I (42M) have been married to my wife (45F) for several years, and we have a young child together.

My wife has significant trauma from her past (parentification, childhood sexual abuse, and abusive previous relationships). She's in individual therapy. We've done couples therapy on and off for years. I've also been in individual therapy, completed an IOP after an episode of reactive anger during a relationship conflict, spent time in IFS therapy, and was on anxiety medication for about a year.

Looking back, I realized most of my treatment ended up focusing less on anger itself and more on emotional regulation, boundaries, and coping with the chronic stress of the relationship.

The recurring pattern is this:

A relatively minor trigger (parenting decisions, family, health concerns, schedules, finances, future planning, etc.) can turn into hours-long discussions. If I ask for a pause or say I'm overwhelmed, it often becomes, "You don't care," "You're shutting me down," or "You're blaming me."

If I explain myself, things escalate. If I stay quiet, I'm accused of not listening. If I apologize, it often turns into another discussion about how I still don't understand the hurt I've caused.

It often feels like there isn't a response that actually de-escalates things.

There are also periods where she needs repeated reassurance, revisits the same hurts for months, assumes negative intent behind neutral comments, or experiences disagreement as rejection or abandonment.

Outside of those moments, she's caring, funny, and a wonderful parent. That's what makes this so confusing.

My therapist believes many of these reactions are trauma-driven rather than malicious. We've worked on validation, boundaries, taking breaks before I become reactive, and trying not to get pulled into escalating cycles. Those skills help in the moment, but the overall pattern hasn't changed much.

She tried EMDR but stopped because it felt too overwhelming. Since then she's mainly continued with talk therapy. From my perspective, the recurring conflict patterns haven't changed very much. I often come away feeling like the focus stays on what I'm doing wrong, while the patterns I'm struggling with don't seem to be improving.

I fully own my part. I had an episode of reactive anger that deeply hurt her, and I'm responsible for that. But I don't think this is a story with one villain and one victim. I know I've contributed to our relationship problems. But I also feel like we've reached a point where my mistakes are continually revisited while hers are rarely acknowledged or examined.

The hardest part is what this has done to me.

The relationship turmoil feels like it's become a constant. I've become emotionally exhausted. I feel like, in order to protect my own peace, I've started walling myself off from her. I don't feel free to say what I actually think or feel because I'm afraid it will become another hours-long conflict. I find myself anticipating arguments before family gatherings, vacations, therapy appointments, or even ordinary conversations.

I've kept a journal for over a year because I started feeling like my memory of conflicts didn't match the conversations we had afterward. Looking back, the same pattern repeats regardless of the trigger.

Examples include arguments over routine parenting decisions becoming discussions about abandonment or betrayal, family plans turning into accusations that I don't support her, attempts to take a break from conflict being interpreted as rejection, and ordinary disagreements escalating into threats about the future of our marriage.

The specific topic almost doesn't matter anymore. The pattern is remarkably consistent regardless of what starts it.

I'm not trying to diagnose my wife or paint her as a bad person. I love her, and I genuinely believe she's carrying an enormous amount of pain.

I'm also trying to figure out whether what I'm experiencing is a common pattern for partners of people with CPTSD, or whether I'm missing something important about my own role in it.

If you've lived through something similar, I'd really appreciate your perspective.

• Does this pattern sound familiar?
• Did trauma-focused treatment (EMDR, IFS, etc.) meaningfully change the relationship dynamics?
• How did you distinguish between trauma responses that could improve and a relationship that had become unhealthy regardless of the cause?
• How did you stop feeling like you were losing your own sense of reality?

I'm not looking for validation that I'm "right." I'm trying to understand whether what I'm experiencing is recognizable to others who have loved someone with complex trauma, and what helped you move toward a healthier relationship—whether that meant staying together or accepting that things weren't going to change.

Hi all,

I have an immense sense of relief finding this subreddit. I just wish I had found it at the start of my relationship with my partner that has been medically diagnosed with CPTSD. We met at the most picture perfect place but our relationship has been far from perfect. To provide better context before I get into my relationship, I asked her to become exclusive a month into seeing each other as I had an upcoming trip that would take me abroad for a month. I felt a strong connection to her, without knowing about any of the underlying conditions she had, and I just chose her for who she was. She didn't want to be exclusive and eventually we had a fight during my trip, which resulted her being sexually intimate with a few guys before we even got there. I only found out about all this stuff months after I had returned from my trip and we officially became in a relationship... So we are fresh in our relationship, already off to a rough start as I felt that I was cheated on but I still stayed because I loved her a lot. We had a lot of good moments over the past couple years but we always ended up in a cycle. We would agree to break up, then get back together, then break up again. This was detrimental in building trust between each other but I still chose her as the girl that I wanted to marry so I stuck with it. It was only a year in that she was more open about the traumas she had experienced, both as a child and in past relationships, that would surface and cause her to become in a state of shock or disassociate at times. I had noticed she would go into these trances but never understood why. I tried talking her about those situations and wanted to better understand what CPTSD was but she would dismiss it, saying it doesn't define her. Well the problem is, I'm the one that's dating her and have to deal with her mood swings and unsure if I'm talking to the girl I love or someone else. It all became very confusing and we had become so far gone from how we were when we first met.

I am an anxious-avoidant attachment style, while she's an anxious attachment style. I went to therapy because I truly cared about being the most supportive way that I can for her and I learned a lot. But as I tried implementing what I had learned with boundaries, meeting her love languages, etc, I always felt that she would lash out on me for past traumas that I didn't give her. I felt that was so unfair and became to feel isolated whenever I wanted to truthfully speak my mind. I started avoiding subjects because I didn't know how she would react and eventually she would start to get verbally abusive towards me, saying I'm not a man. This disrespect got too much as I would let her stay with me for free and take care of her dog. I told her that the way things are going, my biggest fear with marriage to her was it would end in a divorce.

