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

[Texengland]

I don't know if this helps at all, but you know my situation a bit as well and with her and the way she's acting I have a lot of the same feelings of a betrayal of trust. I try to tell myself that this "person" isn't the same one that I loved and poured my heart and soul into and that she is just a current manifestation of her past trauma and that even though she is devastating me I can't believe that the person I loved for over 10 years would consciously choose to act the way she is.

That being said I could most likely just be kidding myself and this new person is who she truly is and is in all reality just cold and heartless, but admitting that to myself only makes the pain and hurt and trust issues that much worse. If that is her then I think how could I have been fooled so bad for so long but what I saw as the kindest, sweetest most gentle and caring person I have met in my life?

 

[LittlestBird]

I don't know if this helps at all, but you know my situation a bit as well and with her and the way she's acting I have a lot of the same feelings of a betrayal of trust. I try to tell myself that this "person" isn't the same one that I loved and poured my heart and soul into and that she is just a current manifestation of her past trauma and that even though she is devastating me I can't believe that the person I loved for over 10 years would consciously choose to act the way she is.

That being said I could most likely just be kidding myself and this new person is who she truly is and is in all reality just cold and heartless, but admitting that to myself only makes the pain and hurt and trust issues that much worse. If that is her then I think how could I have been fooled so bad for so long but what I saw as the kindest, sweetest most gentle and caring person I have met in my life?

Your partner isn't necessarily cold and heartless and what happened doesn't mean that the previous years weren't real or really her or of value to her and to you. People change a lot over time and a lot of people grow apart in their marriages, even people who don't have PTSD or other mental health disorders. People grow apart in their marriages all of the time and start wanting different things for themselves. It's possible that your wife is still kind, sweet, gentle and caring, but simply felt that she needed to get out of the marriage to heal or to find herself or to grow in a different direction or any number of things. It might be that she felt that letting you go was being kind and caring towards you and that she wants you to be able to move on and have a good life.

I have dissociative identity disorder, so I know how hard it is to figure out yourself and your identity and what you want and need when you aren't mentally well, and other people can complicate the thoughts in your own head and set you off. There are people in my life who hate me because I walked out on them because they were toxic to my healing and my growth. They were also highly abusive, which isn't your case, but I can understand walking away from someone who you feel is harming your mental health, and there's nothing more intense and demanding than a long term romantic relationship. In a romantic relationship, you are literally taking care of another person's needs and have to be present and available to them. That's what it seems like my own partner couldn't deal with right now. We spent 8 years being clingy and all about each other and in each other's faces and when his PTSD came roaring up, he simply didn't and doesn't have the energy to be that same man with me. I imagine your wife felt the same way, that she couldn't hold herself together and stay afloat while also trying to repair your marriage and be what you needed her to be for you and what you deserve in a partner. My partner can't communicate well at all right now, either, because he gets flustered and quickly angry. He was never great at clearly defining his emotions (something we worked on a lot), but now he gets confused and it immediately escalates to anger, which isn't good for either of us. He has really thrown himself into his job and that seems to be getting the bulk of his attention.

I've been doing good on giving my partner space. Giving him space, he is still finding excuses to text me and send me photos every 3 days or so and he is still answering my questions when I check in on him about his medical and therapy appointments. I feel like those are really good signs in our relationship, from his end. I'm just all over the place. I flip flop from feeling that I'd do anything to get back together with him to just feeling afraid and not being sure of anything... when he texted me yesterday, I bawled my eyes out, because he was actually being normal and funny and sent me something sweet and I was surprised at how confused and hurt it made me when all of my hopes flared up and I remembered how he used to make me feel so quickly. Does not help that I also have PMDD and I'm emotional and ill right now. Stupid hormones...

 

[Texengland]

Thank you. What you said makes a lot of sense to me and I could see some of that in her. I just wish she was able to articulate the feelings as well as you are because that would make things so much easier. I'm glad you are still getting communication from him, but I can see how that can also bring you highs and lows. I would get the same way with my wife when I would get a text or something from her. It seems like there really is no "good" solution in theses instanaces and they just all suck in their own special ways. I've accepted the divorce from her at this point but I am still very worried about her. It's still hard for me when I think what she might be going through and even getting worse with nobody around her that is really going to be "there" for her when she needs it.

