General What Are The Chances A Ptsd Victim That Leaves A Long Term Relationship Will Come Back?

[Deleted member 17302]

I've read so many posts on this website saying that their partner of a very long time has left them. My fiancee is the love of my life and took a serious turn for the worse. She stopped meds a year or so ago without telling me, started feeling like she didn't trust me or feel the love I was showing her and started to do some bad things in the relationship and once it was found out she just lost it and now is gone.

I'm curious how often PTSD partners come back that have left with bad PTSD symptoms such as flash backs, loss of trust feeling and loss of love in the relationship?

She has trauma from our daughter dying and the birthday is close and the holidays rip her up as well.

She did before but this time it is really bad situation. She said she was sabotaging the relationship and that her doing what she did was an escape. Any amount of insight on x our of y times they come back, would be very useful to my sanity.

I have come to the conclusion she will not be coming back but I am also not all knowing. Have decided she isn't coming back in order to cope and not get my hopes up that she will return.

When I am asking about chances, I am looking for an estimated x out of y times they come back. I haven't seen any posts where the partner has come back.

 

[BlueOrange]

I can't tell you the odds. I can tell you that I did go back, to one woman. (Three times now, I've gone back to her, I guess.)

She was very patient - her strategy was to let me miss her, get me to want to come back. She knew that if she came after me, I would run away.

f*ck it, let's call it 5% (1 chance in 20). There's about a 5% chance that, if you play your cards right, the pain of not having you in her life will outweigh the fear of being in contact with you. And that she'll respond to that pain by reaching out to you, instead of running away from the pain and the fear.

I think you've done the right thing - don't rely on her to come back, get on with your life. If that 5% chance comes up, then you'll have a choice to make.

 

[Casey_03]

I can't help you with any specific estimates, I'm afraid, but I would like to say that the trauma of a child dying is probably enough to keep her away for a very long time. I don't necessarily mean permanently, but maybe years. She must be feeling an unfathomable amount of guilt and she is probably punishing herself in every way possible -- and I don't think she will stop in the near future. There is also a chance that she just wants oblivion, she wants to forget what she lost, and staying with you is a constant reminder. I can't imagine how hard this must be for you, but I think all you can do for now is let her know that you are there for her and let her be. I don't know how long ago your daughter's death was, but maybe she hasn't finished grieving. Grief doesn't always bring people together, unfortunately. It often rips them apart. I hope the opposite will be true in your case, but only time will tell.

 

[Deleted member 17302]

I can't help you with any specific estimates, I'm afraid, but I would like to say that the trauma of a...

She had said she felt like the trauma and grief were brand new and never been touched even though it's been 3+ years since the death happened. She had a long episode where she wasn't with me before but that was a few years ago within a year or so of the actual traumatic event.

I wish she would come back and that things would be good because we had never had love like that in life before. We were quite literally feeling like we were the other half of each other. We even have the same height, hand size, feet size, and could tell each other even the deepest darkest things that you couldn't ever imagine telling your partner in life. The possibility of her existing as she does was very very very improbable. Like she was made in a factory somewhere meant for me. It was almost unsettling how good a fit we were.

She claimed when she left she didn't want children or marriage ever and that I hadn't done anything wrong or changed but that she felt she didn't have trust and couldn't feel the love I was giving her for a long time.

Previously she was super happy to get married to me and even loved talking about the wedding we would have that was super goofy and fun together vs traditional boring weddings. At one time she really really wanted more kids and with me. She loved the idea of kids with me. Could see the twinkle in her eyes. She would tell her mom and at the time her mom was super siked and told her go for it so that we could be a family and make her more grandchildren.