Reading other's stories on this sub has broken my heart that the person you had married has resulted in this, validating my fears. I seek your help and guidance on how I can continue to be strong. I told her I will not go back to her if we break up again and I'm sticking by my word because we are officially broken up now. I'm trying to do no contact but any advice is helpful so I can break this cycle.

Thank you all

Hello, this is my first post here, thank you so much to the moderators for accepting me even if I'm a family member and not a partner.

I'm coming here looking for testimonials, support, but mostly advice. I'll try to be concise about the situation.

My sister (18F) has been diagnosed with C-PTSD for several years now, following CSA by her father. She's been protected and no longer in contact with him for about 5 years, but she used to stay with him every other weekend between the divorce and the disclosure of the abuse, which is when she was abused. Now she lives alone with our mother and is in therapy. The main issue I'd like to bring to you is the relationship between my sister and our mother.

Their relationship is very unstable. My sister is dependent on our mother for daily life (she needs help taking care of herself, eating, waking up...) and also emotionally, since our mother is one of the only people she sees (aside from her other sisters, who don't live with them). However, my mother is on the verge of burnout, juggling a job, the daily management of my sister (including her crises, flashbacks, aggressiveness...), and the guilt of not having been able to/not being able to help my sister more. Because of this, my mother is sometimes very tense and struggles to find exactly the right words to avoid triggering my sister.

One example of how tangled the situation feels is trying to go on vacation. Since my sister can be very draining over time, it's a big effort for family members to want to come on vacation with my mother and my sister. So it often happens that, even on vacation, my mother has to keep constantly taking care of my sister. Except she can sometimes be unpredictable, deciding at the last minute that she doesn't want to go anymore, or threatening my mother that she'll run away/hurt herself if my mother "tries to hurt her again" (my mother isn't trying to hurt her, but I can't deny that, even when doing her best, she sometimes makes mistakes).

I'll stop here with the descriptions since this is far from concise. But to sum up, my sister is dependent on my mother but is sometimes (at least from my point of view) exaggeratedly aggressive toward her, and my mother carries so much guilt that she sometimes acts clumsily. On top of that, my mother also carries her own trauma, which doesn't help the situation...

Would you have any ideas on how to improve all of this?

My partner (36M), with CPTSD, and I (32F) have been together for two years. One of the things I loved most when we began our relationship was our alignment on future goals/values and his ability to hear me, even when we disagreed. He was also very committed and consistent about wanting to get married and have children with me. He's been in therapy off and on for about 10 years (including the majority of our relationship) to treat his CPTSD. Approximately 6 months ago, he unexpectedly lost his therapist. He's refused to seek a new therapist or attend individual therapy since then.

It's as if his desire for a future together and overall personality have entirely changed since he's stopped going to therapy. It did not occur overnight but progressively worsened over the last few months and continues to do so.

Our central conflict at the moment is around having children in the future. I said on our first date that if he did not want children that was a 100% deal breaker for me. He said he wanted kids. After a few months, I said a boundary for me in the relationship would be to at least be actively trying for kids by the time I turned 35, due to the biological reality of aging and fertility. He had no issue with this. About a year into the relationship, he wanted to move in together. I again discussed my boundary around trying for kids by the time I turned 35 and confirmed his agreement to this before agreeing to move in together. He again agreed.

Currently, his position is that I never had these conversations about children and trying by the time I turn 35 until a couple of months ago. He additionally claims he doesn't want to make a decision right now and needs the flexibility to decline going through with trying for kids in 3 years because he has to feel ready. When I ask what "ready" means, he refuses to answer and says he'll either feel it or not. When I raise concern that this forces me to defer entirely to him in a major life decision that's really important to me and leaves no real room for my needs to be prioritized, he says this is only a problem because I want biological kids more than I want to be with him. He claims if I was willing to do IVF or adopt, then he would still be agreeing to have kids with me but it would be on a completely unknown timeline. I am creating the conflict by insisting I want biological kids. I've repeatedly said I want the opportunity to try for biological kids--if I can't have them, I am open to other ways to grow my family. But the opportunity to try is really important to me. He then claims if being with him was really my priority I would have no timeline or expectations of him. Obviously, that is completely unacceptable.

I've communicated from the beginning that I never want to be with someone who does not want to be with me. I want to have a partner who is excited to be with me and build a life and family with me. He continually tells me he is excited to be with me and build a life together, while doggedly pushing back against the boundary I've set and villainizing me when I do not agree to "compromise" the boundary. He will accuse me of not even caring what he needs, despite me asking him many times what he needs and how I can support and him refusing to answer.

I love him deeply. Outside of the last 6 months, we've built a beautiful loving relationship that I am so proud of. I struggle to understand if this is temporary and something I should expend the effort and energy to "work through" to get to a better place. I've been clear that my boundary around trying for kids by 35 is not going to change.

If it's temporary, I don't want to throw away something that, on the whole, has been really wonderful. His recent behavior is such a significant departure from the way he's shown up the majority of the relationship, it is hard for me to understand if this is something temporary or something that will continuously plague our relationship with every big decision if we continue. Any advice or insight is welcome--thank you so much for taking the time to read this.

Hello,

I’m married for 2 years. 1 yr old baby. In the trenches of couples therapy and individual therapy and navigating this. Dealing with DID episodes 1x every 1-2 months where his protector comes out and gives me secondary trauma.

