His parents died 17 years ago

[SorrySadDog]

I fully suspect I am being entirely unreasonable, however I am struggling to identify what is selfish (on my part) and what is potentially not. I have approached this so far from a very understanding place, I put his emotional needs first. But for some reason my patience is wearing thin!

Okay so, my other half's parents died when he was 13. He suffers from PTSD, he had a fairly shitty life after that, he lived with family who didn't really understand him and he went off the rails. He currently works for himself, and is happy with the life he is making for himself.

It seems the pain of his parents passing when he was so young has not really lessened, I am not him (obviously) so I can't really say but I think thats about right.

I make allowances for the fact that he might sometimes need to withdraw, you know, I won't pressure him to come out and be "happy" if I can see he needs time alone.

However.....I am starting to get irritated and a bit rolling my eyes and I am not sure why, or how to stop. Whether I am being entirely unreasonable or not.

Twice a year an entire month is wiped out because of the anniversaries of his parents deaths. One of those months my birthday and his mothers birthday were very close. So there is a black cloud around my birthday. The other anniversary is around my sons birthday (stepfather relationship). Christmas is off the table, he won't spend it with my family and myself and disappears. In fact he won't even put a tree up with me.

I have to be quite careful when it comes to things to do with families, like even talking about how much I love my mum for example. I wouldn't just come out and say that but I guess I mean in the context of a conversation.

He is starting another round of counselling soon.

I am worried about my reaction to things like not participating in Christmas. I love him very much but the fact that I have reached eye rolling territory is not pleasent. I don't know if this makes me a horrible person, or whether I should have compromised with him? But how do you compromise with someone who experienced trauma so young, do I even have the right to? I have no idea what I am doing, but I do not want to be unreasonable. If it is entirely fair that he opts out of family life three times a year then I will accept it, but this situation isn't one I have experience with. He is my best friend, but I don't think I can be honest with him about how I feel at this point in time. He said the other day, oh Christmas season soon. Which is almost like a warning that he's going to be withdrawn.

Thank you and I would appreciate some constructive feedback

Op that is so hard for everyone. He has suffered significant trauma, grief and loss, and sounds like it's not been properly addressed. He needs more than counselling- a therapist skilled and experienced in trauma.

It sounds like he's in this (quite common) repetitive cycle of - 'month of parents death, I need to grieve and isolate from everyone. If I don't grieve then It means I didn't love them or still miss them'. He needs to give himself 'permission' to create a new normal and a different way of remembering them. Ultimately he's the only one (with professional support) who can move this situation on. Good luck

Does he want to be happier? I ask this because there was a thread a couple of days ago by a woman who tragically lost her daughter some time ago. She had a husband and 3 sons, and her DH had got annoyed that she wasn’t “getting over it”. She actually said that she didn’t want to be happy ever again, because it would feel disloyal to her daughter. I wonder if your partner feels the same. If he does, then I don’t think ever going to change him.
I couldn’t live like that.

@FFSFFSFFS

He went through massive trauma not only of his parents dying but then having an awful time after that at a very young age. That is not something you just get over - it is burnt into your synapses and your emotions. Sounds like he is going through counselling and trying to resolve it.

I am bemused that you think your upset about my our birthday is a totally reasonable emotional response but his upset about having his life torn apart is not.

Absolutely this. Do you live with PTSD? Have you suffered an unbearable trauma in childhood/early teens ? Leave him, he deserves better. Tonight I will hug my family just a bit tighter for loving the broken me

I feel for him .(I lost my own Dad when I was 8).Much missed even as an Adult.However My DM said he wouldnt want me to be unhappy and I remember that .17 years is a long time .Has he had any counselling at all ? Cruse are excellent and will offer counsel to any one even a long time after the event

He needs treatment, not counselling. Another vote for trauma specific CBT and EMDR as treatments for PTSD, they work really well. He won't ever get over it it and thats ok, but he could do something about how it continues to affect him.

'Tonight I will hug my family just a bit tighter for loving the broken me'

Loss of parents young is harder when you’re older for some reason.

Also being around your son may be having an impact. My parents were violent and neglectful, I lived with my grandparents from age 7 and my mothers death when I was 14 was something I barely had a flicker of emotion about. My first Christmas as a parent I kept having to lock myself in the bathroom to cry because the enormity of having no parents was really highlighted and hit hard.

The fact he takes himself away and doesn’t insist on you also moping or not celebrating is a good thing. He’s aware enough to know it’s his issues at least.