Are yall still living in the same are close together where maybe yall could have a lunch date every so often?

 

[LittlestBird]

Thank you. What you said makes a lot of sense to me and I could see some of that in her. I just wish she was able to articulate the feelings as well as you are because that would make things so much easier. I'm glad you are still getting communication from him, but I can see how that can also bring you highs and lows. I would get the same way with my wife when I would get a text or something from her. It seems like there really is no "good" solution in theses instanaces and they just all suck in their own special ways. I've accepted the divorce from her at this point but I am still very worried about her. It's still hard for me when I think what she might be going through and even getting worse with nobody around her that is really going to be "there" for her when she needs it.

Are yall still living in the same are close together where maybe yall could have a lunch date every so often?

So very true about the communication highs and lows. I was happy when my partner texted me a couple days ago and was sort of funny and sweet and normal, and then he texted me yesterday: "When you packed the entertainment center, did you by chance accidentally pack my Drew Brees pop figure?" It made me angry because moving out devastated me and traumatized me and the way that him and his father went about throwing me out, blaming me for his breakdown, making up things about me and confusing me, and taking my things off the walls and tossing my things into piles so I 'could pack and get out faster'... it was astoundingly cruel and random and all of it triggers me so badly and I don't want to think about the two days that I spent crying my eyes out and puking while my best friend basically packed up my things for me because I was completely useless.

I snapped and wrote back: "I'm not sure. You know that my best friend had to pack most things up because I couldn't deal with the emotional intensity and trauma of suddenly being dumped and thrown away like garbage for no reason by someone that I loved and trusted and being kicked out of our home really messed me up. Just start making a list of stuff you're missing to give me at a later date and I'll try to find it when I'm able to unpack or I'll buy you a new whatever you are missing."
He said: "No need. I'm just asking."
And I said: "Do you ever worry about me or wonder where I'm at or how I'm doing or miss me? Do you ever feel bad for anything that you've done and said to me or how you make me feel?"
6 hours later, he wrote back: "I'm working to figure things out."
Then I wrote a 2 page long response to that where I told him that I respect him going to therapy and trying to get on medication and working on himself, but I can't tolerate him triggering me and being flippant towards me in the meantime. I told him that what him and his dad did to me, throwing me out and just suddenly turning cold and abusive towards me, was a traumatic event in my life and that I don't even have access to the boxes that were packed up, but I can't have him keep bringing up things related to me moving out because I haven't processed it yet. I literally do not have access to the boxes to check for his random things that he brings up and I emotionally and mentally cannot deal with how he is acting or the things that have been said and done to me. The fact that he doesn't miss me, a person with real feelings who loves him and who he had a life and future with, but can text me missing a cup or a plastic figurine.. is like a slap in the face, especially with how cruelly it was all handled towards me. I told him that every time he mentions the house "feeling bigger" or "less cluttered" or asks me where something is, I spend all day crying and upset and thinking about him and his dad and everything that happened and how I was treated like less than garbage and kicked out of my home without warning, given two hours to pack a suitcase before I was taken to the airport, and everyone acted like they got rid of me and my junk and yay and threw a New Year's Party (that I literally watched on our home camera, them inviting people over and all laughing and having a good time and setting off fireworks a day after throwing me out). I told him that I am a real person with feelings and that I am just as important as he is and that his life wasn't any harder or more traumatic than my own. I told him to let me finish selling my house, get moved, have my cancer surgery, and recover a little bit and then figure out what he wants back. He knows I don't even have access to the boxes right now. I told him I've been considerate and accommodating towards him and I already shipped back a couple things that he wanted initially (that he actually bought me as Christmas gifts, but I gave them back because he wanted them), so I just need him to be slightly sensitive towards me and my hurts and my needs and to stop bringing up things that are going to push me down a dark path...
All he said was: "Ok, I won't ask anymore." Then I asked for pictures of our cats and he sent them and I asked how his psychiatric assessment went and he said he is just waiting for his psychiatrist referral now (which I'm very happy about because I think an official diagnosis and medication will do him so much good, whether we stay together or not).

