Female Partners Struggle with Vets’ PTSD

If you doubt this is true, read my book For the Love of Jack His War My Battle and know that is is not just these young wives, but an older wife who used to be in their shoes.

Female Partners Struggle with Vets’ PTSD
By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
March 8, 2013

New research suggests the female partners of military veterans diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), face mental and physical health risks.

Researchers from the University of Utah compared emotional and physiological responses of two groups of military veterans and their partners during and after engaging in a “disagreement task” set in a clinically monitored environment.

The veterans in one group had been diagnosed with PTSD, and those in the control group had not.

Investigators discovered the partners of veterans with PTSD showed even greater increases in blood pressure during conflict than the veterans with PTSD themselves. This may suggest that these partners may be at similar, if not greater, risk for health consequences from relationship conflict and PTSD as the veterans.

While prior research has documented greater cardiovascular reactivity to general stressors and higher levels of anger in veterans with PTSD, this is the first study to report such physiological and anger responses to intimate relationship conflict for veterans, as well as their partners.

Investigators discovered female partners of male veterans who had been diagnosed with PTSD suffered not only from general psychological distress, but also exhibited more negative emotional and physical effects from relationship conflict.

The responses included a significant increase in measurement of blood pressure and anger.
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You can get through all of this and it doesn't have to be as hard as it seems now if you know what it is and what you can do about it. After all, we've been together over 30 years and most of that time was without support or reporters covering it.