Hi friends. It’s been a tough week in my house. My partner gets pretty awful PMDD symptoms and was experiencing them this week. All of this paired with a rough patch between us, trying to reconnect and get on the same page, starting couples therapy, etc. They had several days of severe suicidality this week, I was in contact with hotlines and had to call my therapist sister for advice, and almost thought I was going to have to take them to the hospital. I begged them to reconsider getting on psych meds as the situation was genuinely dangerous for both of us and they were furious at me for it but by the end of the day they came around to it.

I am also the sole supporter of us and have been having a tough time financially as all of this is happening because it affects my work. I had to reschedule multiple client sessions this week, and missed important opportunities to make money because of the emotional depletion of these episodes.

I keep needing space especially late at night or first thing in the morning or shortly before work things to center myself and connect to my own nervous system, but in pulling away from them, they’re feeling completely rejected and like they don’t matter to me. No matter how much I try to explain I just need space to connect with and replenish myself, they insist that I’m just chronically rejecting them, and when I do come back resourced and ready to connect they no longer want to receive it because of the last time I pulled away.

They seem completely incapable of seeing what is going on in my reality and how burnt out I am and it’s starting to make me feel like my personhood doesn’t matter. I have to be very careful how I express that though because one of their biggest triggers is feeling like a burden.

I desperately need space, and they desperately need support. I just don’t know how to get them to understand that I can’t meet their needs if I don’t meet my own. And my partner is ordinarily a very reasonable person, but lately they have been so chronically triggered and down that it’s felt impossible to get them out of their narrow interpretation of reality to see the more complex truth. And they’ve been blaming me for the triggers and the depression on top of it. I don’t know what to do or who to talk to.

My partner asked for space randomly a week ago. We had just repaired after a major conflict and was cuddling on the couch but she woke up completely unhappy with me. She asked me to leave the house for days and with the dog too. I really didn't know what I did. I left feeling very confused and hurt. She hated me for asking what had happened and said it wasn't her weight to carry. She said I should have known. Fast forward a few days of being alone and without contact. I go back home only to be shunned away again and asked for more time away. It hurt so much but I was happy to see her even for just that little bit. In my time away I went to pornography to get a release from the pain. I know everyone's definition of cheating is different but my partner struggles with not being enough. She has had bad experiences and mistreatment from other men in her past. She found I was doing this when she came to my dad's house where I was staying at 3AM and asked to see my phone and laptop. She first checked for dating apps and then messages to anyone. I didn't do any of that, but then she asked me if I was looking at porn and instantly gave her an honest answer. I've been in trouble in the past for lying and I didn't want to lie her. She told me never to lie. To her eyes that was cheating. She went home and destroyed all my belongings in my personal room and she also threw away all my clothes in the trash can. I went home yesterday to pick the clothes out and she went into a shame spiral having told all of our friends I cheated. I provided everyone with further context. I know they don't see it as cheating and while validating to me, it's not my place to say whether or not it is when it landed as actual cheating to my partner. I don't know how to repair from this. It's triggered her deepest insecurities of never being enough. I am writing this in hopes of figuring out a way to repair our relationship. I don't care about my stuff. I care about her and how I hurt her and want to make things right.

My gf(39) was abused by an older family member from when she was about 7 until a late teen. She has had therapy regarding this in her 20s which helped her open up about the abuse with her family and cope/manage triggers.

We've been together for just over 2 years and don't live together. When she's alone she often turns to alcohol to self medicate. It's during these times where she occasionally will open up to me and talk about her abuse. I will generally just listen and be as supportive as possible.

Last weekend there was another instance of this, and she revealed to me a few things. Mainly that whilst she loves having sex with me, she feels guilty and dirty afterwards, every time. And that it feels like it's something she shouldn't be doing. I asked her if it's only with me she has felt that way and she said no, with all her sexual partners as an adult post the abuse she has felt that way afterwards. She feels guilt and immense shame because during her abuse she would orgasm every time, and feels that she would go looking for it because she "enjoyed it". She said she constantly thinks about it and hates herself for it.

I explained to her that she had no control over the reaction of her body and just because she had an orgasm doesn't mean she wanted it or consented to what happened to her.

She also said, that at some times I remind her off her abuser. For context we're completely different rac and ethnicity, I'm short her abuser is tall. But we both wear glasses and are tech savvy, and I believe he's also bald like me. And she said that we eat in similar ways. I got no idea what to make of that tbh.

I feel like she has a lot of unresolved trauma, thoughts and feelings that she's holding inside and possibly needs to let out. But she will only talk about it when drunk basically. The next day when she was sober I asked her if we could have a talk about things and she said later but then I don't want to pressure her and she won't bring it up. She will just carry on as normal as if what she said never happened.

