Relationship Why Do Sufferers Push Their Partners Away?

[Rorik]

Well, I'm not really sure where to begin with this, I guess that my girlfriend has ptsd, without getting into much details she was abused as a child, which I didn't find out until about 3 or 4 months into our relationship. Well it turns out that it was a younger girl friend of mines cousin, who had apparently been up while I would go over to her house to play video games or anything, at that time I was probably 12 I think, and she was up every now and then, I didn't remember that much. She had told me about how she had a crush on me since this one day she was running down my street with her cousin, and sprained her ankle and couldn't get up. Apparently I picked her up and carried her and put her in the back seat of her aunts car. We started talking last september and everything took off without a hitch, and when it started to get more intimate and had just made our relationship official, it was still good, but she would start to tell me that she has issues and that I shouldn't be with her, I told her we could get past it. This is a long distance relationship we live roughly a 4 hour drive from each other depending on traffic. And as I'm open about everything, I've got nothing to hide. My likes dislikes, in and out of the bedroom. Simply because I wanted to talk that through so it wouldn't be an issue later. And I truly do care for her, well i went down to visit her, had christmas presents i got for her, and was trying to be romantic, and that was fine, it wasnt until i left 2 days later she slowly became more distant, and eventually she said she couldnt handle being in a relationship, well i saw it coming, but it still left me pretty hurt, and i cant say i reacted the best, but the next day we talked it over and she said it was her ptsd and eventually told me what had happened, and said she needed time to focus on getting better, a long conversation later we agreed to stay together. And everything was fine again, for a little, and then it happened again, and she said she didnt want to go to her prom, it led into a small argument, but she then pinned it on me and saying she told me she couldnt handle a relationship and i was so devasted and going to do something crazy, which i never said i would, i mean i got home from work drank some and passed out. Were still together and things are kind of rocky i told her i understand that she needs time to get better and i think we can work through this. It wasn't until I sat down and thought about our prior conversations and me being so open that I realized I probably made a major mistake without even knowing persay, she would get distant and had told me she wasn't keen on talking about this, but I still continued I didn't realize the affect it was having on her and apologized for it.and let her know that I only want her to be happy, and how much she means to me. I felt like such an inconsiderate asshole. Honestly I'm not sure what to do, it's like every few days she recedes into a shell, but will still manage to text me, even if much isn't said on her part. And once that day or so is up, she's In a great mood and really talkative and back to being her goofball self. And I don't mean to make her sound as if she doesn't care, we've had long talks About how much we care and love each Other and Her about How Her actions At certain times Would Leave Anyone with doubts. She gets where I'm coming from and She constantly assures me it isn't me. I want to be with her,and even though I understand she's not intentionally trying to push me away, it's still putting a major strain on me. She is getting better with opening up When her off day(s) come, I just give her the space i assume she wants, and send her a text to let her know I'm here for her. Honestly I have no clue what to do when it happens.
Sorry about how long this was, I've just been wracking my brain, I've even gone so far as to try and learn her triggers, and I've been trying to learn what to do and not to do when she gets triggered.
Any insight, or advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[Friday]

Welcome to the forum Rorik :)

Good new first: Some great places to start

https://www.myptsd.com/threads/understanding-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd.86476/
From the summary:
Understanding PTSD
If you're like me, and you sat there looking stupid and confused about what the hell was actually going on with PTSD and the entire diagnosis, then this article is for you. Simple, to the point, no bullshit breakdown of PTSD for both the sufferer and supporter.

&

The Ptsd Cup Explanation. Which will help explain a whole lot of the push-pull / why little things will set her off or shut her down / & why even amaaaaazing things can cause an 'it's the end of the world as we know it' kind of reaction.

Bad news ;)

You may want to start a new thread of your own... When old threads are added onto they don't pop up on the post-list so often get missed. Also, not to be a grammar-nazi, but one thing about traumatized brains (ahhhh so many side effects!) is that it's very difficult to parse large amounts of information that aren't broken up into manageable chunks. (Part of why you get those super short texts when she's doing badly). The length is fine, but you'll get a lot more responses from sufferers if you split up paragraphs with spaces, get really liberal with punctuation, &/or use short sentences. It's quirky. I know. But walls of text make our minds shut off. Regardless of how interesting or well written something already is. Heck. I can't even read half the stuff I've written sometimes! There used to be grammar rules on site, but now we're trying out older members giving newer members a hand, instead. Again, welcome!

 

[KevinB]

As a sufferer, I'm afraid of pushing my new relationship away. I tend to stress easily and shutdown. I lik...

Hey there:

I hope I can reassure you a bit. I do not have PTSD, but my girlfriend does. She had a very tragic experience.

