Relationship Ptsd girlfriend living in fantasyland about the future?

[Litha]

I'm looking for a deeper understanding of how PTSD might be influencing my gf's current behavior.

She's a survivor of severe childhood/teen abuse and we're both in therapy, individually and as a couple. We've been together 2 1/2 years and don't live together yet.

We've come a long way and I trigger her a lot less and we're generally feeling a lot more calm as a couple and enjoying each other.

There's one thing going on that I'd like some help understanding; perhaps someone else's perspective will help me feel less frustrated.

My girlfriend is 30, a college graduate who wants to become a therapist, and has BIG PLANS :) In other words, she has very grand ideas about what she wants from her life-- have three different careers (therapist, artist, yoga teacher) because she loves them all, 5 kids, a house, enough money to send all the kids to college, the exact genders and age spreads of the kids, etc. Right now we both work at non-profits, do not have savings, and I come from a family of six kids whose parents went bankrupt twice. My expectations for life are much more modest. Like, pay my bills, stay happy and healthy, and THEN, if possible, think about kids.

She has said that for her, children is a non-negotiable. The thing is, we're a same sex couple and we can't really just get pregnant -- it costs money to either adopt or do advanced reproductive jiujitsu techniques :) I guess for me, I feel like kids ARE negotiable-- they have to be. It costs SO much money to raise kids.

Yesterday, she told me she plans on having $500,000 in the next 3 years. I kind of laughed-- like yeah, right. But then it seemed like she was really serious. She really thinks she'll have half a million dollars, and can get her house and buy her children.

I want to be supportive of her and her dreams, of course, but I feel like she's a bit out of touch with the real world (because of her upbringing, she is actually sometimes clueless about life/adult things, like roof repairs, car loans, airline tickets, things of a practical nature). It's hard for me to get on board with these plans! I guess because I see that they are not really "plans", more like "dreams". If she were going into a field where the prospect for making that kind of money were likely, I could see her dreams materializing more easily.

I hate feeling judgmental of her because she's such a wonderful person, but she is so stubborn about these future dreams, like, they must happen at all costs. And that makes me feel like I might lose her if I don't get on board. If we had kids, I would love them and find joy in that life. If we didn't have kids, I would find joy in that life. I'm a pretty happy person and only plan 6 mos - 1 year in advance because life has thrown me so many curveballs, I've learned to be adaptable and enjoy the ride.

The only thing I've been telling myself that helps me understand her adamancy is that she really has no family to speak of. No siblings, no cousins, no functional parents. It must be such a compelling desire to her, to create this fantasy future.

I don't know if there's anything to be done. Eventually we'll talk about it in therapy-- right now we're dealing with other topics like dissociation.

But if anyone can relate to dealing with a partner in fantasyland, I'd love your input!

 

[EveHarrington]

Hi! I think it's possible that her traumatic past is influencing her fantasyland beliefs, but I don't think it's a symptom of PTSD per se. She seems to have difficulty connecting with reality on a practical level. Some people are just like this, regardless. Just as, on the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are overly practical with no "dreamer" side to them whatsoever.

 

[Sideways]

Do you guys have a weekly budget?

If not, maybe try working one out together and track how you go in sticking to it for a few months.

There may be some coping/denial stuff attached to these dreams which could take a while to flesh out in therapy. There's nothing like a budget to bring people back to reality, at least in a practical sense while they work through the underlying issues.

That said, it doesn't all need to be fantasy. I used to see a psychologist who'd done a course and ran a yoga class before work a couple of days a week. Your partner might find making something like that happen really fulfilling...

Talking through each fantasy, perhaps not all in one go, may open some ideas as to ways to make achievable goals. Like, having the conversation about "Ok, so should we try fostering a child and see where it goes...?" may start to help get the brain going about how to make some of these apparently impossible goals a real possibility, or a possibility to a degree, or shed light on what is potentially compromisable...

Whatever the case, it sounds like there's some deep-seated pain (often it's about shame) going on here. If you put the description of the woman who has achieved all these "non-negotiable" goals she has for her life next to your partner - it sounds like her goal is to become someone else entirely. That's pretty core stuff. With a history of child abuse on board, self-acceptance is a monster.

 

[Beans]

Well outside of the 500k in 3 yrs and maybe 5 kids, all of it seems really plausible to me. Plenty of pple like to do more than one thing as a career. There's tedx talk too about how frustrating it can be for pple who have multiple interests to choose one career. She can go to school become a therapist (if therapy alone a 2 yrs master will do, since she already has a bs. psychologist a lot more time,) become a yoga teacher (there are dance/movement and trauma therapists that incorporate yoga as well) or she can do that on the side/weekends and she can do whatever her field of art is in her spare time and post it up to sell it, take it to art fairs, markets, etc. Multiple income streams and things to do isn't at all uncommon these days. She doesn't have to be picasso or whoever the yoga teacher equivalent is, but she can be all those things. The issue is is she actually working towards any of them as in doing anything to get there now or just dreaming?

As for money and kids, I agree with @Ragdoll Circus. Lay out a budget with savings inclueded. See if she has any specific reasons she has such a large number in mind. Maybe with the budget help her layout a reasonable goal as in she can save $300 a month or whatever your case may be. Also fostering is a really good idea and you may connect with a child you'd like to adopt. Adopting from foster care is faaaaar cheaper. My dad did it, idk what it cost him, but it wasn't a lot and a quick google search says it's from $0- to $2,500.

So just as @Ragdoll Circus said, sit down with her and a list of both of your goals and break down small achievable goals that you can move forward with monthly. Like if I were her, this week I'd spend at least 2 hrs total researching both masters programs and yoga courses so i can get ballpark figures, find somewhere near or whatever she wants. Next week she may choose to send out at least 1 masters application, the next week a fafsa form, etc. Anywho, best of luck to you!:)

 

[grimalkin]

It does sound like the notion that you have to get on board with her dreams, or move on, is part of all-or-nothing thinking, which does go along with PTSD. Obsessing also goes along with it - IE, one activity that they delve into, and don't pay attention to anything else. I don't know if the disconnect with reality (which is what I consider the inability to budget, realize what things cost, that time is a factor, etc, to be) is a PTSD thing or maybe connected to the trauma behind it.

My sufferer (soon to be ex-husband) had his bouts of all-or-nothing, generally about his obsessions, and if I was involved, I got dragged down too. He had grand ideas for starting a gaming company (as in computer games), with no coding experience whatsoever, and definitely not the money to be able to invest in it. He would get angry when I told him that $800+ for a rendering program (that he was going to teach himself how to use) was just not in the budget. Since I'm an artist and am pretty good at character design, he wanted me to do concept art and characters, and when it wasn't happening fast enough (I worked full time), and I reminded him that paying for artists and writers was also not in the budget, it was more anger. I think he still "blames" me for his dreams dying...and then he moved on to his next obsession.

He had ongoing childhood trauma which led to his PTSD (c-PTSD actually), and never had any sort of example of responsible adulting, in money, time, or relationships. So maybe a combination of lack of examples, and distorted thinking.