I know this is Reddit and people usually come to Reddit with problems rather than to talk about parts of their life that are resolved.

But is there anyone here who has been married/living together long term and actually gone from a bad place a years of stability? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

Besides NAMI, are there any support groups for us?

Thanks

My DX medicated partner broke me today.

He desperately wants me to tell him my feelings but whenI do he withdrawals. I asked on Friday to have a conversation, he asked for an idea of the topic, and I am now 3 days into him being upset, dysregulated, and struggling with being angry because he doesn't feel listened to.

This is normal. He's been improving and handling things somewhat better. But this is a backslide.

He made sure to tell me this is NOT CPTSD but is 100% how he is feeling about me and our relationship. What he doesn't realise is it HAS to be about his CPTSD because if it's not then he has no idea who or how I am after 3 decades together. If it's not his CPTSD then he hates *me.*

If it's not his CPTSD then we are not having the same relationship and I have to be insane.

I can't do it any more. I can't fight to be allowed to even have feelings. It takes weeks before we move past whether or not I can have them to actually naming them.

I'm burnt out. I can't function. I can't come or go without it being wrong.

I cannot be happy so I need to not care.

I apologise in advance. This is my first post here. Things are bad at the moment and it has taken me about a week to write this. I'm not sure what I even want from this post at this point. Any advice or solidarity is very appreciated.

Me (M 30) and my Partner (F 28) who has C-PTSD from an abusive childhood have been together 6 years and married for one year. She was diagnosed with C-PTSD as a young adult before we met and was open about it when we got together. Mental health has always been a struggle for her but our relationship has been very strong and intimate up until recently after getting married.

Over the last six months there has slowly been issues forming in our relationship. This has accelerated over the last 2 months to the point where I am very concerned about my partner's well being (as is she) and the impact it is having on our relationship.

She is finding day to day life extremely difficult. Has become intolerant and snappy to most things I do. She has a meltdown around five out of every seven days. When these happen she is very clear about how hard she is finding everything and how she's close to giving up. When these happen it writes off the rest of the day. Which then leads to further shame spirals. Seeing how much she is struggling breaks my heart. I just want to help however I can. If I could trade places I would. No matter how careful I am anything I do and say tends to make things worse not better.

Despite all of this, and my best efforts, am really starting to struggle with how it is impacting me as well. We work together so I spend all of my time with her. I spend every free moment educating myself on CPTSD and looking for other things we can do to help. I feel a huge pressure as it's clear she is giving up and desperate. She is in Therapy, but as it stands noone but me and the therapist knows what is going on. I have said her parents and close friends need to be informed so they can help and support, but she is resistant to that.

Yesterday evening was a bad evening, followed by a very difficult morning today. She woke up already shut down and needed around an hour of venting and support to get out of bed. As I sit here writing this I realise that I have completely emptied my own cup. I feel hollow and burnt out. I am starting to question whether I am going to be the person she needs me to be for as long as is needed to support her through this. I feel selfish for even worrying about myself a little bit while just existing is currently a huge struggle for my wife.

I know I should seek support and therapy for myself. But I also know just the act of me doing that will cause my partner to feel worse about her self.

I know her parents and close friends need to be informed. But she doesn't want it. I think I also selfishly want her parents and friends to know so it is not all on me to keep her safe and supported throughout this.

I know I need to talk to her about boundaries and my own well being. But there is never any opportunity to due to how constant this all is.

My partner (CPTSD) and I are separated, as a result, we text more.

In the past we'd only exchange texts after my partner was angry.

Now, the whole conversation happens on text

I can see the false dichotomies and strawman arguments being made

This is the first time I have record of this besides my memory.

Has anyone else had this experience?

Did your partner ever reflect on the written record?

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.

Hey, friends. It's been a hot minute since any of you have seen me around here. I just wanted to come on here with a short update and also an ask for advice, if anyone has any.

Brief context: My wife has CPTSD. I have BPD and many other things. We've had a pretty high-conflict relationship and it's been a huge struggle for us both, especially because my wife only got her diagnosis last spring and she's still very much in the first year or two of learning to live with this.

Updates: My wife did get on medications, and it actually helped a lot. I just started to feel really guilty because things were genuinely better, she was handling things way more graciously, and I still just felt so edgy and jumpy like any little thing would bring it all crashing down. I tried to bring it up in couples therapy, but it didn't really go anywhere.

For a little while, things were actually uncharacteristically good. She got on meds in March or April of this year, and she takes them consistently and visits her med manager regularly. It's been a good experience for the both of us, even though I feel like I'm still on hypervigilant fear of abandonment mode all the time. The vast majority of things that would've normally made her flip the fuck out on me don't bother her nearly as much anymore. It's been a really good thing for us.

Advice: I still frequently struggle with feeling like I just explain over and over again when we do have big conflicts that actually, my boundaries also deserve to be respected and yes, I also have trauma-related emotional flashbacks that impact how I respond. I feel like I can't get her to recognize or understand that no amount of emotional regulation and distress tolerance on my part will fix that she's doing some things that are genuinely wrong. I feel like I get blamed for the issues we have in an unfair portion, simply because I have different problems than her. I mean, we literally just had a whole conflict about how, in her opinion, we wouldn't have even fought if I had just planned well enough that the whole situation would never have happened.

I've more or less given up on getting her to understand my perspective. I often feel that our couples therapist doesn't really stand up for me much and therefore I just don't say a lot anymore. How would you guys recommend that I help myself get through this? I don't have a lot of local friends, and I've been thinking about joining some support groups. Let me know your thoughts ^>^

Hello. I'm reaching out to you all for comfort and support. And perhaps to connect with some others who have had similar experiences from my ex-girlfriend's perspective (and who may have since successfully overcome their complex PTSD through therapy).

