Hi Mattr,

PTSD can change the way that a person is neurologically wired. Please be cautious about language like: “I found that the humiliation, betrayal, etc., that I felt for years and years has created a permanent hypervigilance in me.” Just as your brain can change and become hypervigilant, it can also change in the other direction and not necessarily permanent. It just takes time. Time experiencing small successes in calming triggers and grounding yourself. Each success will build upon each other the same way that trauma exacerbates trauma. I think the key is to find the correct balance for you in exposing yourself vs protecting yourself from triggers. Does that make sense?

I hear much strength in your words. I find your insight and awareness of the circumstances, as demonstrating great strength.

It sounds to me like trusting yourself is the first issue before trusting her.

I am most curious about your thoughts of your wife being a trigger to you. This is what I feel has greatly ruined the wonderful relationship I recently had. I can see that my partner was triggered by me, by the role of our partnership and the dynamic of the husband/wife role and feel of it would take him back to the feelings of his marriage. (We were not married but it was the same dynamic) This caused him to misdirect his anger that he never got to express to his ex wife onto me. He did so in a very hypersensitive irrational way. The difference though is that my partner had no insight that this is what was happening for him, so that indeed is an important big difference.

I think that your insight is a huge asset to you as well as is the support of your wife.

I hear this struggle you are having with “depending” on her. It sounds like you have shared so much with her already and she has accepted it all very well and continues to love you in a good way and this has been a very good thing for you both. I wonder if this “dependence” you talk about is the very thing that would actually free you both a little bit more? Do you think that maybe sharing, being weak, allowing her to see the full depths of just how vulnerable you are, allowing her to love you in that space of your most vulnerability for a bit of time is actually exactly what you need to be stronger and less dependent? That maybe you are holding back a bit. Keeping a piece of yourself hidden for fear of rejection? That maybe if you allowed it to be exposed, laid it out under the sun to air and dry, that experiencing her love in such a place would actually allow you receive the reassurance that you need to trust and move forward to a less dependent place?

I hope I am explaining this well. I’ll give an experience that may make it clearer.

For me, I do not get triggered by a person but by something that person does, a phrase, a touch, a reaction or a social dynamic or such. (With the exception, if a person has abused me then, yes, that person and everything about them can be a trigger) For example I have a fear of someone sneaking up from behind and touching me. So after realizing that my BF romantically reached for me from behind and triggered me, I then need to share this with him to a satisfaction. I need to know that he can respect my fear and learn to be mindful and loving towards me. After I experience his love for me in this way for a consistent period, then my trigger slowly subsides and subsides until it actually is no longer a trigger. I think that I must feel less burdened and less of a need to be hypervigilant knowing he has made a conscious decision to avoid my trigger with me. The trust that we establish through this process ends up with me slowly no longer needing either of us to be vigilant and then as months pass of success I came to a point where I love him affectionately grabbing me from behind, both because it is romantic and loving, but additionally because of the love of us overcoming that challenge.

(On the other side of things… Whenever I try to ignore a trigger hoping it will go away or hoping to hide it, the opposite happens. I then feel an increased need to be hypervigilant about it. So sometimes my attempts to handle things on my own actually leaves me feeling more needy.)

I have never explained this in this manner to anyone. Thank you for sharing and giving me these thoughts to ponder, I feel a bit lighter now!