This thread has been helpful to me because I have often had a hard time understanding her. She will sometimes tell me over and over how much I mean to her, that she loves me, that I'm this, and that I'm that, which is obviously great stuff to hear. I'm expressive and enjoy sharing our feelings together. However, when she gets stressed, she will shut down, and shut down hard. Communicating is like pulling teeth. I never play any games with this, like ignoring her for a while or anything like that. I'm always the same, reliable communicator, and I try to remain positive, even when she's clearly suffering.

I've had to learn on my own that she will get into these funks, and that's it's not about me. I love her, without a doubt, so I am willing to learn more about her and work with her on this. What I will say is, if she would take the time to explain it more to me I would really like that. Because of how I feel for her, I want to help her and understand her, even if that means just being a good listener. It would bring us closer, because I'd feel like she was trusting me and maybe relying on me. As it is, I've had to just kind of figure it out, and she doesn't like to talk about it much.

 

[Tinyflame]

I think that provides great stability @KevinB. And you are very kind/ selfless to not blame her, most wouldn't do that. She is very lucky.

 

[One day at a time]

This is very interesting and informative to read. I come here fairly often, to this forum, and it quit...

You have it so exact - it really is the hardest thing ever.

It's the suddenness and always when you've connected at the deepest level.

It makes you feel your whole world has disappeared - then the incomprehension of others around you starts, which you don't need as you feel low enough to be able to deal with their critism.

The forever 'will he come back, won't he'?

You can only liken it to having the floor taken from under your feet.

 

[PTSD Punchbag]

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]My partner was abandoned by her father at 7, when he eventually re-surfaced with his new wife she was expected to accept it, behave and move on with no sensitivity or room for emotion given. At the same time her mother suffered a breakdown & was sectioned, she would only allow her to address her by her name & was very disinterested. Later my partner ran away from home, returning pregnant with her 1st child at 19, this relationship failed & quickly led her towards her future husband & the father or her 2nd child. He was a dangerous & controlling man, over the next 7 years he did all the very worst of things you might expect a bad man could do to his wife.

I met her in May 2010, I was 29 & she 27. We had the most incredibly beautiful relationship, open, friendly, balanced, reasonable. I had found my soul-mate no doubts. We moved in together after a year (in to the same house where she had been abused) & for the next 2 years things were blissful. She was a difficultly messy & disorganised housemate, & sometimes a rather disorganised & arms-length mother. It appeared that our values on home & family were not always in line but nothing we should not have been able to overcome, we were still so in tune with each other & she clearly loved me like nothing before.

By May 2013, we were bickering occasionally about her mess (she is uncommonly messy, eg our bedroom is knee deep in her clothes & she would always leave days of washing up), I found this completely selfish & she did little about it for me - yet we still had a great time together

By May 2014 she had become really aggressively defensive & occasionally volatile, she had hugely thrown herself into her interest in gym & running to a selfish extent. All our plans became centred around it & she was rigidly inflexible & defensive of it. She seemed really disconnected & down, she knew she had needed to see someone about her past eventually so she explored EMDR therapy with a therapist that summer..........

BANG !!!!

She was gone, nasty, vindictive, angry volatile & no let-up - I literally did not recognise her !
I reluctantly retreated to my parents for a couple of weeks, I was not qualified to deal with this !

We kind-of sorted things out after re-visiting the therapist, but things deteriorated quietly over the course of the coming year. She was always on her phone/ Facebook/ out at the gym/ running - you name it she was doing it. It became really invalidating, I felt unappreciated & devalued & stressed by it all, eventually my interest in sex vanished, I stopped working out, became demotivated (the opposite of her !) - I guess I was under more stress than I realised

By 2015 I had realised that whatever was wrong was beyond our control I was about to suggest counselling when she dropped the bombshell - she wanted to Break-up; 'she loved me but wasn't IN love with me

We underwent counselling, I learned a lot about myself? While throughout this time we received a diagnosis of PTSD I barely factored it in - I was too preoccupied with repairing her perceived differences between us. She ultimately broke things off in August, I begged to continue with the counselling, something was not right about all of it.

We never broke contact, by Sept she begged me to forgive her, explaining that she had been in a bubble all year since the EMDR & wanted us to be a family again.
I returned home again, expecting to help her through this & work on things together. However we barely spoke of it, when I brought up PTSD it was met with avoidance or anger.
Occasionally she would open up about her experiences but she was SO distant & avoidant, she was barely at home, when she was she was head-down on her phone etc & there was no intimacy/sex. The NHS offered CBT therapy but each therapist cut the sessions stating that she was too complex for them & re diagnosing her with 'Complex-PTSD'.

We had an amazing night at a x-mas party, just like it was in the beginning, (this was the last time we had sex). We spent a week away in the country over new year & she became really relaxed & open, yet as the new year kicked in she withdrew again. I managed to get her onto anti-depressants (fluoxetine) which seemed to immediately increase her mood - but that was it, the avoidance, volatility, negativity, sexual disinterest all still remained.

