I've been struggling to repent of my past mistakes that both my wife and I believe were done because of what is called "wrong thinking". There has never been any infidelity in our marriage. We've been married almost 40 years now. I've lived an independent life for all of that time. My most aggregious sin was to ride a bicycle to the point where it became an obsession like I was an alcoholic. This did huge damage to our marriage because I used to lie about it, hide it from her, spend all of our time together thinking about my next ride or the next new part that I wanted to buy. Long story short, I gave up the bike cold turkey about 5 years ago and after a short stint of struggling with giving it up, got over it and never looked back. The bike became like an affair to my wife and me. There have been other events as well in our past that all really have a common thread; I have acted independently, not involved my wife in decisions that impacted her and I've avoided dealing with those mistakes because I believe that I have some kind of PTSD related to her reaction to my inconsiderate/damaging behaviors. My "wrong thinking" habits have been ways that I have justified my behaviors over the years. I have a list of more than 60 of these "wrong thinking" behaviors and I can honestly say that I have used and continue to use many of these. Over the past 2 years, I have really finally acknowledged my part in this situation and now I'm trying to do what's right and change my behaviors but I keep failing at the repentance. My PTSD makes me afraid to approach my wife to talk about any of my past mistakes. My lack of approaching my wife of my own free will makes my wife angry to where she reacts and then my PTSD kicks in and I just avoid her. Its a horrible Groundhog Day kind of situation and I don't know how to overcome my fear of approaching my wife. Logically, I can see that her reaction is partly my fault. I also can see that her reaction is partly her fault. I'm not sure what to do and would love to discuss this in a thread. I have read His Needs Her Need, Love Busters and Overcoming an Affair by Dr Harley. I understand the basic marriage builder principles but I'm so deep in this that I can't seem to claw my way to the right path so that we can recreate our relationship. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Have you seen a psychiatrist or psychologist for your PTSD? Have you been diagnosed?

Have you apologized to your wife with words and actions?

Hi BrainHurts, I have had some counseling over the past 3 years or so. Most of it was based on a narcissistic class designed to help folks with these sorts of tendencies to battle them. This is when I started to open my eyes and understand what I had done and how my behaviors, gaslighting, lying, hiding, etc. had impacted my wife. I understand how many of us use compensating behaviors to help us through situations that we can't emotionally process. I have realized that I have been extremely good at leaning on these sorts of crutches to help me deal with the problems in our marriage. Now that I understand these things, I know that I have to do something different. I have not had any counseling related to what I would call PTSD at all. I don't know if that's what it is but its what it feels like to me.

I have apologized to my wife many times over but she believes that I am insincere. I have found that its very hard to build trust after so many years of dishonesty.