Childhood PTSD Makes It Hard to Discern Good Partners: Here Are Some Signs

what's worse when you fall for people who are wrong for you and you didn't have a way to recognize that at the time or when you leave a relationship that was actually the good one but you didn't have a way to recognize that at the time people who grew up loved and cared for by their parents have what looks like such an easy time defining what a good relationship is the rest of us there kind of needs to be an instruction manual what the signs are that you should be looking for in the other person in the relationship you have so i'm going to help answer that right now my letter today is from a woman i'll call mina and she writes thank you for your content i have cptsd and unsurprisingly i have relationship issues this is my back story i was adopted from an asian country as an infant after having spent my first eight months in an orphanage from what i understand it was quite a shabby place and i have visible scars from that time so i probably started developing issues early on then i was adopted by a pretty dysfunctional couple my dad is alcoholic and he drank severely when i was younger and my parents argued a lot when he was drunk my dad would often talk about wanting to have a son so i felt like i was competing with a non-existent sibling when i was a teenager he cheated on mom and made me an accomplice and nearly drank himself to death a couple of times and i feel like that's when i started having troubles with my mom too i feel like there's a lapse in her mental growth instead of her protecting and comforting me i had to do it for her i think i was a relatively easy child i'm circling this i've got the fairy pencil and i'm going to read through this whole letter a circle what i want to come back to and then i'm going to read it again and see if i can help you mina okay i think i was a relatively easy child and teenager a nerdy loner who did my best to please my parents and never seriously rebelled or tried to be very independent fast forward into my early twenties i met a guy who was interested in me and i decided to give it a go because i'd never done any of that before thinking it would just be a short fling and he would get bored with me in a couple of months and i wouldn't mind and there would be no hurt feelings but of course that's when my cptsd symptoms started to seriously surface and cause trouble i think i rocked between being clingy and avoidant because i couldn't find the balance and kept worrying that he would break up with me for one or the other then he told me he wanted to smoke pot because he was stressed over something i couldn't tolerate that but he wouldn't give it up so he broke up with me then he changed his mind a couple of days later and decided he would choose me over the pot and he has stuck to that so we got back together and i started working on myself identifying my symptoms and seeing a therapist i got better at not doing the hot cold thing but somehow i always had some kind of dread looming over me and got periodically depressed it was never formally analyzed as such but seems likely now we stayed together for three or four years but it was hard because we couldn't afford to live together we each lived with our parents also i was very scared of thinking too far ahead and i would panic when he brought up future plans and i still had that feeling of looming abandonment understandably he interpreted that as a lack of faith in him and eventually broke up with me again he said i self-actualized it which is probably fair i did some more self-work therapy and courses like dale carnegie but it was slow going and i felt the progress was pretty limited then a few months later he contacted me again and guess what i did not only did i take him back i agreed to take him back right before he left the country for six months on an exchange student program i did have major reservations about the arrangement but it felt like sliding down a slippery slope with no control i know now abandonment wounds trauma bonding all that anyway he then came back and back home and i demanded that for this to work we would have to live together i was just out of university and he was still studying so we got to live at my parents renovated garage for a low rent which we could afford and we're still here four years later and that looming dread is also still there now i should clarify that even though all of the above paints him in a bad light i take responsibility for my part his assessment of me leading to those breakups was correct and he is absolutely not a terrible or an abusive partner he's sweet and frequently tells me how much he adores me and loves me and thinks i'm special and wonderful he's very good at expressing his feelings compared to me and not afraid of showing affection whereas the word love feels very foreign in my mouth nobody used that when i was growing up and he's super patient and understanding when i'm having my emotional meltdowns so he's a good partner when i'm in a crisis in some ways i wish i was more like him he's usually laid back and free spirited and very adventurous and if i let him he could probably help me out of my comfort zone but i'm more of a by-the-book routine person maybe stuck in my usual habits out of fear i find the day-to-day living can be dull though the classic conflict of dividing house chores is very annoying to me i often feel like a caretaker i