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My boyfriend has PTSD and he says that his feelings for me go up and down, sometimes he feels worse in himself and they go down, sometimes he feels happier and they go up.

We're both new to PTSD and before PTSD we had a great 6 yr relationship.

Is it common with PTSD that feelings go up and down?

Thank you all for your responses.

It's an awful situation. I do think I need to see a counselor as this is actually affecting me a lot.

He's become very distant in the past week, an event triggered his trauma and it's been worse. He says he isn't capable of having a relationship right now as it stresses him out.

I feel helpless and heartbroken to be honest. I feel like my old partner has passed away and I'm here burying him. It's awful. I can't begin to explain my pain.

Jazzy, thanks for your reply. You mentioned contradictions. Can you please explain these so I could clarify? There's so much to the situation.

Again, I'm just here trying to understand. It's hard because I do take his doubts very personal. I need to learn not to. The best advice I got was from cornerned spouse, supporting happily from a distance. I think that would be very useful in my situation.

Xxx

Thank you all for your responses and giving me insight in to this. I am still very new to PTSD, I want to understand and support him the best I can.

I take what he says extremely personally, and it does not have the best effect. For example; after his PTSD diagnoses and when he has his bad days, he claims that we don't connect/don't have much to talk about/there is no excitement left. Before his trauma, he never complained about this and we had been together for 5 yrs. The more he finds faults, the more I start to think that I AM THE PROBLEM. I just don't understand why he has to "look" for "faults" in our relationship, when we were perfectly happy before.

I can't begin to describe how awful I feel. I feel like my "old boyfriend" has died, and Im now having to bury the the memories of us happy together. Yes, some days are great between us, like before..but most days now he is not himself. He also had a previous diagnoses of GAD (diagnosed 10 years ago), which definitely does not help the PTSD.
He is a shadow of himself and I feel broken hearted. He gets so angry over the smallest things (he NEVER used to have a temper), he is so numb, emotionless, unhappy..I miss his big laughter and smile. He wakes up in the middle of the night due to flashbacks, nightmares. He struggles with extremely intrusive thoughts. He is constantly super tired. He wakes me up in the middle of the night crying because he is so anxious. He constantly stated that he feels "dead inside". He says that he always has to keep busy so he does not think, and he can't ever relax.

Is this relatable to people who have PTSD, I don't know many people with PTSD. I want to learn more. I want to be supportive and I feel extremely guilty of my reactions sometime. Sometimes I think I do add to his stress, but I am so new to this.

Thanks all again, and if there is any other advice, wise words that you guys can contribute with...Id love to hear it

Hi everyone.

My boyfriend has been diagnosed with PTSD.

He often says he feels numb, emotionless, deattached, no purpose, feels bored of life, is flat in emotions. He went through something extremely traumatic some time ago..
He has told me that he struggles to feel love for me (although previously in our 6 yr relationship he used to love me and always express this).

I have a some questions and I would love to get some insight in to this. This is affecting me a lot and I have spent so many days being upset.

1.Has anyone else (diagnosed with PTSD) experienced that they struggle to feel love for their partner?
2. He sometimes tries to look for faults in our relationship, for him to be able to say "okay I am not feeling love because of this". And mostly these are very petty faults (that he never brought up before). Is this something common? Why is he trying to look for excuses?

He has on many occasions told me he feels "dead inside", he has no emotions what so ever.

I love him dearly and I feel broken hearted, I just want to understand what's happening..