Hi Abby,

I hope that by the time you read this you and the man you are dating have discovered a solid and unbreakable bond, more than you have now as you work through this. I concur with Anita, that “we as humans can’t help but bring our past into our future.” I refer to this as looking in the rear view mirror of our mind, sort of a metaphor for seeing the past. I have experience with this sort of thing that I hope you find helpful. Some people on this forum have read my history before so to them I apologize if it seems redundant, but it was, and continues to be a strong tool to help me. When I was in Afghanistan for 13 months straight I was wondering why I got 3 letters from her while everyone else got one every 3-4 days. Sometimes a package was included for them. On the 13th month I got injured very badly. I was paralyzed from the waste down for 9 months. It took over a year of rehab in Germany to finally walk without help. I finally went home only to discover why I got only 3 letters in 13 months. My daughter, who was 6 at the time, was unbelievably happy to see me. I’ll never forget her smile and hug. About a week later I discovered my wife was playing wife with some other guy with whom she works with. Needless to say they got married. At the time my anger was off the charts. One of the many expressions of that anger was I was emotionally disconnected-to everyone. Even with the future relationships I tried to maintain. The thoughts that roamed my head on a daily basis were evil on a level you couldn’t imagine. So here I was, just returning from a foreign country where as a corpsman for the Marines there was a $250,000.00 bounty on my head, I had been in rehab, and wanted to return to my family and grow as a family. All that happened is that I was homeless for nearly 4 months. I must add that I was and always have been alcohol and drug free. Many returning vets cannot free themselves of that. That was a long time for me even tough there are thousands of vets who are going on years of being homeless. Somehow I finally got in control of myself and eventually turned my life around 180 degrees. Needless to say I had years of anger because of this. I was on a new mission to find a way to get rid of this anger. As time went on I found many extremely helpful ways to cope with this and eventually reduce that anger to near zero as possible. I did years of counseling because I did not want to have this anger become something permanent in my life. I did hypnotherapy which was very helpful, and very cool too. I’m addicted to meditation which has become my main mode of coping. I have been emotionally over my ex, but I still remain emotionally not over the emotions although I have those thoughts nearly eliminated. Sometimes my current g/f says she feels disconnected from me and I know this is happening. It is due in part to the PTSD and what my ex did. When she brings it up I tell her how grateful I am to her for letting me know. When I drift toward the feeling of feeling disconnected I feel like that by not talking to her is tantamount to a ship passing a safe harbor in a storm. What your b/f is going through is not recognizing you as being his safe harbor in his storm. When I open up to my g/f she recognizes that I am trying to make things not only better for me but for our relationship. I think of opening up to her as “going home,” as in a heart to heart (re)connection.

Maybe when he gets like this you can go to the special place you both enjoy, the beach or park or mountains and kind of make a gesture, like gently tapping on your heart and tell him to “come home.” Let him know he is safe with you and your heart is his home. Let him know, if you have not done so, that you have fears that you are “afraid it will be brought into our future.” But also tell him you are there FOR him, not against him, that you want to see him happy by letting go as much as possible of that event.

I could go on and on but I’ll spare you the babbling. I wish you both all the love, peace, and happiness that life has to offer for an eternity longer than a lifetime. It is the least you both deserve.

Pearce