can't decide which is more frustrating having to instruct him like a child or having to do it all myself to get it properly done maybe as he says i'm too uptight about it focusing on the wrong things we don't have all that much in common as far as hobbies go but then again i know i'm not supposed to depend on him entirely for entertainment we have very different love languages he places value in words and i in actions and they can be hard to synchronize and i think we're both hurt by it then there is the issue of the future he wants to have children and i'm not so sure though if in eight years i still haven't come around to his side is it likely i ever will i don't feel like i could be a competent parent and frankly i question his capacity in that area as well given his lack of initiative around the house but still it would not be right of me to deny him that if that's what he wants i feel a lot of guilt toward him over the issue even though i've been completely honest about that the whole time i've not been deceiving him or leading him on in that regard he just decided i would change my mind because that's what he feels is normal i mean i kind of do too but also i'm terrified of raising children and totally messing them up in the head so basically i fear i would regret doing it and not doing it on top of that he does have some drinking issues which further sways me away from those family plans he also has an alcoholic father it might only happen once or twice a year that he drinks to the point of being totally out of it but it's still very upsetting to me i would not want to have children to see that when i asked if he would give it up entirely if he had children he says it wouldn't be so bad but i don't know if this if his control can be trusted i guess our history has caused some dents in my trust overall sometimes i feel like i can't really come up with good reasons why we're still in a relationship so i ask myself what is he still doing here should i be kicking him out and then all hell breaks loose in my head and if i try i'll have trouble talking and i also have this separation anxiety that makes it hard to breathe when he's going away even just for a short time or if i think about asking him to leave permanently it's that abandonment melange i guess i've tried to talk to him about all these things that bother me and he has set out right that he would rather leave than not have certainty of my commitment but he's still there so he it's probably not as simple as as he makes it out to be maybe he wants me to make the move because he already did twice i'm wondering how to sort my thoughts and what to do is there something here that could or should be salvaged can my trust issues be fixed do i judge him too harshly for current and maybe unimportant failings because of what happened in the past would it help to get out from under my parents who by the way do not and have never liked him one therapist suggested to me depression medications i know that's not your thing but would it be worth a try could it help me see more clearly she also suggested couples therapy could it help us talk in a more controlled environment or would that just stall what's maybe inevitable does it feel inevitable to me because i'm pessimistic and depressed and have abandonment wounds like a colander or is it like a colander or is it actually hopeless is it best to just end it i can't decide if that would be facing the problems or running away from them and in that case how would i even go about it my throat literally closes up just at the thought of it so how would i even get the words past my lips i hope you have some blunt advice for me as i'm very confident and confused and that is from mina nina i think i can help thank you for writing um i think your situation is actually really hopeful that's my gut feeling about it i realize that it's ambiguous i don't know you i don't have every detail that a person would need but i think this sounds helpful and i'll let's go through your letter and i'll tell you why all right so you say you were adopted after eight months in an orphanage and you had like physical visible scars from that time you still have them so probably yes you started developing issues early on i think you're a miracle i think i think everything you're doing with your life is just nothing but sheer wonder because of what happened to you as a baby and that is well known to to end up in an orphanage and for eight months i mean even babies who are adopted right at birth sometimes there's like work to do to develop that ability to connect and bond with people so that dread you feel and that feeling like you're going to get left you know you're a person too and you're living in a relationship just like anybody in a relationship but with that going on i totally get how it's complicating that feeling like is that feeling happening because this guy's no good or is it just like the background noise of being an adopted kid who went through abuse in the orphanage and then you get adopted by this couple where the dad he's an alc the dad's an alcoholic and he was severe they argued a lot when he was drunk he'd often talk about wanting to have a son so he didn't value you and when he was a teenager when you were a teenager he cheated on your mom and made you an accomplish you know oh mina that'll do it you know that will do it that will create a lot of distrust in your life i think you're always