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Posted 8/12/2008 9:41 PM (GMT 0)
Hello,

I am new here, and just found the new member rules.

I already posted a note somewhere by mistake. I apologise.

I am not a bipolar, but loving a bipolar.

I am suffering emotionally and trying to recover.

In my country there are no such forums, so I am happy to find this one.

I am going through a very difficult time trying to understand what exactly happened to me the last 2 year being in love with this guy.

I am also trying to understand my loved bipolar and 'build myself back'. I figured that I cannot help him unless he wants to.

I have never loved anybody like this before and it is a torture to understand it. Some days I cry, some days I cannot eat, some days I pretend to be OK. But its all fake.

I am hurt and helpless. Getting skinnier

Reading some of your notes already helped me today.

Posted 8/13/2008 1:07 AM (GMT 0)
Welcome. It is difficult to love someone bipolar. If you are hurting so badly, perhaps you should move on. Like you said, you cannot help him unless he wants to be helped. You need to take care of you right now and if being around him is torturing you, it may be time to move on without him. Plus you moving on could trigger him to get serious about getting the help that he needs.

There are a lot of people here who are in relationships with bipolar people who understand what you are going through. I personally am bipolar but I hate to see someone hurting. I am fortunate that I have a supportive, understanding husband.

Again welcome. You have come to the right place for understanding and support.

Hugs,
Missflip
Posted 8/13/2008 3:44 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Ren,

Welcome to HealingWell and to our board. We're glad you found us. Feel free to elaborate on your situation if you like. You're always welcome to comment on others' threads. I'm sorry you're suffering through a tough time right now. Talking about it might help a bit.

serafena
Posted 8/13/2008 9:44 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Ren,

I too am trying to put the pieces back together in my life due to the destructive nature of this illness and the toll it has taken on my relationship with my bipolar fiance. I think about it constantly and therapy helps. I woke up this morning myself with a million thoughts of "can I really stay with this man for the rest of my life"? Even though he is being treated, I feel as though the dynamics of our relationship have changed and I don't know if I can deal with it. I am sorry you're suffering right now. I completely understand the confusion. Looking back on the last two years of my relationship, I understand now that a lot of our painful arguments were due to his illness. We're in a transition period right now as he's been treated for 7 months, but we're working to get the meds right. It's difficult for him to work, which puts an additional strain on our relationship.

If you're comfortable sharing, I'd be interested in hearing more about your relationship.
Posted 8/13/2008 2:36 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks to all 3 of you for your response. It means so much to me!!

Well Diskus,

I am very happy to discuss my issues, also listen to yours.

How shall I start??

My bipolar-love never hurt me physically. The worst thing is that depending on his mood he accuses me for everything. Its my fault that he has a bad day, its my fault that he cannot sleep, its my fault that he has no friends...i am accused for many things that are not even valid for our situation. i am so far away from him...i dont even know if he sleeps or not, if he meets friends or not.

when he is in good mood, then i am his queen and everything is fantastic, i dont get the blame for anything. but out of the blue, i mean 1 minute later everything changes and he says he is in bad mood and everything is horrible again.

But nothing special has to happen for his mood to change, it just happens.

I do not understand it, but I understand it is part of being bipolar.

And you know what.....ALL these things are possible to live together with. I am not perfect either, so I could tolerate problems in an other person.

What is zero tolerance for me is the LIES he tells on and on. Since he lies about small and big things I have no clue anymore what is true and what is a lie. Let it be a simple thing or a big thing. I also figured out he leads on many women and manipulates them.

This is the point when I started to get really sick. This behaviour is NOT okay even if he is bipolar.

First of all I felt used, cheap, cheated on, worthless and played with.

I started to throw up every day because I had pain from this in my entire body. I am a very sensitive and careing person and I helped him SO MUCH with his depression. And after all this, one nice day I figure out I am one piece in his collection among many others.

At least thats what I think now. I have no idea anymore what is true and what was a lie the past 2 years.