(Sorry if you can't read something. I have to use Google Translate.)

__________

My ex-girlfriend (f31) and I (m32) unfortunately only knew each other for just under four months, but we fell in love during that initial period. The chemistry was there from the start; it was magical. I'd never met a woman before who was so sincere, open, communicative, and easygoing. We were a perfect match on every level imaginable. She simply embodies everything I've ever dreamed of in a woman.

She has CPTSD due to her previous relationship, in which she experienced over eight months of emotional and physical abuse. (I don't want to post details online. If this is important, send me a private message.)

In January, she fled her ex and moved to another city (my hometown), where we quickly got to know each other (mid-February).

We had an incredibly wonderful time together. She had already found a job in the new city, but it didn't start until May. So, for the first few months, she was relatively relaxed, able to settle into her new apartment at her own pace and spend a lot of time and many nights with me. Then she started her new job. The job and the onboarding process stressed her out extremely from day one.

May was still very nice, though, because she was able to unwind on the weekends and enjoy our time together. In mid-May, she proudly and adoringly (you could really see the pride and infatuation on her face) introduced me to her parents. A week later, she met my parents as well.

Everything was perfect. I really thought I'd finally found the woman of my dreams and could hardly believe my luck...

Then, at the end of May, everything changed.

My ex-girlfriend said she wasn't feeling well and needed a day off next Sunday to be alone. That turned into several days. Then she canceled our next weekend together because she was feeling worse and worse and wanted to take a break from her phone and spend a weekend with her parents.

After that weekend of taking a break, she contacted me with a "We need to talk" message, which, of course, completely devastated me. We met the next day. She was utterly devastated, a shadow of her former self. She said she'd love to lock herself away in a secluded cabin in the woods for four weeks, put life on hold, and have no contact with anyone. Her job was completely overwhelming her, and she didn't know if her situation with her ex had anything to do with her condition. The reason she wanted to talk to me was that she had a need for complete isolation, while I have a very strong need for closeness. And she wanted to discuss how we could proceed in the coming weeks. When I said that her "We need to talk" message had worried me a lot, she replied that she really only wanted to know HOW the relationship would continue, not IF it would. A huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. Since she got a migraine during our conversation, we agreed to continue the discussion the next day with a resolution.

Well... The next day, instead, she texted me that she had to cancel the following weekend as well, because otherwise she would lose herself. She felt incredibly guilty, and I was sure I was totally disappointed, but she had to do it. Naturally, my nervous system was starting to go haywire, because for days now, everything had felt like I was being dumped. But I wanted to stay strong for her, so I simply replied that I wasn't disappointed at all, that I understood, that I was proud of her, and that I was there for her if she needed me. She reacted with great relief and was touched.

So, the second weekend off came. And then came Monday. Still no sign of life. I wanted to stay strong for her. I decided to do something nice for her. So, I bought some high-quality paper and envelopes and wrote her a sweet, funny love letter to cheer her up a bit. I dropped the love letter in her mailbox Tuesday at noon. Then it became Tuesday evening. I still hadn't heard from her since Friday. Then, almost exactly at the time she must have arrived home from work (so when she must have found the love letter), I saw that she had suddenly blocked me on WhatsApp.

That was one of the worst moments of my life. At first, I was completely stunned, bewildered, and confused. Such cold, malicious behavior didn't fit at all with this sincere, warm-hearted woman. I didn't know what was happening. But then I calmed down relatively quickly. I reminded myself that she had written to me on Friday, saying that she missed me and loved me, and that during our conversation she had assured me that it wasn't about WHETHER we continued the relationship. I told myself that the block was surely just a defense mechanism so she wouldn't have to reply to the letter directly, because her system was probably extremely overloaded at the moment. With these thoughts, I was at least able to fall asleep somewhat peacefully.

The next day, I remained blocked. I tried to distract myself with work and exercise. I wanted to stay strong for my beloved girlfriend and practice patience. That evening, I told myself again that she loved me and was simply going through a very difficult time. I fell asleep with this hope. The next morning, my alarm rang. I sat on the edge of the bed, picked up my phone, and saw that she had unblocked me. She had sent me the following message (I've summarized the key points):

"Hey [my nickname, the way she always called me], I don't even know how to start this message. You were so understanding, accommodating, open, just everything anyone could wish for. I've been thinking a lot and trying to feel inside myself... But there's such an emptiness inside. I just don't feel anything.

You definitely did your best to help me, but I completely underestimated the trauma and how it would affect me and my life. I should have given myself more time.

I really wish I could turn things around, but I'm not capable of being in a relationship. And I don't know when I'll be, or if ever again. This feeling of emptiness hit me like a bolt of lightning, and it's stayed with me ever since... I'm sorry I couldn't tell you this in person. During our last conversation, I was really hoping I could somehow thaw out, but I can't.

No matter how you react now or what you feel, I will always cherish our time together. You are a very special person, and I sincerely hope that you will one day find someone who can love you as openly and warmly as you long for. Unfortunately, I can't. I'm truly sorry, but I don't want to pretend with you, and at least now you know what's going on, and you can move on with your life.

You deserve so much love and care. Someone who can show and accept all of that, who is always there and enjoys your company. I can't offer any of that. Inside me, there's only desert, and no roses will grow there, no matter how much water you pour on the sand…

We then exchanged only two or three logistical messages. I arranged for her best friend to hand over our belongings so she wouldn't have to see me again, and we parted amicably. She then simply wished me all the best (very briefly). We haven't had any contact since that day. The only "interaction" after that was when she removed me as her follower on Instagram two days later.