going to need a way to kind of digest all the residue of that trauma that happened to you that the things you can't remember and the things you can remember that have resulted in you like never being sure that people are going to be there for you at all or that they're safe or that they're telling the truth and or what's going to happen when they drink so that i think in your life i would encourage you to support yourself in healing from that one thing you can do is go to al-anon i went for years it was fantastic because you know i had an alcoholic mom and i was very affected by that and it helped me tremendously to be in a place where i could go every day if i needed to i always had a place to go and i could listen to other people working through their stuff i could do my stuff and you know it's a program of recovery it's a 12-step program so it's very structured but optional nobody has to do it a certain way and people will help you and there's something about just like hanging out with people you find out oh i have i have what they have i have what she has too that we have very common symptoms of of kids who grew up with alcoholism you've got the double whammy adopted and alcoholism but your symptoms sound really common that thing about dread that rings a bell to me okay so then you say you were an easy kid and teenager you were a nerdy loner who did your best to please your parents and never seriously rebelled or tried to be independent so that's a coping mechanism and it's not a bad one i think it's one of the better coping mechanisms for a kid who's growing up in a traumatic situation nerdy loner me too and the not seriously rebelling that sounds like a rational way to deal with alcoholic parents who kind of flip out about stuff or your mom you say she was kind of immature and couldn't really cope with things or comfort you so you know just kind of stay flying under the radar that sounds smart mina that just sounds like a good coping mechanism but now well now you're still living with them so there's that there's still a little bit of that and they have the disapproval of your relationship i'm going to comment on that i think that it would be very productive for you and your boyfriend not to live there whether you live together or separate not living there because so much of your trauma is linked to your parents and they have this disapproval so how are you really going to discern with a clear mind what's going on from everything you're telling me i think this guy deserves a period of discernment i think this is worth taking a look working on healing your own stuff all right he was interested in you when you met him um you gave it a go because you've never done anything like that before it's funny that sounds so casual it sounds yeah it sounds uh you remind me your writing reminds me a little bit of charles bukowski who's a writer i always liked very matter-of-fact kind of talks about hard things in the totally plain language and i like your straightforwardness it's really easy to kind of understand where you're coming from you thought it would be a short fling and he would get bored with you in a couple months and you wouldn't mind and there would be no hurt feelings that's what you thought but when your cptsd symptoms started to seriously surface and cause trouble that happened and you rocked between clinging and avoiding him because you couldn't find the balance and you kept worrying that he'd break up with you so i think that's really normal i think the going between clinging and avoiding like that's exactly what an attachment wound looks like and if anybody has an attachment wound it's a kid who was in an orphanage for the first eight months and then you know had the difficulty with the adoptive parents so that's what it would look like you know it's it's sort of like a jerky car with a sticky gas pedal you know earth not knowing how to do it but you're still human and your heart's still there and you're doing it you're still you have formed a relationship and then what activated for you finally from the sort of like casual indifference like let's just see what happens to like wow i'm gonna be really messed up if he leaves the abandonment the fear of abandonment you got close enough to somebody to have fear of abandonment and it's not that i think it's desirable to be in that fear but at least it's a sign like you're activating your heart and your attachment you know the part of you that attaches and loves is waking up it's waking up and i think that's positive too so then the boyfriend told you he wanted to smoke pot because he was stressed over something and you couldn't tolerate that so i heard that you don't like any drinking you don't like any pot smoking and i don't know where you live i live in california some drinking and pot smoking is just so terribly normal for people especially young people well actually people my age too because i'm in northern california but it's just really common it's just how people relax and um but because i went to al-anon too i've had periods of my life where i was really uncomfortable around people doing anything intoxicating i feel much more relaxed about it now and i think that's because i don't know i just feel more secure in myself i feel um like my boundary is if anything feels weird to me i can just walk out of the situation now that said because i ended up in relationships with people who had you know certifiable