Hi Seaturtle

I totally empathize, I know how hard triggers are to deal with in relationships.

My husband’s family is loud, my husband is loud, his voice is quite deep. When he is excited he can be loud, when he is surprised he can be loud, when he is upset he can be loud.

Loudness for me is a trigger when it comes to disagreements. It makes me feel like I am being shouted at. My mother shouted horrible things at me growing up and it lead to violence. Even if my husband isn’t saying anything mean, his loudness during disagreements makes me feel afraid like I did back then.

When I get triggered during disagreements I shut down. I stop talking for about 20 minutes. This helps me to calm down. This in turn triggers him because he’s had previous partners ignore him for a long time.

Like your partner my husband tries not to trigger me. He manages it maybe 80% of the time. But he isn’t perfect, no one is. And his loudness is a part of him. I’ve learned that I should accept him for who he is.

He’s learned that my PTSD is a part of me and if I need to be quiet for 20 minutes to feel better, he accepts that.

It wasn’t easy to get to this point. It’s been a journey figuring out how to communicate with each other in the relationship. We even went to couples therapy.

It’s understandable to feel hurt, and for him to be sensitive to your needs. People can only do so much though and it was important for me to learn that just because I don’t feel okay, doesn’t mean that something is wrong or that it needs to be fixed. Sometimes practicing self-care is the most important thing.

Likewise, he needs to accept your trauma response. It is going to keep happening at times in the relationship, it’s impossible for him to not trigger you at all. Obviously, he struggles with how to handle it sometimes. Are there times when he handles your trauma response well? What does he do differently in this case?

Regarding the lateness, does he text you when he is going to be late? Or does he just let you wait for him? Perhaps there are some things that you could plan to do, to make you feel more comfortable when he is late?

For example, my husband was frequently late after hanging out with friends. Having fun and losing track of time. I asked him to tell me when he was planning to leave and then I would ask him at that time if he thought he would get home later. This helped me to understand what was happening and feel better.

I hope that there is a practical solution that you might both find helpful.

Hmm well I’ve always found journalling helpful for making decisions. But emotions are also important. I would say that personally, I don’t make decisions when I’m feeling upset. I wait until I’m feeling calmer. I think that is the most accurate reflection of how I truly feel about something when I am calm.

So I guess, outside of being triggered. Or feeling disconnected and awkward. When you are feeling calm, how do you feel about your partner and the difficulties that you’ve both experienced in the relationship?

You’re right on the money. That’s exactly what happens when children are unable to manage their parents moods and they’re actively told that they are to blame by their parents. They start to blame themselves. But it is the parents responsibility to manage how they feel. It is the parents responsibility to make their children to feel loved, safe and protected. Your father failed you in this way. It wasn’t your fault, it never was. It was his.

Love and best wishes! 🙏

Hi OnlQQker

I’m glad that you take care of yourself and don’t pay attention to the news since you find it harmful. Everyone has to do what is right for them.

Personally, I don’t mind looking at the news. I prefer to read about it. At first, it was upsetting to me, but I wanted to understand what was going on in the world and my country. In time, I became desensitized to it. I think reading the news helps me to make important decisions about budgetting and work as I can prepare for what is going to happen in future.

I don’t really follow everything, just the stories important to me. Regarding recession, energy bills, food costs, covid. Which industries are failing. Which countries are at war or threatening war. Understand which exports those countries provide. Proposed political changes in my country.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Andromeda

My deepest condolences for the loss of your nephew.

Also, I’m sorry for the delay in response to your post. You posted on the 13th and I’m finally seeing it on the 15th. The forum has been unusually busy recently and your post was pushed to the 2nd page. I don’t believe that many people have seen your post yet.

You did your best for your nephew, looking after him as a child because of his mother’s poor health.

Last time he reached out to you, you told offered for him to come back and stay for some emotional support. You weren’t fully informed of his circumstances. You did all that you could.

That is a very special experience that you had on Thurday. I’m glad that it brought a sense of peace.

I’m sorry for all of the pain you are feeling. Please take your time and grieve. Let it all out and try your best to take care of yourself during this difficult time. Lean on your husband for support and please feel free to share your thoughts and feelings here.

Might I suggest reaching out to your sister as well? I know it might be a lot to handle at the moment, both her feelings and yours. But she could potentially be a suicide risk herself now that her son has passed. I don’t know if she has anyone taking care of her?

Wishing you healing in your grieving process. 🙏 🕊️

Hi ME

He’s 19 years old and has been dating his gf for 2 years. He was bound to move out sometime. It sucks that he’s handled it so poorly. He could have been more mature and told you he was moving out.

It’s only been 3 months. Give this some time. Based on what Anita shared clearly there are issues that he’s been struggling with in the family for a long time. If things are better now, great, just be consistent, loving and be ready to rebuild the relationship when the opportunity comes.

He’s not likely to stay with his gf forever. In this day and age people break up all the time. Have patience and ride this out. He’ll learn if it was a mistake to move in with her or not soon enough.

Hi Seaturtle

I’m glad that you found my communication tips helpful. I enjoy communicating with and helping people, as well as sharing what I’ve learned from my experiences so far of recovering from trauma.

Sorry, it’s hard for me to address every point because you’re quite prolific at writing. I’m glad that you are expressing yourself though! Please don’t change your habits for me. It was helpful when you reminded me of a question you wanted answered that I missed before. I was trying to focus on things that I thought might be helpful first.

Have you considered that as you struggle with your issues, your partner struggles with feeling he’s done something wrong? This could be a theme that he experienced with his own trauma. He just might not be as aware of his issues as you are. I’m guessing that he hasn’t been to therapy. People who are less stable can struggle when people express difficult emotions sometimes.

