Relationship Why Is He So Mean? Please Help Me Understand...

[alise06]

It's like he's a different person now. We have been broken up for seven weeks now, we were together for five years. This is not our first break up.

We were planning to get married, move into an apartment and have another child. Even just four days before breaking up we were talking about looking at places to live. Then all of a sudden he starts telling me that I make him and his life miserable. He says that he is so much happier now that we are apart, that all his stress is gone and that even his therapist notices a positive change in him now. He said he's been unhappy with me for the past year and has tried to make it work but can't. Which is bull because he's been happy and open, always saying how much he loves me and how I'm his best friend etc. and he hasn't tried to make anything work...he never tried to talk to me or see a counselor together or anything. Nothing. The day we broke up he told me that he loved me and then thirty minutes later told me that I make him miserable and was done. Huh??

Please help me understand. Is this PTSD talking or am I really a terrible person? My heart is absolutely breaking. I did everything I could for him and now he's blaming me for everything...:cry:

 

[arfie]

No, Alise, you are not a terrible person. Nor is he. Good people can do terrible things. It is simply one of the many dichotomies of the human condition. As a species, we are a mass of walking contradictions.

I gave up a very long time in trying to sort which of my irrational responses are the PTSD talking and which are reactions to the on-going stresses of life. Compartmentalization works much better in academic text books and bureaucracies than it does in real life. Mom + Dad + Baby = unpredictable, no matter how many self-help books and propaganda slogans I throw at the equation. I take it as it comes and hope my most sincere guess works. I stand ready to make amends when I guess wrong.

You have probably figured out already that I have no helpful advice to offer. Just trying to offer sustaining comfort while you sort your unique dynamics on your own. Happiness is an inside job.

 

[DeedeeRSM]

Alise,

I've learned that with PTSD, you shouldn't take anything personal.
It's not about you, it's about what's going on in his head...

I've had that too, my boyfriend would tell me he's much calmer and happier in times we were apart, but he'd always come back himself....Eventually I realized it's because it's all getting too much, he just couldn't deal with a relationship. It has nothing to do with me. He is just trying to survive through his day and doesn't want to think about complicated things for too long.

You should see it as if he's on constant survival mode, survival from the PTSD.

It's not his fault, nor is it yours. Just don't take it personal please, cause you will drive yourself insane. I've been there. Might sound harsh, but eventually you will have to choose for yourself. I had to do it too.

See, you and I, we can't help them...we cannot. I've tried my ass off believe me.They can only help themselves, and that is if they want to.For him to be helping himself, he has to realize that how he's behaving towards you is hurtful..You can't make him see.

 

[NotAllWoundsRVisible]

Aise06

It is definitely NOT you....... Nor is it him .... It's the fuc*%^ng PTSD! I too am going through the exact thing as him :-( PTSD ruined my life!

After spending hours and hours and hours on this forum, I came to realize that I am not alone and we all have pretty much the exact same symptoms and almost say the exact same things? I had the most beautiful wife, the best mother to her children in the world, she made me the happiest person heading home to see her was like a dog wagging his tail, waiting all day by the door anticipating its owner to come home...

But when PTSD strikes, I say the most hurtful and meanful things to her. Things that I would NEVER say to her. I never really apologize, not because I'm not sorry, but because I don't even have recollection of saying these things. I should have still apologized, I know, but I'm still in awe when I hear of my outbreaks and don't want to apologize for something that may come again right after.

Don't take it personal, I wished my wife didn't either, but she did and now ...... :-(

From experience with my wife and I, I just wished that we had communicated better. I wished I was able to express my feelings to her instead of playing mr. Tough guy that doesn't get hurt. My wife was my best friend as I'm sure you guys feel like that too?

 

[DeedeeRSM]

You've jusy explained my ex and me

He did exactly what you said you did... and in the beginning he used to apologise, but later on he stopped..

 

[Lunada94]

Boy honey...I struggle with this all the time. When he's great and loving and feeling pretty good I can see clearly that the PTSD is what makes him an a-hole. But then when it comes roaring back, it's hard for me to keep the perspective that it's not me, but it's him...because he keeps piling on me about this or that or the other when he's stressin'. So how could you not feel it's your fault?

Try and hang in there. It is the PTSD.

 

[SMC_1987]

Oh man, please don't take it personally. I KNOW thats so much easier said than done, how could it be simple when you are berated with hurtful things day in and day out.

I do this, all the time. It gets tiring to say you're sorry all the time for things you can't really help at the end of the day. I stopped saying sorry to him because I'm tired of BEING sorry all the time, but not because I am not. Bluntly, I am definitely a giant b***h when I'm at my worst and I simply just can't control it. I yell at him to leave me at LEAST once a week.

PTSD really can ruin us, and it hurts the people we love. It pushes them away when we need them the most, because its when we are at our rock bottom worst that we need that one person the most; and often times, rightfully so, they are tired of waiting and hoping for us to get better.

Try not to be hurt by the sharp words, they come from a dark, sad, angry, scary place inside of us that we wish we could pry out and throw away. xo

-SMC

 

[alise06]

Thank you all for the responses. In moments of "weakness" he has broken down enough to say that he loves me, but that he can't be with me, doesn't deserve me, I should move on, find someone else, blah blah blah. What does that even mean? If you love me, why the hell would you want me to be with someone else? Why wouldn't you do everything to change the bad things about yourself if you think I am so deserving? I do not understand that what so ever. I do not know what to do. It is my choice who and what I deserve, and its almost insulting to me for him to try and suggest that he is doing me a favor by treating me this way...

 

[Chris516]

My online friend of ten years has PTSD and has almost always been critical of me. In the beginning, I would always take it personally. That was until I grew a 'thick skin'. So now, I just let it roll off my back. Just a week ago, she(supposedly) broke up with her boyfriend of four years. She left him three months ago. They were going on a vacation trip in two weeks.

 

[Loner]

Even without PTSD, sometimes two very good well intentioned people that love each other just aren't good for each other. Relationships are like jigsaw puzzles with each persons issues and flaws being like puzzle pieces. Sometimes its just hard to make them fit together to form a pretty picture.

 

[Chris516]

Alise, Keep in mind that, he is neither PTSD, nor is PTSD him. PTSD is a part of who he is, but it is not his name, or who he is as person. Just something he has.

 

[Mary]

What does that even mean? If you love me, why the hell would you want me to be with someone else?

@alise06 , you are so right that it is your choice who and what you deserve. You sound capable, confident and differentiated.

You asked, "What does that mean?" when he says he doesn't deserve you and that you should move on. What I hear in those statements of his are helplessness, shame and enmeshment.

Mary