terrible problems with drugs they were addicts they overdosed you know i knew that for me i didn't want to be around that anymore so i don't i don't really mind being around people who are smoking pot or drinking but anything harder than that i would definitely not be around and i made a conscious decision when i changed my life and decided to you know completely not date anybody anymore until i was very clear how it needed to be by then i was a mom and it had to be for me somebody who did not now or ever have a drug or alcohol problem because that was just too much of a slippery slope for me so i respect you if that really is your boundary and i would just also respectfully put out there that it's possible that you are guarding against childhood trauma and taking it out on him if he wants to get drunk a couple times a year in smoke pot sometimes when he's stressed to me it's actually not that big a deal it's just that it's a it's enough of a big deal for you and because i understand that that's a legitimate thing and when you're you know the couple's counseling when your therapist said suggested couples counseling yes i think that would be the place to talk about that and negotiate it um is have a structured talk you know here's how i feel about it here's how i feel about it and what are we going to do and work it out and see if you can surface the feelings that and your question about having kids so let's get let's read about that so you stayed together for three or four years but it was hard because you couldn't afford to live together you each lived with your parents also you were very scared of thinking too far ahead and you would panic when he brought up future plans and you still had that feeling of looming abandonment so that's i think that's also a counselor thing something to go much deeper in because panicking about talking about the future mostly to me sounds normal for the type of trauma that you've had and that that could be relaxed a little bit through some techniques that we'll talk about that could be relaxed a little bit or you could or whatever it is that's sort of making you feel dread and like you can't really let yourself go whatever that is whatever the truth of that is if it's because this is the wrong guy or just because you are in fact still in your trauma and just having trouble you know moving past it towards intimacy that it's either way sounds true i don't really know but i'm kind of leaning towards this is your trauma because everything you've told me about this guy he's got some excellent qualities and you like him enough that i don't know i think you love him i think you do even though you say you can't say the word i'm just going to challenge you you know to really think about that is it true that you don't love him or is it just hard to say and have you been able to express that since he likes words his love languages words as you say um a good thing to do when you're with somebody is to is to do things in their love language and for anybody who is doesn't know what that is uh you know there's a there's an author who's defined like five love languages that different people have for some people it's touch and some people it's action and some people it's words and um so you said for you it's actions so you probably like him to do things around the house that's how love is expressed for you and if he were writing me i'd be like dude you have to do stuff around the house but we'll get to that in a minute but you need to give him the words if you care about him and you want to be with him give him the words and um don't lie to him but but go out of your comfort zone if you must to tell him what he what what is true in your heart about how you feel about him because that means a lot to him that's how he feels loved and he deserves that so three or four years you were scared of thinking too far ahead and you'd panic and understandably he interpreted that as a lack of faith in him and eventually broke up with you again and he said that you self-actualize the problem and you say that's probably fair so what i like about him is he you know he he's not a total doormat about this he's just like look if this is going to go on and on that you don't trust me i'm out of here but one of the signs so when my husband and i got mentored and deciding whether to get married one of the signs we were told is that there's several signs that something is a marriage and and one of them is that you find that it's really hard to stay apart and that scared me because that's also a sign of being like in a trauma bond right and i needed help discerning that but that is why i brought mentors in you have a therapist you're writing to me and i'm going to suggest to you that you also go to al-anon and get a sponsor there because clearly alcoholism has affected you here and your discomfort with his drinking that might be how that that might be really how it is with you it might be something that's just residue and you're going to relax about it but i think it's really important to deal with the effects of alcoholism and elena it's free it's so supportive and you can get mentorship through a sponsor there who can help you with this stuff who the day-to-day things that come up can help talk you through it all right that's before i ever did crappy childhood fairy i was a sponsor i sponsored probably 300 women over the years before i ever even started this that's a lot how