I dated someone with CPTSD for almost 3 years, it was very difficult, to put it nicely.

At first, she gave the impression that her CPTSD only meant she didn’t like fireworks (or other booms) and violent scenes with blades. Easy enough, and our relationship blossomed at first. I find it somewhat funny to read about “diminished sense of self” since it had such a detrimental impact on our relationship. She needed constant affirmation, it didn’t matter how small or how common/normal the thing she did was, she silently demanded it. When I didn’t give it to her, because I didn’t notice it half the time, she would be upset. I tried to explain to her that she should not be doing nice things to receive praise from me or anyone else, she should be doing it for herself. I knew this would not take immediately, but I tried to patiently meet her halfway. She’s been in therapy and has been on medication for years, so at least she was proactively working on it, so I thought.

Things got worse when we moved in together. Almost immediately, the relationship was over for me. Right after moving in, after weeks of telling her no to sex and to give me time due to a resurfaced sexual trauma that she accidentally triggered, she forced herself on me and sexually assaulted me. When I let her know the next day, she cried and was distraught, not due to her assaulting me, but because I didn’t want it. I decided to give her some time to process it and thought she would apologize to me on her own time once she understood the gravity of her mistake, as she was someone I used to consider to be emotionally intelligent. She did not. I thought to bring it up again, because the assault had serious impacts on my mental health, but whenever I wanted to, the timing was not right. She was always upset by someone or something that happened to her and needed support and comfort. After 9 months, she always needed to be comforted and was always on edge, so I couldn’t bring it up. When we finally broke up, she cited as me being cold, distant, and rude, a total 180 from who I was before, as why she no longer wanted to be with me. I reminded her of the assault and that it impacted me greatly, and never having had the time to talk to her about it and process it properly had serious consequences. At this point, I was ready to forgive her because I wanted to move on and wanted peace. However, instead, she chose to deny the assault. To her, it wasn’t assault, rather, it was a normal thing couples did, initiating sex without explicit consent and she behaved as if she was owed sex. I disagreed with her completely, I reminded her of how many times I told her no, and how that time she cornered me in my room by barging in, closing the door behind her, and presenting herself, creating a ‘gun to my head’ scenario since she got progressively more upset every time I said no, and the last time got ugly. She also tried to downplay it by saying that she experienced worse in the foster system, so mine wasn’t a big deal. Anyways, in the end, she denied any wrongdoing of rape or sexual assault, which made things far worse for me. She also refused to acknowledge how any of her mistakes and problematic behaviors impacted our relationship, since I should have taken the responsibilities of doing more research on CPTSD and attended support groups, something she never brought up. I became her scapegoat for everything and created an echo-chamber by telling her friends of all of the bad things I did, but refusing to mention her assault or other contributions to the decline. I gave her everything I could, grew distant from my friends, lost at least one, and had almost no more free time to myself, and this was the thanks I got. I was so caught off guard by this narcissism, but I also began to realize she never respected any of my boundaries in the first place, and it was never her fault, she just had different needs that stemmed from her CPTSD that I needed to respect. At this point, I realized she was not as emotionally intelligent or empathetic as I thought.

It’s been a couple of months since the breakup, and things are far better. I was on edge pretty much the whole time we lived together, and now I can breathe. I’ve found my own peace when I realized that she wasn’t trying to deny me closure, or was dangling peace in front of me. Instead, I realized that she is simply incapable of accountability, and there was no closure to be found with her. I noticed a lot of the toxic behaviors she exhibited in the end, she had complained about dealing with when her mom, who was far worse, and how she did it to her before, and things clicked for me. I cannot stay mad at someone who suffered severe traumatic experiences for many years, across her childhood and adult life, developed CPTSD, but also had narcissistic tendencies since she was partly raised by a narcissist. I wish her peace and luck in the journey she still has to go on. My hope is that she realizes what she has done during our time together. No, not to get an apology or to say ‘I told you so’ (I’d rather not ever hear from her again). But rather it would mean she has grown from this experience and won’t hurt, or sexually assault, others in the future. I also decided that for at least my next relationship, it would not be with someone with CPTSD or any other severe mental disorders. I apologize if that’s rude, but I don’t think I can do that again, I lost so much and I already had my own problems that she made worse at the time.

One last note: I liked what I read in the thread about trauma not being what happened to you, but rather how you came out of it. My ex condescendingly recommended therapy for me since I ‘clearly had issues’ (not an exact quote). At first, I agreed as I had already thought that. Over time though, I feel okay now. I don’t feel anxious anymore, my libido is back, and I feel happy again. Granted, I may still go to see if I can get further insight on attaining more inner peace and forgiving her, but it is night and day compared to what I felt right after the breakup. Life is good, and I know my dog notices how much happier I am too, cuz he is quite happy to have more time with me again. :)