I feel I poored myself into a a big black hole all this time and all the help I gave is just waste.

Not to mention the money I spent on him - we live very far away from each other so even a phonecall is very expensive.

Now I am somewhat better, but I still cry a lot and sometimes throw up. I feel very sorry for all the other women who are currently fooled by him and they have no idea about it yet.

My question to you with bipolar:

- can lies be part of this illness??

- also manipulative behaviour??

- egoistic behaviou?

Thank you.

Diskus, I am interested in hearing your story if you wish to share.

Posted 8/13/2008 3:09 PM (GMT 0)
1 more important detail.
When I figured out his lies it was around the time when I was about to give up my country for him and also he talked so much about getting a 'baby-Ren', a child. I was hesitating so much, but I started to believe in it as he was pushing in so much.
Can you imagine how it feels to tell my friends and parents that I am going to move to the man of my dreams and have a baby with him....
And the next day sorry Mom and Dad, I was fooled and manipulated, so instead of moving get me a shrink!
I stop now because I got too upset.
Posted 8/14/2008 1:42 PM (GMT 0)
Ren-

Here's from my first post on the forums:
To start: bp/schizo affective diagnosed years ago, treated and untreated, we meet, after a year he has severe episode, we find GOOD support, GREAT psychiastrist, AMAZING psychotherapist and the right meds (finally). We go to couple's counseling with his therapist and he has one on one sessions with her. Layers of issues in addition to bp, my fiance is a true survivor (adopted, adoptive mother dies, dad remarries, family lives in denial anything ever happened). I am committed to him more now than before his diagnosis and love him with all my heart. I just met with my own therapist for the first time and I'm finding it hard to convey the pity party that's going on in my head. I wish this wasn't our situation, I know we are far ahead of the game, we're learning everything we can about the illness, my fiance's stressors, med-interaction (no advil w/ lithium, who knew!)...we're just coping day by day. i'm better at the one day at a time thing than my fiance is, so that's hard. Trying to be the cheerleader for the both of us has depleted me. I just want us to be able to maintain stability for as long as we can, recognizing there will be unstable days in the mix.

Just poking around this board to figure out whether there are other spouses coping...how do you cope?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Since this post, my fiance was hospitalized due to his depression and we had to postpone our wedding. We have not reset a date as we are waiting for him to find a job that he likes and maintain stability for a while. We're picking up the pieces of our relationship with the help of great therapists.

Lies, manipulation and ego are certainly behaviors that are kicked up a notch sometimes due to the illness (you also have to separate the illness from your boyfriend's true personality aspects, which is challenging).
While all relationships can be painful and particularly when one spouse suffers from a mental illness, it sounds like you are in real distress right now. Maybe it is a good time for you to evaluate what it is that you want from a partner in life?

Knowing what I know about the illness and my fiance's commitment to treatment, AND our support network..I still have days when I am not sure I can do this for the rest of my life. Usually they're quickly absolved when I think about how supportive my fiance is to ME (which is possible, but unlikely when a sufferer is not being treated - or acts manipulative toward you) and how much we love each other and how hard we've worked to educate ourselves and our families about his illness. I'm still learning. The point I started to make was being as fortunate as we are, I still have doubts about having children together as the illness is heriditary. I know there are other factors and life is a crapshoot, but bringing a child into this world is a big step. Having a child with a man who does not seem to be willing to accept his illness on a very basic level might not be the best course of action for you now.

If you have supportive family and friends, maybe now is a good time to really reach out. I can't tell you what to do and it isn't my place even if I wanted to- Try to get some good hugs and shoulders and receive some love.
Posted 8/18/2008 5:43 PM (GMT 0)

Hi Diskus,

Sorry for not coming back to you earlier, I was travelling.

I understand you have gone through a lot of yourself. I admire you for your strengh and will-power. Also the therapy is a very good thing and if you are both participating and believe in it, everything is possible for you!!

