ArcaMax

– J

Dear J: You are objectively presenting your own challenges and the extreme impact – over many years – on your family. Your wife stuck with you throughout this ordeal. She doesn’t seem to be blaming you for your own extreme challenges, and you seem to be trying very hard not to blame her for hers.

You definitely need healing – for you. You don’t mention what, if any, treatment you’ve had for your PTSD, but I urge you to start, continue, or resume treatment. Ideally this would involve talk therapy with a counselor trained in working with servicemembers. Loneliness, emptiness, sadness, isolation, and especially anger are all residual effects of PTSD, and private as well as group counseling with other veterans would help you to continue to heal.

I hope you can see this healing as a process for all of you. And it will take time.

To me, you seem like a fierce and resilient survivor. I hope you can learn to see yourself that way, too.

You can connect with local services for veterans by going through the VA. You can also get immediate help by dialing 988 and pressing 1 to contact the Veterans Crisis Line. A counselor would guide you through the process of finding the best support for you.

(Veterans may still reach the Veterans Crisis Line with the previous phone number: 800-273-8255 and press 1, by text at 838255, and through chat on the website: VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat).

Dear Amy: I am a man in mid-life. My wife and I get along very well and co-parent our three children.

My wife keeps busy outside of our jobs and family life with friends and occasional pickleball matches. She seems to be thriving.

Me? Not so much.

...continued