Be Patient With Your Partner
Along with listening comes patience. Itâs hard to see your loved one struggling with the fear and anxiety that comes with PTSD. If you knew your partner before PTSD, they may be different than how you remember them. Itâs also hard to witness your partner being scared, afraid, or angry over situations that donât warrant that kind of response. Yet these are the times when they need your patience and love the most.
Resources For Ptsd Recovery
Caregivers and victims of PTSD should seek help to recover. Heres a short list of resources to get you started:
- Focus on the Family can help you find a Christian therapist in your area. Call Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. 855-771-HELP .
- The American Association of Christian Counselors has a number of trauma-recovery resources. The organization can also help you find a counselor.
- The National Center for PTSD has several articles and resources for family members and a mobile app called PTSD Family Coach.
- The VA Caregiver Support Line and website provide support for family caregivers of veterans.
- Look for other books about coping with trauma at a Christian bookstore or at Focus on the Familys online bookstore.
* Hope and Phil are a fictional couple however, their struggle represents those various individuals and couples with whom Dr. Vaughan has worked.
A variety of marital issues can lead to challenges or even hopelessness for one or both spouses in a marriage. Gaining a sense of hope and direction often requires understanding the underlying issues and relationship patterns which may have led to the crisis. Reach out to well-trained helpers even if you are the only person in the marriage willing to take action at this time. We can guide you as you seek a referral and take your first steps toward recovery. You can contact us Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at: 855-771-HELP or www.FocusontheFamily.com/Counseling
Ptsd And Marriage: Advice From Someone Whos Been There
Sometimes you may want to give up. Why does everything have to be so, so hard? Other times, you wish someone would just give you a manual for dealing with all aspects of post traumatic stress disorder or Complex PTSD. Wouldnt it be nice if the doctor gave you a handbook when they gave you or your spouse the diagnosis of PTSD? Because the worst part is that you have no real idea of how this new acronym will affect your relationships. However, there are a few tips available for you regarding your PTSD and marriage.
Your marriage and PTSD
You and your spouse did not elect to have PTSD enter your marriage. Although you cannot control what has happened to you doesnt mean that you cannot have a stronger marriage. Anyone can search for PTSD and marriage all over the web, but what they usually find are a numbers of websites and articles listing discouraging divorce statistics. Most of these sites and articles are dreadful to read. This is due to the fact that they can influence you to lose hope for your relationship.
PTSD and Marriage: First steps to take
Spouse with CPTSD or PTSD
Spouse without PTSD or CPTSD
PTSD and marriage: Hope for the future
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Speak To A Mental Health Professional
When PTSD is treated in therapy, partners often move through the mental health experience feeling more connected. However, if the partner who has PTSD is not willing to seek treatment, resentment and distress often arise, Manly says.
She also stresses the importance of getting individual treatment for the person with PTSD and couples therapy to support the relationship itself.
Several studies like suggest that couplebased therapies for PTSD may be helpful when it comes to mitigating symptoms.
Mothers And Sons: Being A Godly Influence
Rhonda Stoppe describes her early motherhood challenges of raising a son, which was intimidating to her. She found help through group of older women mentors. She urges moms to see their role as ministry in shaping sons to be good and godly men. Rhonda outlines several practical suggestions to moms about spiritual training, how to communicate with boys, and supporting the father-son relationship as a wife.
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Add Resources To Your Collective Toolbox
There are several apps for smartphones that are geared towards PTSD and include evidence-based coping skills that can be used as needed. During PTSD marriage while dealing with a spouse with PTSD, these apps cover a broad array of validating coping strategies that cover many core symptoms of PTSD.
Even if your partner or spouse does not want to utilize the app, becoming familiar with the coping strategies may better enable you to help them when they need it most.
Do Some Grounding Exercises Together
When triggers arise, there are a few evidence-based methods that people with PTSD can use to regulate their nervous system and feel more grounded or present. You might offer to sit with your loved one and do some of these practices together. In doing so, you may find yourself feeling more calm and present, too.
Over time, practicing regulating exercises with a loved one known as co-regulation can help your loved one regulate their nervous system. It can also help you and your partner feel more at ease and connected.
Practices that anyone can use to regulate their nervous system include:
While its important not to glorify the strengths one builds out of trauma, it can be helpful to identify, affirm, and appreciate the ways someone with PTSD has grown through their healing journey.
Identifying and affirming strengths may sound like the following:
- I admire your bravery.
