Background for him: Afghanistan war vet. He was special ops and a tactical shooter so you can imagine what he's seen and had to do. He took an early retirement a couple of years ago to become a full time father to his two children. He's currently going through a custody battle with his ex wife with a trial date coming up in June. Prior to the divorce they moved away from all of his family and friends, so he literally has nobody. He's stressed that he's not going to win custody because he's a male and she's mentioned in her affadavit the fact that he has PTSD. There is cause for concern about the children's well being when they are with their mother and his little boy begs not to go back to her, which only adds to the pressure. He has nightmares about the war so he'll go days and not sleep much. He's easily irritated with me and others. Toward me, he's emotionally shut down and when I've approached him about it the extremely frustrated, classic emotional outbursts have come out. He's a devout Catholic, he's leaned into his faith in an extreme manner to try and cope. He expressed intent to spend the majority of the last week at adoration of the blessed sacrament services. He's also been throwing up a lot, which only serves to further complicate an already compromised system because he also has ulcerative colitis. As a result he was hospitalized last weekend for severe dehydration and received 13 bags of potassium enriched IV fluids. Doctors wanted to keep him in the hospital but he checked himself out because of obligations with his children. He was upset in a recent conversation and commented "why can't God just take me on home". He's been avoiding conversation with me, so I haven't heard from him (email or phone call) in 3 days. His last communication was through email and he said he would call/email "when he got a chance". I haven't heard from him since.

He hasn't told me the behavior is PTSD related, but from what I've read it's classic symptoms so that is my guess. I feel like a recent appointment in which he had to discuss the past may have triggered these things. The appointment was April 9th and he's not been the same since. Prior to that he was very loving, affectionate and attentive so it's been devastating to say the least. We've only been dating a little over 3 months, so I hadn't seen any of this prior to now. Things were going very well, so this came out of nowhere. I feel like I don't even know the person he is today and the Jeckyl and Hyde behavior is more than I can deal with. He's got a lot going on and seems to be trying to detach himself from me. I just need some closure and don't want to cause further injury. I'm angry over some of the behaviors and it's difficult to not want to say a few things about it because there is similarity in some respect to what you would experience from someone who is just being a jerk. The whole thing is just complicated and I don't want to cause further damage or have regrets over how I've handled myself with this situation.

Any advice/insight you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Jennifer

I do care for him very much and there has been interest expressed from both sides in something long term between us, but how do you continue to be a support for someone who 1) is avoiding you 2) behaves in a manner that is so cold/emotionally numb 3) who has officially been diagnosed with PTSD, but counseling isn't even on the radar with everything else he has going on. It makes me feel like a bad person for even expressing interest in bailing after the conversations we've had, but the indifference and emotional numbness, after experiencing the loving, kind person I met 3 months ago, is causing damage to me personally. How long do these "episodes" typically last?