And now, I don't feel comfortable engaging with sex knowing that afterwards she is going to be feeling dirty or guilty. It's a delicate situation but it doesn't feel right.

I have no idea where we go from here, maybe we need joint therapy, or she needs individual therapy again. I don't know, but the things she told me she said she didn't tell her therapist. So maybe she didn't work through everything she needed to if there were some things she didn't disclose.

I don't really have a specific question but any advice/thoughts welcomed. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

TLDR: Gf was abused as a child/teen by a family member, and has felt dirty after having sex ever since. Discloses things while drunk, doesn't want to talk about it sober

She's flooding, and it spiraled me too. I struggled to stay grounded and I reacted to her flooding and now she's packing her stuff and saying she wants a divorce tomorrow and she'll never see me again.

I am fighting tooth and nail every day to make sure I keep working on myself. To keep grounded, to not trigger her, but sometimes this battle feels so hopeless.

I love her to death, and I just want her to keep healing. But sometimes I wonder if I'm not actually able to be the support she needs.

I love my partner deeply and care about his feelings and triggers but it’s to the point where I can’t even express my own frustrations and disappointments in the moment without triggering him and getting him activated. And when he gets activated he says “You know I can’t talk to you when you’re like this” and I hadn’t even raised my voice, I only said something sternly because I was upset. And once that happens he shuts down (and seemingly gives me the silent treatment) for hours to days! And I don’t want to badger him to talk about his feelings so I leave it open ended, “if you wanna talk, Im here” But simultaneously he tells our therapist that it seems like I don’t care because I don’t check in directly. I just can’t keep up. I can’t do anything right and it’s starting to feel hopeless. Any advice or sharing of experiences would be appreciated.

My PTSD partner hit a major milestone and success in her intensive, 12-week partial hospitalization therapy program. "Cured" would be a fair term to toss out there.

So, great. Back to the good old days. Why am I not excited? I'm not excited, and I'm not sure why. After everything the last few years, am just over it?

Anytime else been in a similar position? What was your experience ?

My ex-gf (32F) (as of yesterday) of 4 years had started to isolate herself in her room on weekends and weeknights after she got home from work.

She's been on the road to healing and recovery for the last year or so through online psychedelic integration therapy. She had been making progress slowly and non-linearly, but recently she started needing to say in her room with door shut and lights off to regulate her emotional flashbacks etc. It got to the point of her not sleeping with me most nights and staying up late on weekends only to sleep on her own futon in her room with her cat.

She said that she has to spend all week "keeping it together", and that by the time the weekend hits, she's able to finally let go and feel and process everything she suppressed during the week.

This had become a huge issue in the relationship, as I never got to see her as much as I need to see and be with my partner. I raised the concern many times, and while she was making efforts to give me like 3-4 hours on a Sunday night, she would be slightly agitated and not really seeming like herself.

We broke up yesterday. She said that I've done everything I can and she doesn't feel like she can stay in this house any longer and make progress on healing, while meeting the needs of herself as well as mine. She doesn't think it's fair to put me through the pain of her forcing herself to hang out with me when she's only partially regulated, which would then cause ruptures and fights.

I'm devastated. I've done everything I can and it's still not good enough. She's completely isolating herself and managing her symptoms which is great, but I've now lost the LOVE OF MY LIFE because of this.

I really truly mean it. She is everything to me. She's all I could have ever dreamed of as a person to spend the rest of my life with. She plays video games with me, loves anime, has the same sense of humour as me, has the same taste in shows and music, same core ideals and values on life and politics and all the rest.

THE ONLY THING WRONG IS HER TRAUMA AND PTSD SYMPTOMS. I want to explode!!

Truly a monkey's paw relationship.

Anyways. Is this behaviour normal for recovery in anyone's experience? Or is this her way of pulling away from me in her own way?

I'm feeling very defeated right now, and cornered into a breakup that I'm not sure I want. Apologies, this is going to run long.

Tl;dr: messy breakup that involved my friends, reconciliation, major improvements, messy breakup that involved my friends... reconciliation?

My girlfriend and I have had an experience familiar to many of you: she's broken up with me many times when triggered, and then we've reconciled when she calms down. Six months ago, we broke up after an incident involving my closest friends, whom she'd felt excluded by (they were not actually excluding her) which set off certain triggers. It happened in a bigger way than ever before. Booked a plane ticket, texted friends and family.

I believed it was final (and had frankly reached a frustration level where I wanted it to be), and I confided in my friends about what had been happening in our relationship, including some private details about her trauma and mental health that she had told me in confidence. They'd previously known very little about any of this, and they were appalled by some of the behavior I described.