- I appreciate your ability to cope.
- Ive noticed how strong you are. Do you notice your own strength?
Foo says that her own healing journey with complex PTSD has allowed me to feel less like, Im a nightmare person who cant do anything right and more like, You know, I have a condition that sometimes requires a little extra help, but it doesnt make me a bad person.
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Tip : Rebuild Trust And Safety
Trauma alters the way a person sees the world, making it seem like a perpetually dangerous and frightening place. It also damages peoples ability to trust others and themselves. If theres any way you can rebuild your loved ones sense of security, it will contribute to their recovery.
Express your commitment to the relationship. Let your loved one know that youre here for the long haul so they feel loved and supported.
Create routines. Structure and predictable schedules can restore a sense of stability and security to people with PTSD, both adults and children. Creating routines could involve getting your loved one to help with groceries or housework, for example, maintaining regular times for meals, or simply being there for the person.
Minimize stress at home. Try to make sure your loved one has space and time for rest and relaxation.
Speak of the future and make plans. This can help counteract the common feeling among people with PTSD that their future is limited.
Keep your promises. Help rebuild trust by showing that youre trustworthy. Be consistent and follow through on what you say youre going to do.
Emphasize your loved ones strengths. Tell your loved one you believe theyre capable of recovery and point out all of their positive qualities and successes.
Things I Learned From Dating Someone With Ptsd
One lesson: Caring for yourself is essential.
How we see the world shapes who we choose to be and sharing compelling experiences can frame the way we treat each other, for the better. This is a powerful perspective.
Theres nothing that can make you feel as powerless as living with a partner with post-traumatic stress disorder .
For three years, I was in a relationship with a man who experienced PTSD symptoms daily. My ex, D., was a decorated combat veteran who served in Afghanistan three times. The toll it took on his soul was heartbreaking.
His flashbacks and dreams of the past drove him to be hypervigilant, fear strangers, and fend off sleep to avoid nightmares.
Being the partner of someone who has PTSD can be challenging and frustrating for many reasons. You want to take away their pain, but youre also dealing with your own guilt at needing to care for yourself, too.
You want to have all the answers, but you often have to come to grips with the reality that this is a condition that cant be loved out of someone.
That said, understanding the disorder can help make it easier for both you and your partner to communicate and set healthy boundaries.
I spent years trying to understand how PTSD affected my partner, and, ultimately, had to walk away from our relationship. Heres what I learned.
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Optimise Your Lifestyle Together
I salute you if youre not immediately skipping over this section! So, let me explain why this is soooo important.
Your spouse is using an enormous amount of energy to simply get through the day, let alone heal. The whole of their body/mind is involved in the healing process. That is regardless of whether or not theyve sustained a physical injury.
The raw materials for that energy come from food which provides all the nutrients the body needs for every single cell to work at its best.
So, now is the time to knock any bad habits on the head and make both your health and well-being a priority.
A junk diet is detrimental not only to your physical health but also to your mental well-being. Watch The Junk Food Experiment . Did you know, for example, that consistently eating junk food can increase nightmares, lead to poor sleep and brain-fog?
In addition, the two of you will need to get off the couch! So much can be achieved by taking up a sport. Even just walking around the block and building on that day-by-day can make a huge difference.
For inspiration, be sure to look at the Invictus Games .
You can make the difference by setting an example, encouraging and supporting your spouse or partner.
Read on for more tips and advice to help your spouse or partner deal with PTSD
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How Do You Love Someone With Complex Ptsd
How To Help Someone With Complex PTSD
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Join Support Group For Women Whose Husbands Have Ptsd
This is one of the best ways for you to stay emotionally, spiritually, and mentally healthy. You need to get support and you need to join other women who know what it feels like to say my husband has PTSD.
Dont isolate yourself, and dont just rely on the internet for help coping with the symptoms of post traumatic stress. Reach out. Get help.
There Are Treatment Options
Amid the feelings of hopelessness and isolation, people with PTSD do have options. The best way to tackle the mental health issue is with education and seeking the help of a professional.
People with PTSD feel like they are going crazy and are all alone in their condition. And the partner feels exactly the same, Wen says.
Often what we see in our clinic is that couples therapy becomes a gateway into individual treatment, Wen shares. The veteran might not necessarily agree to individual treatment yet. They dont want to feel like there is something wrong with them.
To support my partner and my own mental health, I continued my established solo therapy routine. Beyond that, I researched and tried a few other treatment options as well.
