So unfair, so painful

Here is a youtube link you can listen to, there are also many other discussions that can be helpful to you to listen to. I selected this one in consideration of how you are struggling so much emotionally and how that may be a sign that you are experiencing some secondary ptsd symptoms yourself.

As I mentioned, it's very important to get the right advice instead of taking in advice that can lead you down the wrong road and serve to cause you more pain or even worse question yourself in ways that are not helpful or productive in your personal challenge.

Support for spouses of war veterans that struggle with ptsd - Yahoo Video Search Results

@Here we go again I think you understand that I am not telling you to enable your husband. I can see you have a lot of emotional confusion and still love him. What I am saying is that he may not be able to give you what you want and it's important you come to terms with this and take steps to take care of yourself.

There are times we love someone and they behave in ways that are beyond our capacity to help them. I have had to learn this myself with the disease of alcoholism and even how that can accompany the battle of ptsd in a person too. (don't know if you husband uses alcohol to cope with his ptsd or not)

It sounds like you are grieving and experiencing a lot of mixed emotions. This is when you need to step back, get therapy and help for yourself instead of carrying all this burden you are experiencing.

Here we go again, I hope you are ok. I haven’t seen you on the forum lately. I wonder if your husband shared what was discussed with his divorce lawyer and how your divorce proceedings are at this point. Hope you are staying strong, the way you’ve been so far
Hugs and best wishes

The couple is already divorcing and they already settling on reasonable arrangements with each other.

OP is demonstrating great wisdom by doing what’s right for her children and her and she wisely remains respectful and amicable with her soon to be ex. It’s commendable.

At this point our loyalty and support are with her, and making it about poor husband of hers might be counterproductive. She can’t get him back even if she is told she must allow mistreatment due to his challenges. In addition she never asked if she should continue allowing him sleeping around. She described that the issue is her wanting him to leave while they go through divorce proceedings. It sounds that hopefully he’ll leave soon

He wants divorce. He isn’t posting on here. If he comes on here and shares his struggles with PTSD or whatever other diagnosis or challenges he’ll receive support but he isn’t on here. We have no ways to know what’s on his mind, assuming what he might be doing or not doing or what he does or doesn’t do is a guessing game, he is not a member on here. She is

Things aren’t always that simple. Life could be rather complicated.

OP is a strong person and we should help people build their strength, it’s a support forum. Support for those who post on here

@Here we go again when we get overwhelmed with emotions it's not wrong to feel these emotions. Instead we need to sit with these emotions and sort them out and that's why a therapist can be helpful.

You have shared how very much you did love your husband and wanted your marriage to work out. Unfortunately, when your husband served four tours in Iraq he was changed and he also developed PTSD. This challenge is very hard for a spouse and it's also very hard on the person who suffers from PTSD. When someone is challenged with PTSD they have to come to terms with how they are never going to be who they were before they developed PTSD. It's very hard for a spouse to understand how this is going to change their relationship. What has challenged me is how people wanted me to be who I was before I developed PTSD and I can't explain that I am changed and that even I am struggling with being different.

If you focus too much on "he did this to me" and embrace anger and resentments, that can prevent you from healing and learning how to accept this challenge for what it is. I put up that link so you could listen to different people talk about suffering from ptsd and also spouses who suffer because of how the person they love has changed. It's very hard to finally let go of what we wanted to have which is what you experience when you talk about having beautiful children and how you want to love him and work on healing as a family etc.

It's not unusual for someone suffering from PTSD to need to change their life and not be happy trying to reclaim who they were before they had so many experiences that changed them and traumatized them to the point where they developed PTSD. The desire to distance from any reminders is incredibe and can be debilitating. It's very possible that your husband wishes he could be part of, but, also gets the urge to distance and this challenge can cause a lot of emotional confusion in him. One of the things that someone suffering from PTSD is challenged with is their sense of control. This is something the sufferer has to work through and they will choose to do things that don't seem normal. Given the fact that trauma happens when someone experiences things that deeply threaten them in adverse ways, they get overwhelmed and can develop a change in their brain that is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is NOT something you can fix or change but something your husband has to work out himself and it is NOT easy and it won't be easy for anyone that has a relationship with him to deal with.

Your are right, it's "so unfair and painful". Yet, what will help you sort this out for yourself is to understand this isn't something you can change and that even though this is hard the best thing for you is to accept you can't change this and allow him to go and find whatever he needs to do to bring him some kind of sense of self again. And the truth is, some day as you work through this and learn to accept it you can actually help your children learn to do the same. And your husband isn't really detaching from you or his children but who he was before his life was changed and he developed this very difficult challenge that he will have to work on the rest of his life. PTSD is an extreme anxiety disorder, it can get exhausting for the sufferer. Some have it worse than others too. It's very hard to live with someone who struggles with this and it can cause the partner to develop secondary ptsd symptoms.

The healthiest thing for you to do for yourself and for him is to let him go so both of you can work on living your lives and working on your healing. There will be a period where you will mourn what you feel you lost, that will take time for you to finally process. Yet, you can heal from this loss and as you do so you will gain some knowledge and skills to guide your children to learn to do the same. And honestly, if you do love him, pray that he finds peace within himself because when someone struggles with ptsd, that is genuinely a challenge for them.

I just got out of a 15 year marriage similar to this. My wife had multiple affairs and I stayed by her side time after time, just asking her to get help. In 2019 I left my 13 year career for her and my family and she decided she wanted an open relationship and like a nut I agreed because she was in control and it was either do that or lose my family.

Well luckily I did not lose my morals and go outside the marriage. However, she decided she would like to be with the other man and wanted to come and go as she pleased, went on all types of vacations, until one day enough was enough and I put an end to it and kicked her out.

Basically it is manipulation, he is in a place that you are allowing him to do what he want's to do so he will continue to do so. The behavior he is exhibiting is like a drug, they are high when they leave to go off on their encounter and then come crashing back down to reality after its over.

You have to make a decision, is the money more important or are you and your kids more important. You don't deserve to go through this but sounds like maybe you have enabled him to get away with this type of behavior before.

I found pray helpful. It seems like it is harder on the other side, but the things you are dealing with by staying are alot more difficult than the things you will go through on the other side.

When in question choose peace... Currently he is stealing the peace from you and your home environment, which should be your refuge.

I feel that pain as well u're feeling now, hope this process wouldn't last long time