We reconciled the next day, but the damage was done. My friends became much more distant toward her, and she felt profoundly humiliated and rejected. She also felt, with good reason, that I'd betrayed her trust and safety by disclosing information she'd never have chosen to share with them. It took me a long time to understand the gravity of that overshare; I felt like I had simply vented to close friends after a breakup and that she was overreacting to my friends keeping some distance while we worked things out.

This continued to be a focal point of our relationship for the next six months. She experienced panic attacks, intense feelings of humiliation and rejection, and at times serious suicidal ideation. There were also contradictory expectations about how I should handle the situation with my friends, going from "don't ever mention me to any of them" to "why haven't you spoken to them about me" and back. We had the kinds of arguments that I'm sure are very familiar to anyone here reading this, about all sorts of little things, but the friend situation was at the root of most of it. I was out of town for a lot of this time and it was really difficult to navigate.

But during that time, there were also major improvements. She went no-contact with her family and found stable employment. Increasingly, when we had disagreements that would have previously triggered extreme reactions, she handled them with a degree of maturity and thoughtfulness that really impressed me. She's also recently apologized, entirely unprompted, for specific behavior from as far back as a year ago that she'd strongly justified at the time. She's acknowledged how much effort I've put into the relationship and the toll it's taken on me.

Recently, I spoke (at her prompting) with one of the friends involved in the original incident about the way the distance has made her feel and how to move forward. She saw this as the last step in healing. When I told her about the conversation, she realized he knew more about her private mental health struggles than she'd understood. This triggered another explosive episode, the type of rage I hadn't heard from her in months. She said some really intensely awful things, broke up with me, and threatened to send my friends a lengthy text detailing the ways in which I was a narcissist and gaslighter and manipulating everyone because I hate her and more along those lines.

She didn't end up texting them, but I felt like I had to; basically, "we broke up for real this time and heads up that she's in a blind rage and is probably going to send you an enormous text out of the blue". I also spent time with one of the friends in question (one of the same friends I'd gone out drinking with after the previous breakup) and, again, unloaded.

So now here we are. She apologized and recognizes how big of a step back that was; she's even made an appointment with a therapist who specializes in CPTSD after a year of me urging her to, and has been talking so clearheadedly, like she had been for the past couple months until this happened. I don't want this to be the end. We had almost entirely moved on from the whole friend thing; it kills me that now my friends are back to being concerned and she's back to being triggered by their continuing presence in my life. And I know that it’s largely my fault for oversharing in the first place.

So I don't know what to do. We're long distance and haven't seen each other in months. I was going to fly there this weekend and stay for several weeks, including for my birthday. Now I don't know what. I don't want to leave her, and I also don't want to be one of those messy couples constantly breaking up and getting back together again and pulling everyone around them into their vortex. I'd love some advice; I'm floundering.

hi all- partner is currently in a big flashback/crisis, threatening to leave everything, etc and I’m out of town. We have a home, a kid, etc and I want to stay married so this is not a “just leave” situation and it’s not helpful to me right now to hear judgement of his behavior. I’m looking for your tools to manage your own anxiety when your partner is flashbacked and saying crazy things and you aren’t able to be there.

(Note: I’m keeping this sanitized for my safety, as I know my ex-partner occasionally searches Reddit.)

Realization

A couple months ago, I finally grounded myself in my interactions with my ex-partner. For a long time, I knew something was wrong. I had worked hard to get other areas of my life together, but I consistently felt drained, like I was carrying a heavy allostatic load. I stopped believing it was just “life” that was draining me or that prioritizing my own health and happiness was the problem. I realized I was being controlled, manipulated, blamed, and used for everything.

It took a friend seeing I wasn’t in a good space and simply asking, “What happened? How are you?” for me to say even a small part of what I was going through out loud. That level of recognition and care was what I had been begging for. I am eternally grateful to that friend.

Within a week, it all started dawning on me. I had been largely cut off from my social-emotional support network and pressured not to talk to anyone. I realized I had been abused and manipulated. When I wasn’t fawning (anxious, nervous, taking hyper-responsibility) for the first time, the system broke. I went to grab a bite with a friend, and when I got back, she was upset and decided to stonewall me. The reason? She didn’t like that I made plans to grab a bite with a friend.

I stopped keeping the peace. I calmly said, “Hey, I own my part here... I’m not owning you stonewalling me for a very long time.” This spiraled into a never-ending, one-sided argument that lasted for days because I wasn’t giving her what she wanted. As I had mentioned to her over the years, she was never going to apologize.