Whenever he texts me, I get my hopes up and then wind up feeling jerked around, so I am all over the place. If he does just want to dump me, I wish he would just say so, but he is always 'figuring things out' and thus I am always in limbo. He's not sure that he wants to break up, but keeps making up things that I did that are evil and shady. I feel like the man that he is now is so inconsiderate and out of touch with reality and I'm trying to tell myself that it's just the PTSD and he needs time and I would want someone to be loving and considerate if I were in his shoes... but ugh. I do like getting pictures of our cats from him, though, and I'm afraid of never seeing them again or him getting upset and hurting them or scaring them (but they clearly look happy to see him and well cared for in the photos he sends; he was always a good cat dad). I miss them so much and wish I had taken them, but he wanted them for his mental health and I didn't want him to be completely alone in the house. I'm just tired of crying and feeling confused and constantly second guessing everything that I do or say or that I have agreed to. His coldness and angry outbursts and never having an answer for anything isn't good for me. He's turned into a kind of man who sets me on edge and my own mental health issues have flared back up.

And unfortunately, no, we do not live close enough to just hang out for an hour here and there, which I think could be good for our relationship, but it isn't possible. As it is now, instead of moving closer to him, I am moving to be with my sister who can organize the surgeries that I need and help take care of me, and she lives 16 hours away from my partner.

 

[LittlestBird]

My partner told me that he wanted space during our last phone call on March 8th, so I stopped asking him to call me on Wednesdays and so we haven't talked on the phone in over a month. It's April 12th and I can't believe that it's been over a month, but I have been having issues with my DID and losing time (a blessing?). He texted me pictures of our cats on Monday and I told him, "Tell them that I love them and I wish I could give them snuggles," and he said, "I will." Our anniversary should have been on April 20th and I'm sure that will hurt me badly to go through alone, although I can't imagine feeling much worse than I have the past couple days. I feel like I've really fallen apart inside of myself and my head is just screaming with constant noise and I'm so agitated and jittery.

Everything just feels warped. It's obvious to me that what caused his PTSD relapse is that, all in the same week, he had a security clearance interview that triggered him badly, then he fought with his ex-wife and son, and then he tried to go on a vacation to watch a Saints game with his daughter and he had a terrible time that made him realize he wasn't feeling well. He came back from that trip blaming me for everything under the sun, blaming me for how he felt, blaming me for having a bad tiem at the game, and accusing me of doing things that I hadn't done (he said that I was complaining about his daughter while he was trying to enjoy his football game when I literally hadn't texted him about her at all and barely texted him at all that weekend so that they could spend uninterrupted time together but, when I did text him, it was loving and positive). The accusations and blame just kept on coming. He went back in time to make up things about me throughout our whole relationship and make himself seem long suffering to my evils. Even the last time I spoke to him, he made a comment about it not being the PTSD and him just reaching his limit with me. I've never done anything but worship this man and he reached his limit with me. I ask for examples, over and over, of what I did to make him reach that limit and he doesn't have any. He even cheated on me and I never cheated back and I forgave him without much fuss. It is so hard for me to take the blame and deal with the accusations when I didn't do anything wrong. It triggers me.

He flip flops so much too. He will blame me and mumble that it's not the PTSD in one breath and in the next he is teary eyed and telling me, "I know that you're just the innocent civilian casualty of my messed up head."
I keep starting to write him more letters defending myself and trying to fix things and I give myself terrible headaches. I find it almost unbearable that I let him get so close to me and now he's making up things about me and so dismissive and "I can't make myself love or care about you." It makes my skin crawl and triggers my PTSD from being raped, I think, because I keep thinking in my head that I let someone get close to me and get inside of me and this is who he really is, even though I know that it's the trauma talking and he isn't well and he isn't his best self right now.

I read things and it seems so clear to me that he's suffering and this is the PTSD and the isolation and devaluing me and pushing me away is normal and I read things saying that eventually he will pull out of this with the therapy and medication and want to try to fix the relationships that he has burned. I just feel like it is torture wondering how much time he will need and if he will ever come back to reality. He originally said that when I got moved to my sister's house, he would bring me one of our cats (the one that has always been closest to me) and even that causes me stress and breaks my heart. I want to scream at him to just stop. I begged him months ago to "pump the brakes, just a little bit," and he wouldn't. I can't get him to see me or reality and it is driving me crazy.

