Feeling "Triggered"

It has been almost five years since I originally posted on this site looking for advice and a shoulder to cry on. A few months later we ended our marriage. Now I have started over and created a life that I love. I'm in nursing school, I moved to a new town, got a new job, made new friends. I am engaged and will be getting married in January to the love of my life who I've been with for four years. He is everything I've ever wanted and then some.

So then why did I feel so triggered today? He is a good man through to the core. We have talked about the type of marriage and life we want thoroughly. My past marriage isn't something that I think heavily about. It was a rough time there at the end. I was truly so weak and doing the classic "pick me" dance, begging for my ex-husband to love me. He didn't. We divorced and I moved on. He was still someone who I spent 7 years of my life with and on some level of course it still hurts to have experienced rejection and betrayal on that level by someone who I trusted so deeply.

Today my fiance said over dinner that he would be meeting up with an old veteran friend. I asked which one and he said "James... or Jim? Yeah, I think it's Jim." I've never heard of Jim. For whatever reason this little exchange triggered me. I was reminded of the feelings I felt when my ex-husband would announce he was going to be going out with a friend who I'd never heard of. I'd ask a question and he'd struggle with the answer because he was lying. For a few seconds I remembered what it was like to wonder if he was really going where he said he was going.

My fiance isn't lying. He literally has met the guy a few times in a veteran's support group, which explains not knowing the name. He told me he could see it all over my face as soon as he mentioned it. He was understandably a bit annoyed as he's never done anything to deserve suspicion. He did volunteer to me the texts between them without me asking. They went back to 2018 with a few sporadic invites to a Halloween party here, a dinner get together there. On one or two he invited me as well "my wife will be there too if you'd like to bring your girlfriend!". I must have not been able to go (as I mentioned above, nursing school).

I did my best to explain it was not his fault. He did nothing and I wasn't mad at him. That for whatever reason the little exchange just brought me back to a part of my life where I was really sad and that feeling those feelings just made me zone out. Surprisingly I started to cry. When I say the moment brought me back, I was remembering how sad and heartbroken I was in a way that has been forgotten for years. He understood and said I had been invited tonight too if I'd like to go. I can't, I have 30 med cards due and clinical to prepare for. My fiance is very sweet. He actually just texted me with "love you!" because I'm sure he's thinking of me here at home and wondering if I'm still thinking about it.

Why am I sharing this? I don't really know. Maybe because this is possibly the only outlet I have really that I can talk to about this stuff where the receiver would understand where I'm coming from. I don't know. Hmm. It's just strange how this trial we've all collectively experienced here, can still come back and effect in small ways years later. I'm trying to wrap this up with some moral of the story and struggling to find one. I hope you all have a nice weekend

0 comment posted: Friday, September 11th, 2020