My fiance refuses to acknowledge my PTSD and calls me crazy

[Frustrated]

My fiance and I have been together for a long time. My prior marriage to this was abusive. I was sexually molested by cousins at a young age and as a result I grew up way too quickly and allowed men to take advantage of me. I was a classic "if he thinks I am sexy" he will love me teen and probably why I married a narcissistic alcoholic..hindsight right? I am now in a relationship with a man who 80% of the time is a warm, caring and loving man. I believe some of our issues result from his anxiety and ADD mixed with his very unstable exwife (legal conflict with custody of their son never ends, she stole and got a class A misdeameanor charge...list goes on and on) being a constant source of contention and stress in our lives. She attacks me publically with slander and at one point I had to have a PO on her to stop the stalking....clearly as you can imagine the triggers on my PTSD were and are immense. I just read more on C-PTSD and feel this is a more accurate diagnosis of my PTSD. I am in the process of finding a great counselor but until then, I need to figure out a way to get him to stop calling me crazy when HE triggers my reactions more often or not. He has never physically abused me, ever but when he yells and gets angry I literally want to crawl out of my skin and go into fight mode verbally to protect myself.  I am sure to him I appear crazy, but something has to be out there that helps those we love understand more about what this is doing when they call someone with PTSD o CPTSD crazy when having an episode...ok that was a lot but I am just happy to have found a place that maybe gets it and can help. we are going to start with a new marriage counselor this week and I pray this one understands PTSD. (Our first couples counselor had no clue and made it worse)

[mourningdove]

Welcome, Frustrated!

Sorry that your fiance doesn't understand about your C-PTSD. I used to have people say that I was crazy when I was having emotional flashbacks. I know how much that hurts. Is he willing to learn about C-PTSD at all? I hope your new marriage counselor will be helpful. You might find this useful in the meantime: http://pete-walker.com/13StepsManageFlashbacks.htm.

Glad you are here!

[Frustrated]

I finally got him today to agree to a new counselor. I asked him to separate from our old one (he continues to see her) and really focus on the new counselor and us. I am going to bring up the PTSD original diagnosis and talk about C-PTSD being more directly how I feel. I am hopeful that he will be open to accepting this and learning with me how to cope and work through our seperate difficulties and challenges together. Thank you for the link, I will check it out!

[Three Roses]

Maybe he's not hitting you but if he's yelling and screaming, he's abusive. Chances are high that it will get worse after the wedding. Run, run, RUN far away until you recover a bit more from cptsd.

[Candid]

Frustrated, this man comes with a lot of baggage. You can do without the ex-wife's abuse, the child custody issues, and his dismissive attitude. Sorry, but I think there's more healing work to be done before you'll be able to choose a life partner.

[sanmagic7]

frustrated, it sounds abusive to me.  hopefully, the counseling will help, but it sounds like he has some major issues to explore and resolve.  i wonder if he's at all ready to do that.

calling someone crazy is just plain mean and disrespectful, hurtful to the nth degree.  if this doesn't change, and quickly, i can't say that he is a good match for you.  just my opinion, of course.  best to you with this.   

[Blueberry]

 
Living with C-PTSD is hard enough on its own without your partner not getting it and verbally abusing you. At least consider postponing the marriage until you are better healed and stronger. Good wishes to you. I hope you come back to post updates. We care about you on this forum.

[Wife#2]

Frustrated - big, warm, validating hugs to you!

Listen, I pushed past all the red flags and warning signs. Now, it's not so simple to walk out. We've been married 12+ years and have a child together. After that long, my self-esteem and belief that I deserve to have value in the relationship are almost gone.

All that to say this. If I had it all to do over again, I would have taken the advice of my therapist. Yes, even at the cost of not having my son. Because, I believe very strongly that I would still have been blessed with a child, but not by this man who belittles me.

80% great guy doesn't make up for 20% abusive. Which part of your body - 20% worth - do you think you'd be fine losing if the rest was healthy? Which part of your vision would you be willing - 20% worth - to forgo just because the other 80% was fine?

I'm being a little blunt, and if you are triggered, please forgive me. I'm trying to use terms I would have understood a decade ago. My husband is a GREAT guy about 50-65% of the time. Yes, yours is nicer for more of the time. My figure was that high before we had a child. Before I saw that the same 'get-over-it' and 'it-isn't-THAT-bad' attitude would be applied to my child, our child, as well.

