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Some questions

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dcb2410

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I can understand on a cognitive level that someone who has lived through trauma has triggers either conscious or unconscious. I can understand that something that reminds someone of something traumatic in the past can lead to a flight or fight response. I’ve had enough stuff of my own in my adult life to understand that when things get tough people retreat into themselves and isolate. That’s a very understandable thing. What I am struggling with (unfortunately soon) is the emotional shut down resulting from a simple misunderstanding in which thousands of messages of undying love and commitment and shared promises of openness and communication (with both capable of open communication of life experiences) turning into complete emotional shut down. Literally love messages in the morning, to we need to go own ways in the evening. And not any argument in between but a simple misunderstanding communicated by text. I wish I could say that seeking to understand that isn’t important. But it is fairly soul destroying to have the rug pulled from under you with no understanding of why. I have a job which requires me to be on top of my game constantly and my experience with what happened with my lovely ex partner who has been through so much in life, has just thrown me completely. She tore into me when I mentioned ptsd, she didn’t live with it she claimed. And it was only recently that I saw a message from her - there were thousands, in which she said she had ptsd just before she met me, and had “had it before” and in fact “several times in her life”. It’s not a contagion. She lived with ptsd just as I had lived with depression over the years. There may be times when it was less symptomatic but I’m not naive to think that ptsd isn’t something that people deal with on an ongoing basis. I had to say to the head of my firm this week that right now I don’t know which way is up. Between family health issues, social isolation , trying to maintain my job etc it’s been hard enough as it is for so many many people. The added questions about why it all
Fell apart so suddenly and over nothing has really thrown me.
 
I can’t ask her. I just hope that someone who has maybe been in that position could seek to explain the other side. I’m going to have to take some time out from work at a time that I really can’t afford to do so, just because I’m not capable of performing to the level required when i feel so utterly lost after this. I’ve read a lot on this site but it is still such a knife to the heart and continue to wonder what more I could have done.
 
it is still such a knife to the heart and continue to wonder what more I could have done.
Nothing. There isn't anything you could have done. Honestly, there's PTSD, and there's being a shitty partner, and those two things often coincide in people. Symptomatic PTSD might make someone break up with someone else, but breakups don't have to be immediate no-contact. Your ex-partner is an asshole to do that to you.

But, beyond that, you also have to take care of yourself. This is just my opinion, but being on this site as a supporter when it's clear that you have no one to support is making things worse for you, not better. It's keeping the wound fresh and not letting it heal. You can't heal a wound when you keep ripping off the scab.

Do stuff for yourself that doesn't involve anything about her. You obviously have a massive capability for love. Give it to someone who deserves it.
 
Nothing. There isn't anything you could have done. Honestly, there's PTSD, and there's being a shitty partner, and those two things often coincide in people. Symptomatic PTSD might make someone break up with someone else, but breakups don't have to be immediate no-contact. Your ex-partner is an asshole to do that to you.

But, beyond that, you also have to take care of yourself. This is just my opinion, but being on this site as a supporter when it's clear that you have no one to support is making things worse for you, not better. It's keeping the wound fresh and not letting it heal. You can't heal a wound when you keep ripping off the scab.

Do stuff for yourself that doesn't involve anything about her. You obviously have a massive capability for love. Give it to someone who deserves it.

Thanks. I’ve spent well over 2000 hours of my life over the past 15 months on top of my day job on a completely
Pro bono basin helping hundreds of people ripped off by a crooked lawyer (a member of my own profession). One of my clients (One of the people I’ve helped) who knew how much in love I was with my ex partner said to me and the other day“Mate, you’ve busted yourself for complete strangers. what would you do for those you love”.

it’s just quite tough at the moment as have taken on a lot of other people’s stresses on my shoulders on top of everything else and had sort of hoped that amongst all the statements of love, how I was the most kind, loving, thoughtful, generous person on the planet “One in a billion” that the efforts made could have been reciprocated with the minimal standards of basic human dignity. When I’ve had to deal with the most base despicable and predatory conduct inflicted on people in financial distress by someone in my own progression, I had just hoped that my effort to at least seek to understand her triggers which she could never articulate would not be met with silence and cruelty. I’ve seen enough cruelty this year with people’s lives torn apart from a crook. was just looking for some sort of stability in the world.

But you are right. Need to go focus on myself (or others not including her)

Thanks

Thanks @somerandomguy . Going to
Leave this site now. Best wishes to all
 
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Having said that I’ve learnt today that the guy that was one of the few supports she had in life passed away from cancer overnight. He was a good support to her and vice versa. She will have to have to live through that loss on top of everything else. The cancer was obviously very aggressive. Can only feel deep empathy
 
She lived with ptsd just as I had lived with depression over the years.
but I’m not naive to think that ptsd isn’t something that people deal with on an ongoing basis.