(stopped meds for a year suddenly so I'm guessing the feeling of trust and love goes away without the help she had with that medication.) We even were homeless a couple times together and she said she would never leave even though she had a way to leave very easily. Said she would never leave no matter what. So this is odd to me. She had said she doesn't feel comfortable even owning a pet other than a goldfish that would die on its own because she was afraid she would kill it. Said she didn't have a point in life anymore and that our daughter was her point in life and now it was gone. She said she knows I want kids and don't deserve the pain she causes. She was calm but she can be calm in those episodes. It is like a completely different girl. Like she was killed by the girl that I loved dearly. Never have I felt love for anyone in this way. Can't even look at other women without feeling sick. Having dreams when I normally don't remember them at all. Think about if you felt love and the intensity in your chest and body. Now think if you were sitting at the center of a blue star. The intensity of heat and light that blinds and incapacitates you. That is what we felt for each other. I feel like the PTSD is a demon that took over and destroyed and stole away my lovely partner.

I personally do not believe she is coming back. She did before many times during her episodes when going to family and suck but this time I feel like she just tried to nuke the relationship as much as she could. She said she was using sex/cheating as a drug to escape reality.

Lot of stressors this first of the year this year. More than normal. Friends and family dying, impending end of unemployment so loss of home possibility (she mentioned multiple times while crying she didn't want to be homeless again), had no stable vehicle to get to work and live other than a van borrowed from family member on my side. The birth-date and death-date of our daughter within only a couple months, partners birthday (25 which makes people reflect on life), her job became unbearable as she dealt with irritating people all day long in a public facing job were people would insult and just be terrible, I had been sick for about a year, lower sex in our relationship due to me being sick. Her mom and family hate me and always was telling her to leave me.

 

[Kintsugi]

Unfortunately, no one here has a crystal ball, and there is no one-size-fits-all pattern for this sort of thing, the same way that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to people leaving their significant other for all the other possible reasons out there.

 

[Casey_03]

I'm not sure this is all PTSD, it sounds more like grief to me, which in some ways can be trickier. (Her PTSD may compound the effects, but what you describe really seems more like a delayed grieving process). I guess what I mean is that even if she did not have PTSD, I think she would be having a similar reaction right now to your daughter's death. I have never experienced the death of a child, but I did lose my mother and my grieving process resembled what you are describing -- it took a few years to actually hit me, at which point I just gave up on life. Completely. Acting out in every way you can imagine, and I cut off ties with everyone close to me, literally everyone. For me, it was as if I genuinely believed I was dying inside, and I didn't want my close ones to see me that way. So I didn't let them. You know how animals seek solitude when they feel death closing in? It was the same for me. Except I wasn't dying, I was grieving. It was really only that grief that triggered the onset of my PTSD and the memories of all my traumas. But I do view the two as separate, PTSD and grief. I don't know if that helps in any way. Even if she were to come back right now, if she hasn't healed, things won't improve in the future. So there's really nothing you can do but give her time to heal. I don't think it hurts to hold out some hope, because you two have such a strong history together. Also, can I ask how old the two of you are? Did I understand correctly that you are 25?

 

[Deleted member 17302]

Also, can I ask how old the two of you are? Did I understand correctly that you are 25?

She just had the birthday in the last couple months. I'm in my early early 30s now. Started seeing her in my 20s.

 

[Deleted member 17302]

She just came and got basically the rest of her things. Cold and mean. Sounds just like how the other people describe their partner leaving.

 

[BlueOrange]

She just came and got basically the rest of her things. Cold and mean. Sounds just like how the othe...

I'm sad to hear that :(

 

[Deleted member 17302]

I'm sad to hear that :(

I'm unsure of this outcome but I feel like I have no choice but to believe she is coming back at some point and that the plan is for me to just wait and be patient. She is impossibly matched to me. Not sure how many people here believe in God but I do and He has done some impossibly amazing things in my life that I cannot deny. Even she that never believed before saw the great power working in my insane and terrifying life. Not trying to persuade to that viewpoint but to say, I feel like I am blind to the purpose of what is going on but that it will end as it should. No matter how much I force myself to believe she is gone forever, I can't seem to shake this overwhelming feeling that this is not the end. Perhaps that is denial but perhaps it is the same thing that always, and I mean always, gets me out of the fire at the precise moment I need to be torn from it. Getting jobs at the last possible moment and those jobs somehow provide massive and well needed additions to my life in terms of people and experience and insight. A pawn in a game I cannot see the board. Well this is a new feeling. Hm...

