G
Gala
TL; DR: partner has PTSD from SA 15 years ago. She is diagnosed, she accepts the diagnosis, she admits having uncontrollable amounts of anger at times, she agrees it is often unproportional to the situations, however, any mention of "aggressiveness" results in her bursting out and a few days of silent treatment, rage, treating it as an unimaginable personal attack or attempt to humiliate.
So my wife can get aggressive. Not physically (has thrown a glass at me once a few years ago) but emotionally, verbally. And, I mean, I can handle that. But every time I point out to her act of aggression or even reference in an argument or conversation the fact that she has behaved aggressive - she immediately explodes and makes this in itself an act of aggression against her.
Which is strange considering, for example, that recently she admitted to me that in 2021 she felt extremely angry towards me because she felt stuck at life and wanted to blame me for everything even though she understands I haven't caused any of it.
Of all the symptoms she has, this is also the biggest trigger for me myself and after a few years together I have lost the tolerance level for it. Sometimes I can handle it, sometimes I just raise my voice to draw a line when she starts attacking me.
So just to give you an example of a situation. She wants us to renovate the apartment but we don't have enough money to fully do that. However, due to some issues I found that cannot wait, I decided to do some repairs myself. Since I was ordering the necessary materials, I asked her if she perhaps wanted me to do some extra things, like for example a bigger bed/mattress for our bedroom which she herself said she wanted previously. This made her angry because she was in a different mood. I even told her I know I just sprung this up on you but just think about it. And she just said no, definitely not, very angrily, repeating "I ALREADY TOLD YOU THIS". So then I told her okay but this is not helping with my motivation, you are getting angry and I have merely made some suggestions, literally trying to take into account your own previous wishes. She then in a calmer manner said "I don't see where I did anything wrong."
So I just let it go and went away with sour taste in my mouth, I walked it out and it's fine.
Unforunately, sometimes I can't let go and I tell her that I feel attacked or I ask her "why are you attacking me?"
And if I do that, she takes that in itself as an attack on her. And then she will go along the lines of "I am always not good enough for you" or something like that. Alternatively, if I do no react at all and just stay sad for an hour or two, she will demand to tell me what happened. Then I will tell her. And she will still consider this an attack on her. If I tell her "everything is fine", she will consider that lying and will become passive-aggressive. And if I let it go for a time but come back at a better time later on, she will always go to past situations to create a story where "she is not good enough", even if we're talking about insignificant things. If I raise a voice, she will just go silent immediatelly and will give me a few days of silent treatment.
So, generally, there is no way out except to agree that he way she behaves is normal. Which, in my opinion, it is not.
From my personal perspective, I know her unproportional anger will not go anywhere and mentally I am prepare to even accept it. But emotionally after 5 years of this I have reached a point where I just need my experience to be validated. She knows she has PTSD. It has been diagnosed by a professional. She knows she has very strong and long lasting anger outbursts. She knows it is unproportional to situations. She knows small things can trigger it.
However, from her perspective, if I will tell her something along these lines "you know, you were very aggressive with me 2 hours ago when we were late, I understand that you had a lot on your plate but it was very hard for me too, I need to reset" - she considers this a personal attack.
Meanwhile if she needs 4-5 days alone to deal with her emotions - she always gets it, even though it is not always easy for me.
And another strange thing is that even in situations where I remain entirely calm, she always tries to prove to me that I exploded. Sometimes it gets so surreal that I think even she gets confused, for example she will tell me "you exploded" and then start a barrage to criticisms. I will just say "can you focus on looking at me and hearing me?" in the calmest voice possible, asking her to pinpoint where exactly was my explosion and then she will say something along the lines "calm people do not say things like that". And "things like that" is always me pointing to her angry outbursts/aggression/silent treatment/etc. Any REFERENCE to it by her is viewed, as I said, as a personal attack, humiliation, act of aggression in itself etc.
