Looking for help. Especially spouses. Is my wife BP?

First of all, thank you for taking the time to read my post and I am appreciative of the wisdom and advice you all have.

    I am 25 and my wife is 24. I have been married to my wife for almost a year now. We dated for over a year before we got engaged and were engaged for 8 months before the wedding. My wife used drugs when she was younger and even went to rehab for it at the age of 17. When we started dating she had put all of that behind her except for marijuana. Our relationship was initially as mutual friends but we ended up falling in love with each other. I am adamantly anti-drug period because it almost destroyed my brothers life and the Marine Corps takes a pretty no tolerance stance to drugs. It was not my place to ask her to quit when were first dating but she did agree that she would never use or possess it when I was around. When we first started dating she had left college after 3 years moved to a new town and enrolled into cosmetology school. After almost a year she was basically begging me to ask her to marry her. I told her that if we were to get engaged that she would have to leave the pot behind because of my views and career. I explained to her that before I even seriously considered asking that I had to know that she wanted to leave it behind on her own because I know that the only person that can stop is the user and you cannot make them. She was smoking 5-7 times a day everyday at some points. I told her that I knew I could not change her and was very honest. Even told her that if she wanted to keep smoking that I would not hold it against her and we would always be friends. She said that she was more than happy to never touch it again and that I was much more important. She even toned it down a lot before we got engaged. about 6 weeks after we got engaged I found out that she had been doing it behind my back. It was a big deal and while we were looking at houses for us because she was moving in, I told her that this was unacceptable and if it ever happened again that I would call off the marriage. She moved in shortly after and we were married 5 months later. 6 months after the wedding I found out she had been smoking behind my back since not long after the wedding (this past November). It was a huge fight and she promised not to do it because I told her I would leave her. A few weeks before that night our dog that we loved more than anyone who has not had one can imagine was killed while she took it to visit friends and recently I find out 2 months earlier she had been raped by her employer. So she has had a double dose trauma and guilt that I cannot even imagine. I caught her a few weeks later once again and finally I consulted my chaplain and command and got into private counseling so that she would not feel like a military counselor had bias. I have been attending individual and so has she with a different counselor. We all meet for couples weekly, so each of us go twice per week. The past few months not only have I dealt with this but she goes out 4-6 nights a week, stays with friends, and drinks until closing time. I cannot do that because I have to be up at 4 every morning because I have a 90 minute drive one way. She used to not be like that. Even when we were dating she laughed and was so proud of how she was a homebody now and so happy with life. She had intentions of finishing her teaching degree because she said that she had grown up. Now its party all the time and get mad at me when I complain about her behavior. We separated for a short time and I gave in hoping she would realize what she was doing. I agreed to let her smoke at the house on an occasional basis and that no one else would ever do it with her at our home. I agreed to go out and socialize at least once per week. She agreed not to go out so much. Well 3 weeks goes by and she has broken each agreement multiple times. It wasn't occasional usage like she told the counselors and I. It was as least 5x per day. The counselors finally realize that she is an addict because if she can't get high she get violently drunk. They know now she was not being honest with them and they themselves have said that I have done everything I can be expected to do. My wife now wants a separation because she says that I shouldn't try to change her. She says that she is unhappy without the drugs but refuses to realize she is addicted. She told me today that she wants to live life here way and is tired of being told how to live life. She cannot tell any of us what she expects from life but she claims I am controlling (the counselors have affirmed I am in no way like that to both of us). She simply wants to party everyday. She has never paid a single bill or contributed in any way. She only works as a waitress now and spends every dime on food, gas, bars, and pot.

Some additional information.

She has assaulted me over a dozen times, and I have to just lay there and let it happen because I fear that she has threatened to tell the police I abuse her if I try to keep her from hitting me. Unfortunately I will lose my security clearance even if I am not guilty because they revoke if there is an open domestic incident. I would like to note that I have never so much as even pushed her off of me.