i learned how to be of service to other people and i i can't say enough good things about it that people can help each other in that way for anybody who's like going into a 12-step program go to at least six meetings before you decide if it's for you because sometimes you go to one and you're like i don't like those people and you leave but keep going persevere and my suggestion is get a sponsor very quickly and get the best sponsor you can find uh i initially shied away from getting a sponsor who um that i thought would be i was like oh they're gonna be like really rigorous they're gonna expect me to like really take this seriously i want to get the sort of like easy sponsor i that was wasted time for me all the progress i made was when i got the like the kick-ass sponsor who i had been intimidated by initially so i like that you went to therapy and you read dale carnegie and i appreciate that i read dale carnegie when i was very young too i had alcoholic parents i needed somebody to tell me like how do you do this life thing like how do you how do you be successful in your dynamics with people i needed it for stuff like getting a job i applied for a job at mcdonald's when i was 16 and they wouldn't hire me i think i was kind of like rough you know so the dale carnegie stuff helped me it helped me know how to be friendly and outgoing and appropriate because i was basically feral the way i grew up but it was slow going and i felt the progress was pretty limited so you hadn't really felt like you were recovered yet but you were doing something then a few months later he contacted you again and guess what you did she goes guess what i did not only did i take him back i agreed to take him back right before he left the country for six months on an exchange student program so i know that when when a couple is doomed and terrible that's what they do you know one person keeps trying to hook the other one in but that is not what i'm hearing here i'm just hearing there's a certain rightness to the relationship and it's taking time all right so it's for you to filter whether i'm right about that or not but that's what it sounds like to me he came back he was leaving the country he was trying to get on with his life but it just sounds like something in him he knew he still really wanted to work it out with you so you took him back and um you did have major reservations about this arrangement but it felt because it felt like sliding down a slippery slope with no control so it doesn't sound like you guys were living a crazy lifestyle so when you say it felt like no control that also sounds to me like the way a person feels when they have hardcore you know abandonment wounds and that getting together with somebody who really loves you and it's inching closer and closer to serious commitment that would also feel like you know a frightening feeling of things going out of control because you can't control it because you might love him you might take steps forward to make a commitment to him and i could see how that's scary so that's yeah that's my interpretation and then you say i know now abandonment wounds trauma bonding all that anyway he then came i love your writing anyway he then came back home and i demanded that for this to work we would have to live together i think that's sensible because if you're gonna really discern about a relationship just go ahead into the right into the heart of it so now you're living together you were just out of university he was still studying you got to live at your parents renovated garage i mentioned that you had low rent nice you could afford it nice but four years later you're still there with the people who abused you in the first place and who disapprove of your relationship so i i think it'd be very healthy to get out of there now i should clarify even though all of the above paints him in a bad light not very much i take responsibility for my part his assessment of me leading to those breakups was correct and he's absolutely not a terrible or abusive partner good he's sweet frequently tells me how much he adores me and loves me where do we get more of him right he thinks you're special and wonderful and he tells you so he's very good at expressing his feelings compared to you and not afraid of showing affection whereas the word love feels very foreign in my mouth says mina nobody used that when i was growing up and he's super patient understanding when i'm having my emotional meltdowns so he's a good partner when i'm in a crisis in some ways i wish i was more like him he's usually laid back and free spirited and very adventurous and if i let him he could probably help me out of my comfort zone but i'm more of a by the book routine person maybe stuck in my usual habits out of fear that sounds like a really really sane assessment of the situation but what you've described he sounds like he sounds like a dream he sounds not like a bad i don't mean like a fake dream he sounds like the sort of partner everybody would love to have especially if you have cptsd like he can deal with it and i just want to give a shout out to the partners of people with cptsd because they have to have a certain kind of toughness and deep-heartedness to be able to deal with the way we get dysregulated the way we get wonky sometimes i never advocate that we have a right to walk all over them or be cruel but just that it does take patience and and i love everybody who