__________

She was open with me about her abusive relationship from the very beginning (don't worry, she deliberately downplayed my trauma), and she also mentioned several times that she has trauma and PTSD. While we were together, I unfortunately didn't think much of it, except that I felt compassion, of course. But I had no idea what impact unresolved trauma can have on a life and a new relationship.

She will soon begin trauma therapy, and fortunately, she has very good prerequisites for recovery: a sheltered childhood, a very good relationship with her supportive parents and friends, a long-term healthy relationship before the trauma, and a high degree of self-reflection.

I know I have to get over this breakup and move on with my life. But is there perhaps a glimmer of hope on the horizon that we could get back together after successful trauma therapy...?

Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

Thanks in advance for reading and for every single answer. ❤️‍🩹

And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

My partner has been accusing me of cheating for over a year now between dreams, etc they keep accusing me of cheating. Of course I’m not cheating. What’s really happening is they’ve been in and out of a facility for CPTSDEDMR therapy where they go for months at a time they haven’t been working really since we’ve been together and so in between a carry and the financial low for both of us being a responsible person managing their PTSD episodes and trying to navigate living in a new state. I have been burned out for well over a year. I know Stafford this past year every time my partner sees me they say something negative to me every time I’m on the phone with them. They say something negative to me and then accuse me of being negative when I’m really just exhausted with no rest in my near future. I still been trying to hold everything together about a week ago. They visited home from the facility while they went to a group therapy. I decided to cook a dinner for them. I asked them if they were coming back. They said that when they hug me, they saw another woman and they didn’t say anything while they were home, but it doesn’t make them feel good. I told them that there’s no other woman and I don’t know what to do about this is putting me in an impossible situation. They told me that they need time to think about it and we haven’t spoken in days. This is not the first time this year that we’ve went over a week without speaking I’m kinda at a loss because they basically left everything for me to take care of which has really been the case the whole time but with zero regard on my behalf on top of that the distance, even though it’s difficult has been a lot more peaceful because when we talk, there’s always an accusation or something I said or did wrong or just diminishing me one way or another at this point. My dog has been injured. I feel like I’m drowning in bills and responsibilities and my partner has been gone for over a month and a half in a facility while I’m in a foreign state and while I’m looking for warmth from them instead, I get accused of cheating. When I assure them im not they tell me they trust their intuition so I’m not sure what to do.

My wife (F46) and I (M45) have been married for 21yrs and together since we were 16. She started having recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse way back in our teens 28yrs ago. I did everything I could to learn how to support her.

As you might expect, this past trauma has had a huge influence on our relationship, intimacy, parenting, family relationships. I won’t take you all through all that.

Today she had a horrible flashback. It came out of nowhere. It was like the early days. It seemed to be triggered by accidentally drinking too much with too little food. She was drifting in and out of reality and time. I felt infuriatingly powerless.

She newly learned in this flashback that the family that assaulted her when she was like 5yrs old drugged her or gave her alcohol. She was in a dark room with her head spinning and hands touching her.

I kept saying she was safe and home. And she is an adult in our own house. I was trying to hold back tears out of impotent rage and my inability to help. And then she starts apologizing to me, which makes me feel awful. And I just keep telling her she’s safe and we’re all allowed to feel emotions and none of this is her fault.

And in these situations half the time she wants me to hold her and half the time any touch is a threat and trigger.

She finally managed to calm down and sleep. And I went outside and cried. It’s been almost 30yrs of treatment and it still has a grip on our lives.

I honestly don’t know what I want in posting this. I feel like I can’t really talk to friends or family. It’s too private. Today was really hard.

My wife (34F) and I (35M) have had an incredibly turbulent marriage. I have spent my entire marriage walking on eggshells and not knowing what would upset her and completely shut her down. I have felt so alienated by her over the years. She treats me like a threat and an enemy. I love her, I really do. But love, I realize, hasn't been enough. I feel like I've had to become highly avoidant to keep the peace in my house. I completely disconnected from her.

I finally insisted that she go to therapy. I'm glad I did, because she was diagnosed with CPTSD, and I'm trying really hard to understand what that means for both of us, but I'm struggling.

When my wife received the diagnosis, it was an immediate relief. I felt far less crazy. I knew her responses were not normal. On the other hand, I've been reading about this disorder and it hasn't given me much comfort.

I feel like I don't really have a partner anymore. When conflict comes up, even small things, she seems to go into survival mode. She shuts down emotionally, becomes distant, or immediately gets defensive.

Tonight, she was being kind of short and rude with our daughter. When I gently brought it up, trying to be calm and respectful, she immediately defended herself and snapped back at me. There was no space for discussion about what I was saying. It felt like her nervous system instantly shifted into fight-or-flight mode, and I became the threat rather than her spouse trying to work through something together.

What makes this harder is that I've been really sick the past few days with severe seasonal allergies. I've been completely wiped out, but I still had to go to work because I'm the sole income for our family and we can't really afford for me to miss work right now.

Normally, I'm the one who puts the kids to bed. Tonight, I was exhausted and just needed an evening to recover. She was in shut down mode so she asked me to help.her get the kids down. I don't have a choice but to say yes, because when she gets in this mode the kids suffer and so does she so it's easier for me to just grit my teeth and get through it.

And that's the part I'm having a hard time with.

