My husband does not have PTSD (I'm the one with it) but he does struggle with severe depression issues. Once before we were married his depression was getting really bad and I was concerned for his safety and not sure that he was being able to really describe to the doctor the depth of what was going on for him. I wasn't able to go with him to his appointment because of scheduling issues so I called the doctor's officea couple of days prior to his appointment and asked if I sent a FAX outlining my specific concerns would the doctor please be sure to read it before their appointment. She agreed so I typed out about a page and a half without emotion of factual observations. This seemed to really help at the time because a lot of what I wrote my (now)husband had not explained to her but when she asked him about it he admitted that the things in it were accurate. She was able to better help him at the time with the additional insight but did not have to breach any kind of confidentiality because I did not ask her to speak to me, just read what I felt was important for her to know.

Another option, but only works if your husband is agreeable and cooperative, is to seek a second opinion. A couple of years ago my husband's depression again began to get out of control. I went to a couple of doctor (different doctor than he'd had the last time there was a problem) appointments with him to let the doctor know that things were really getting bad and he needed to take a different approach. I didn't feel the doctor was taking the situation seriously enough and didn't seem to be following the situation closely enough. I also felt like he was over medicating my husband. (he'd up his meds some more and say come back in a couple months). I convinced my husband to let me take him to a different doctor to see what he might say. That doctor immediately thought my husband was highly over medicated and started to help get things turned around for him. My husband was highly pessimistic and hopeless about the idea of a different doctor making that much of a difference but agreed to try it and as things started to turn around was hugely grateful that I stayed so involved and insisted on a second opinion.

Again, my husband does not have PTSD so I realize it's not exactly the same situation but similar enough that I thought it might be helpful. Also, since my husband is not a veteran we don't have to worry about working within that system (have no idea what that's like). I did, however, have to take him out of his insurance network for that second opinion and we paid completely out-of-pocket for the second psychiatrist. Very expensive but it made the difference between my husband existing but wanting to die and my husband actually beginning to live again (so much so that we still pay for that out-of-network psychiatrist completely out of our own pockets almost two years later. It's a real financial burden a lot of the time but worth it to us.)