When your partner has PTSD, staying a lover matters more than becoming a caregiver. Taking on a parental role kills attraction and lets them avoid responsibility for their own healing. John's wife and others explain why the distinction changes everything.
Yeah, I think one of the greatest things— and babe, why don't you talk about the whole caregiver thing you've seen in other people?
Oh yeah, I've seen it happen a lot of times where a spouse will take on that caregiver role instead of staying firmly in the spouse position. I am John's wife. I am not his caretaker. I am not some sort of mother thing, you know. And so I think that's— that will destroy your relationship with your spouse if you If you take on that caregiver role. And so I'm his partner, I am his support, I'm his wife. And, you know, you can't make love to your caregiver. So—
You can't make love to your mother. It's just— having done that as a 4-year-old, I don't recommend it.
No. And I think that it does change your relationship because people are not attracted that way. They're not attracted to a caregiver per se or a mother or a parent. Yeah. You know, so it does take away so much from your relationship when you have that change in power from being equals and partners.
Yeah. Yeah, very much so. And she's tremendous at that. And yet all of that, she's an incredible help to me. I mean, in any way, in every way. But she does it from a place of being my wife, you know, and seeing me as her husband, not seeing me as a victim or broken or, you know, anything else.
So I have a responsibility to my thoughts and my thinking towards him. I have to realize that he's doing his best, and he's a man with struggles, but he's a man, and he's the man that I married. And so it's my responsibility to take care of my own mental well-being and manage my own thoughts. And so if we, you know, if I get offended at him by something he said, or You know, he's having a bad day or a struggle and he's, you know, not nice to me or whatever it is, it's my responsibility to go to him and say, I need to talk about this. I need to, you know, because it's my thoughts and my thinking towards my husband.
