How do I stop triggering my partner?

[sorrymess]

My partner has been suffering from symptoms of PTSD since soon after the birth of our child, several months ago. The trauma stems from loss of control during and following a complicated pregnancy and birth, coupled with being dependent on people (i.e. me) who did not provide adequate care, protection and concern during these times. The full story is more complex, of course, and involves more players (e.g. midwives, doctors, my mother), but those are the broad strokes.

When my partner is triggered, and flips into an episode, she goes through hell. She is consumed with anger and despair, cannot eat properly, cannot sleep properly, and cannot control her feelings. These episodes can last a few days. They are horrible to watch, and I desperately want to avoid pushing her into one.

The trouble is, I keep doing it. She has several different triggers, mostly originating from the time following the birth while she was extremely unwell. Examples of triggers include startling her while she's asleep, or taking the baby from her without asking. She tells me that she's more likely to "flip" if I'm rude or unpleasant after triggering her. But although she's told me about these triggers multiple times, I find myself pulling them over and over again. And if she berates me for triggering her I often lose patience and snap at her, which seems to make things much worse.

The costs of doing this are so incredibly high, and the sitaution is completely unsustainable as it stands. She's told me that living with me is torture, and that as soon as she is physically well enough she wants to leave. I want to stop making her feel this way, and of course I worry about the effect on our child. What can I do? Has anyone else been through something like this? Did anything help?

For the record, she is taking an SSRI at the moment (one that had worked for a previous bout of depression) but it doesn't seems to help at all with these episodes. She is reluctant to see a counsellor as medical settings are something she now finds triggering, plus the counsellor would be from the same trust that botched her pregnancy.

I am a CBT therapist and I agree with other posters that the treatments with good evidence are trauma-focussed CBT and EMDR. It’s important to make sure you deal only with a properly accredited member of the BABCP (the professional association for CBT in the UK) who has also trained properly in EMDR. So you need to find a psychologist or MSc level therapist. Only accredited therapists can do the ‘gold standard’ EMDR training. If you look on the CBTregisteruk.com then that has a list of all the accredited therapists by area. Some will be accredited by the AREBT as well and this means they practice Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy as well which is just another form of CBT and is useful. So that’s the route for private treatment. Alternatively your partner can ask your health visitor and GP to refer her to IAPT. However there are long waiting lists for this and the chances of getting more specialised help with trauma are slimmer, that’s not to say there aren’t good therapists in the NHS, some of the best are there, it’s just the system. Counselling is often useful but not for trauma. Trauma is like have a terrible experience and trying to put it all away in a cupboard; at the time you stuff all the memories in there, untidily and shut the doors as best as you can but because the memories are all packed in there untidily sometimes the doors just fly open and everything comes tumbling out. TF-CBT aims to provide a safe environment to unpack each memory, examine it, make sense of it and the emotions attached to it (fear,guilt,shame) and once it’s understood and processed to put it back neatly in the cupboard so the doors close easily and it’s possible to open the doors to the memories when you choose and only when you choose. A good therapist will make sure that at the end of each session the client is comfortable before they leave the session and may book longer sessions to manage this effectively. I know a previous poster has mentioned NLP, EFT and hypnotherapy as successful for them but I would urge you, in the case of trauma, to avoid these largely unregulated therapies; there is no evidence for them and because of their lack of regulation the people carrying them out are not sufficiently trained to manage risk and other issues arising, nor are they good at assessing when they should be leaving well alone. That’s not to say there aren’t some very good therapists out there but trauma is not one to tinker about with, it needs someone with good clinical training and experience.

Sorry about the above, I need to learn to use paragraphs!

I am sorry, I may of missed it? How were things between the two of you before ???

Birth trauma is truly horrific. I felt like I had been raped. I can really sympathize with your wife's reaction to being unexpectedly touched. I agree with others who've recommended Emdr. It's quick, effective, and she doesn't have to talk about it.

She sounds like a bit of a nightmare and is taking it out on you unfairly I think. She needs to get help.

I'm on the same page as LaCroissant here I think. I imagine your relationship would improve a great deal if could stop being a short tempered argumentative prickly (to use your own words) and if you accidentally bash into her don't tell her it's her fault as some sort of experiment to see if you can get away with it. Also, if you've only taken the baby away from her once then why would you say that's a trigger? You were in the middle of a screaming argument anyway. Apart from you, who is closest to your wife? Does she have friends, a sister, her mother? I would encourage her to spend as much time as possible with people she generally gets along fine with and prioritise addressing your own lack of patience/hot tempered personality at the same time. Others on this thread have been exceptionally helpful with good advice on the sort of therapy your partner could seek out. Hooray for Mumsnet!

And to others on this thread who have trotted out the usual old clichés about misandry and "if you were a woman" yada yada. The op has himself told us what he is like in his various updates, I'm not sure why the posters pointing out that his behaviour needs addressing are getting a hard time!

Youokhun, there are plenty of research papers available that have found evidence on the effectiveness of hypnosis and PTSD, especially on combat veterans. There are also studies looking into the effectiveness of mindfulness and meditation on veterans with PTSD.

Being unregulated does not equate to being unqualified. Many of my colleagues have spent thousands on their training and continue to invest in training in order to help their clients more.

I would like to know how you come to the conclusion that these people are not well trained and are not good at assessing situations arising within the client. In my experience, as with many others, this is simply not the case.

CBT can be incredibly useful for some people, but not all. We're all different and we respond better to some therapies than others. The trick is to finding what suits you.

Spannerkeks

Ask yourself why you were unable to advocate for her in labour. I'm sure the pressure on you was intense, but you (like lots of men) bowed to that rather than standing with your partner. She may need the two of you to confront this head on.

Oh fuck right off. This is disgusting. Men "bow" to pressure for the same reason women do. Because they defer to medical authority. Women do the same. The idea that the OP is somehow a failure because he didn't stop the birth trauma is just male bashing nonsense.

We get it. You hate men. Any man who comes along MUST be the cause of the women's issues. Despite it very clearly being PTSD, he MUST have caused it. Just leave him alone. There's plenty of threads on this board that have Evil Men You Can Blame.

I actually didn't read that as male bashing at all. It's true, lots of birth partners don't advocate for the women giving birth. Statistically they're mostly men, it's just a fact, it's not bashing. And it's does cause extra hurt,'I'm sorry but it just does. Almost all the mums I know were disappointed in the support their partner provided during labour and it's hurt them. But there is no point pretending it doesn't happen, if fact we should be more open to discussion on it. Everyone should feel more empowered during the process of birth, men and women.

What a load of nonsense. Of course most birth partners are men: most people are straight and women give birth. Making it about "men failing women" instead of about how most people will always defer to medical authority is a complete waste of time. Women defer to medical authority in many situations as well. Deferring to authority is human nature.

I haven’t read the full thread but I highly recommend EMDR therapy for any kind of trauma/ptsd.
In my area you can access it through your gp or self refer so worth looking into.
It has a high success rate and I’d say it’s transformed my life in terms of the debilitating and distressing symptoms I was having.
It must be hell for her but equally sounds difficult for you too.

Nobody said men were failing women! You are inferring that meaning entirely yourself.

I don't hate men. I've a husband & sons I love so much. It's really hard to stand up for your partner in labour. And if you fail to, the effects can be severe and the woman may need to go through why that happened, with you.