loves us for being that way with us so what you're describing here i think sounds like husband material so far all right then you say i find the day-to-day living can be dull the classic conflict of dividing house chores is very annoying to me you're also describing marriage i think this is really normal i'm not saying it's great but it's the day-to-day living together can be dull and the dividing house chores is often a point of conflict and yes the woman does end up often doing more than her share sometimes you feel like a caretaker and i can't decide which is more frustrating having to instruct him like a child or having to do it all myself to get it properly done yeah neither one is a good option but yeah what do you do you're kind of between a rock and a hard place and i think that we could have a whole video about that issue of chores and i'll tell you what i do in in my house is i pick my battles and i don't fight about everything and then i have come to appreciate encourage and support the fact that my husband contributes energy to our family life in other ways he's not the biggest housework guy although he's actually doing a great job right now because i'm busy all the time doing crappy childhood fairy stuff so he's carrying more than his his weight right now but he's always contributed a great deal to the life of the family in one way or another and it took me so long to meet him and i was always so happy that i found him and that he was with me that it kind of helped me get over the day-to-day resentment about housework and to appreciate it but again he really does bring you know he's always um you know he's brought in his income he's brought in his stability he's brought in um the the way that we are together has just been such a fantastic improvement for me in my life and my social life in my career to have that stability of him that really when you do you add it all up you know the pros and the cons i'm just i just feel really lucky if you feel lucky in that way i'd say this is a keeper okay maybe as he says i'm too uptight about it focusing on the wrong things yes maybe i mean he could work harder to do his share we don't have all that much in common as far as hobbies go so question mark on that but then again i know i'm not supposed to depend on him entirely for entertainment yes i i think especially these days it's very tempting if you're in a um you know you're living with a partner it can be easy to kind of go into a little closed system and that's never healthy so you want to have outside things work school friends separate friends separate social activities as well as together ones that's that's definitely how you do longevity in a relationship we have very different love languages yes then there's the issue of the future he wants to have children and i'm not sure so this is the one thing that i think could be a deal breaker but it sounds like you're not sure and it sounds like he's not uh die hard fixed that he must have children and he sort of thinks you're going to change and you think you might this is something to go to a counselor about you guys are young you're in your 20s there's still time for you to be together while you get more clarity about this i have a feeling about you that you don't actually get steamrolled into things i didn't hear that you're about to like lose all your boundaries and your preferences and just do whatever he wants i think you guys can come to an honest open solution to this and i don't think it's necessarily going to happen right away but you have the makings of a great relationship and if each of you is somewhat open-minded on this and you're not 100 in opposite corners i think there's hope there's hope that you guys can find the answer to this yeah you said i so basically i fear i would regret doing it and not doing it so that that's ambivalence and the fear of having kids and fear of messing them up is really common for people with cptsd and i think if you were to spend let's say four years four years just really prioritizing your healing from trauma and don't worry about the kid decision until then and allow the relationship to continue if that's what the relationship is naturally doing for four years and i'm guessing you're going to be about 30 in four years that would be a good age to make make a decision one way or the other i mean you guys are like this it's gonna if you are gonna break up it's gonna hurt like hell now it's gonna hurt like hell in the future if you're very very honest with each other i think you have more time to sort this out and see what you're like when you have more healing of your trauma see what you're like when your attachment wound is is more healed and you got more you know more solidity there you you know yourself more also just you know moving from mid-20s to 30 there's a lot of maturation that happens so there's you know time is on your side here to have an easier time making a good decision i think there's too good a thing here for you to walk away right now that's my opinion okay he does have some drinking issues and you said that and he said you said he gets drunk to the point of being out of it a couple times a year so yeah i get it i think that's an allen on question go to al anon and talk about it i can understand the issue but from what you're describing it's a sensitivity of yours more than it's a problem with him so that's that's okay you get to have a sensitivity you