There are a few more bits for her to pick up and that will be painful I am sure, but the storm that she is going to unleash upon them is going to be spectacular. She couldn't even go into a doctors office without almost immediately being banned before adn that wasn't me causing that action.

A while back I learned an interesting thing. Indifference is the death of love but hatred is the confusion over one or more subjects within the person that is producing that hate. She even said I did nothing wrong and that it was her that was the issue. If that issue does not resolve it will continue and exhibit itself. Extreme pettiness is a trait of the episodes.

I still fear that in which I cannot see the future of, but if these overwhelming notions of things coming as they should, I think I will see her in my life again perhaps one more time at least. The last time this happened, I was able to straighten out parts of my life while she did her raging, and that was a good thing.

If you are a believer of God, I ask you pray for her and us. Let the will that always pulls me from the fire do a great thing if it should be the cards to be. Otherwise, this is some hefty denial that is really going to suck when she never comes back. Let's hope it isn't denial but instead accurate perception of past trends coming true again in the future. I somewhat want her to just go away but then can't help think she isn't going to be gone forever. Never have I felt this passive about action with the understanding of what is going on and what might be in the future. Either way, please pray for us if you do that kind of thing. If not, ok.

 

[Deleted member 17302]

I can't tell you the odds. I can tell you that I did go back, to one woman. (Three times now, I've...

When you would leave, did you think about it a week, a month, etc. before you left?

How long did it take each time of silence before you went back? What drove you to want to go back?

She said she thought about it for a while but then again I don't know if that was her just being her mean self or truthful. We did so many happy things together even in the last few months. She was so excited to have the first Christmas tree of our relationship and of her adult life when I surprised her with the one she had been telling me and everyone about that she was hoping she would be able to get. It had gone out of stock where she saw it but I went out and found one. She put it up immediately and put decorations up and was so happy to be able to do that.

I don't know or can't see where the crack would have started and why this would happen when she could have bailed way back at way worse times of our relationship that were much easier to get away from in terms of ease and happiness levels.

When she begged me to stay this time (she went back and forth between, please don't leave me and I hate you get out of my life) she told me she would teach me her secret recipe to make the food I had been asking for years to see how she made it and she was keeping it secret from me. I thought that was a sign she really wanted me to stay and that she was wanting to be happy together. She said she wanted to be together during those times when she begged me to stay. Then she would flip back to hating me.

I haven't heard one word from her other than when she barged in to grab her stuff the other day. It's been nearly a week of no phone calls or texts.

Why wouldn't she tell our best friends that we both know that she was leaving me or did? That part baffles me too. If you could please give insight since you seem to indicate you have PTSD and have been a leaving party that did go back a few times, that would be very nice.

 

[Suzetig]

I know it feels like "you have no choice" but to wait for her but, as an adult, you do. It's entirely your choice to wait and hold out for a relationship with her or to move on with your life. You aren't some pawn to be moved at will, you have the power to exercise your own agency and make decisions in your life. Moving on doesn't necessarily mean starting dating again but it does mean not hanging your hopes on her returning, or putting your life on hold to wait and see what, if anything, she wants with you. It does mean putting yourself first and setting some boundaries around what is and isn't ok for you.

I hear how hurt you are and how much you want her back but can't help but wonder how many times she'll do this before you decide it's done. If someone here said "oh I left 4 times, kept going back and now we've been together for 18 months and it's going well", does that mean the same pattern follows for your ex- partner? Maybe but more likely not. I so hear you looking for answers but can't help but feel you need to think about what you do or don't want from someone who says they love you and decide whether she's capable of giving you that in the long run.