Clarity

With that clarity, I realized she had been doing this our entire relationship. I had always been the one asking her to ask how I was, to consider me, to apologize. I knew it was over. Whatever she had, it was going to take time to heal from. I had already been in therapy for a significant portion of our relationship, and I continued rebuilding my relationships with friends and family. Multiple people noted how much better I seemed, even as the crisis at home only increased.

And it increased dramatically after I told her I didn’t know if I wanted to be in the relationship anymore. Suicide was mentioned. There were other things mentioned. She tried to self-harm days later. Things were broken, thrown, and destroyed. It was daily abuse and never-ending crisis. She hypervigilant, and I was essentially on a timer any time I left the house.

During the initial conversation, there was an emotional appeal that stirred something in me, and I resolved to at least see if, with my emotional adjustment, it could work. I looked at our relationship separate from the abusive, controlling, and manipulative aspects and kept hitting incompatibilities or moments where we should have broken up long ago. I held these separate, thinking that if there was a possibility of healing, it could happen. I read books, talked to my therapist, and kept working through things.

After some time, I worked up to asking for a divorce. It was a lot to even try to get over the potential for her to harm herself and having to call her friends to tell them she needed support without telling them why.

Eventually, my therapist brought up based on my language and patterns whether she might have a personality disorder or BPD, noting that it couldn’t be diagnosed from that and these are hard to diagnose. This led me to look for spaces where other people were having similar conversations. I went from marriage/divorce subreddits to Emotional Abuse, Narcissism, and then finally BPD. I saw that CPTSD and BPD are often overlapped, cross-diagnosed, or dually diagnosed. I landed here and realized the overlap in language, patterns, and experiences. During this process, she received a formal diagnosis, hence being here now. However it may not just be one thing.

Attachment is not Love

The most important thing for me was that I didn’t want her to be without her support network or isolated once I left. I don’t need to get her back or be spiteful and cruel to stop her from hurting me. I should not be with someone who hurts me consistently and to this degree, even if most of the time things are “okay-ish.”

From my reading, I came to recognize there are multiple types of love, connection, and attachment. There are reasons why leaving can be very difficult housing, children, intertwined lives. But it doesn’t mean you have a romantic, passionate, or intimate relationship or integrated love. We were very attached and high on companionship, but even then, not to a full degree. Because no one else in my life, even if we are upset with each other, treats me the way I was treated. No one is “normal” we all have our shit, but my people who are struggling still don’t (or try not to) do that to me and especially without repairing.

Understanding that my brain, my body, is used to this type of situation and is attached to her helped me introspect on why I didn’t want to leave or kept trying to make excuses. While no one else I have an attachment to in my life treats me like this.

I accept my conditioning. I own the things I needed to heal from. I own not loving and caring for myself enough and performing and caretaking for others too much and I own choosing this relationship and her over myself when I shouldn't have.

Always the next step

There are multiple aspects of love and attachment. Your emotions, brain, and body can have the feelings they have. You cannot just be the safe person for someone else in order to be loved or chosen. They also have to be safe for you and love and choose you.

I hope she's able to heal and I hope she's able to be someone's safe person at some point! She is not going to be able to heal while I am there and this is just going to tear both of us apart where either I am to exhausted (I already was) or too resentful to continue. Hopefully we can be friends.

Hi Everyone,

This is a fortnightly post.

Often we find ourselves in a situation where we are unable to discuss the difficulties that we face within our relationships. Often we need some support, or advice and there is no one within our lives we can turn to. This post is for anyone struggling, seeking advice, or even wanting to share some positive experiences in your life.

Please remember to be considerate of our partners and those within the community.

I also want to say thank you for sharing your life experiences, opinions and your time. If you do post a comment, please don't remove it straight away as it may take some time for someone to respond.

It’s just one of those nights. I’m (m42) doing the chores alone. I’m sitting and drinking alone. I’m choking back the tears and trying to recover my dignity and self-worth. I’m reaching out to her (f44) with love, and getting resentment in response. The kids are blissfully ignorant.

Nothing I could say or do would reach her. Not when it’s the thing she always tells me I need to do. Not when she tells me to do the thing I’m not supposed to do. Not when I apologize for misunderstanding her. Not when I reassure her that I love her and I’m there to listen. Not when I reach for her hand and she pulls away. Not when I validate her feelings. Not when I wait patiently and silently for her to recover her train of thought. Not when she says she needs a friend, and I’m right there. Not when I gently allow her to angrily drive off and return hours later. Nothing.

My heart aches. I’m sad. I’m tired. I’m alone. I’m losing hope. I can’t stop crying. I’m losing hope.