Then I feel like a terrible person because it's like I can't get over being insulted and I can't make myself just keep putting myself out there? I know I should check in on him and ask him to play video games like he wanted me to, but I'm so hurt and so scared of him hurting me more. When we play games, he is cold and curt with everyone and gets frustrated so fast. It stresses me out and I sit there quietly crying because he is so different. I haven't asked him to play anything in about two months, even though he asked me to ask him to play at night, because I just can't deal with it, and that makes me feel like a terrible person. I don't want to talk to him because I'm tired of defending myself against things that didn't happen and just watching him get upset. I don't know how to just be friendly, though, and pretend that nothing is wrong and just have a normal, fun conversation with him. Often when I am upbeat or make a joke, it gets a frosty reply, so I don't know if I should just disappear. I don't want to ask him how his therapy is going or if he started on new medication because it feels like all I do is push to 'get better' and I don't want him to think that I just need him to magically be better... I don't know how to be good for him in a way that isn't destroying me, but then it's like everything is destroying me anyhow. I would really rather go back in time and be held captive and raped than be going through what I am right now. This is the worst part of my life so far, and it's had a lot of competition. I feel angry and confused and like I'm trapped in someone else's alternate reality and I'm waiting for them to struggle back out of it and see me and come home.

I need to be stronger than I am for him, but I'm falling apart... it makes me feel like a bad partner and a failure.

 

[Sweetpea76]

Let me ask you this @LittlestBird … what are the benefits of all this for you? Is his mental health worth more than yours? Because it sounds like this is not good for *you* even a least little bit.

Being a martyr isn’t romantic, and it isn’t good for either of you.

 

[LittlestBird]

Let me ask you this @LittlestBird… what are the benefits of all this for you? Is his mental health worth more than yours? Because it sounds like this is not good for *you* even a least little bit.

Being a martyr isn’t romantic, and it isn’t good for either of you.

There are no benefits of any of this to me. I feel like I am just clinging on in a storm and hoping that it passes and my life returns to normal. I want my partner back, my best friend back, my home back, and I don't want to split up our cats or move on and lose each other entirely. It is like I am just waiting and hurting. I'm definitely not over him in any way because he has me just waiting and he doesn't know what he wants and he talks about "coming back to me," when we do manage to talk at all. I wish that he had just told me he needed space and been honest with me instead of trying to blame me for things and not making any sense. I am worried about him constantly. I don't know if he's mentally ill or physically sick or what has actually happened. I assume it's the PTSD, but last night I stayed up all night researching brain tumors and worrying about him and wondering if I can get him to go and get an MRI. I'm trying to fill in the blanks of what makes zero sense to me, about him, on my own, because he can't handle talking about any of it.

I know that this has all damaged me terribly and set me back into a bad headspace that I thought I had already gotten out of years ago. This morning I was in my backyard enjoying the warm weather and nice breeze, hand feeding squirrels and chickadees, and all of a sudden it felt like the ground was dropping out from under me and I couldn't breathe and I barely made it back into my house, having a panic attack and getting dizzy and throwing up, my head full of so much angry noise. I feel very scared most of the time, and the stress has made my chronic pain conditions a lot worse, so I'm basically worn down emotionally, mentally and physically.

I'm trying to be positive and I'm trying to be kind and I'm trying to hold myself together. I'm just also confused and scared and worried and hurting in so many ways.

 

[LittlestBird]

Yesterday would have been mine and my partner's anniversary and I struggled with it a lot (with my own depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts). I took a lot of anxiety medication and called some friends and managed to calm down through the first half of the day, but then I got an email saying that my partner removed me from his Costco account and I spiraled twice as hard. I don't ever go to Costco and never liked shopping there and never used my card, so it wasn't a problem in itself. It just felt like while I was hurting and missing him so much and I worry about him so much, he made sure to get in another dig at me and delete me from his life a little more, on what should have been a special day for us. It was especially painful because, the day before, I sent him a random message saying, "I love you and I miss you and I hope that you are happy and safe." He didn't respond to that at all, but then removed me from Costco the next day.