Grieving for his parents is understandable, but his behaviour is not fair to you and your ds - and what if the two of you were to have more dc?

Month long birthday mournings sound gloomy, self indulgent and wallowy. Seventeen years later? That means he's been without his parents longer than he was with them. I have lost a parent, very prematurely and in shocking circumstances. You maybe don't ever fully get over it, but you grow up, maybe have children, and have to behave like an adult. I think OP's eye rolling is restrained. I wonder if anyone has ever asked her partner: would your mum and dad want you to spend your life like this?

I would not have time for this. It's not fair on your son, or you

Those saying the OP's partner deserves better, I'm not sure someone blithely accepting two months of the year being completely written off is "better", particularly when children are involved and also being impacted.

OP isn't just talking about the odd bad day or a bad week. Two months of the year, every year.

I don't think many could put up with that at all, never mind chastising the OP for daring to eyeroll as opposed to practising 100% support human behaviour.

@ErmineAndPearls I think when you lose a parent at 13 (this poor guy lost both), you get can stuck at that age mentally, you can't move on from that lost little boy. How can you just say grow up and have to behave like an adult? it's not that simple!

How did they die? Was it both together at the same time (v traumatic imv).

My DP has PTSD because of a traumatic childhood and similarly to your DP found Christmas triggering and upsetting.
This is going to make me sound heartless but having been in a relationship where an ex tried to control and minimise every celebration, fairly early in this relationship I made it clear to my DP that Christmas was important to me and so if he didn't want to celebrate then we wouldn't see each other on the day. He could be sad on his own.
When his sadness crept to other days or holidays, I always just organised for myself and went out without him.
It soon became obvious that he was opting out of more and more of our relationship. He then had a choice: to go to counselling for his PTSD; to engage more in the relationship; to split up and he could find someone willing to live a reduced, sad life with him.
He opted to go to counselling. He started to get involved in holidays and birthdays and Christmas.
I wouldn't ever ask or expect my DC to have a life with a shadow over special days. I think we need to embrace opportunities for joy and your DP's attitude will be casting a pall over all the days that are supposed to be special. It's also teaching your DC that your needs are unimportant.
You can't force your DP to change. You need to make some hard decisions about what is important.

I respect someone's method of dealing with their own grief. But not to the extent that it negatively impacts on the people they live with.

If I were you, I'd tell him that I didn't want to break with him, but that the living together isn't working due to his 'dark times' and their impact on you and your son. I think I'd be able to deal (maybe) with them from a distance, as in him dropping out of sight for however long he does, but I don't think I'd be able to deal with it 'in my face' 24/7.

It's good that he's accessing counseling, but has he said what he wants the 'end game' of the counseling to be? Does he specifically say he wants to move on from his grief for his own self? Or is he just wanting to 'make you happy' which is quite another thing and not where his focus should be IF he truly wants to heal.

I think it would be a good idea for you to have counseling too. I think your feelings of frustration are completely natural because your life is so heavily impacted. You need to figure out whether or not you can, or even want to, live the rest of your life this way if he never 'heals'. A counselor can also give you tools to help you cope and/or how to 'handle' his dark times.

Joint counseling after awhile may be helpful, too, if you decide that you want to stay in the relationship. He needs to be in a better mental place and you need to know what you want going forward first, though.

I'm in your partners shoes, the same thing happened to me.
I've had years of counselling, grief self help books, bereavement groups.
Grief hits everyone differently, some people build a shrine to the loved one in their front room, some visit their graves everyday - even refusing to go on holidays for this reason. I know someone who left their wifes handbag on the side, the last place she left it and it's been untouched for 3 years.
Somepeople however the next day after their funereal paint the house and move on like nothing happened and take all their stuff to the charity shop.
Afterwards some people want to live everyday to their fullest, others cant be happy again. Some feel too much so shut down, some feel so dead inside they turn to drugs and alcohol and sex to feel alive.

I heard a bereavement story once, a couple lost their university age daughter. and the Dad NEVER got over it, when his daughter died he promised to never be happy again, he couldn't without his daughter. The couple were invited to the Uni Graduation where they'd mention their daughter, the Dad didn't go, Their daughters uni Friends got married, the parents were invited, the dad refused to go, their Daughters uni friends had babies and invited the parents to christenings, the Dad wouldn't go. 10-15 years the Dad would bump into his daughters friends about town and they'd try to engage him in conversation but he was having none of it. The only way he could cope with grief was to be sad the rest of his life. Happiness can feel like you're betraying the memories of loved ones.