Actually, that’s exactly how it is, for the vast majority of people with PTSD. Whilst it’s a lifelong disorder, and new trauma, stressors, stress, &/or loss of coping mechanisms can bring a resurgence of symptoms? It’s only something like 4-6% of people who have to deal with it on an ongoing basis; like people do who have disorders that are always present, sometimes more symptomatic, sometimes less. Very much like diabetes or asthma, which wreak havoc until managed, but once gotten in hand only crop up intermittently at most, and sometimes not at all. Versus something like an injury which will have good pain days, and bad pain days, but will always be there to greater or lesser extent. As she’s told you PTSD has come up a few times in her life, but she doesn’t live with it? You can be fairly certain she’s in the over 90% of people with PTSD who simply don’t have to deal with it, on an ongoing basis; rather than that she’s lying to you, and you would be naïve to believe it.

I
Fell apart so suddenly and over nothing has really thrown me.

You keep saying this. But SHE says, she broke up with you because you were obsessed over her daughter. That’s not nothing. And it’s easy to understand. As that’s exactly the kind of thing that parents do; put their kids first.

You’ve objected 6 ways from Sunday about the reason she gave you for why she broke up with you... but in the same breath, you’re also telling stories about how absolutely in love with this little girl you were, how she was your last chance to have a child of your own (no pressure!), and how you ignored her mother’s wishes on multiple occasions... because after ONLY 5 MONTHS together, you thought you knew better than her mother about what the little girl “really“ needed. The final straw being throwing a temper tantrum & guilt-fit over not being invited to a child’s birthday party, even after it was explained to you why it would be difficult to have mommy’s brand new boyfriend at the party, when daddy had just died... and that she didn’t want her daughter hurt.

I can’t ask her.
Except you HAVE asked her. She’s told you: It’s not PTSD, it’s your obsession with her daughter.

You clearly think that what you did was no big deal. To her? It was a big enough deal to break up over.

You may not agree with the reason she’s given for breaking up with you, and that’s fine, but SHE can rest assured, knowing she’s made the right decision in doing so. 2 people don’t have to share the same values in order to be a successful partnership, although it certainly helps, nor do they even have to agree on what’s important. But as a bare minimum each has to be able to recognize what the other person values, and the degree of importance they give it.

As even breaking up with you wasn’t a big enough wake-up call to make you realize how important issues surrounding her daughter are, to her? That you still think it was “nothing” & no big deal... to the extent you’re trying to find the “real” reason she broke up with you, and still clueless as how this could have happened? That’s an irreconcilable difference. Right there. You may not see it, but she did the honorable thing in breaking up with you.
 
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Actually much of what you said isn’t true.

No bloody obsession with her daughter. What there was was hundreds of messages from her about how much her daughter adored me how she had never been able to give her daughter a family. How much it meant to her to have my family in her daughter’s life. Friday I’ve read so many of your posts on this site and with respect you are well often way off the mark.

And actually my ex partner told her partner who went on to hang himself that she had been sleeping with her boss. The guy that died of cancer tonight. She said she hadn’t been but did so out of spite. Her ex partner then went and took his life.
 
Actually much of what you said isn’t true.
Where?

I have no problem being wrong, often am; but as I pulled most of what I wrote from posts you yourself had written, I’d be very much surprised in any of the particulars being untrue.

The opinions, of course, are my own... and I can assure you; I am not pretending to profess something I actually disagree with. My opinions are, in fact, honest representations of what I believe.
 
Three weeks before that bizarre comment from her she said her daughter had grown really close to me that she (my ex partner) was worried I was seeing someone else and that she (my ex partner) didn’t want to see her daughter hurt in losing me from her life. Neither the panic about cheating (based merely on the fact that I hadn’t seen and accepted a Facebook tag) or the other comment was rational. Both came from places of irrationality. But based on her experience in life I could grasp how that might come to be. But yes at my age in life and with what I have been through and not now wanting to go anywhere near another relationship I did lose my last hopes of being a dad.
 
Sorry your having a tough time. Life can be very complicated, especially relationships. I hope things improve for you. It sounds like you need to focus on YOU for a while.
 
What I am struggling with (unfortunately soon) is the emotional shut down resulting from a simple misunderstanding in which thousands of messages of undying love and commitment and shared promises of openness and communication (with both capable of open communication of life experiences) turning into complete emotional shut down. Literally love messages in the morning, to we need to go own ways in the evening. And not any argument in between but a simple misunderstanding communicated by text. I wish I could say that seeking to understand that isn’t important.
What seems clear is that what was a deal breaker for her seemed like a surprise to you.

I think what sticks out for me is that there is a lot of pain and death in your ex's life lately. Handling a young grieving daughter can ZAP a single mom's energy and ability to take in any other relationships. Now other deaths and losses. In the end, we can't be in her head and tell you her thoughts and she's made up her mind pretty clearly. She communicated to you her reasons, and I really get the sense you don't believe or trust them at face value but think there are other things going on. In the end, whatever the cause, it still happened.
And actually my ex partner told her partner who went on to hang himself that she had been sleeping with her boss. The guy that died of cancer tonight. She said she hadn’t been but did so out of spite. Her ex partner then went and took his life.
Faking cheating to spite someone is kind of a sh*t move but hey, good thing she's your ex. Sounds like a lot of chaos.

Dating is about finding the right fit. For whatever reason she decided this relationship wasn't the right fit. Breakups suck. I hope you find the support you are searching for and get back at dating and find someone who is the right fit. Good luck to you!
 
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