So I sent him another message saying: "I should be moved and settled in my new place by mid-May and was wondering if you are still going to bring me our cat and the last of my things like you said you would? Or should I plan on driving back down to you to get her and the last of my things? I would hope to have her or get her in June. I was really hoping that, by June, you would have 'figured some things out' and been able to actually talk to me and that we could work on our relationship together and not have to move our cat at all, but today was really hard on me (should have been our anniversary) and I was fighting to stay calm and in control of my own depression, but then I got an email about you removing me from your Costco account. Which is fine, I never go to Costco, but it seems like I'm still hurting and missing you and hoping to work things out and you're just deleting me from your life more and more. I can't bring myself to remove you from anything of mine because I still want you, so it seems like you're over me and done with me for whatever reason. I guess I don't ever get to understand any of it. I didn't do anything but try to make you happy for years, but if you need to pretend that I'm something else to cope with your daughter and the rest of your life, then there's nothing I can do about that. I'm fighting a fantasy world that you're choosing where I've been cast as the villain. So if that's what you want, just me gone from your life, then that's fine, but I deserve to know and to stop sitting here being hopeful if you have no intention of getting back with me. We still need to arrange to have our cat and my things brought to me or picked up by me. And I still hope that you're happy and staying safe."

He read it and didn't respond, which doesn't shock me, because he seems to have set aside Monday - Wednesday as the time when he typically messages me a couple words or pictures of our cats. I've been trying to work up the nerve to talk to him about moving my one cat and the last of my things because it feels so final to me and I really was trying to give him time because he keeps telling me he's "not sure" about breaking up and he's "trying to figure things out" and I am basically getting held in limbo, just sitting around hoping he comes back to me and chooses me, but he can never answer a direct question and always seems to just be stalling. Removing me from yet another thing on our anniversary, though, really made me feel like I need to start reading the writing on the wall, get my cat and the last of my things, and detach. His priorities feel very wrong to me.

 

[Paul-]

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....

 

[LittlestBird]

Thank you, Paul. I read your response and cried my eyes out, but it made a lot of sense and it made me feel like.. at least other people can see what is happening and that I am not crazy or imagining things. I felt more seen by your response than I have by my own partner in the past 6 months. I have always felt very sad for my partner and I know he struggles so much and I just want to take care of him, and it kills me that I can't help him right now. I know that I need to take care of myself. I am selling my home. It goes to market in May and, at the same time, I'm moving to live with my mom, sister, and her family for a while. My sister wants to take care of me through my surgeries and help me get to my doctor's appointments and I do really need her support. I need a lot of help right now and I'll be glad to get around people who love me and support me and can help me.