Here are few that may help you or your partner with PTSD:
- Seek individual therapy as a partner of someone with PTSD.
- Encourage your partner to attend individual therapy with a PTSD specialist.
- Attend couples therapy.
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Tip : Anticipate And Manage Triggers
A trigger is anythinga person, place, thing, or situationthat reminds your loved one of the trauma and sets off a PTSD symptom, such as a flashback. Sometimes, triggers are obvious. For example, a military veteran might be triggered by seeing his combat buddies or by the loud noises that sound like gunfire. Others may take some time to identify and understand, such as hearing a song that was playing when the traumatic event happened, for example, so now that song or even others in the same musical genre are triggers. Similarly, triggers dont have to be external. Internal feelings and sensations can also trigger PTSD symptoms.
Ptsd And Marriage: 5 Things Spouses Need To Know
You never invited combat stress or post-traumatic stress disorder to be a part of your marriage. But there it is anyway, making everything harder.
Sometimes you want to give up. Why does everything have to be so, so hard? Other times, you wish someone would just give you a manual for dealing with the whole thing. Surely there’s a way to know how to handle this disease?
Like the rest of marriage, loving someone who suffers from PTSD or who is trying to work through the ghosts of trauma — whether combat related or not — doesn’t come with a guidebook. And although the whole thing can feel very isolating that doesn’t mean you’re alone.
Therapists who specialize in PTSD know that while some couples may put on a good show for the outside world, dealing with trauma is hard work and, no, everything is not perfect.
If you’re dealing with PTSD at home, you are not alone.
Husband and wife team Marc and Sonja Raciti are working to help military couples work through how PTSD can impact their marriages. Marc, a veteran, has written a book on the subject, “I Just Want To See Trees: A Journey Through PTSD.” Sonja is a licensed professional counselor.
The Racitis said there are five things that a spouse dealing with PTSD in marriage should know.
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Feeling Lost On How To Support Yourself And Your Spouse With Ptsd
Are you not feeling heard? Your partner is not able to hear or handle your emotions. Being extra cautious? You dont know what or when he or she will be triggered. Need tips to help you and your spouse diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ?
As a trauma therapist, I love seeing the influx of articles, resources, and therapy treatment information growing to help change the stigma of PTSD and mental health. My heart is filled when I see how many veterans, first responders, and other adults with childhood trauma are seeking therapy to heal from their traumatic experiences and regain a sense of stability and control again. But,
Dr Tim And Mrs Noreen Muehlhoff
Dr. Tim Muehlhoff is a professor of communication at Biola University in La Mirada, California where he teaches classes in family communication, interpersonal communication, apologetics, gender, and conflict resolution. Tim and his wife, Noreen, are both on staff with Biolas Center for Marriage and Relationships where he is a co-host of The Art of Relationship podcast.
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Ways To Support Your Partner If They Have Ptsd
Dating someone with complex PTSD means you need to try to understand how to help them navigate their symptoms when they occur. There are various ways you do this and help with their PTSD recovery, but its also important to remember that youre not a mental health professional. If you want to learn how to help someone with PTSD, one of the best things you can do is to encourage them to seek professional help and learn about the different types of therapy for PTSD. Aside from that, you may also want to:
Expect Your Husband Not To Talk About Post Traumatic Stress
The husband with PTSD on the radio said its very difficult for men to say they have PTSD. Its about pride, and feeling vulnerable. He said his mission is to try to get husbands to talk about the symptoms and signs of post traumatic stress disorder, and make it more accepted in society. If your husband refuses to talk about PTSD, hes normal. Its not easy for you, but it is a common sign of PTSD in husbands.
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Withdrawal Leading To Detachment
The trauma survivor in your relationship may withdraw from you and from themselves. Often, their brain may feel disconnected from their body because the trauma feels like too much to handle.7 As a result, the person with PTSD may feel shame, embarrassed that theyre unable to cope with their feelings, or feel out of control over their own behaviors.5
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About Living With And Helping Someone With Ptsd
When you love your spouse or partner, doubtless, youll take on the mantle of carer.
That is potentially a beautiful and rewarding role. To be there for a loved one when theyre most in need calls for you to dig deep. Youll discover resources you didnt realise you had.
Whether its continuing to love and live with someone with PTSD or deciding you want a divorce I know youre going through a really tough time right now.
I hope the two of you find peace and happiness together or separate. Im rooting for you.
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