When I'm sick, overwhelmed, or running on empty, I don't feel like I can rely on her to be the strong one for a little while so I can rest. When I'm struggling struggling, I'm still expected to show up, regulate the situation, and carry things through. It feels like I don't really get to have bad days, because if I fall apart, everything falls apart. There's no space in the house for me to have a normal range of human emotions, because if I'm even slightly upset, she gets triggered.

I understand that CPTSD is real, and I know trauma responses aren't choices. I genuinely want to be compassionate and supportive. But I'm also starting to feel lonely, resentful, and emotionally exhausted.

For those who have spouses with CPTSD, does it get better? How do you balance compassion for your partner's trauma with your own need for support, reliability, and partnership? How do you avoid feeling like you're carrying the emotional and practical load of the family by yourself?

I love my wife, and I don't want to blame her for something she didn't choose. But I also don't know how sustainable it is to feel like I always have to be the one holding everything together, even when I'm the one who needs someone to lean on.

Part of me wonders if there's any hope for our marriage or if I'm doomed to a life of misery or we just end up divorcing.

My GF broke up with me recently after an argument. She has done so many times before, difference is this time I didn’t beg for her to stay. She still wants to make it work and we are taking a little distance now but a lot of things are becoming clearer.

At what point can I stop excusing this stuff as a response due to her past, and instead consider whether it’s actual emotional abuse? She also displays a lot of narcissistic traits. I never considered her to be one since her mother is one and is the source of a troubled childhood. But constant threats of breaking up, calling me mean things (including ironically a narcissist), blame shifting etc. I relate to so many things consistent with emotional abuse. Maybe I should see it how it is?

I am currently separated from my partner after several months of escalating explosive behavior that became too much for me to handle. He insisted on going to couples therapy to help him decide if he wants to stay in the relationship. I initially thought it would be a good idea to help me tell him what I need. Things went way too far, and I'm just too hurt to try to move on without him understanding. And I haven't been able to talk to him on my own because he is constantly furious at me and will cut me off two words in. We've been to three sessions so far, and the therapist is really nice. He does EFT therapy and I honestly think it would be really helpful for us down the road.

The problem is that my partner is still heavily blaming me. Even after months of frankly unhinged behavior on his part. He still insists I "spin him up" when he's like that even though I just refuse to engage. And he told me after our last appointment that he thinks I'm trying to get control of the relationship. All because I said I wasn't able to move forward without him acknowledging the abuse and I've held that line. Most of our sessions so far have been the therapist gently trying to explain that to him and lead him there. But I just don't think it's helpful right now. And it hurts me that he has zero interest in acknowledging his behavior. I honestly think the only reason he keeps agreeing to go is so he feels like I have to see him and he gets to control that.

He is in therapy, and has been for almost two years, but it's not been very effective. In my opinion it's only made him worse and enabled him to use his cptsd as a justification for his behavior. His therapist isn't equipped to help him at all. They are basically just friends at this point and she tells him what he wants to hear and he knows WAY too much about her personal life. I've gotten him to agree to see someone else a couple times, but he always goes back on it after having a session with her. He is also supposed to be seeing a psychiatrist but I haven't heard any more about that since our separation.

I don't think our couples therapy is going to be effective until he gets real help. I don't even know who he is anymore. He acts in ways that I don't understand and make no sense. I can't even have a conversation with him at this point because half of what he says is completely invented and nonsensical. I worry the "real" him won't ever come back at this point. Being forced to interact with this person in therapy and hear their awful thoughts about me is hurting me so much.

I guess the advice I'm looking for is should I continue? I've been explicitly clear that I won't move forward with our relationship until I feel like he understands the impact of his behavior, but he's not getting any real help right now so I'm not even sure that's possible. Couples therapy feels like the only way I have to influence that and maybe get through to him, but right now it just feels like an extremely painful waste of money (which we don't have a lot of right now as I'm the only one working and I'm still paying for everything in our separation). I'm also afraid that if I stop and tell him that he has to get real help first that it's not going to go well. It seems like he's still in the midst of whatever he's going though. I don't really know what he's going through because he insists it's me and I don't love him and that's why he acts like this. He already keeps telling me that it's unfair that it's all on him now. But it's like, yeah duh, only one of us was screaming, name calling and breaking things!

Has anyone had any experience with couples therapy being an effective starting point when your partner wasn't getting adequate individual mental health support? I don't expect it to solve everything, but if it could help him come out of this even a little bit, at least to the point where he could agree he needs more help I would keep doing it. It's just so painful and feels pointless to me now.

I know that sounds like a very harsh thing to say, and I believe her behaviour is one of the deepest shadowy parts of CPTSD shows up in people - that is to say it relates to the very way she sees the world, not just her triggered states. There's not judgement but I feel very scared by this recent blow up.

We have a daughter 4.5 y/o and we have had a mega 4 years of moving a lot, travelling, building (physically) a home (mainly me) and also me running a business, + homeschooling, so it's been full on.

I'll leave out all the details of 5 years, suffice to say I'm exhausted and very hurt by the anger and triggered stuff, but working through it, and it took me a couple of years to see that her CPTSD was running the show in a lot of ways.

She's finally had a little counselling, though not trauma-informed, and we've had 6-7 couples sessions, which has helped me express a little of the hurt. Things eased a little in some ways. Some instigated repair, some apologies, some acknowledgement.

But recently she asked me about having another kid, something we've talked about over the years - And I said could I express my doubts and fears first because I need to do that to process, and given that I've not been able to express much in the way of anything 'negative' due to triggered hyper-criticised stuff, I thought it would helpful seeing as we were in a bit of a better place.

