Three years of trying to repair what compulsory service did to our relationship. We've tried almost everything, and we're desperate for an answer

[venusasaboy22]

I'm writing this because me and my girlfriend are approaching the end of our rope with a problem we've spent nearly three years desperately trying to solve.

Please read the whole post before recommending something. I'm not saying that to be rude. I'm saying it because we've repeatedly been given the same suggestions, pursued them, and ended up back where we started.

Basically, my girlfriend and I have been together since we were teenagers. We loved each other before this happened, we loved each other throughout it, and we love each other now. I'm a trans woman, I was recently diagnosed with androgyn insensitivity, which kind of solves the mystery of why I never hit puberty. I was forced into compulsory military service in Greece, my parents didn't want me to go, both spent a few years in the Greek navy and didn't want their kids going through the military, but I was afraid of legal consequences. Anyway, for ten months, we lost the life we should have had together.

It wasn't simply a long-distance relationship. I was subjected to an institution I hated, became increasingly unpatriotic, was deprived of control over my own life, forced to wear a uniform I hated, and made to participate in something fundamentally against my wishes. Many officers looked after me but some made my life hell, My appearance didn't help, I looked like a f*cking girl.

From her perspective, she saw me in that uniform and couldn't get me out. Neither of us had the power to stop it really, it was only because my parents couldn't take me being there and pulled me out a bit early illegally, I still feel indebted to them. But by then, we lost experiences, freedom, ordinary days together, and a period of our relationship that we can never actually revisit.

Three years later, the fact that this happened still feels unbearable. We're together, we love each other, we can enjoy ourselves, sometimes, have good days, and experience genuine affection, but it doesn't resolve what happened. Anything from a f*cking memory, a thought, a reminder of the separation, or sometimes just a sudden awareness of the missing time can make everything feel ruined again. We feel no progress curve, like this year is better than the last, it's just this horrible loop honestly, and sometimes there isn't even an identifiable trigger at all! The feeling just f*cking comes back!! And the worst part is that the problem isn't necessarily that we're frightened of it happening again. It's that it happened at all.

We didn't want to become a couple who survived this experience. We wanted the relationship we were supposed to have without it. This part is very important. We don't wanna be one of these f*cking couples who gives a wedding speech about helping each other "Get through" military service, we want it gone, but anything symbolic collapses because we're so f*cking aware of fantasy ideas, it's so damn frustrating, we hate it.

Look, here's what we've tried and why it hasn't worked, I wanna try and explain this as best as possible. I'm going to explain this because I don't want another hundred recommendations for things we've already spent years pursuing. Sorry if I'm being a little short, I'm just incredibly frustrated.
 

CBT: We've tried working with thoughts, interpretations and responses. The problem is that our distress isn't dependent on a mistaken belief that something happened. It really did happen. Changing how we think about it hasn't repaired what was lost. The distress has returned.

EMDR: We've pursued trauma processing. Whatever changes it may have produced haven't lasted or resolved the fundamental injury. We've experienced rebounds, and the knowledge of what happened remains just as consequential.

OCD-focused therapy: We've explored approaches intended to address intrusive thoughts and obsessional distress. But reducing checking, comparisons or rumination is not the outcome we're looking for. We aren't asking to become better at tolerating a relationship we experience as damaged. We want the damage itself meaningfully answered.

Couples therapy: Our primary problem isn't a lack of communication, commitment or willingness to love each other. We already have those things. Talking about the experience hasn't produced the restoration we're seeking.

Imagery rescripting and imagined alternative outcomes: We've explored imagining different versions of events. But we know they're imagined. I can picture being rescued, refusing the uniform, or never being separated. Unfortunately, I also know that's not what actually happened.

Trying not to treat the memories as emergencies: We've worked on changing our responses to the distress. Sometimes things improve temporarily. But it comes back, and the original injury is still there.

More intensive mental-health intervention: I've even experienced psychiatric institutionalisation in the past. I don't remember it producing the resolution we needed.

And beyond formal treatment, we've tried an enormous amount ourselves. We've tried recovering our intimacy, spending time together, making new memories, reclaiming experiences, and building the life we wanted. We've explored confrontation, accountability, legal avenues, meaningful acts of defiance, symbolic reversals, and ways of reclaiming power over what happened. We've searched for real couples who went through something comparable and eventually experienced a profound breakthrough, and have examined everything from trauma treatment to approaches focused on moral injury, injustice and embitterment. None of this has helped in any meaningful way, some have a bit of an effect on specific parts of our lives but none really do all that much.

Look, please don't tell us any of these things:
 

That the past can't be changed and we should accept it.

That we should make new memories, travel, celebrate anniversaries, get married, or create new milestones.

That we should be grateful we still have each other.

