Is PTSD a Reason for Cheating?

Dear LadyDanger,
You deserve better. I thought my husband might have cheated because he had a bad fall at work. No, he was cheating well before the fall.

Getting your financial ducks in a row is a smart move. Take the kindness you are showing him and turn it on yourself. You didn’t cause this, you don’t deserve it, you will survive it. Collect all the evidence possible of his cheating. Obtain copies of all financial records. Find out your credit rating. Open your own bank account and transfer half your savings. Make appointments for him to see counsellors – go yourself if you feel it will help. Document when he doesn’t go to counselling. Model responsible adult behaviour to your children. Your husband will be the example of consequences coming from actions.

Good luck. You have an entire army of chumps worl wide rooting for you.

The original question – did my former spouse give the PTSD excuse? Yes, I got that one as well as the one about him being too crushed by losing his fighterpilot slot to act like a civil person …and these were all in the same basket as being told (many times over 29 years by him and his parents) that he was absolutely crushed in High School by being cut from the basketball team. He was 5-6.

So yea, I got that one…trouble was, he forgot that I knew him before he went to war (he already had many of these traits) and his big war campaign was the first Gulf War that lasted 100 hours. He did sit on a boat off the coast of Kuwait for a few weeks waiting to conduct an amphibious landing (where they expected a 50% casualty count) that got cancelled when the enemy failed to show for the battle.

I think he cheated when we dated then may have done OK as a husband at first, there is a chance that his marital cheating may have started when he was told he would die then he came home and had to reintegrate to his marriage after a “Im going to die, so lets fuck” thing.

For him, at least, it was all just excuses. Im remarked in reading LDs letter that he chose to quit therapy…well if some giant thing causes you to abuse people, if you quit therapy, it doesnt seem you are trying very hard to fight the giant thing.

My late husband’s giant thing was mostly his anger, he was ALWAYS mad & resentful which turned to rage very easily. Never got serious help. He was fine with it, I was the one with the problem. I had PROMISED myself that I had suffered my last rage from him…I had saved money to leave and was mustering up the courage to follow through when he died.

Ever notice chumps of military and first responder career people (police, fire fighter, paramedics) complain that cheating/divorce rates is high?
I’ve heard PTSD, stress of these jobs causes this.

I’ve wondered if the PTSD explanation is real, I know the divorce rates for police are high in first responser fields. I wonder if the high risk, daring nature of someone attracted to those careers in the first place may play a part? I could see a connection with hero complex, control and the risk taking an affair provides.

From my experience (I work in the medical field and spent quite a few years in both military and addiction/HIV treatment settings) PTSD and TBI can alter personality. But cheating and addictive behaviour is not the only “change”. I’ve seen people who have lost cognition, social filters, motor skills, short term memory etc. Add in nightmares, night terrors, extreme reactions to particular sounds or situations. If lying and cheating is the only manifestation of your PTSD or TBI you are simply a lying sack of excrement using a very real and horrifying life changing experience of truly injured people as an excuse.
And if you have the misfortune of being tied to somebody who is genuinely suffering from PTSD and TBI with major behaviour problems step back and look at your situation as if your child, parent, or best friend was dealing with the shitshow. Would you recommend your daughter stay with a raging alcoholic who repeatedly slaps her and the kids around. No! It is not anybody’s responsibility to expose themselves to violent or aberrant behaviour to help somebody too ill to be a competent partner or parent.

When trying to untangle my exes skein (he is now dead at 40 but that’s another story) my very wise therapist told me this when I asked about the mental illness question (what if he is bipolar, has issues from f’d up childhood, has depression issues, grasp grasp grasp). She said this “mental disorder, outside of schizophrenia, doesn’t make good people bad, character is what it is and you can’t fix bad character”. She had many patients that did have some sort of mental illness and they were in there working to be as better as they could be, they were also faithful and worked hard to be good spouses. Your cheater isn’t insane, he knows right from wrong and chooses wrong. PTSD doesn’t make you a cheater, poor character and entitlement make you a cheater. Don’t buy what he’s selling, get out and stop wasting time. You deserve better.

LadyDanger,

You wrote, “AM I the insensitive clinician he makes me out to be…”

LD, you know all about projection and manipulation. He’s calling you insensitive because he is insensitive. You should know that low-empathy people seek out and marry high-empathy people. You are NOT the insensitive one in this relationship.

Prolonged trauma can cause PTSD. If PTSD caused cheating, there are a lot of chumps out here who would be cheating.

I notice that your husband told you he feels no empathy. My ex-h told me the same thing. RUN AWAY. Living with someone who feels no empathy is damaging for children. You must get your children away from him.

Lady Danger,

You said he was sober when he cheated. That’s it. It’s a one-and-done deal breaker. He’s an alcoholic; there’s no addiction or PTSD to blame for fucking someone else, though.

