Hi, mattr. I’m really sorry you’re hurting like this, and I’m glad you have a supportive partner who wants to help. I think you answered your own question, though. You have PTSD. There’s no “letting go of the past” when you have a psychological illness. You can’t “let go” of an infection or a broken leg. I had PTSD symptoms from a breakup 2 years ago that are just now starting to clear up. For me personally, I just had to get through it. There was no way around it, I had to keep going to therapy, taking my medications, learning positive thinking patterns again, resting when I was tired, and just not giving up. I’m sure others will weight in with their own thoughts but my advice is just to keep going. See a therapist if that helps. I journaled a lot, focused on self care, and worked through things as they came up. If you do get triggered, ride it out, then when you come down, try to see what happened and why. I wish I had better advice, a way to faster results, but in my limited experience, it’s just time and effort. It sounds like you do trust your wife as much as you are able to, and that’s not a small thing. I still have trouble trusting people or letting anyone get close to me at all, so I think you’re doing well. I know it hurts though, and I’m hoping the best for you.

I feel with you! I am in a similar situation, for different reasons.

I just figured that these strong feelings are almost like a panic attack, so right now I am trying to treat them that way, with some tiny differences.

The first thing I would do is to delete her facebook sign in from your phone, and to actually unfollow her actions on social networks. You are close enough to her on a daily level. Otherwise you get worked up in a network of triggers and the desire to control each and everything, which you can’t. It gives you and her more freedom and is one step to learn letting go.
You cannot prevent anything from happening, or her from leaving or being tempted. She has decided for you, because you are a wonderful person! And even if she decides against you (I’m triggering you right now ;-)) you still stay a wonderful person!

The other, more important thing you could do (which I just have been doing yesterday and still feel excited about because it was such an insight) is to write down EVERY possible trigger:
Which behaviours? Which situations? Which thoughts?

Then write down which fears are triggered by that (be as precise as possible), and which beliefs work behind these fears. (For instance “She will leave me for someone else.” (I’m not good enough)
“I will go crazy.” (I cannot survive on my own)
and whatever you can think of.

There are usually different parts in you that try to protect you. With me I have a part that blames and gets angry and wants to end the relationship to prevent getting hurt. Another part I have is that of a child that was helpless and left alone, and now is afraid of not surviving and gets very sad and afraid and desperate.

In the end you need to find out what these parts are in you, and understand and accept each and every one of them. When a trigger comes, you can listen, see what the trigger is, follow the thoughts and fears that come up and identify to which part they belong. It’s pure analysis, but it helps, because it teaches you to seperate the situation from your feelings and to accept these feelings and the parts of you that create them.

One more thing that might help is A) a letter you write when you feel good about yourself. It should be a compassionate letter from your grown up, healthy self to your hurt and vulnerable self. Tell him that it is ok to feel this way, that you understand him and that you will be with him! Read it whenever you need to!
I don’t know if this is a good idea or if it leads to too much dependancy, but you could also ask your partner to record a message for you, that will tell you that she is with you and loves you and that it is ok how you feel.

I hope this will help. Go on looking for help and don’t give up! You can do this! 🙂

I hope it’s a good thing I sound like oyur therapist 😀
I really understand how you’re feeling. I’m starting out as a comedian and last week I rocked a hall full of people with laughter… after I had spend the whole morning crying and unable to go to work.

Are judging yourself right now? There is a lot of “I should” between your lines.
“This irrationality of my mind is so frustrating.”
Could this be your inner critic speaking? The part of you that says “Stop this now you stupid idiot or you will ruin everything!” (Belief: You are not allowed to make mistakes. You are not good enough.)

One thing I forgot in my list was: Write down every single memory of a moment where you felt those painful feelings for the first time.

Your experiences are really hard, but they are in the past. Your body and your mind need a lot of work and time to understand this, so be patient with them!
You can be really proud that you are in a relationship after all after this shit, and that you are facing all that pain and fear! Congratulations! 🙂

Hi Inky! Don’t you think that is pretty tough? Shouldn’t his wife decide for herself whether the FB-Account is important for her? Where is the border? You could also argue that talking on the phone, writing messages or meeting with other people is not necessary…
Controlling someone else does not help to fight the feelings, and you actually will never be really satisfied but just go on to try and control more and more… This does not create trust, but undermines it in my opinion.
It happened to a friend of mine, who tried to calm her boyfriends fears and jealousy all the time. They broke up because he still couldn’t take it and tried to control her whole life, while she became more and more isolated. I think you cannot live without trust in a relationship.

I think that you are right that social media encourages a lot of stupid stuff, but his wife has already laid open her account – which I think is a very strong gesture and shows that she uses it thoughtfully. Asking her to delete it would somehow diminish that gesture.
However, that’s just what I think… and I am myself in the position of the person who is jealous.

“I have always been against medication – for personal fears that it will change me and professionally they can affect my work.”

That’s fine, I was against medication for the same reasons and it does take some work to find a balance that suits you. I won’t tell you to get on it if it’s not for you, but I want to add that I would have had a much harder time without meds. My brain was the problem, so trying to get better using my brain was something of an exercise in futility. I really feel more like myself when I’m on them, but that’s just my experience and I have type II bipolar disorder, so I have no idea if they would work for you or not.

“I am still so fearful of being hurt, betrayed, the subject of an unspoken joke.”

This really resonated with me, as one of the reasons I was so guarded is I felt like people really disliked me behind my back, thought I was laughable or pathetic, even good my friends. I’m still coming to grips with the fact that nobody really thinks about another person’s problems enough to form such a strong opinion of them, they’re usually too busy with their own. Like I said, it is a work in progress. I hope yours goes well, and it’s good that you know what it feels like to trust fully, even if you can’t stay in the space all the time.

Hi Matt,

You have demonstrated some amazing insight into your behaviour and made signficiant progress into your recovery. Instead of letting your need to control your behaviour (e.g. asking your wife to delete her Facebook account), you can recognise that a) it is not going to help and b) that it is likely to feed into your negative emotions. I agree with K Schmidt in that you should probably delete Facebook from your phone and computer (though your partner should keep hers) because it is a lot easier to relapse into that behaviour when the temptation is all around you. Like any addiction, the first few weeks will be tough but as you stop feeding the beast, it gets weaker and weaker by the day until it no longer hold sway on you.

It sounds like you still have emotions to process from your past relationship and unless it is acknowledged and given time to grief, it will sneak up on you on the worst possible moments. I remember once reading something that our mind is like a garden and if we are not vigilant in weeding out negative thoughts, they will eventually kill all the flowers. Try to start a day off with positive thoughts, such as the things that you feel greatful about in life as they have a way of shaping how we feel for the rest of the day. At the evening before you go to bed, think about the events of the day and how you feel about those things. At the end of the day, allocate a bit of time to go through the what happend that day and how you feel about certain events. For example, when you had dinner with your wife, you felt threatened by the other guests in the resturant. But instead of judging yourself thinking what a silly thought it is or what is wrong with you for feeling this way, sit with that feeling and tease out what instigated that emotion. Once you understand it, reframe it into a positive light. For example, you acknowledge that your wife is a beautiful woman and of all the people she could have been with, she choosed to share her heart and her life with you. Therefore, there must be something about you that she finds appealing. This probably includes some of the things that you consider as “flaws” because when someone is willing to show their vulnerability to another person, it demonstrates a lot of trust and courage.