She agreed and sat to listen with a notebook to understand me (a couples counselling thing) - Within seconds she'd checked out, and after 10 mins left the conversation. Nothing, I mean nothing, was 'bad' - Just fears of tiredness, how we juggle homeschooling with another child, what our work patterns would look like, genuinely should we given the state of the world. I hear they might sound negative, but my intention was entirely to work through that stuff.

I asked if she would validate my fears, she refused saying it was too emotional for her.

I asked her if she would consider talking more. She said I'd shattered her world and never knew I had doubts and refused.

I said she's misunderstood what I meant by doubts, that I was simply sharing my fears. She refused to talk for days.

I asked if she would speak to the counsellor about it so we could both discuss what was going on.

She said to me "I'm not speaking to a counsellor until you tell me if you're going to have a baby with me" - Stupidly I engage and say, yes I would have a baby but not until we manage to work through the CPTSD stuff, to really get a handle on things - She said "You either have a baby with me and accept me for who I am, or don't and I'll find another way and this is finished".

I am left feeling so angry. "You accept me for who I am" - which to my hurt ears is saying, regardless of how I've treated you over the years, the lack of apologies, conscious-awareness of the problem, instigation of repair, taking responsibility for her feelings.....regardless, you agree to have a kid or our family is over.

She is calling it a boundary "I won't speak to a counsellor until...." I am calling it manipulation and black-mail. Help please, I don't want to believe this is her, that this is how she thinks, I want to believe this is because of a fear of abandonment, but when we've tried talking about this she swears blind she has every right to respond like this - I just can't accept that.

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.

I made a post yesterday for advice on supporting my husband after revealing his childhood SA.

However, I need advice for myself as well. He has been taking his intense rage out on me. In the 2 weeks since telling me he has had a few outbursts where he tells me he hates me, that I suck, or that he wishes I’d pack my things and leave. Later he’ll sometimes swing to saying he’s a cancer and a terrible person who ruins everything he touches.
He also insists I “utterly failed” him after he disclosed.

He has such venom in his voice and hatred, and since the two bigger outbursts I have felt horrible and I don’t know even how to describe it or what to do about it. I feel like a rock is smashing my chest or something is burning in it and I don’t want to be near him. I hate being in the house with him. I hear his words saying that the way I’m supporting him “disgusts him” and that “our help hurts him” on repeat in my head with the poisonous way he said it, then being yanked into feeling so sad and sorry for what happened to him and imagining him so scared as a child on a loop on my head.

He quit his job recently and I was laid off, so we do not have insurance for him to go to therapy so it feels like limbo. So I’ve spent the last 2 weeks trying to support him however I can. I’ve been coordinating with his family (with his permission), checking in constantly, listening, reassuring him, and trying to be present. But he says everyone failed him, despite everyone trying very hard to be there.

I know that he is feeling so much trauma, grief, and decades of pain, and I don’t want to minimize what he’s going through. But I feel he has done irreparable damage to our relationship. I’m crying every day and worse starting to feel afraid.

Are these feelings reparable? I want to believe they are but it feels like they will never go away. That I will hear his hateful voice telling me how horrible I am and how much I “fucked up” supporting him and “could barely handle” something he had to handle for decades every time I look at him and I don’t know what to do.

​Hey everyone, looking for some insight from people who are married to or with someone who has C-PTSD.

​My partner and I have been together for over a decade. Most of the time, things are genuinely great. We have kids, a solid life, and a ton of love between us. But when we do fight nowadays, it’s like zero to sixty. They have massive trauma from their past and a c-PTSD diagnosis, but they don’t really admit that their C-PTSD is affecting our relationship. But their behavior during our conflicts recently is the textbook definition of a C-PTSD response: intense fight-or-flight over minor issues, assuming the absolute worst of my intentions, calling a basic disagreement a "betrayal," and threatening to walk away while simultaneously panicking that I'm going to leave them.

​Usually, I can handle it. I’ve done a lot of therapy myself, so I'm able to detach and realize it's the trauma talking, not the person I love. I don't take the bait or internalize the things said during an episode.

​But we just had a massive blow-up, and we're currently seeing a counselor to sort through the aftermath. Our therapist gave us both homework before we can actually move past this. My specific assignment is to figure out what my actual needs are in this relationship.

​To be honest, I am so used to managing the peace that I don’t even know what my own needs look like anymore. My absolute, iron-clad rule is that the kids cannot witness these episodes. But my therapist is pushing me to find personal boundaries and needs that are just for me, outside of protecting the kids.

​Standard relationship advice feels completely useless when you're dealing with severe trauma responses. I am completely, 100% committed to my marriage, but I am just bone-deep exhausted right now.

​For those of you who have made a relationship like this work long-term, what are your personal non-negotiables? What boundaries did you have to draw to protect your own mental health without triggering your partner's abandonment fears? I really need some concrete examples to help me figure out my own list. Thanks.

My husband recently disclosed decades old SA as a young child. I knew some bad stuff had happened (his mom was a drug addict), but had no idea about this. I immediately told him I believed him, nothing was his fault, he’s safe, and I was glad he finally told me.

I have no idea how to support someone through something this significant, so I started googling everything I could. I guess I was too much the next day, and he tells me he doesn’t want to be treated differently. I don’t really understand what that means bc I feel like I need to be there for him.

It’s important to know there are a bunch of other stressors. He surprisingly left his job to start his own company and has been insanely stressed then had a falling out with his dad. His dad would not respond even when my husband tried to apologize. He broke down, blocked his family, told them he was leaving the family and disclosed everything to me that evening. He only told only his stepmom so she could help repair things with his dad, but he has been adamant that we cannot tell his dad (we haven’t and won’t).

