Hello!!

I am 49 and fairly centered and extremely happy and at peace on a regular basis. My life is very good. 🙂

I was single for almost 3 years after a tough divorce but was in a great place.

2 months ago I met a man on a dating site that blew me away. Our hobbies and career were very much aligned. We have the same love language and the same things we are looking for in a partner. We fell for each other immediately.

He is a government contractor that is out of the country for 90 days and back for 30. We had a really amazing 40 days together before he went back. Met each other’s families, discussed “future plans” and started to take steps to make that happen. He said he had been looking for a reason to take a job domestically so that he wouldn’t be away from home and I was that reason. Everything truly seemed so right and every door was opening.

He had mentioned before he left to go back overseas that he had demons. He has complex PTSD and has gotten very little treatment for it in his life. He had demons from childhood abuse and he had demons from his career as a mercenary, Marine and government contractor. I have no doubt he has done some things that haunt him in his career. He has made no bones about indicating that.

Now that he has been out of the country for about a month we are having a really hard time with expectations and communications while he is away. We are easily able to text call each other and even video chat. I have noticed that there are times when my feelings are hurt and instead of showing compassion and trying to make them better he seems to get even colder. His relationship history has always been very brief. I asked him what his average relationship time was and he said two years. Mine is almost a decade.

He admits that he “cuts and runs” If things rub him the wrong way. Although he can acknowledge that some of those things that rub him the wrong way are reactions to things that he does, he can’t help but hold it against the person who is reacting to his often unacceptable actions.

He admittedly and freely admits and talks about how he needs a lot of work on himself he wants to be better. He wants to have a home with someone he would love until his dying day. He is 53.

I’ve noticed a complete lack of compassion or empathy at times. I love his willingness to work on himself but the fact that he cuts and runs is very alarming to me. I really want a relationship with him. I really feel like if I invested some time in helping him and being patient we could have an amazing life together. He’s eager to get therapy.
It’s tough for me because I take things so personally. And then we get caught in the cycle where he take some thing wrong and reacts and then I take it personally and react.
This is only happened like once or twice but he tends to focus on the fact that we’ve had two disagreements and then it’s not worth all the amazing times we had.

Can anyone talk to me who has had a partner and has experienced any of this. Can anyone give me advice on how I can better understand him and his condition.

Thanks in advance ❤️