Feeling sad and helpless, ruminating on fiancé's childhood trauma

[LieInsAreExtinct]

Hi, I met my partner just over a year ago on a dating app, and things moved quite fast. He moved in with me in August, and we're engaged. We're both late 50s, divorced for a number of years, and I have two adult DC, one almost 20 still at home.
Very soon after we met he told me he had been physically and emotionally abused by both his parents as a child and had run away a lot, then continued to have an unstable time, including staying with an uncle who gave him cannabis at 16 and moving around various temporary homes. He had struggled with mental health in his late 40s and finally sought help, getting 2 years of psychotherapy for complex PTSD.
He is an amazing person, I wonder how he is even alive with some of the things he went through, and although some of the trauma clearly still does affect him at times, he feels like the therapy 'worked', he doesn't have nightmares or flashbacks, he succeeds in work, he doesn't dwell on the past. He has extremely limited contact with his mum, and none with his dad. He has limited contact with his 3 younger siblings, but more because of age gap, distance, busy lives and the fact he left home by 16, than any major fallout. (He's very fond of one of his brothers in fact.)
Me? I've found it really hard to deal with, I get tearful quite often, have hostile feelings towards his mum, and find myself ruminating over it and visualising his abuse. What makes it worse is I work in MH and read a lot of histories , which constantly trigger these thoughts. I also feel it's selfish of me, having had a reasonably happy childhood, to get miserable about his. I have told him but he just says 'All of that happened a really long time ago'. I know this is true and it's part of the therapy to separate 'then' and 'now', but it's all new to me, and the hurt and shock is fresh. I feel it's having a negative effect on us both, me getting tearful and sad when we're having loving moments, as well as general low mood at other times. I don't want to either stop him from telling me things or pressure him into talking about things when he would rather not. There are some details I really wish he hadn't told me, on the other hand I want to know everything about him. Any ideas or suggestions for me to deal with this better? TIA

i’d be way more cautious OP

way more cautious

you’re moving at breakneck speed with someone who has had a very very troubled life

does he work? did he / does he have a property before he moved in with you?

TBH he's the one who should be cautious.

Sounds like you were able to compartmentalise your job from your "real life" up until the point where you are in a close relationship with someone personally affected.

I think you need some professional help tbh. I would be worried that you are developing some sort of trauma response.

bit of both i suspect

mind you… he didn’t move the op into his home with his 20 year old son still living there when she’d known him a few months

Agree with first post. Major red flags here. Why have you moved a man you barely know, with known mental health problems, into your home with your teenage child? I'd expect better of a mental health professional.

Red flags. Everything going way too fast.

What "known mental health problems"? Lots of people have shit childhoods, seek appropriate help and move on.

He had struggled with mental health in his late 40s and finally sought help, getting 2 years of psychotherapy for complex PTSD. That was 10 years ago.

You are not bod therapist. Neither should you be.
He needs to take this to therapy and deal with it best he can.
It’s not your job. You can be cross on his behalf. But you can solve this. It’s his to process. If he can do that.

Re-read what you just wrote. You seem to be furiously agreeing with me.

Moving things at rapid speed is very dodgy. Be careful.

You are way way too invested in his traumatic experience. It's incredibly unhealthy. It's also not helpful to him. I'd find this really difficult to deal with. I've had to deal with some traumatic issues and if I had a partner getting so upset about it I would hate that. I'd feel pitied ( people don't want pity, it's not the same as empathy). You sound incredibly emotionally vulnerable and this is risky for you. People who are deeply sensitive to others and emotional like this can be magnets to abuse.

It is not healthy for you and it's certainly not good for him to have to see you get so upset on his behalf. It's beyond empathetic seriously.

This doesn't sound a good set up to me.

Had. Not has. Past tense.

i thought the same! furiously agreeing!

To answer some of the concerns here, yes he works hard at 2 jobs and is at pains to contribute fully to the household and chores, also a whizz at repairs and maintenance. He's met pretty much all of my friends and family, and I have met a lot of his friends and colleagues too, and some family.
He was renting when I met him, but owned property when he was married, and had recently sold a business. I'm not worried about his motives. He gets on very well with my son and is more of a father to him than his real father who has been more or less absent for 13 years.
My question was more about how to talk to him, what kind of help to get for myself, and if I did go for counseling for example, how to talk to him about that, as I said I feel a bit weird about being traumatised by his trauma.

“known”

i mean do you know what that means don’t you? to know something. Whether or not it fits in with your timeline for acceptance @Eyesopenwideawake is irrelevant

Look up vicarious trauma or secondary trauma. It’s not just ‘his’ - you can get trauma symptoms from hearing about someone else’s experience.

If you go to counselling, you don’t need to tell him exactly why surely.

you are a mental health professional? and you’re asking us?

Also, it’s concerning that he’s shared details with you. That doesn’t sound appropriate. DH knows I’ve experienced trauma in general terms but I’d never tell him specifics as why does he need that in his head.

Not a clinician, in admin. Some knowledge of therapies and presentations, and a lot of exposure to notes and correspondence.

Hmm, I sometimes wonder if it was right but he didn't share great detail all at once. I'm sure there's a lot he hasn't shared. I asked him how he got the scars, and he told me... should he have lied? He's had to explain why certain memories or experiences are missing from his childhood as we are similar age and background, superficially. Again I would rather have honesty, I would be puzzled about him hiding something if he didn't explain.

you think you need trauma therapy because of what your boyfriend of little over a year has told you about this childhood?

I find the responses you're getting here a bit strange. So he didn't have a good childhood and had to be independent from a young age. He had some resultant emotional problems that he seems to have largely dealt with. Telling you so soon into your relationship is a bit odd, but it was his life I suppose. And unfortunately his experiences are not uncommon.

I dunno. My childhood had it's moments, I've had therapy for it. I've had partners who have also had trauma and had treatment to process it. I guess I'm having trouble imagining how you can be so upset by another person's experiences. Sad for them yes, but you seem very troubled. Overly so. Were/are you very sheltered? Maybe you and this man are just not very compatible...

Yes you are right, that's what is worrying me! I need to get over it. It may just take a little time. We have moved fast, but we're going to make it work. We're not going to get married for a while yet, but we've agreed we have limited healthy years left and we have lots of plans.

OP, do you feel you have some sort of vulnerability or difference that makes this particularly difficult for you to process. It's a very extreme emotional reaction. It's wonderful that you can be in touch with feelings so deeply but this is slightly out of the ordinary.
There are a subset of people known as Highly Sensitive People (HSPs). I think it's approximately 20% of the population. I'd be looking into myself and what this is about more so than anything else because it could make this relationship and others really difficult.

I hope that doesn't sound patronising, Im not intending to make you feel stupid. It's just potentially a bad recipe here.

No, I don't... maybe some counseling, or just someone to talk to about it in confidence with some supportive suggestions...we're in our late 50s so 'boyfriend of little over a year' means 'life partner of about 5% of remaining life'!