He sucks. Dump his ass. Get a lawyer. Hate him. Make him pay out the nose. He sucks.

Welcome to the club nobody wants to join.

Married 15 years and Ex Army Wife here. My Ex didn’t have a TBI but managed to get the military to label him with PTSD as he deployed 7 times despite having no symptoms associated with that disorder. I can tell you I went to therapy with him at Ft Drum and it was a joke. It looked like the check out at Walmart’s self service isle. He used every excuse from his multiple deployments made him feel like he wasn’t part of the family to his therapist told him to move out and get himself right. The move out one was his justification for moving his affair to NY and continue it while married. I bought most of them hook, line, and sinker so I was definitely a “chump”! Came to his rescue every time he screwed up his life even after the divorce. He would beg and cry for my help then discard once he was brought up to a comfortable level. Finally had enough when I realized he had no desire to change his behavior and I was driving myself into the ground trying to get him to see what he had lost. (pick me) Six months ago, I said to myself, if he actually came back and professed to be “cured” then what does he have to offer to the relationship and family? It’s was a hard reality that the answer is nothing good. So now I am taking the actions that I should have a year and a half ago! I feel I gave him more chances then any person ever should have to “get right” and have the life we had together and instead he found yet another personal ad woman to run to. So I realized she got him! She can keep him! I am moving forward with my life, loosing very little in the process. It is hard to do but I have come to understand that these men never valued us as devoted non cheating wives , family, or the marriage they had. Maybe someday they will wake up, maybe they won’t but in the mean time, I will repair myself and hopefully find someone who does appreciate all that I offer. Best of Luck to you. And positive thoughts to all who are going through this tough journey. We feel that we are alone in it, but know that you aren’t!

Let me give a different perspective on the issue of the relationship between a profession (in this case, the military or law enforcement) and some types of people drawn to it. Overcomer says, “people applying for the [military or law enforcement] have that type personality to begin with, it helps them get the job…thrill seekers, narcissistic looking for hero status and entitlement, able to read situations quickly and take command, great communication skills and charm.” I would only qualify that with “some people” are drawn to those fields for those reasons. As someone in the education field, I’ve seen that some teachers enter the profession because they want the “Dead Poet’s Society” moment where they can become the object of admiration and near-worship by students. Other teachers are in it for the right reason–and there emphasis is on finding a way for students to become their best selves. People go in to coaching and scouting because they love the activities and want to help young people develop skills–OR because it is a place to recruit and groom abuse victims. I’m thinking that many, many professions (business, banking, medicine, accounting) attract people for the wrong reasons. But those people are not healthy or whole going in.

There are many roads to traumatic brain injury, PTSD or chronic traumatic encephalopathy (damage done by recurring concussions, as in football players). But in someone evidencing the symptoms of these disorders, the people involved in their lives need to consider more than the base diagnosis: 1) Is the brain issue or mental illness the major issue? Or is there also an underlying character or personality disorder that combat or injury exacerbated? 2) What evidence is there that the “traumatized” person is aware of the impact of his/her condition on others? What evidence is there that this person is interested in treatment that mitigates that impact? 3) Does it make sense for the family members to live apart from this person in order to allow them to be healthy and functional?

Here’s the bottom line for me: You can help a traumatized loved one without sacrificing everyone else. In many cases (and here I will say that for me alcoholism and addiction are not all that different and in fact are often co-morbid with PTSD, TBI and CTE), injured/ill persons may need to focus on themselves and their healing rather than to fail spectacularly trying to do the impossible: function inside intimate relationships while struggling to recover their own functionality. You can leave someone because you love or loved that person. Because you love your kids and want them to live a healthy life with one sane parent. Because you love and value yourself.

Finally, we can never see the future. I left my XH the alcohol abuser some years ago and whether or not he is drinking, he continues his slide into self-absorption and narcissistic behavior. He still goes back and forth from being truly decent to being mean, unkind, sometimes from sentence to sentence. On the other hand, my brother, whose behavior during our mother’s last illness was frightening and abusive, has become a different person. I’m not sure why, but my own unwillingness to give in to his demands, my calm detachment from his tantrums, and the passing of time have helped. And of course, he is no longer regularly mindfucked by a narcissistic parent. Get away from people who are abusive and selfish. Get your mind clear, with support from a good therapist (not a quack who recommends enabling disturbed people). Get the kids into a healthy setting. There’s nothing that says you can’t continue to participate in this person’s recovery, even after divorce.

I have had thre TBI’ s ( traumatic brain injuries) and was in 2 long term (dangerous) comas. I have had an NDE ( near death experience) and am legally disabled from my last concussion. Guess what… I’m a chump. And responsible for my actions. And compassionate.
Trust that they really fucking suck.