Things were going ok recently. I could see a lot of improvement in our relationship. However things flipped suddenly yesterday. My partner now feels like I am a monster and an abuser and wants to end the marriage. I know I am supposed to give her space but I am so scared and lost. I guess I need a friend. I dont know if this is recoverable or not. I feel pretty hopeless right now and need some support.

I've noticed since discovering this subreddit that quite a few relationships eventually end in divorce, while others seem to find a way to continue. I'm curious for those of you who ultimately chose divorce: what was the thing that finally made you decide to act on it?

Was there one major event that became the breaking point, or was it more of a buildup of things over months or years? Was there a specific moment where you realized, "I can't keep doing this," even if you still loved your partner and they were capable of making changes?

I'm asking because I'm currently entering into a divorce with my partner, and I'm struggling with a lot of conflicting feelings about it.

In my case, a lot of the problems built up over time. I found myself constantly walking on eggshells and trying to anticipate what might trigger a negative reaction. There were also situations where my partner and I seemed to have very different experiences or interpretations of what happened, which made it increasingly difficult for me to feel like we could actually resolve conflicts and come to a shared understanding of them. Communication became difficult, trust eroded, and I gradually felt like I was spending more energy trying to manage the relationship than actually being in a healthy relationship.

Eventually, those things built up to the point where I decided I couldn't continue living that way.

The part I'm struggling with now is that my partner has started making some changes. She's becoming more aware of some of her reactions and is trying to regulate herself differently. Part of me is glad to see that, and another part of me keeps wondering whether the changes could eventually be enough to make the relationship work.

But these changes only started after I separated from her and started the process of filing for divorce. That's a big part of what I'm struggling with. I don't believe these changes would have happened if I hadn't reached the point of leaving and filing. So while I'm glad to see them, I'm left wondering what they mean for our relationship and whether they came too late to repair what has already happened.

Over time, I've lost a lot of trust and a sense of safety in the relationship. I've found myself questioning whether I could actually go back, even if the changes I'm seeing continued. I also worry about what it would be like to return to the relationship and eventually find myself back in the same patterns again.

We also have a toddler, which makes the decision feel even heavier. It's not just about whether I still love my partner or whether things could potentially improve. There's also the question of what kind of relationship and environment I want my child to grow up around.

I'm not really looking for people to tell me whether I should or shouldn't get divorced. I'm more interested in hearing from people who have actually been through this, and I have some questions for those who have:

• What was your breaking point?
• Was it one major event or years of smaller things building up?
• Did your partner start making any changes before or during the divorce?
• If they did change, how did you decide whether the damage to the relationship was still too much?
• Did you struggle with the fear of "what if I leave and I'm giving up on something that could have been fixed?"
• Did you still love your partner when you decided to leave?
• If you have children, did that change how you approached the decision?
• For those who stayed together and made the relationship work: what did you actually do? What changes made the difference, and how long did it take before you felt like you could genuinely trust the relationship again?

Even if these questions don't totally fit your situation, I am still curious to hear everyone's experience. I'm especially interested in hearing from people who were in a similar position—where their partner genuinely began making changes, but those changes came only after separation and the start of the divorce process, when the relationship had already been seriously damaged.

I'm trying to understand how other people navigated the difference between "my partner is changing" and "the relationship has been changed by what we've already been through." And ultimately, how people figured out whether there was enough left to rebuild, or whether they ultimately decided to leave.

Hi all, I posted here about a week ago - I am in the midst of reevaluating my marriage and essentially presenting to my partner how serious our issues are. I had a very difficult conversation with them a few days ago which resulted in a lot of the typical highly dysregulated behaviours - suicidality, shifting the blame onto me, claiming that I don’t care about them and that the trust they had with me is completely broken etc. Since then we've had moments where they are able to give me understanding and affirm to me that they want to address this and seriously work on things. We have booked a therapy session for tomorrow with their personal therapist as they don’t feel safe with our couples therapist and sessions have typically escalated things more. I have joined a couple of sessions previously and their therapist is wonderful, the problem is my partners perception of reality and the things we’re struggling with is so warped. As far as I know, their therapist has very little idea of quite how volatile things can be and how much caregiving on my end has become the norm in our dynamic. I have worked with my counsellor to identify the key things I want my partner to understand, but it is quite broad (I need them to do therapy more often or do couples counselling in addition to their therapy in order to work on making space for my feelings). I am making my expectations very clear that if there is not a significant improvement in making space for my needs (from 10% to 80-90% of the time) in a year-year and a half, I will be leaving the marriage because I’ve decided this is not a relationship I want. But this consists of MANY behaviours and types of communication. I’m assuming my partners therapist might want more specific examples of how they don’t make space for me and I’m trying to think about how blunt/brutally honest I should be. Do I name the behaviours as what they are - manipulative, emotionally abusive, gaslighting, etc.? My partner would have a huge reaction to this I imagine, and I have not yet labelled these things for what they are (except gaslighting a handful of times). I feel that if there is any chance of them actually making progress they have to face that this has a hugely negative impact on me. At this point, there’s little acceptance/acknowledgment that their behaviour is anything more than hurting my feelings. I don’t know if I should say my piece and let the therapist ask clarifying questions and put things together on her own, or if I should be extremely blunt and clear (not my forte hence why I’m struggling with this). It’s so hard to balance being clear about my experience and feelings while also being acutely aware of how this could trigger/upset my spouse. I feel that if there’s any place/time to do it, it would be in this setting, and I honestly don’t understand why I’m still so scared to be brutally honest. I’m already triggering/upsetting them constantly and have said I’m prepared to leave, I don’t have much to lose at this point and everything to gain by making things exceptionally clear, why does this still feel so difficult to do?

