Feeling Defeated

Commercials and TV make jokes about how the woman controls the relationship and the man doesn't dare go against her but we all know that is fiction.  If you spouse is anything like mine he is always right and can never accept defeat.  My husband and his sister have spent hours arguing with each other because neither can admit being wrong.  It is something I have lived with our entire marriage.  For the first several years it was so difficult living with him because every time we had an argument he had to be right so it felt like nothing I said was heard.  Which leads me to the next point which is the selective hearing that every man possess.  I can approach him with a concern and he won't hear me but if I go to another room and whisper under my breath about him he has super hearing and its amazing how fast he pays attention.  After he was diagnosed with PTSD these issues got worse.  If you have a spouse with PTSD you can most likely relate to what I am saying.  I have been in a lot of hard situations in my life but trying to have a discussion with my husband since his return from Afghanistan is virtually impossible.  Even the simplest of conversations turn into long drawn out arguments.  I will admit at first it was so hard to walk away before it turned into a huge fight but I learned to simply walk away and wait for him to calm down before approaching the topic again though to be honest that has its issues too.  Which leads me to the next problem of memory.

If your spouse is anything like mine they have selective memory and choose to remember what they think will work to their advantage and no matter how many times you try to tell them that they are mistaken it again goes back to the original issue of not being wrong.  These issues are almost always in any marriage but when your spouse has PTSD and a TBI these issues are magnified by a thousand.  My husband once told me that he couldn't remember my name until our third date but yet after a massive trauma he can remember something I said last week.  I told him that in order to avoid useless arguments I was going to start recording our days to play back to show him that its not always me.  I am not always the cause of his problems.  

My point in telling you all of that is to let you know that your not alone.  Having to always defend yourself or be the brunt of their attitudes can be exhausting.  I spend most of my days defending my choices and actions to him and yet he can't remember what I said to begin with.  It is stressful and wears down the spirit a bit.  I have met so many soldiers with PTSD and I see how hard life is for them, they don't understand what is going on inside them and so it is hard for the spouses to understand when they are unable to vocalize it to us.  We have been married for 15 years and have gone through the who's right and wrong for years but it got down right frustrating after his return from Afghanistan.  In all the years of our marriage never once was divorce a thought but after he came home he started thinking about divorce.  I was shocked here was the man I have loved more than anything for most of my life telling me that maybe we weren't meant to be.  I realized after that divorce is high in this country but it is higher among military.  It sadden me to see that divorce rates are so high in military families.  

I started thinking about the vows for better or worse, in sickness and health till death do us part.  These soldiers can't help it what they are going through is a sickness.  They don't plot how to make us spouses suffer.  They are hurting and here we are talking about leaving them.  I am in no way trying to judge anyone some cases are different what I am trying to do is to show a different side to this.  How would I feel if it were me who was suffering PTSD/TBI and my spouse walked away?  Could I live with myself knowing that when he needed me most I gave up and left?  I have heard it said what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, we are military spouses we are strong.  It does help to have a support system to lean on or family that can help.  But the fact is that these men and women are suffering.  They need their spouses to be there for them to lead them back.  They are lost and broken it is up to us spouses to take them and lead them out of the dark to a place that they can remember.  Psychologists can only do so much.  It is you the spouse who knows them inside and out and their deepest most treasured moments.  I know it is hard to fight when you feel like everything you are doing is wrong.  Just remember that whether they know it or not they need you to be there for them.  

My advice tonight is try to put yourself in their shoes and try to really understand where they are coming from.  If you have survived a deployment then you know your strong enough and think about it this way.... our soldiers make up 1% of this country's population and you are married to the 1%.  You are stronger than you think you are, it takes strength and love to be married to a soldier, so when you feel like quitting remember that and know that there are others like you out there who have been there and you can get through this and hopefully with your help so will your spouse and your marriage.