Just to update (as I often wonder what happened with some people's situations myself when reading posts), I went away for a few days and, after another huge argument, he moved out. He would go from angry and hostile, refusing to talk to me, to softening and opening up conversation, then back to shutting me out again. I have seen him once in three weeks but he maintains now that 'we keep doing this by half measures', and between work and therapy all he wants to do with his spare time is rest and have some real space before there is no relationship left to salvage. He gets annoyed when I ask to see him, he has said he feels guilty often when he knows he is letting me down, but that sometimes he feels pushed into a corner and that makes him mad at me. I am trying really hard to not push anything and to give him his space, but it feels so alien to me as we lived together for over a year and saw/spoke to each other every day. He keeps telling me that I will never understand and he doesn't acknowledge my efforts to go away and learn about ptsd, which I find hard. I can't speak to my friends about it as they just think he is being a jerk and using his issues as an excuse to get away with treating me poorly, but I'm finding it hard to establish what I can or can't say, or where reasonable boundaries or expectations should lie. It's a minefield. It's made more difficult by the fact he will still interact with his friends as normal, I find that hard to understand, why not me?
The space is doing us both some good at least. The stress and pressure has lessened enormously but it's replaced with loss and confusion for me. Communication has gotten slightly better and I will point out that if he doesn't explain things as they happen then I won't be able to separate the circumstances that ptsd is contributing to, from taking his distance personally. He does sometimes do this so that's a bonus. But it is hard. I'm trying to keep busy and keep myself occupied, but I miss him terribly and I'm worried I'll never get him back or that he will just stop loving me (he says he loves me still but some days can feel numb to everything, and the distance doesn't help). Anyway, I thought I'd fill in the open endedness of the situation that was almost four weeks ago, I have kept the advice I was given in my mind and it has helped a lot. I'm so grateful for a place where people understand.
