Hey, everybody.

Something unusual happened this evening: my husband attacked me in his sleep.

My husband is a veteran and has closet PTSD (I am confident the diagnosis is there although the last time he saw a therapist they said it was "generalized depression" following a traumatic deployment in the USAF). My husband is a loving and gentle person by nature. We don't yell, we don't fight, and neither of us have ever laid a harmful hand on the other. Minus accidents where one of us accidentally bumped into the other or he hurt himself trying to catch me (my neuro disorder sometimes causes my legs to give out), we've never actually hurt each other. I think he would hurt himself on purpose before he would let himself hurt me on accident.

That said, he's been really, heavily triggered during this presidential election and it's only gotten worse over the last several months. While he's not talking about it at length he's been sorting through his deployment from several years ago, and has been trying to make sense of it. All of the opinionated people who flock to Facebook to discuss politics have not been helping him, and the fact that he and his stepmom are on opposite sides of the political spectrum right now are definitely getting to him. He considers her his mom and she's pro war, and he's against it (having served in one and seen innocent people die).

I know he's plagued by two specific memories in general because while he won't talk to me about them when he is awake he is calling their names in his sleep and I know he's dreaming about trying to save them (and it never works because both children ended up dying in front of him). I've had enough half-asleep conversations with him and conversations with his close military friends to know what he is sorting through, and it's bad.

I have encouraged him to seek assistance from a mental health professional (and I plan to follow this up with him in the morning), but he's also been thrashing in his sleep. I'm a relatively light sleeper so usually I reach out to him and put a hand on his shoulder or run my hands through his hair and he quiets down and goes back to a much gentler sleep. He never wakes up and it seems like that is all he needs; some kind of physical sensation to interrupt his dreaming and "ground" him back in his sleep reality here in the present day.

This evening in his sleep when I reached out to touch him (because he was crying in his sleep and calling out), he instinctually reached out and hit me. I am confident he thought I was part of his dream and was just trying to defend himself, and I know (with 100% certainty) he was dreaming. I decided to crawl out of the bed (I sleep by the wall) and on my way out was struck a few more times. None of the hits were serious, but this isn't something I can just let go (it would be bad for both of us, for me to say nothing).

I DEFINITELY need to speak with him about this in the morning when he wakes up, but I also realize he is going to feel devastated for "hurting" me (regardless of whether it was on purpose or not). I know this will be the catalyst for his first appointment (because he had been putting off seeing a therapist), but I am not sure how to approach the subject without him panicking and blaming himself.

I'm okay and I don't blame him. I need him to understand that I am okay and he didn't hurt me, but I think the fact he laid his hands on me is going to tear him down.

To those of you who may have experience in things like this, is there an appropriate way to discuss something like this with a spouse? How do you even start this kind of conversation?

Thanks in advance everybody.