Ann, the wife of a veteran with PTSD, wrote in the Oct. 19 Spouse Calls about the frustrations, the hope and the persistence required to persevere.

Another reader sent a similar e-mail to me the same week. She did not ask for advice, only to be heard.

The subject line said simply "I just wanted to tell someone ..." Here is her story:

I am a mom at 25 with a full time job and a husband who suffers from PTSD.
 
Our beautiful baby girl was born on a Saturday afternoon.  The labor was well paced and comfortable and the delivery was easy and ever so fast! We were so lucky!!  As the due date neared I became more and more tense with the idea that something could be wrong with my child.  Something could not be "perfect." I thought constantly about what she would look like, what color her eyes would be and would her hair be curly like mine, straight like daddy's or would she be a little baldy at first! 
Goose, as we have come to call her, arrived in perfect condition, so sweet and quiet and trusting8 0
 
My husband is an Iraq War Combat Veteran.  He suffers from PTSD, specifically night terrors, high stress and anxiety levels almost like a rage inside that begs to be released.  He often mentions how he needs a violent release, such as playing his combat video games or hunting.  My husband deals with his PTSD.  He rarely shows signs of the disease.  He is strong willed and believes he should be able to maintain and control himself. 
When we were first dating he was very controlling and difficult to live with.  I am no piece of cake myself as I am very stubborn and strong willed. 
I believe I fail at not reacting to his irritation because I often forget that he is even suffering at all, he hides it so well.  His shoulder aches s everely every day from an accident he suffered while in the service.  He compares the pain to the sensation of someone grabbing the muscles and tendons in his shoulder, squeezing their hand into a fist and twisting.  He has had many therapies for the muscle stress but even electro-shock therapy has been ineffective.
At the beginning of our relationship I was very patient.  That is to say I "took it."  I let him overreact, flare up and lash out.  I told myself it is his disease, it is not his fault, this brave man who gave up so much for others.  Lately, however, I find myself tired and stressed, I lash out and flare up – behaviors he calls me out on and declares unacceptable. 
 
I        am         on          edge.
He tells me that I am acting depressed.  He claims I make him feel inadequate. 
I am inadequate.  I cannot be the cuddly mommy my daughter deserves, the housewife the entire family deserves, the cook that makes only nutritious meals, or even makes 5 meals a week.  Mix those roles with my full time job which pulls me in ten different directions everyday and involves an intense environment that is never quiet and often a sensory overload.  I like my job, but it necessitates that I have a varied schedule, one that puts stresses on my family.  I cannot be home for dinner everyday.  I rarely put my baby girl to bed at night, I regularly mess up her schedule by trying to nap later in the morning after returning home after midnight from work. 
I can't give my baby girl the schedule she deserves and needs.  I can't be patient20with my husband, or loving in the face of his frequent outbursts when I feel like such a failure and his intensity feels like attacks on me.
Even his jokes, which were once met with unaffecting laughter, now feel like jabs from an unhappy man hiding his irritation with me in humor.
 
What has changed?  I feel the same love for my family.  I know that he would never want to hurt me and considers his daughter and me his world.  Our lives are not entirely embittered or affected.  But I feel that this underlying sense of stress and guilt on both our parts makes every tiny irritation explode out of proportion.
 
I think that we each try to do little things to make the other happy, but when the effort is not met with appreciation, or goes unnoticed, it merely adds to the pot of ready-made anger.
 
I have changed.  I worry furiously about my daughter.  I literally feel like I leave a piece of myself behind not only when I leave her, but even when I am in a different room.  I feel guilty when she cries, when she's wet, when I know she didn't get a bath that day.   I am weathered by the fury that boils within this man., I long to understand the storm behind his eyes.  I do not know how he survives everyday with the images in his mind, the marred soul of a soldier and his aggravated, aching body.
 
I have gotten to a "what about me?" point.  Why can't I lash back, an eye for an eye right? I deserve to be angry and irritated and treated with tenderness.  I think he understands that I need pampering to help soothe my tensions.  Just as I understand he needs pampering and kindness20and caresses to help sooth not only his body but also his mind and stresses.
 
But daily, we cannot be so cautious as to constantly remember where the frustration is stemming from and are merely reacting.
 
I love, I love, and I love him.  I long so very badly to be perfect for them.  To take it all on and successfully sort through everything.  To have time for everything, the perfectly clean house, the time for nutritious meals, the time to care for and coddle my family, the set schedule for my daughter's sake, the successful career that runs with ease, the patience to understand the scope of PTSD and to realize that these flare ups are not meant to mar me but dissipate as quickly as they arise.
 
I am distraught and worried, I am tired and hopeful. I will persever e, I will find the balance.
 
I am a mom at 25 with a full time job and a husband who suffers from PTSD.