She takes Lexapro. Early on she was not on it and if the slightest thing happened her entire day would be ruined. Once she dropped a dish and then when I got home she started a fight and ended up crying and screaming for hours about how terrible life was. Other days she would be so happy and busy on projects and what not. When she got back on it she leveled off a LOT and told me how much happier life was. Recently her dosage was upped to 20mg. She takes them everyday as prescribed.

She used to be so motivated and loving and devoted. She had no desire to act like she does now. She even talked about how she was glad she had left all that behind.

Some days she is devoted to the marriage and others she hates me. She apologizes one day and then breaks her promises the next. She is wreckless with her own life. Her motivation and desire to achieve and build a life is gone. She never talks about her dreams anymore. She has this fantasy that she can go from waitress to pharma sales with no training and no complete degree. She wont get a decent job because they are "not as fun as the one she has now"

She is all over the board with her behavior and I have randomly drug tested her and know for a fact that it is only marijuana. Her having to get high and/or drunk is a symptom of whatever she is internalizing. She constantly lies and contradicts herself and is extremely defensive. I am doing all I can but tonight I was researching and could it be that she is behaving this way because of psychological issues? Her family said she treated them the exact way before she was initially put on Lexapro.

There is oh soooo much more but I have posted quite a long post already. Have any of you dealt with this? Does it sound like bi-polar or something else? She is putting her marriage and life in such danger and she can't even explain why.

Hello, StrugglingMarine, and welcome to the Bipolar Forum,

I'm glad you recognize that we can't diagnose here, but I can tell you what it sounds like to me: rapid-cycling bipolar illness, compounded by drug addiction. However, the drug addiction is masking so much that it's impossible to have a reliable opinion on the totality of it all.

The one thing that is clear is that your wife has serious psychiatric problems and needs to be seen by psychiatrists. She may even need to be hospitalized to determine which drugs she is addicted to and to see that they are removed from her system.

The rape problem needs to be healed by psychiatric therapy as much as is possible, and a teaching career is out of the question 

with her current condition. (She may have delusions.)  I have great compassion for you, because this can, as you say, affect your military career, as well as damage you psychologically because of the negativity, violence, and lack of truthfulness in the relationship.

You may decide to make some changes in your life if she refuses the help she needs and if she is unable to be stabilized in her brain chemistry.

Please take care of yourself first, now, and make sure that you are protected and safe. If necessary, get out of the situation for your own health since it is endangered. I would continue to see a psychiatrist to help you make whatever decision you decide is best for your life now.

I am one who does not believe in wrecking one's own life while trying to assist someone who does not want it.  I listen to those who are suffering and see the risks and hazards ahead for un-cooperative psychiatric patients.  Life is too short--or, as someone has said, "no, it's too long to have to endure that."  Those in the medical field have my full compassion and so do the victims of

drug addicts.

The truth is, however, that bipolar patients can't help themselves until they come to the realization that they must learn responsibility for themselves and that no one else can achieve control in their lives except themselves with the help of correct brain chemistry.  Abuse of drugs is a way to self-medicate and to

destroy oneself.  Can you imagine the self-hatred in the unconscious mind of one who does that?  It's very reminiscent of the alcoholic's illness.  He must recognize that he can't use alcohol or chemicals.  Doing that, he may be stable; otherwise, not.

We talk a lot here about ways to avoid having to take so many medically prescribed drugs that have long-term negative effects that when someone who uses drugs for fun, to mask underlying serious illness, and to be able to tolerate themselves comes along, I get upset about the behavior because I know many who are struggling honestly and genuinely to be clean and honest in their lives.

More than anything, it is the abuse these unmotivated psychiatric patients cast all about those around them that is so difficult for us to tolerate.  It takes a mature adult to deal with it effectively; even then, one cannot succeed without participation of the patient.  Does it appear that you are beginning to get some of that, at least, through her psychiatric treatment?

You really don't deserve this.  You sound like a genuinely good man.

Prayers are going up for your strength and health until she is healed or until you can live a godly life away from the disease.

It's Genetic

Post Edited (It's Genetic) : 3/24/2012 10:55:04 AM (GMT-6)