Relationship Status:"Complicated"-Stories of Unlabeled PTSD Relationships, Labeled Relationships with Isolation Periods, "Limbo", and Coping Strategies

[Sweetpea76]

Do you have "rules of engagement" currently or for future breaks?

I missed this one earlier. We have rules/boundaries/compromise when it comes to isolation. Like @Freida, my vet can’t just take off with no heads up. I’m not willing to sit around and wait to hear if he’s dead in a ditch somewhere. He also needs to check in. In turn I have to leave him the f*ck alone. I don’t call, text, or message him. I don’t not try to engage him in conversation when he checks in. Since he goes over to his place when he isolates, and he never has any food there, if he is down for more than two days or so, I will do a food drop. I’ll text “groceries” to warn him. He’ll text back an “x” or something if it’s a go.... sometimes he’ll say no though. I’ll run by with food, but I don’t talk to him... I just pop in like housekeeping, put the food away, empty the ashtrays and take the trash out. I’m there like 10 minutes tops.

We’ve got it down to a well choreographed dance by this point in time. He knows it doesn’t bother me, and I know he needs it to regroup. No harm, no foul.