I do believe that my partner's daughter manipulated him on their vacation so that he got angry with me, and I believe that his father manipulated both of us when I asked him for help and he wound up throwing me out of the house. The daughter has always been very manipulative. For example, she lied to my partner about having a boyfriend for 4 years just so that she could pretend to him that she was lonely, sad, single, and alone - just to make him feel guilty whenever he spent any time with me and not her, even though she was happily spending all of her time with her actual boyfriend. He only found out about her long term boyfriend because she broke her legs and the boyfriend came to see her in the hospital. She has never wanted her dad to be able to have a normal or happy relationship with me. She has flatout told him, several times, that she should be the only woman in his life unless he wants to get back together with her mother. She has repeatedly told him that he lost his chance at happiness and having a woman when he divorced her mom. When we all lived in the same house, she would regularly threaten me and call me dirty names and throw & slam things around to scare me and then denied it all when her dad got home from work, so that I just started locking myself and our cats in our bedroom whenever he was gone and she was home (and then she would stand right outside the bedroom door and talk loudly to other people on her phone - often her own mom - about how much she hates me and they would be calling me names, and she would punch and kick the door whenever she walked by, or else she would stand right outside the door for up to an hour at a time just so that I could see her shadow, not moving, which scared me the most). I have tried to downplay what she does over the years because my partner gets so defensive of her and he doesn't want to hear the truth about her, so I stopped trying to tell him anything about her, because he would just get angry at me if I said anything. I'd tell him the truth about her, she would lie and deny it, and my partner would side with her and get mad at me and tell me to grow up. Even when other people heard her or witnessed her being abusive towards me and told him, he would believe her over everyone else. She's been on drugs for as long as I've known her, and he never would discipline her or tell her no about anything. A couple years ago, she got into a car accident because she "likes to pretend she's a Nascar driver" and she sped into an intersection, blowing a red light, broke both of her own legs, injured a bunch of other people, and caused one woman to have a miscarriage. Her father paid everyone off, pays her increased insurance, paid to have it all forgiven and washed away, and didn't tell her about the miscarriage because he "didn't want to upset her more." Whenever we would go on vacation, she would call him up telling lies to make sure that we couldn't be alone or relax together. She ruined one Valentine's Day trip we took to Miami because she called him up fake crying that someone smashed into the back of her car and now it was ruined, and when we got home, there wasn't a single scratch or dent anywhere on her car, and he didn't confront her about it at all. Another trip, he had a camera in the house and she wasn't supposed to have people over or do drugs in the house and she invited a ton of people over, they were all smoking weed in the house, they chased our cats under the bed and were going through things in our bedroom, and she was bragging to her 'friends' about how "stupid" her father is and how she "gets away with whatever the f*ck she wants." Yet now he is "trying to figure out who is the liar - me, you or my daugher," when it is as clear as day. He would catch her doing terrible things all of the time, but tries to question whether or not I framed her when it makes no sense at all. It was always something with her, with them. She has kept him upset and stressed out, but it all gets blamed on me, never her or the reality of her. Even now. I imagine that on the trip they took to New Orleans, she complained about me to him and told him she was never going to accept me and I'm so awful, all of her usual nonsense. Then he came back from that trip being mean to me and accusing me of saying mean things about her when I didn't mention her. What she does tends to get dumped on to me instead. So, yes, I do believe that she triggered him hating on me. That makes me feel extra sad and stupid because several times over the years, I have thought that she was being nice to me and we were patching things up between us, only to have her turn on me again. One time she had me doing her favors and kissing her butt to get her to like me and, when my partner's dad came to visit, she told him that I'm the dumbest person in the world for trusting her and that she was just using me and it was so funny to watch me try to get on her good side. I wished the dad hadn't told me she said that. It's all been really hurtful to me, if I'm being honest. I try to tell myself, even now, that she was a normal teenage girl having problems, but I know that it isn't true and that there is something deeply wrong with her. She will be 23 this year and still acts the same as she did at 14. She even posted online today laughing about how she was jamming out in her car and didn't realize she was driving down the wrong side of the road, so she never learns from anything or matures (after she broke her legs and hurt several other people in her car accident, her dad bought her a new, better, more expensive 'dream car' and paid thousands to have big speakers installed in it so that she'd be extra cool - basically a reward for wrecking the first car, breaking her legs, and hurting a bunch of other people). He gets mad at me because I "don't support his relationship with his daughter enough" and I "judge her" and I "make him feel like a bad dad," but the truth that I can never say is that I think that there is something very wrong with his daughter. He has told me before that he's afraid to ever tell her no or to disagree with her because she might leave him and that "all he cares about is that when he tells her I love you, she says it back, and he will do anything to keep her love." Viewing things that way, he can't be a father to her at all because he has always been afraid to parent her and only acts like her buddy and a free ATM to her. She does not respect him or me or anyone else. I'm actually not entirely sure that she has normal feelings and that she isn't a sociopath. I grew up being abused by my much older half-brother and half-sister who are diagnosed sociopaths and his daughter is strikingly similar to them, I am sad to say. I just try to downplay everything that she does and keep quiet about her because it makes my partner happier and I feel sorry for him... I think I've even downplayed all of this in my thread here, in previous posts, because I'm so used to hiding her behavior.