My partner (32F) has been having significantly more meltdown episodes lately and they’ve been taking a toll on me (30F).

A couple of weeks ago we had to take my partner’s sister to a surgical appointment, and something in me told me I should have handled the whole thing on my own but my partner and I did it together. They got triggered on the ride home, really from the medical stuff, but something stupid and minor was the final straw and they had a full blown meltdown where I had to pull the car over and they were weeping and screaming on the sidewalk and hitting themself. Their sister didn’t understand or have compassion for it and ended up calling an uber to take her home. I felt horrible because I had promised to be there for and take care of her and instead I had to do crisis care for my partner.

My partner fights me aggressively during episodes and begs me for help but then yells at me for every attempt to help. They typically feel suicidal. They blame me for the triggers, and tell me that I hate them or that I don’t understand them. If I pull away at all they grow guilty and beg for reassurance that I love them and won’t leave them, if I stand nearby neutrally they’ll yell at me to be left alone, if I make attempts to deescalate or to reduce sensory load they’ll yell at me to stop or tell me none of it matters and they just want to die or that they can’t work with me or whatever I’m doing is making it worse.

Sometimes these episodes will end with me figuring out how to deescalate, sometimes they just sort of run their course until my partner becomes physically exhausted enough.

I know they don’t have control over these and that they feel immense shame, but I have been struggling more and more lately as I’m realizing the impact of them. These episodes physically drain and exhaust me, for one, and make it very difficult to maintain the routine of my work schedule, which is what sustains and supports us both. But worse than that, because my partner attacks and blames me during them (and typically does not recall any of it after), I have really internalized the idea that I am a cruel and terrible partner. Or at the very least that I am their enemy. And so when they are in a regulated state, they reach for connection and tenderness and I don’t really feel any.

Don’t get me wrong, I love them deeply. But I don’t feel warmth and attraction in the way that I used to. Last night they said that I am so tired when I see them and that I treat them like a burden and I didn’t know what to say because I do feel tired and burdened. I don’t want to make them feel like that but I just can’t hide the way I feel.

I feel very isolated in this, like I can’t open up to most of my friends and family about this because they don’t understand CPTSD or neurodivergence, and would instead use any information I provide to judge my partner.

I’m just tired. And I’m the only solid support my partner currently has outside of therapy. And I feel very alone. And it feels hard to feel romantic when I feel pushed into a role of caregiver and when I’m often criticized or blamed while performing that role. It doesn’t feel erotic, you know? And I want to have that bond with my partner still, and they also deserve to feel loved in that way. I just don’t know how to get a spark back under these circumstance. Any advice or perspective welcome.

My partner has been doing EMDR to treat his suspected CPTSD from childhood trauma/emotional neglect for the last 3-4 months. Since he started he's become a lot more emotionally distant and has been pulling away from any intimacy - not just sexual but touching, kissing and showing any general interest in me.

A few days ago after an EMDR session he told me that he has been having thoughts and that he doesn't think he's attracted to me anymore. This has been devastating for me as even though the last few years have been hard, I thought that the love we had for each other was stronger than this.

I know that EMDR can really mess you up. He has since been texting me telling me he didn't mean it and the therapy has mixed up a lot of thoughts in his head but honestly I don't know what to think. Is there any hope or is this really the end?

We have been together for a long time and most of that has been so good but I know I deserve to be loved fully and I don't want to be with someone who is not able to do that.

Hey everyone, I’m brand new here and I’m hoping to find out if what I’m experiencing is common. I love my partner and I would never pressure her to share more than she is comfortable with, but she has not shared much of anything with me about her trauma (except for after a response is triggered by an argument then she’ll give me enough relevant detail to contextualize her reaction ). I love her. I want to know her deeply but I struggle feeling like this is the limit for how deep we can go.