If manipulation wasn't there in my story I would want to make it work too with all my heart and put a lot of time and energy into it.

I thought so hard the last month and came to the conclusion that I cannot handle manipulation and lies. shakehead

It is so far from my values and at this point I have no idea if its due to the illness or his personality?! I will stand by him as a friend (which he totally rejects) and support his healing process. At least he is going back to therapy now (if this is true). I believe it will be a very long process to cure a person who is so much used to lying all his life. He has no friends, so I am not sure how he will collect power to heal.

The other thing you mentioned is having child with someone who is bipolar. Again, if love is there you cannot fight it I believe and the child may not inherit it.

I hope 'your' therapy is going well. Thank you for your kind words, Diskus. Your note cheered me up. It really does mean a lot to me.

Ren

Posted 8/18/2008 7:12 PM (GMT 0)
Ren, to answer your three questions. Yes, all three can apply to bipolar.

Hope you are well today.
Missflip
Posted 8/18/2008 7:50 PM (GMT 0)

Thanks Missflip!

Hmmmm, this gives me further thoughts as to how to talk to him when I am 100% that he lies and manipulations. He never really admits them.

When I tell him very gently and kindly that he is not telling the truth, he disappears without a trace for a few days. This drove me crazy as I never knew if I would ever hear from him again. After a long time I figured out that during his 'absence' he fools women who then suffer a great deal. 

I hope his therapy will help him understand the effect of his behaviour on his environment. Probably he will then at least try to manipulate all his ladies less and less.

Thank you for your concern, I am feeling better. I tried to distant myself from him emotionally but being a very loyal person I dont want to give up our friendship. But he totally rejects my friendship as he says to him that means I abandon him. I have this strange feeling that he doesnt know what friendship acutally is.

I think myself and his other ladies function as a safety-net so he always has someone to reach out to, but I dont think he is capable of real love as for now. Gosh, its difficult to explain it. Anyway, that is my gut-feeling. But he is so very intelligent. He simply has to be able to work on his issues. I wish I could send him a little angel who would help him doing it.

There is one thing that I can't get over though. When he is upset, cause I said something that does not match his expectation, he attacks back and says 'surely you dont care about me at all'. You know...if there would be a tool to make him understand how much I care. I feel I will never be able to make him understand as he kind of decides not to believe or trust in anybody.

Unexpected long answer, I am sorry. It seems it had to come out blush

I hope you also feel well, Missflip.

Posted 8/20/2008 4:42 PM (GMT 0)
Hello...read your post and started to cry. You have probobly been through very similar situations as myself. I am in love with a bipolar as well. We have been together for 3 years and I always knew there was something that just wasn't right with his mood swings. He promised me the world...we have so much chemistry together and truely love one another. However, he just goes through these self destructive phases where he wants to push me out of his life, drink, and gamble. Well, he has pushed me out of his life once again and like the last time, I have lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks. I go a few days without eating. I still go to work and function, but I am a mess. He told me the other day he was diagnosed as being bipolar. I feel for you girl....you love this man and want to spend your life with him, making one another happy and would do anything for him because the two of you are a team. Feel free to contact me anytime. I need to talk about it as much as you do.
Posted 9/10/2008 5:11 PM (GMT 0)

Hey Justbelieve08,

I was gone for a while, partly due to issues in my life, partly I had to distant myself from everything that had to do with my bipolar who I love.

It was distructing me so much, so I couldnt even read the forum, I got sick in my stomach. Not from the forum of course, but from dealing with the issue.

I have many many new proofs of his lies and I cried so much so I have no more tears left and I think this way I put a big part of my feelings aside and just see him as a friend. I tried to interact with him as a friend, it totally fails. I think we will lose contact as he figures that he can not fool me anymore and I am too independent person so he does not have a grip on me. I am very deeply sad inside, as the attraction is amazing I have for him.

I need to live my life and the almost 2 years misery didnt bring me a lot of positive things, so I try to do without him.

How are you Justbelieve08???

Ren.

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