely intertwined within him. These good qualities have been overshadowed by his very severe mental health issues that have grown out of the traumas from a very young boy.
It's very powerful stuff and that is what overpowers the man your partner could be if he can fight and win over the sorrows of that very small boy.
The decision is yours. However.......First and foremost........
Focus purely on overcoming your life problems, financial issues, mental and physical health.
Stop worrying about his needs to concentrate fully on yours.
Paul....