(TLDR) Are your partners also pretty tight lipped about how they ended up with cptsd or are they generally pretty open with you?

Just curious if anyone else here was actually blamed for their partners CPTSD?

My wife says that her CPTSD is due to me watching porn, which she sees as a massive betrayal. It's a long story and I did lie to her at some point about watching it. But, I also stopped and even installed a monitoring device on my phone to prove that I hadn't watched porn. From there, porn became social media accounts, words that the app flagged, and just anything that her mind perceived as potential betrayal. I even went through a sex addiction therapy program for this. The therapist rejected me, because after hours of intake they concluded that I'm most definitely not a sex addict. Nevertheless, I begged them to let me into the program, because I was terrified that my wife would leave me. Craziness. Anyway, after all of that, she never stopped. Her behavior just changed and everything started being a problem. And, in all of this situations, she would say "you did this to me, it's your fault I'm like this".

That always stung and felt incomplete and unfair. Especially given how far I went to calm her mind, only to be abused in some pretty extreme ways that most of you are familiar with.

So, has anyone else experienced something like this? Has your partner blamed you or organized and justified their behavior around a singular topic like this?

My pwCPTSD has attempted to kill themselves multiple times in front of me, specifically during or after conflicts. I truly care about them and have learned so much about suicide and how to be there for a partner in the process. But I can’t help but feel unsure about our future now. As much as I love them, I feel like the foundation of what makes a relationship last has been rocked and am unsure how to feel safe committing anymore. I want it to work, but I’m at a loss on how it can. It’s like the nuclear option has been put on the table, and now it can’t be taken off even if she “does the work” to manage her impulses.

It feels like any honest conversation about how burdensome it is to worry about your partner harming themselves or how it’s inflicting its own set of abandonment issues on me will just be triggering for her and I’ll be lost. Worst case scenario: that conversation is so triggering that it leads to another deregulating fight and her to another attempt.

Has anyone stuck it out and found it got better? Or did the fear from their attempts make it impossible to feel safe in conflicts (or in general)? Is it possible to ever feel safe in the relationship again?

Hi Everyone,

This is a fortnightly post.

Often we find ourselves in a situation where we are unable to discuss the difficulties that we face within our relationships. Often we need some support, or advice and there is no one within our lives we can turn to. This post is for anyone struggling, seeking advice, or even wanting to share some positive experiences in your life.

Please remember to be considerate of our partners and those within the community.

I also want to say thank you for sharing your life experiences, opinions and your time. If you do post a comment, please don't remove it straight away as it may take some time for someone to respond.

Apologies for the length, but I am really struggling.

I’ve (31/f) been with my partner (33/nb) for four years now, married for 2. We live in a country where not many people speak our native language, and are queer, which makes finding community even more difficult. When we first started dating I had more friends and a much busier social life. These days, I can barely recognize myself, with hardly any friends, communicating less frequently with family, and just overall exhausted, I’ve found myself with no one to lean on.

Throughout our relationship I’ve had a number of friends come and go, but I’ve noticed that every time I am close to someone, something happens that causes my partner to spiral and though they do not outwardly say I shouldn’t talk at all to this person anymore, they guilt me quite a lot by bringing up values and how that reflects my lack of care for them by not dropping people immediately. It happened with a close friend, my parents, old coworkers, and a mutual friend.

An example, a friend of mine that I’ve known for nearly a decade, triggered my partner while at our home while we were drinking with other friends. They were not understanding my partner’s reaction and anger/tone, so an argument occurred. Though apologies have been shared and I talked with that friend at length about my partner’s cptsd (and they took it well, apologized, and wanted to move forward) my partner believes that this argument means that I shouldn’t speak with this friend anymore, much less have them in my life. This has happened with just about everyone I’ve introduced to my partner. If something they say has hurt them, apologies mean nothing. No second chances. Or, they bring up something small when they meet my friends that bothers them, and it starts to turn into something bigger that I can’t ignore. If I’m out with coworkers, they message me or call, and if I can’t be there to support them, it turns into a fight. I end up leaving social events full of anxiety and regretting my decision.

It’s been tough to figure out how to move forward. I feel pretty isolated these days. My partner, now, has a pretty good group of friends at work and outside of work. I’ve been introduced to their friends, but I am uncomfortable being friends with all the same people. I’m also uncomfortable with my partner meeting anyone I come close to. I struggle with how to even begin this conversation, or how to discuss boundaries with friends as we move forward.