While she is still only on week 5 of her medication (they take 6-8 weeks to kick-in), she has announced again that she wants to end the relationship. Again she says she loves me (probably closer than ever) but that there is no attraction, she is not 'IN' love with me. Obviously I tried to talk her out of this decision highlighting that all of these feelings could have been influenced by PTSD - no use.

I work away as a firefighter for 4 days a week, on my first day away this week she put this into a text asking me not to contact her - On day 7 I'm still waiting, I was advised by a counsellor to leave her alone & not to go home.

I know this is not her, she is not herself she is PTSD all over. But she is a real person behind it too - I'm left wondering;

Was this her decision or PTSD's?
Will I hear from her again?
When?
Will she still want to end it when I do?
I had managed to line her up with as much 'human givens' therapy as necessary, but I can't tell her about it
How are the kids? They have been as affected by this as me but now I can't even be there for them to pick up the pieces

In addition to which, I have once again had my heart torn out of my chest & stamped on by the most important person in my life

Anyone got any ideas?!
Any sufferers with anything enlightening to offer on this particular case?

Kind Regards,

PTSD Punchbag [/COLOR]

 

[Deleted member 17302]

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]My partner was abandoned by her father at 7...

I don't have advice really but you have shown what a real husband is supposed to be. Supportive even if your partner has been taken over by a terrifying mental illness such as PTSD. You have lasted a long time and done well.

It seems that this type of thing happens often with the partners bailing out and coming back with no real trend to look at and count on. Perhaps we should form a special group just for people going through the bail outs like this. Pool the information. I know there is this supporter relationships but the bail out part seems specific and not all couples have it happen but definitely enough that some extra support and information on that specific type scenario would be useful perhaps. Isolation is a known concept with PTSD but it seems that some partners are not very aware of that they are doing it in a harmful way and can restructure those kinds of things into a better way. It seems that communication seems to be the biggest key factor I see between structured isolation and unstructured bail out isolation. Some people can communicate their feelings better than others and learning how to communicate those type of things would be something to learn more about. I myself am extremely interested in learning how a couple can work to help the PTSD sufferer be more conscious and forward with their communication of feelings and thoughts and knowing that it is the PTSD distorting their perceptions. There has to be some ways to understand this section of PTSD relationships better.

In your situation and I believe most situations that have a PTSD sufferer, the supporter should have the control of the parts of the relationship that MUST stay stable such as leases, children custody and care, utilities, and other things that need a stable partner to keep those things stable. That would allow the sufferer to have a structured isolation if they need it without disrupting living situations and child care.

Thoughts?

 

[Gadgie]

I think we push the closest people to us away, because of the shame we feel, and the guilt that we carry inside?

 

[notsurewheretoturn]

......because of the shame we feel, and the guilt that we carry inside?

As if we are unworthy of anyone's attention, let alone love.

 

[Justmehere]

As if we are unworthy of anyone's attention, let alone love.

That is what trauma teaches us, it is what the perpetrators often think and we internalize that message as a way to survive the trauma and to attempt to escape the pain of the TRUTH that we are worthy of love, it's not our fault we encountered what was not love...

Developmental trauma (trauma at the hands of childhood caregivers) and sexual assault tends to coorupt some survivors definition and experience of love. When "love" (which is not really love at all, is combined with horror and pain and fear and trauma... love becomes very scary.

For me, it is like, "your love me? Shit now you really will hurt me..." Because I had people who loved me who nearly killed me.

It's distorted trauma bonded thinking, and we can begin to reject those thoughts and messages from our abusers... But it takes lots of time to learn love can be safe.

 

[GrapplingGrief]

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]My partner was abandoned by her father at 7...

Wow. I'm so sorry that you're going through this. While what I experienced wasn't nearly as long in duration, I've been there and felt that. All I can say is I'm sorry, and leave you with what a counsellor said to me that really helped: "There were factors far, far, far beyond your control or abilities to manage and that’s okay. Just as physical illness is not personal to you (if she sneezes on you, that doesn’t make you less of a person), mental illness also displays symptoms that might get projected on to you, but have nothing to do with you (those behaviors would exist whether or not you were in her life). So in the here and now, you are coming out the other side and it’s important to focus on your own healing. "

 

[Cjm]

Such a powerful post. My boyfriend just shut me out. It was like a switch went off- he was done. I too was incredibly hurt and felt betrayed. Reading these posts is comforting that its not me- its PTSD. I am doing my best to respect his space and still be supportive- yet struggling with how to set my pain aside. Will he come back to me? Are there ways to prevent the shut out? ....

This is very interesting and informative to read. I come here fairly often, to this forum, and it quit...