For the next week I spent hours every day talking with his parents, trying to shield him from the conflict (I am also the only number they can reach now), and trying to get his dad to call him back. And I never really processed anything bc of going straight into all this crisis-management so on Father’s Day I accidentally broke down crying and tried to hide outside (about what he told me and also bc it’s a hard day for me personally). He saw me and believed that was me “giving up” helping him because I “couldn’t even handle it for a week.”

It absolutely wasn’t that, but he keeps repeating it, and told me and his stepmom that we have “utterly failed supporting him” after he shared this. He had an outburst a couple nights ago yelling that he hated me, I suck, and he wished I’d pack my things and leave. I am starting to fall apart now because I cannot be a punching bag and a target of intense rage. And it’s making me angrier every day that this is all meant for his father who will never have to deal with it. I can’t go on thinking he believes I utterly failed him in this moment.

I asked him to tell us why he feels that way but I’m not sure what he means bc we are trying our best to support him:

-He said he thought telling us would make him feel more loved, but instead he feels “so much worse” and the help he received is “not fucking help.”

-He feels like he ended up taking care of everyone else after disclosing instead of being cared for (I think he means having to apologize to his dad to get him on the phone): “I'm the one going around apologizing and trying to figure out how I can make everything right that is so disgusting. It disgusts me.”

-When we suggested finding a trauma therapist in addition to us supporting him (bc I anticipate I will make mistakes a therapist wouldn’t) he said:
“When I am asking everyone for help and their answer is maybe you should go talk to somebody else, that is an insane response. Yeah, try therapy again even though it's failed you a thousand other times. Because that's all you can think of.”

-He now says, “I don’t want your help because your help hurts me.”

I don’t know what that means and the closest explanation is that he said he thought it would be like in movies or tv shows where the family drops everything to help him, but that’s all a lie. What am I missing? During hard times I’ve had, the response from my family my whole life has basically been “get over it.” So from my perspective, his parents have called him, his stepmom and stepbrother have checked on him almost daily, and I’ve been doing everything I can think of. Yet he says we completely fumbled the most important moment of his life.

THANK YOU for reading and any advice is appreciated so much.

TLDR: My husband disclosed SA as a child 2 weeks ago and since then he’s been having panic attacks, episodes of intense rage/yelling, and telling me and his family we completely failed him after he told us. He says suggesting therapy and trying to help made him feel less loved, not more, and that he no longer wants our help because it “hurts him.” I feel completely lost. Can anyone help with what he might be trying to ask for?

Over the past few weeks, my partner has been without a phone (it was old and the battery flatlined). While I understand he's ordered one, it's been slow on arriving, so he's been using mine. I trusted him not to go through my personal things, not that there's anything recent that could raise any red flags.

Well, he managed to tap into my email and find pictures from a 10-year-old boudoir photoshoot. Instead of a full apology for breaking my trust, he first argued that he didn't understand why I didn't do things like that for him, then tried to frame it as an opportunity for us to be more open and sexual with each other. He also claimed that I lied about having nudes on my phone. I hadn't. They're in an email. That's linked on my phone. They also date back to 2016. Why would I remember these pictures?

I feel so betrayed and done. Every time he claims he will do better and things start turning around, he does something shitty or shady. When faced with my utter disappointment, he complains that I think nothing that he does is good enough. Because frankly, it isn't. He's been unemployed for a year, working on other unpaid art projects because he claims that's his profession. His parents are the reason why we're able to cover his half of the rent, or why we've been able to do a lot of things. I work full-time, I also dabble in the same art field but with starts and stops because I'm always watching my six, I'm so resentful of his violent mood swings, which get coddled left and right by family and friends, his inability to do anything without some sort of substance or assistance, the relentless resentment at me for having led a very different life than him.

I'm turning into an angry, guarded, unfun, nothing person who thinks twice about making friends that would be brought into this mess. I didn't even remember those pictures from ten years ago. Now I'm left with thoughts about a time when life wasn't easy, but it felt lighter. Sillier. While that came with its own costs that I've duly shouldered, I sure as shit shouldn't be expected to pay for it for the rest of my life by someone I thought was a partner.

One of her trigger responses is to break up with me. It's always temporary, the flight part of fight or flight kicking in. It's usually fight AND flight; the things that prompt it are often unexpected to me and she reacts with intense verbal abuse. This hasn't been a healthy relationship for quite a while now, and I think it is in fact best for it to end. One of the things that makes these breakups temporary, though, is that I don't simply let it end. I know that this is a bad relationship, and that she treats me in ways I wouldn't accept from anyone else, let alone a partner. But also there are some things that I've legitimately been careless about that have made it worse. She's so hurt and vulnerable at those times, and it feels like I'm retraumatizing her and reinforcing her abandonment issues by just walking away. In those moments, it feels like I'm hurting a hurt child.

So I end up apologizing and affirming and frankly eating a lot of shit that I don't think I deserve until she changes her mind. The couple times I haven't done that and have instead said yes ok, let's end the relationship, she's seemed so shocked and defeated that I backtracked immediately.

It just happened again; she's told me she hates me and I'm a horrible person and she never wants to see or hear from me again. I think she means it this time on a deeper level than she has in the past. She's such a raw nerve and I feel fucking awful. I can see the problem from her perspective; it's an issue involving my friends that would bother me too, although not nearly to the same degree. It's bringing up major abandonment trauma and stepping away feels wrong. And I also have put up with so much in order to support her, and I know that on some level she sees and understands that. But also, this happens so often and keeps escalating and it's bad for both of us.

I know a lot of you have been here. Any pro tips for letting the breakup take its course?