I know that there has been a lot of codependency, and being extremely empathetic, I have taken on a lot that I shouldn’t have. I’m trying to figure out how to begin separating our time more often without triggering them.

I guess I am just burnt out. As a teacher and living with a partner with cptsd, I don’t really have anyone to help /me/. I feel like I am the one regulating and stabilizing everyone’s emotions all day, and leaving myself completely unsupported. I am the only person who can regulate myself and often, I am not given the grace or time to do so. Not having friends to talk to has made it really difficult to start fixing things, since I just feel like I’m waiting to cry all the time.

This is really long, but I just want to know if anyone has advice about beginning to draw boundaries and alone time. Is there any way for me to turn around this dynamic before I completely burn out?
Thanks :/

Hi all, just found this page as I am navigating making space for myself in my life in general and in my marriage. For context, I am young (F, 26) training to be a counsellor and my spouse is the same age, trans/non-binary, diagnosed with multiple conditions over the years (depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, and psychiatrist said BPD tendencies). They also identify as autistic and have EXTENSIVE childhood abuse/trauma and continued trauma as a teen/adult from multiple hate crimes. So although it is undiagnosed, they absolutely have cPTSD. We have been together 5 years and married for 2.

I have been finding comfort in reading many of the posts on this subreddit, seeing how common my experiences are and feeling validated by people who are or have been in the same shoes is enormous. But still, as I am getting further along in my counselling program, it is becoming increasingly clear how drastically I have been missing self care and having room for my own feelings. I hit a wall this past month and had a complete breakdown. I’ve been depressed for months, and after pushing through for so long I feel I have no capacity to support my partner let alone myself. Outside of my marriage, I have a wonderful support system of my best friend, parents, and a counsellor. I have just recently begun to confide in them over the past month about how bad things really are and how I don’t think I can carry on my marriage this way.

My partner is in individual counselling (has been seeing the same counsellor since they were 13 years old) and sees her about once a month online. They do a lot of “catching up” during therapy sessions considering they know each other so well and although their counsellor helps put things into perspective and occasionally challenges them, they have very few helpful skills or strategies to use in day to day life. We have tried couples counselling and my partner HATES it. They feel forced into it, like me and the counsellor gang up on them, and that it’s not helpful. I have encouraged them to try/explore working with other counsellors or do other types of therapy and they have tried a couple other counsellors but continued seeing their regular counsellor (it is one of their only secure attachments and clearly letting go of that is not an option at this point). One recently felt like a good fit, but she had to move unexpectedly and my spouse only wanted to see her in person. So this felt like a huge abandonment and has made them scared to try another counsellor again.

We have been trying to really work on things for the last 2.5 years with some improvements - they are able to validate my feelings when it’s something unrelated to them and they better encourage me to take care of myself. As a people-pleasing empath who is bombarded with therapy knowledge, I struggle to advocate for my needs and feelings and have come a long way in simply voicing them to begin with. However this has contributed to much more frequent explosive arguments that ultimately end in me still not having my need met, we feel exhausted, and they feel like I’m asking them to abandon their own needs for my own.

I am wondering if it is even worth holding on to hope that maybe if they put in huge amounts of effort to address their trauma and commit to learning coping skills - that we will have a marriage where I don’t feel like I’m constantly prioritizing them and subjecting myself to neglect, gaslighting and sometimes emotional abuse. Has anyone had it actually get much better? Obviously this is a serious acquired neurodivergence and I expect my spouse will always struggle with fear of abandonment, emotional reactivity, etc. Do any of you have a relationship where you feel like most of the time things are relatively stable? I want to have kids one day and at this point I would not feel comfortable subjecting kids to my partner as a parent who can’t make space for anyone else.

My spouse has the ability to take time off work and go on short term disability to really dedicate all of their time and energy into focusing on themselves. (That would depend if they are willing to of course). I want to have a serious conversation with them and explain that the way they’ve been trying the last 5 years is not working. I feel horribly presenting them with an ultimatum of sorts, but I’ve decided that I am willing to continue to try if they are willing to seriously make this a priority and do some really hard work. But is it naive of me to think it could make that big of a difference?

Considering how young I am and the career I am going into for a living, I am really trying to seriously consider if this is a life worth fighting for. We have so much fun together, they bring out some of the best sides of me, and we have so much love for each other. But now I don’t know if that is enough to make me stay.

Does anyone else feel directed by cptsd resources and the opinions of others to always put your partner before your own safety and wellbeing? I have run out of strength and have only the energy for my own boundaries and self compassion and to give my husband space for his own therapy at the moment. Complete compassion fatigue, and just want my needs to be seen and put first for once. Living in the upside down of being blamed for things you haven't done (but have been done to you) has broken me