get to have a boundary about that but possibly it's something you could live with and trying to control other people's drinking is not the greatest thing you don't really want to get into it i would say if you do decide you're going to stay with him i would completely get out of the business of trying to control whether he drinks or smokes pot you can tell him how you feel about it but if he does it he does it and then without any kind of manipulation if you come to the conclusion i cannot live with this then you go that's what it is but trying to control other people it's gonna it just kind of like sows seeds for future problems people change just so they won't get abandoned it's not a good setup right it's not a clear conscious decision to come together so sometimes you say i feel like i can't really come up with good reasons why we're still in a relationship so i ask myself what is he still doing here i just enjoy your writing should i be kicking him out and then all hell breaks loose in my head if i try i'll have trouble talking i don't know it's do you love him you haven't said it but you sound like you love him you sound like he means a great deal to you and you also have separation anxiety so you don't trust that this is love you you're you're worried this is just trauma keeping you attached to somebody but it's keeping you attached to somebody who's really stuck with you who's patient with you who adores you who lets you know it you know who knows you pretty well and chooses to be with you so i think there's a lot to there's a lot to suggest here that that a lot of what's going on are your trauma wounds and you know what we never get to be perfectly healed of them but you can make a lot of progress on them and it really could shift your perspective i hope you will i hope you'll really work on that um whatever happens to your relationship you've been through a lot and you deserve to heal so i've tried to talk to him about all these things that bother me and he said outright that he would rather leave than not have certainty of my commitment okay guy with boundaries yeah he wants some commitment but he's still here so it's probably not as simple for him as he makes it out to be no it isn't simple when you love somebody and they can it's kind of great but they're not committed to you yes it's complicated so you're wondering how to sort your thoughts out and you've got my thoughts you know you kind of like told me and i i've kind of given you my feedback about it is there something that or can or should be salvaged yes can your trust issues be fixed largely yes i think do i judge him too harshly for current maybe unimportant failings because of what happened in the past i think that's part of it would it help to get out from under my parents yes one therapist suggested to depression medications maybe you know i'm not a therapist and i can't really address that but um maybe maybe maybe that's worth a try one thing for me why i've stayed away from them is there's very little protocol for getting back off of them and there is a lot of evidence for many people that they take them and at first it's helpful and then it is and then what and it starts to create this kind of like chemical instability where maybe there was a solution but i think i think it might help i you know i i can't speak from expertise i've always chosen not to take them i've gone on the on the premise that let's just see what i can do by healing my trauma and it turns out that a lot of things that i do the my daily writing techniques my meditation exercise staying connected with people has lifted me out of the depression i still like i relate to you a lot i have this kind of cynical negativity this like grumpiness that shows up often practically daily and then it kind of softens back up and goes out it's there that's the trauma thing working so you don't want to be like grinding everybody down with that but i would just suggest that maybe before getting on medication that you try the non-medication things that are more sustainable just try them and that said if your therapist was really suggesting it defer to your therapist of course couples counseling definitely i think that would be fantastic it's not inevitable you're getting discernment you're getting clearer and better communication about how you guys each feel hoping that if you can get that on the table you can chart a path forward i think that would be fantastic is it best to just end it i don't think so i can't decide if it would be facing the problems or running away from them it's not really either you're just like all human beings we're trying to figure it out you're doing okay i think you're doing pretty good here so how would you even go about breaking up i'll make a video about that in the near future how to break up but you don't have to do that right now you don't have to do that right now in my opinion so i hope that helps mina good luck to you write back and tell me sometime how it went i'm really thinking about you guys i like you guys i'm i'm hoping for the best for you and for those of you watching if you love this topic and you want to hear more about beliefs that can block your ability to find love and have love i've got a video lined up for you right here and i will see you very soon [Music] you

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Id: 9_MRyGjn9Rk

Length: 36min 39sec (2199 seconds)

Published: Sat May 07 2022