Does it sound familiar? Has anyone been through something like that? Did anything help?
I don't even need her to change her behaviour. I just need her to understand what is happening when it is happening. Did someone perhaps have to go through this journey themselves? Thank you.
So my wife can get aggressive. Not physically (has thrown a glass at me once a few years ago) but emotionally, verbally. And, I mean, I can handle that. But every time I point out to her act of aggression or even reference in an argument or conversation the fact that she has behaved aggressive - she immediately explodes and makes this in itself an act of aggression against her.
Which is strange considering, for example, that recently she admitted to me that in 2021 she felt extremely angry towards me because she felt stuck at life and wanted to blame me for everything even though she understands I haven't caused any of it.
Of all the symptoms she has, this is also the biggest trigger for me myself and after a few years together I have lost the tolerance level for it. Sometimes I can handle it, sometimes I just raise my voice to draw a line when she starts attacking me.
So just to give you an example of a situation. She wants us to renovate the apartment but we don't have enough money to fully do that. However, due to some issues I found that cannot wait, I decided to do some repairs myself. Since I was ordering the necessary materials, I asked her if she perhaps wanted me to do some extra things, like for example a bigger bed/mattress for our bedroom which she herself said she wanted previously. This made her angry because she was in a different mood. I even told her I know I just sprung this up on you but just think about it. And she just said no, definitely not, very angrily, repeating "I ALREADY TOLD YOU THIS". So then I told her okay but this is not helping with my motivation, you are getting angry and I have merely made some suggestions, literally trying to take into account your own previous wishes. She then in a calmer manner said "I don't see where I did anything wrong."
So I just let it go and went away with sour taste in my mouth, I walked it out and it's fine.
Unforunately, sometimes I can't let go and I tell her that I feel attacked or I ask her "why are you attacking me?"
And if I do that, she takes that in itself as an attack on her. And then she will go along the lines of "I am always not good enough for you" or something like that. Alternatively, if I do no react at all and just stay sad for an hour or two, she will demand to tell me what happened. Then I will tell her. And she will still consider this an attack on her. If I tell her "everything is fine", she will consider that lying and will become passive-aggressive. And if I let it go for a time but come back at a better time later on, she will always go to past situations to create a story where "she is not good enough", even if we're talking about insignificant things. If I raise a voice, she will just go silent immediatelly and will give me a few days of silent treatment.
So, generally, there is no way out except to agree that he way she behaves is normal. Which, in my opinion, it is not.
From my personal perspective, I know her unproportional anger will not go anywhere and mentally I am prepare to even accept it. But emotionally after 5 years of this I have reached a point where I just need my experience to be validated. She knows she has PTSD. It has been diagnosed by a professional. She knows she has very strong and long lasting anger outbursts. She knows it is unproportional to situations. She knows small things can trigger it.
However, from her perspective, if I will tell her something along these lines "you know, you were very aggressive with me 2 hours ago when we were late, I understand that you had a lot on your plate but it was very hard for me too, I need to reset" - she considers this a personal attack.
Meanwhile if she needs 4-5 days alone to deal with her emotions - she always gets it, even though it is not always easy for me.
And another strange thing is that even in situations where I remain entirely calm, she always tries to prove to me that I exploded. Sometimes it gets so surreal that I think even she gets confused, for example she will tell me "you exploded" and then start a barrage to criticisms. I will just say "can you focus on looking at me and hearing me?" in the calmest voice possible, asking her to pinpoint where exactly was my explosion and then she will say something along the lines "calm people do not say things like that". And "things like that" is always me pointing to her angry outbursts/aggression/silent treatment/etc. Any REFERENCE to it by her is viewed, as I said, as a personal attack, humiliation, act of aggression in itself etc.
Does it sound familiar? Has anyone been through something like that? Did anything help?
I don't even need her to change her behaviour. I just need her to understand what is happening when it is happening. Did someone perhaps have to go through this journey themselves? Thank you.
