All the fears and concerns I had held onto during his 12 month deployment to Iraq melted away as he got off the bus. He was fine, he was whole, he was back. We had been waiting to start our life together, and finally it was time. What could I possibly have to worry about?

I’m not sure when he started displaying symptoms of PTSD or TBI. You see, we had gotten married over his R&R, and I had just moved to Germany the day before he returned. I may not have picked up the warning signs he was showing because I was wrapped up in my own changes: how be a wife, how to cook, how to take the train to the store, how to not miss everyone I had left.  

Eventually I made sense of my new world and started tuning into things he was doing that didn’t make sense. He didn’t do what he’d promised, he didn’t seem to care when something major was happening for me, he was very critical, he could be very confusing, he didn’t pay attention when I was talking about something important. I wrote all it off, thinking that this is what happens in a marriage - you finish the honeymoon stage and then reality sets in.  

Then one day, almost a year after he returned, we were slightly lost on our way to the store to buy new dishes.  We can fast-forward to after the fight. I asked why he was mad about something he’d agreed to . . . and found out he didn’t know where we were going when he got in the car, he didn’t remember discussing buying plates, and he didn’t remember looking online to help pick out the ones we were going to buy.  This wasn't  just a light bulb going off over my head. This was a huge spotlight up there.  

Looking back at everything - not following through, the lack of attention, the criticism - it seems clear that he wasn’t remembering anything. He didn’t remember what was important to me, or what he was supposed to do, or why something was going on.

Being able to identify what was going on made all the difference in the world. We did some research and tried, futilely, to seek help. A therapist told him that he needed to get over his problems and be a man, and a neurologist said that he very definitely did not have TBI, and made it clear about what he thought of my ‘internet research’.

So it went untreated and progressively got worse. He got out of the military. Life got very very difficult, for both of us. Then we walked into the VA and within twenty minutes, he was told that he probably had both PTSD and TBI and was officially diagnosed very quickly. He started receiving treatment.  Things got worse while they tried to figure out the medications, but then they got better.  

And now, for the first time in seven years, life is good. He’s gotten appropriate treatment, he knows how to cope, I know how to help him, and we both know how to live our lives to prevent problems from occurring. It’s not easy and there are still problems, but our problems today are so small compared to the problems we were having just a few years ago. Most importantly, there is hope that things will continue to get better.