I think you’ve already figured out how your father came to develop these behaviours as you notice that you are experiencing them yourself.

He was likely shamed by a parent into being very proactive in meeting their needs and cleaning up.

The thing is, you were trained to respond in this way because it’s how your father felt most comfortable.

You felt comfortable when he was comfortable because when he was uncomfortable he would make you feel very unwanted.

No one has to do these things. It’s just a response to trauma.

For example, you mentioned that you like your environment to be controlled and that helps you to feel comfortable I.e. Focusing on your interests and the things that you want to do. This strike me as potentially related to what your father was trying to achieve with his cleanliness.

This is what I meant by being decisive. You know what you feel comfortable with and what you don’t feel comfortable with. Whether it’s people you don’t want to date or interests. Your mother taught you to be very in touch with your desires because she attempted to go above and beyond to meet your desires at times.

At the same time you feel like you’re indecisive. Potentially, you are in two minds about things when this occurs? Whereas at other times when you decide things more easily, your focus is very clear?

It’s honestly hard to tell guess what might be going on with your feelings of being disconnected from your partner because your trauma is quite active. Can feelings like that occur due to trauma, sure. Can they occur for other reasons too? Sure.

Regarding cleanliness, I’ve had to live with messy flatmates before (hoarders) and at first it made me feel quite angry. But what I learned is that different people have different standards and you can’t control how someone else behaves. So all that’s really left is processing feelings. I acknowledged that I could only control my behaviour and decided that I would prefer to be calmer and lower my expectations for the other person.

Different people have different standards regarding all kinds of things. Texting for example. There is no right or wrong, just different preferences.

Expanding on something I touched on before. Your father shaming you over normal teenage behaviours. There’s a logical fallacy that children experience. I experienced it too with my own abuse.

They believe that if they act perfectly in certain ways that they can prevent abuse by managing their parents mood. But it’s not really about the behaviour. It’s about the emotional instability of the parent. Regardless of what is going on, if an unstable parent feels bad they take out their feelings on their children using excuses because children have a) no control and b) no way to defend themselves. Naturally, children accept what their parents tell them as truth. Except, in this case it’s not.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts. What do you think?

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Stacy

Yes, exactly with your friend both things can be true at the same time. It’s definitely valid to feel hurt by that. Sometimes people aren’t able to show up for us when we need them for their own personal reasons are it’s okay to feel hurt despite being able to understand and empathise with their behaviour.

I feel like this is a common theme in your life, a lot of people are unable to support you in your life because of their own personal issues. It’s really hard when there are so many people that let you down this way in your life. It’s understandable, but it’s also really hard for you who has to deal with a chronic lack of support from friends and family.

I’m glad that you recognize that you need to block your ex for your mental health. I can understand why you needed “evidence” to help you move on because you have difficulty trusting your instincts. I do think it is time to let go of that though because you have enough evidence and it is worstening your mental health. It’s also a form of self-punishment for you.

I think the issue with your ex was that taking responsibility is a two part process. It involves correcting behaviour. He could say yes, okay this isn’t right. Give a lot of excuses for his behaviour then not change.

I think because of his mental health issues he misunderstood your intent. He took you confronting his behaviour as you telling him he’s a bad person. This is his belief about himself, not your belief about him. All you were ultimately asking is for him to stop doing a behaviour that was harmful to you. Which is called setting a healthy boundary.

I think that he used to care about you but over time his failure to change harmful behaviour and your insistence on setting healthy boundaries started to deteriorate his mental health. He felt guilty about his failure and for hurting you.

The relationship was ultimately not working out which is okay. Relationships don’t work out sometimes. I know it’s really painful. But you need to stop blaming yourself and overly (I say overly because he does deserve some blame) blaming him too. It’s not true to say that he didn’t ever care, even though seeing him move on so quickly makes it feel that way. You’re both just two people who weren’t compatible and were hurting.

The breakup is a sudden shock for you, but likely he’s been considering it for a while, so whilst it seems sudden. For him it’s not.

I think during that relationship you saw glimpses of a beautiful future for yourself. That future isn’t gone. It’s just not with him. Someone healthier will be able to give you all of the love and support you deserve. All you need to do is keep doing what you’re doing. Practice setting healthy boundaries with people. You can do this in your life with your family and friends.

You can’t give from your cup when it’s empty, so don’t be afraid to prioritize yourself when you need self-care. ❤️

Love and best wishes! 🙏

Hi Tammy

Apologies, I didn’t see your post before. Sometimes if it has been a busy day things get pushed to the next page and I only tend to check page one. Well done on being proactive and bringing your thread back to the top of the pile as it were 😊

I’m sorry to hear about the difficulties with your friend.

Would it be okay to ask for a little more context about how that person bullied you? Please don’t feel the need to share if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

I don’t think you’re being petty. You have very real feelings about how you were bullied in your teens.

I think the difficulty is that people tend to believe in change and some time has passed. Perhaps your friend feels like the person who bullied you as a teenager has changed?

It might sound like a silly question, but what hurts about your friend spending time with someone who used to bully you? Do you feel like your feelings are being devalued? That your friend is prioritising the bully? That your friend isn’t protecting you?

You mentioned feeling like loyalty and trust were broken. Can I ask about your concerns regarding trust? Do you feel like your friend would treat you differently or pass on gossip?

It might not be a bad thing to have a conversation with your friend. I think for your peace of mind alone is a good enough reason.

It really depends on how good a friend they are though.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Luna

I have an email address or an imgur account if you would like to communicate outside of the forum.

The email address is tbthrowaway64@gmail.com

The username for imgur is usernamealgorithm

Whichever choose, please feel free to send me a quick message and I can reply to your last message there if you prefer.

Love and best wishes! 🙏