Just because you're great at coping and really love him does not mean he's good for you. I'm typing this for me as much as for you - a REAL man, worthy of being a HUSBAND, uplifts his woman. He wants her to see herself as he sees her - beautiful, nurturing, wise, kind, generous. He wants to do all in his power to help her build these character traits and his most frequent path is uplifting, cherishing, validating and honoring.

Stand back and really look at your fiancé. The marriage compact mentions many of these words. How many of them apply to him, really, overall? Does he cherish you while telling you to get over childhood hurts? Does he honor you when telling you to stop making such a big deal about it - you did pick that man after all, didn't you? Come on, you deserve better than that. You just do!

I'm so deeply sorry you've been through the childhood and young adult years you survived. But, you survived! Hurray for that! He's so wrapped up in his drama that he can't see it's affect on you? No, no and again no. You've tried to be there for him and got blasted by the ex for your trouble. Did he defend you? Did he give her a boundary where you are off limits? That would be honoring and cherishing you.

If he can't do these things BEFORE the wedding, he sure ain't gonna do them after, my dear woman. I was old enough to know better - 35+ when I married my husband. I had to put up with ex-wife drama and child drama (he had two when we met, I still love them dearly). I had to cope with all of it and a man who hurt my heart badly before we married. I forgave, we married and now look at the mess I'm in.

Please, follow the advice of the others here. Set up boundaries for yourself, learn to manage your EF triggers for ALL parts of your life and really, really, look at those red flags you mention. Decide if they are worth what you do get from the relationship. Because courtship is ALWAYS better than the marriage that follows when both aren't being fully supportive, loving, kind, validating and honoring BEFORE the vows.

HUGS to you! Whatever you decide, because this is your life and I do not know you, I hope that it goes well with you. The tools here can help regardless of what you decide.

[Blueberry]

Just because you're great at coping and really love him does not mean he's good for you. I'm typing this for me as much as for you - a REAL man, worthy of being a HUSBAND, uplifts his woman. He wants her to see herself as he sees her - beautiful, nurturing, wise, kind, generous. He wants to do all in his power to help her build these character traits and his most frequent path is uplifting, cherishing, validating and honoring.

Thanks for this Wife#2. I want to re-write it slightly, for a different purpose.

"Just because you're great at coping and really love your parents does not mean they're good for you. .... (Good / functional) parents want their children to see themselves as the parents see them - beautiful, nurturing, wise, kind, generous. They want to do all in their power to help their children build these character traits and their most frequent path is uplifting, cherishing, validating and honoring. "

And although the describing words for a child might be somewhat different, point stands. Most of us on the forum didn't get this, because we were abused and/or neglected from a young age. Childhood-onset CPTSD.
Frustrated, I don't know enough about your history to know whether this applies to you, but it's quite possible from what you write. It's hard to build a healthy relationship with another adult when our parents didn't show us we were cherished, validated etc.  Healing from our past must sometimes come first, sad as that may be.  I've never been in a relationship, so for that I'm grateful that Wife#2 has been so open.

[Candid]

Very good points from Wife#2 and Blueberry. We were raised to believe we're lucky if anyone's 80 per cent nice to us. Like Wife#2: we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary in March. Like Wife#2: I wouldn't have married this man if I'd had this forum and realised what my abusegivers set me up for.

[Quiet One]

Frustrated, my ex was about 95% or more kind to me before we got married.  The ratio slowly reversed over decades.  I am divorced only about a year and have decided I am not ready for dating at this point, but I've been thinking a lot about what I want/need in a partner. In discussion with my T, I've decided I would need to be with someone especially gentle and caring. Not a perfect person, but someone who will try to understand, who won't deny my feelings, who will try not to trigger me, and will apologize readily if he does. This was one thing that might have been a red flag for me regarding my ex--those 5% times when he said something hurtful, he never gave a sincere apology, only a sarcastic one, or he blamed me for making him angry. Anyway, sometimes I find it hard to feel that I deserve to be with the kind of person I described earlier, but I know I am better off alone than settling for someone who can't be pretty consistently supportive. Something to think about. Wishing you all the best.

[sanmagic7]

i agree, quiet one.  better to be alone than battling for the kindness, gentleness, and respect we deserve.  i'm on my way to do just that.

everyone has their own limits, boundaries, and perspectives on their relationships.  i respect those.  i just hate hearing there is any abuse in them at all.  that hurts my heart, cuz i know it isn't deserved.