His father, I should never have asked his father for help. His dad has dysfunctional guilt over leaving him when he was a child, but it comes up in unhelpful ways. He's never honest with my partner and he tends to take the easy way out and then runs away again. He says what he thinks will please my partner and get him on his side at the time, not to say what my partner needs to hear. I was like, "You need to tell your son that he's clearly sick and not thinking clearly and to calm down and listen to me and go to therapy, to remind him that he was happy with me and I love him and he loves me and he isn't thinking clearly," but instead he told his son, "Oh? You feel like you hate LittlestBird? She IS awful and clearly not helping you when you need help. She's the one who's crazy. Do you want me to get rid of her?" His dad says whatever he thinks his son wants to hear, not what his son needs to hear (it is honestly no wonder that my partner cannot parent his own children; he has had no examples of good parenting anywhere in his life). His dad promised me he would stay with my partner if I left as well, and he didn't, he actually left early, and told me that his son is "fine. Seemed happy!" He doesn't know his son at all and doesn't want to face the guilt that he has. I should never have asked the man for any help, but I was desperate and confused. His father and the rest of his family have told me, many times, that I make my partner so happy and that they didn't realize they'd never seem him really smile or genuinely happy until he met me. They said that, but when it came down to it and I needed them, they threw me right under the bus. And now, sadly, my partner is surrounded by all of the people who do lie to him and neglect him and abuse him, and my partner has pushed me away, the one person who really loved him and would do anything for him and who makes him and his happiness a priority... it's really sad.

I'm going to reread your response and think on it a lot more. It really stunned me that someone else saw so much of what my partner and I were going through and I feel like it was very insightful.

 

[LittlestBird]

Well. I seem to have finally hit the point where my partner is fully ghosting me. He hasn't sent me pictures of our cats since April 24th, didn't even check my text from April 26th, and hasn't said anything since, so that's over a week since he interacted with me and he isn't even bothering to leave me on read anymore.

Meanwhile I reached out to one of our mutual female friends to express my pain over some things I found out she was saying about me and she happily informed me that she had a "long conversation" with my partner and that I'm "irrelevant bullshit" and cussed at me and told me to "keep her name out of my f*cking mouth." It was really.. something.

I guess I should stop calling him my partner.

I have PTSD from being sex trafficked and I've had so many horrible things happen to me, but somehow this feels like the worst thing that's happened to me in my life. Thinking that I was in love and trusting someone and having them just turn into someone else and blindside me and ditch me. This feels like the worst thing.

I don't know what to believe. Maybe he had a PTSD relapse and is isolating and maybe this is something else entirely. Him trying to convince me that I'm a liar and that I did bad things that I didn't do and blaming me for all of his depression and problems is what made this so hard for me. If he had just disappeared originally, I feel like it would actually make more sense and be less painful than the extra hurtful things that he actually did. I blame myself for everything normally and am really hard on myself, so it's all just hurt me a lot and confused me a lot. It seems like he is trying to convince everyone else that I am crazy and bad when I literally didn't do anything wrong. I don't know why I care so much. I feel really stupid and maybe a little angry.

 

[Tinyflame]

I'm sorry @LittlestBird I saw this just when I logged out.

My 2 cents- don't listen to any person who 'happily informs you' of what anyone knows is going to cause you great pain. Even the wording- would anyone who cared for you share it that way? So you cannot trust her, perhaps her intentions aren't good, nor can you trust what she said. It way be true, or not, or incomplete, or a number of things. That doesn't mean I'm defending him. From what I recall, you have cancer, you had to find a new way and place to live, you are concerned about the cats, there was a birthday or anniversary? Let alone to hear about the cause of your own ptsd. JMHO but a week is nothing, and isolating can go a long time. You have many needs he is giving no support to or for.

What is especially not good however, is if he recognizes you are in pain and doesn't address it. That is not loving and not grounds for a good relationship. If you have ptsd also, you get what is not an excuse.

He might be more of a frog than a Prince at this time in his life. Or just a jerk/ as*hole- I went through enough I came to believe men couldn't be otherwise. And unfortunately, many women who were just the same. One of the most abusive men I gave the most excuses for. You deserve better, and much more.

JMHThoughts but take care of whatever you need for yourself and leave him to himself. Including who he associates with or not. He's not acting like a person anyone could have a caring relationship with (do you want that?), and running wide open.

I am very sorry for your grief and pain. Hugs to you.