If anyone has seen my posts this recently, you know that I've been getting my ass kicked. It's been a really rough ride. Luckily I have had a community here to talk sense into me, and more than a few of you to take the extra step and provide support.

I'm not nearly recovering, but I'm already struggling with a central problem. For those of you that don't know, I am a combat veteran. More than that, I am publicly a combat veteran, so my struggles are out there. My injuries and recovery are nationally well publicized, usually with an inspiring angle, and my service has been valourized by the media. This aspect of my identity is attractive to women, but corrosive to LTRs.

As many of you pointed out in my last two posts, I grapple with validation and self-esteem. I didn't ask to be a public figure, and I don't know who I am without all of the external signifiers. I don't know who I am without the uniform, or the achievements and accomplishments. I feel like I died in Kunar, or should have. I'm not going to cry about that on the internet, that is a reality of PTSD and something I have tried to come to terms with.

My point for trp is that I very clearly have a cycle where:

  • I am driven to achieve great things because of trauma

  • I attract women to me because of those great things, and the media fostering a heroic image about the trauma

  • I burn out because the weight of my trauma exceeded the force at which it propels me forward

  • Women leave me at my lowest point.

This has played out pretty much since I came home from overseas in 2013. There are different formulations as I try to find a way to escape the cycle.

I have tried keeping women at arms length and plating them. Because of the semi-notoriety, heroic image and fitness I slept with three figures worth of women. That didn't bring me any happiness.

LTRs have been worse.

Initially, the weight of compartmentalizing everything from them was too great. Secrecy didn't work once I was very easy to google. Then, I tried openness, but because my lows are very low, it was hard to sustain attraction. You can't be an alpha and a broken bird.

I am not looking to be pitied by a woman. I like to lead her and drive the relationship. It's hard to do that when I wake up screaming and sweating, or when I am getting called by the credit card company over trivial amounts because I avoid things when I'm in that mood. It's hard to explain other than, I am not myself with the pain becomes too much.

This is a not an all the time thing, or I wouldn't attract women to me in the first place. Usually I plate women all summer, drop them down to maybe two or three in September, and eventually enter a LTR. I think the first year goes well, with the first late-winter being the challenge. The period leading up to my "Alive Day" is the hardest time of the year for me, and has been since I was dying in a poppy field seven years ago.

If we survive past May, my absolute lowest point, we will be good for another year. My sports start in the spring and I have usually hit my groove. Rather than using my attractiveness and mental and physical stamina for plates, that second summer makes my LTR feel great. I've seen it, they positively adore me in that second summer. It makes me feel not only like an alpha, but that I can be a husband and father.

Then winter comes around, and the relationship becomes work. By now I am invested, in this most recent case I had given my girl a ring. There are two dynamics at play. Firstly, I want the relationship to work because they have seen me at a low point and I think they are worth the energy. Secondly, they have seen me at a low point, and had to care for me. I want to get out of that stage as quickly as possible.

I hate when the girl who in late-summer is willing to absolutely denigrate herself to me sexually and offer up her mouth or ass whenever I want is driving me to the VA to get pain pills, or comes to appointments and takes notes because I might have memory lapses.

I can feel them drift away, as as no stranger to trp feel fucking awful watching red flags appear and problems arise. I want to assert myself, regain my alpha status, dominate her, but I have the shakes, or an eye operation, or another friend of mine has committed suicide. In these moments, I am not a high-value-man, I am a veteran, and it sucks.

In the spring, heading up to my second Alive Day, things fall apart. Read my post history and you'll see. I am so sad, and disappointed. There's no novelty to it, just a sad and slow march to heartbreak.

I tried something different this time. I busted my ass in therapy and occupational therapy. I mean, I had busted my ass in physio and so on for years, hence the "inspiring" press coverage and summerly achievements, but I never engaged emotionally. I never worked on talking about things, fuck, I never worked on feeling things.

The reason is that I have seen three types of older veteran.

  • Married to a somewhat frumpy to low-average woman who takes care of him. A lot of the "wheelies" or severe PTSD cases fit this mold. I'm not that fucked up, and I don't want either that dynamic or that sort of woman. I did have a relationship like this early on and I was filled with self-loathing, plus the knowledge that I could do better physically, which is vain but very real.

  • The guys who stay fit and alpha but never have a family. Former SF types often end up like this. They are into partying, beaches, motorcycles and tattooed women into their 50's. I'm not that kind of guy. I want a quiet family life.

  • Broken men who are in loveless marriages, and raise army brats. My ex's father fits this mold, as well as the father of a similar plate who is now herself an infantry officer. These guys are shattered emotionally, but never communicate or address their trauma, while keeping a strong hand with their wives. They have no connection to their kids, and they aren't physically (due to deployment) or emotionally (due to trauma) present.

In all cases, their relationship to their feelings coloured their lives with women and family lives.

I realized that to have a family, I needed to address trauma or else I would be another glassy-eyed father, drinking whisky in his study, surrounded by the symbols of my military glory but unable to feel anything, or to connect to my wife and kids. Or I would be a party guy who choses to ignore trauma, and the yearning for family by living perpetually in the mindset of the age they were injured at. Finally, I hate being cared for and I hate that every quiet session holding my hand at the VA is one less deep throat blowjob. I don't mean it to be vulgar, but I'm so sad right now typing that out because I can mark the progression through the days of my last relationship. Maybe if I was too depressed from PTSD to care about sex and attraction, or had the sexual disfunction that comes from being a double-amputee or paralyzed I could look past it, but I cannot.

I worked really hard at therapy of late. I feel better in so many ways. I feel and enjoy things more deeply. I am not haunted at night. I am able to feel, and sit with feelings, albeit to a limited extent. I am able to communicate them, but in the context of a LTR held back because of the aforementioned situations, and basic rp knowledge.

As soon as the breakup happened I felt the resentment and resistance to therapy grow within me. What had I gotten for being aware of my feelings, and evening hinting at expressing them? Hurt, and hurt more badly than every before.

The hurt is so bad because I feel it now, and I can't bury it in tinder, sports, exercise or plates - both because of Covid and because I know that those steps push me more towards being one of "those guys" the stunted veterans I mentioned earlier who are not husbands and fathers.

My medical team says they are proud of me. They have been supportive and says I have made the right steps and decisions. That I was able to organize the lease, and the car and the dog, and the breakup logistics. That financially, I am in a better situation than ever before. That giving up alcohol months ago was great for my recovery. That minus one bad experience with a woman, I am moving my life forward.

That might be true, but reading the Rational Male and the sidebar, as well as your posts I feel pulled in two directions. The only way to be a true rp alpha with trauma and injuries is to forego family. The alternative is to, at least in some ways, embrace bluepill principles.

The bottom line is that I am almost 30 and cannot keep going through this cycle. I am crushed over and over again by the tension between what I know I need to do to be a father, and what I know about women, and how that affects a LTR, to say nothing of a wife. I know I need validation and support, and I know that leaves me vulnerable to women. I know because I am in shambles right now, by a woman who I deserved better than, and knew better than to let treat me as she did.

tl;dr

How do I take the steps I need to, to enjoy a happy life that isn't ruled by a war almost a decade ago, while still having a semblance of redpill with women? How do I do the things I need to to raise happy kids while still attracting and holding onto a woman that would make a good mother?