I had the pleasure and honour of meeting Irvin Yalom once, he said - Loosing someone isn't like loosing a set of keys, it's like having an arm amputated.

Greif works it was through you, you can't work through grief. I understand your partners situation and I have been in it. If he chooses to stay there and you don't you can always leave him. With years of counselling your partner will learn he can be his own parent and hopefully rewire his sad brain with neuroplasticity, but this will take 2-3 years. It will stir up awful things for him, abandonment etc and he will change considerably, maybe for the better but he will have some tough times ahead.

He sounds like he'll plod along like this, you however wont. I wish you both all the best.

I would not have great amounts of sympathy for someone , who keeps dwelling on some sad events in their life, to the point that they have repeated behaviours, to bring forth the great sadness that they feel at certain times. But I do know some people, who do such as this.

It must be quite debilitating, if people get locked into this kind of situation, and they don't have great coping abilities.,, but then again, some people like to keep remembering, some past sad and traumatic events, as they feel it's important that they do so..

It's not so fair though, that it's going to keep affecting other family members, and that they all have to work around another persons state of mind.

@SorrySadDog i think you are in a really difficult position. I don't think he is at fault because he can't help it. But he does need to keep working on himself. Are you prepared to stick around while he does?

You need to put your child first in my opinion. If this is massively impacting on your child then I would have to think long and hard about whether this relationship is worth waiting around for, knowing he may never get better.

How long have you been together and how old is your son?

@JaniieJones

'I'm not sure how it's helpful to tell her that she's not allowed occasionally to feel irritated?'

Well mental health conditions can be 'irritating' I suppose. As I said perhaps if she accessed some online support or whatever she may develop tools to manage the situation rather than eye rolling?

It all depends, if he is loving and they're happy most of the time great, anniversaries and Christmas will have to be tolerated as best as they can. If his grief and PTSD does dominate their lives then she'll need to leave for her ds's sake.

In terre doing comment when you see the answers usually get when they post they have some MH issues.

All along the lines of ‘it’s extremely hard work for the other partner’, you need to make of an effort etc…. Rather than why aren’t your partner making more effort to support you…

Is he ‘celebrating’ by drinking or is he drinking to extremes on his birthday so as to block out the pain? People drink for all kinds of reasons, not all of them celebratory

Well, he's not miserable and refusing to participate as part of the family for a month, in direct comparison.

His mother's birthday, is so painful that he has to be miserable and mourn for the whole month. Yet his birthday, which he should equally feel the absence of his parents, he doesn't do this. He has a drink. Whether that's in pity or celebration. If he can get over it in one day with a few drinks when it's his own birthday without his parents, then why the month long mourning and ignoring of OP when it's equally another birthday without his parents?

So each year, he does this a month for his mum's birthday. A month for his dad's birthday. Presumably also mother's day and father's day, (and the week either side at a guess, if he needs a month for birthdays) then the whole run up to Christmas, including Christmas and the New Year. Apart from his own birthday which he doesn't need a month of mourning for, despite this being an occasion that would be very poignant regarding both parents being absent. Just a few drinks for that.

All while this little boy doesn't get to celebrate, year on year, the way a child should, his childhood memories being formed as this, because his stepfather's lack of managing his grief is put before him.

I think wiping out a month at a time is too much and you need to consider the impact on your child, particularly if someone he lives with just disappears for those 2 months and Christmas.

@1forAll74 you know he can't help it right? He's not choosing to be sad!

You could try some joint counselling, to agree ways of being there for him without it impacting on special events for the wider family (Christmas, Birthdays etc), but also limiting impact on life in general. A special remembrance day or two through the year are fine; you could all support him and give him the space to talk about the family he lost young, the things he would like them to have seen that year etc. I couldn't be having someone ruining Christmas for everyone including the boy though, that's not on, and nor is losing a whole 3 months of the year. If he won't work out how to make space for everyone else to enjoy life, then sadly I'd say it's time to separate, your DS doesn't need to be raised in misery.

My children lost their dad at a similar age but I think losing both wouldn't just be twice as big a loss but multiple times as bad as they wouldn't have the other parent to comfort them and for the security etc. Having said that it's sad for your children that they're missing out on their dad at Christmas etc too. I hope the therapy helps him.