That our relationship surviving is itself the happy ending.

That we need to forgive, move on, stop comparing, or change our expectations.

That another conversation, reassuring each other, or learning to tolerate painful thoughts will somehow make the experience satisfactory.

That an apology, compensation, or political victory would necessarily restore our relationship.

We understand the reasoning behind these suggestions, we've spent years considering them, but none answers what we're actually asking and frankly, we're not interested in lowering our standards for what a happy ending means simply because the obvious alternatives have failed.

We want to know whether anyone has experienced something genuinely comparable: an unwanted event that permanently altered the history of a loving relationship, where the pain came not merely from symptoms or reminders, but from the fact that the event occurred. Or, just something that happened to an individual person like this and what helped. Hell, even treatments you've heard of, ideas, just anything but the same s***, over and over, because it was a very traumatic year, I don't wanna talk about it, but I experienced s*xual abuse among other things, I don't wanna "overcome" it, I wanna just stop it.

I wanna know whether something actually brought about a profound, lasting change, and not merely learning to function, or having fewer intrusive thoughts, or deciding that surviving together is good enough. I'm asking whether someone found a treatment, experience, intervention, or real-world development powerful enough that the original injury no longer dominated the relationship, and they genuinely felt that something fundamental had been repaired. Something that produced actual catharsis rather than another technique for coping.

It doesn't necessarily have to be conventional therapy. We're interested in serious, credible possibilities, including things we might not have considered. Please tell us what happened, what changed, how long the improvement lasted, and how it addressed the original injury. Firsthand accounts would be especially valuable.

Look, this is urgent, it's been nearly three years of hope, disappointment, researching, trying things, thinking we've found an answer, and discovering that it hasn't worked. This is taking a f*cking HORRIBLE toll on our mental health. We don't want to separate. We aren't looking for permission to leave each other. We love each other and want to spend our lives together. But the prospect of spending another three years, or ten years, in this condition genuinely frightens us, and failing to address even my own memories of that disgusting year beyond "Be strong and move on and be happy" was what landed me in residential care. We need something that can make a substantial difference SOON, not an indefinite promise that things might gradually improve.

I know that nobody can literally return the missing year. I'm not asking strangers on Reddit to invent a time machine. I'm asking whether there's a way for something this profound to finally be answered in a way that feels real, proportionate and f*cking lasting, rather than just managed. Please, if you've encountered anything like this, especially a case where people had already exhausted the conventional suggestions, tell us what actually helped. We're not asking for a miracle, we're asking for a reason, grounded in something real, to believe that our lives don't have to remain like this.

[BlueberryPie]

If it helps, you're not alone. Many of us have been through some pretty awful things. If we live long enough, we're likely to get our share. 

So, what do any of us do? You have to just keep on going, for one thing. 

Different things help different people of course and it also depends on what type of issues you've been through, your makeup, and how deep it cut.

I think there's also a lot to be said for just deciding to give it a rest sometimes, limiting how much you allow yourself to go there. Of course that's easier said than done but aside from therapists, religion and the usual things people try, there are some simple tricks too, that might help. One is just to set a timer and say, okay, I'm going to dwell on this for ten minutes today, no more. Whenever it comes up outside of its allotted time, if you can, tell yourself it will have to wait until its time for its ten minutes again. With anything to do with training your mind though, you have to do it a lot before it becomes a habit. So that doesn't get rid of it but it at least contains it.

Another way is to put it to use by doing a hard physical workout or run and kicking its azz. That way, you end up at least getting something positive out of it. Instead of it taking you down, it makes you stronger that way, which would definitely be a win. Now if you're talking about PTSD flashbacks and deeper stuff like that, you'll need more than that.

You could also try meditation, for example, or a support group, if you can find one.

And helping someone else can also be strong medicine that can save you, in whatever way appeals to you.

Just saying, if the various therapies you've tried haven't helped, maybe therapy isn't that effective for you but it's not the only type of remedy out there.

I think you also may not be giving yourself enough credit. Many people who have been through trauma turn to substance abuse or other destructive things that may alleviate their pain in the moment but get them into an even deeper mess. Just feeling it isn't the worst way to handle it, all things considered.

No idea if this will help or not but that's my two cents. Best wishes to you.

 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by BlueberryPie

[ExpatInItaly]

6 hours ago, venusasaboy22 said:

failing to address even my own memories of that disgusting year beyond "Be strong and move on and be happy" was what landed me in residential care

I think this should not be glossed over. 

Kindly, it sounds like there are other serious mental health issues at work here. The separation in and of itself is not the real problem. Nothing is working because what you two are seeking - to essentially undo the past - is not possible. 

My real sense, even though I am sure you won't like it? This relationship has actually already run its course and neither of you is willing to accept that yet.