Bipolar wife wants divorce/separation. Refuses to admit bipolar may be a factor.

My wife and I have been together for over 15 years. We've been married for 11 years, our anniversary was last week. She had been on Cymbalta for depression for several years, prescribed by her primary care and not monitored. She had a history in high school and college before we met of minor mental health problems and low self esteem, not sure what they were she won’t really talk about them. In late October or early November out of the blue she asks me if I'm happy and I reply that I am. She says she isn't and hasn't been for a while. Up to this point I had no idea there was a problem with our relationship. We never fought, we have 2 wonderful daughters age 9 and 7. We live in a nice small town, in a very nice house at the end of a cul de sac. We have many friends and a wonderful family that we spend a lot of time with. We have some money problems but at that time we were well on our way to digging ourselves out of them. Things weren't as passionate and exciting as they were when we were newlyweds but we had an active sex life. I thought that we were a normal married couple. After she asked me that I thought maybe we have been in a rut where we fell into a routine and we could work on things. I felt we needed to communicate more but neither one of us liked to talk about our emotions. I should also mention that at this point she had been on a diet for a few months and had lost a significant amount of weight (about 20 lbs). The total weight loss was about 30 lbs by around February. She has always said that there is nothing wrong with and I'm a great husband and father. She says something is missing. She says she loves me and I’m her best friend but she is not in love with me.

Some background on our relationship. We met when she was 18 and in college. I was 26 at the time. We started dating and got engaged after dating about 3 years. I was her first "real relationship". I recently found out that she had only lost her virginity about 5 or 6 months before we met.

In the middle of November we were at my wife's parent’s house for her father's birthday. My wife was drinking too much and was constantly on her phone texting. She at one point went to the bathroom and didn't come back for a long time. I found out later that she was texting a guy at work. The next weekend we were at a friend’s house and the same thing happened she drank too much and sat there texting right in front of me and our friends. Again it turned out she was texting this guy from work. The week before her father’s party we had been talking about going on a vacation. First it was going to be just the two of us going to Vegas, then one day I get an e-mail from her while I'm at work that we should take the kids to Disney. So we booked the trip for the 2nd week in January.

It turned out she was having an affair with this guy from work, who has a live in girlfriend who he has been with for 9 years. He at some point told her that he wouldn’t leave his girlfriend for her. She claims to this day that it was never physical only emotional and that they never did more than kiss. Early December out of nowhere she starts saying that she wants to get a divorce that she "loves me but is not in love with me". She wants to cancel the trip. I told her I wouldn't cancel the trip because it would devastate the kids and I would take them by myself if I had to. I convince her to go to counseling. I tried to get her to break off the affair. She tells me that she and the coworker are just friends now. In mid December she comes home from a counseling appointment. As she is pulling in the driveway she calls me to meet her outside. I do and she breaks down in tears telling me she loves me and she is so sorry for what she did and she is so glad I wouldn't let her cancel the trip. For a little while it was like we were newlyweds again. Our sex life was great again and she was treating me and the kids great.

A week or two later was her work Xmas party. She told me "he" wouldn't be there. I checked text messages from that night and found that he was there and that she sent him a message "let’s get out of here". When I confronted her on this she denied anything happened and said they just went to a different bar with a group. For Xmas everything was fine and we ended up going on the trip. On the trip she acted fine but when we got back she said that she the trip was horrible and she didn't have a good time and again wanted to leave me. I question how you can have a bad time when you are taking your kids to Disney for the 1st time. The trip was for them not us. A week or two later she changed her mind again.

Her family and I had been trying to convince her that we believed she may need to see someone about her mental health and the Cymbalta. We believed that the Cymbalta wasn't working and may have been harming her. The way she was acting was so out of character. She had become cold to her parents whom she had been very close to. When anyone questioned why she wanted to leave me and suggested she needed help she would shut them out and say they were on my side. Everyone close to her saw that something was wrong. Only her immediate family and our best friends who live 2 houses away knew what was going on. Her mom had made a quilt for her out of the kid’s baby clothes and blankets and she didn’t even thank her for it. She used to be the most thoughtful and caring person.

I convinced her to see a marriage counselor on February 13th. During our first appointment when the counselor asked if there was anyone we wanted her to share information from our sessions with my wife said she would like to see someone about her mental health. An appointment was set up with a psycho pharmacologist about a week later. During our marriage counseling she insisted that the relationship with the guy at work was over and that she wanted to work on us. When we got home from the appointments she wouldn't do the things the counselor suggested and didn't even try to communicate.

When she went to the psycho pharmacologist it was determined that she had some bipolar like symptoms and that she would be weaned off of the Cymbalta and put on a mood stabilizer. I could only go by what she was telling me for the diagnosis. On the new meds and the lower doses of Cymbalta she thought she was cured and everything was great. We continued to go back and forth between her wanting to leave and things being good or great. I phoned the pharmacologist before her 2nd appointment on March 21th and told her my observations of how my wife was acting and I was able to convince my wife that I should go with her to the appointment. During the appointment I told the pharmacologist how my wife had gone back and forth on us splitting or staying together and my wife said that she had felt this way for a long time and that when things were going good it was because she was "trying" and that it had nothing to do with her mental health. At this time she wanted to file for a divorce and put the house on the market as soon as possible. The pharmacologist told her that she believed she may be bipolar and that she tells her patients not to make decisions like this until they give the medicines time to work unless they are in a violent relationship. Since then there has been several times where she would just cry for no apparent reason and I would comfort her. I have taken approximately 5 days off from work to comfort her when she was in these states.

In early April she found out that the guy she had the affair with and his girlfriend were buying a house together. She became very upset about this even though she claimed it was over. She attempted to get me or her brother to tell the guy’s girlfriend that he had an affair. Someone told his girlfriend and he began ignoring her and not being professional about the work relationship. At this time she was crying all the time and I comforted her though it killed me that she was so upset about him but always seemed so casual about wanting to leave me. During counseling she was asked if she thought she would have ended up with him if we split up and she said that it was in the back of her mind, though she had continued to claim that the relationship had been over for months. After a few weeks of him treating her bad while we were on one of our good weeks she told me that she finally realizes that she what she has in me.

On April 17th, she had an appointment scheduled with the pharmacologist and then the counselor by herself. On that day we were in one of the times when she wanted the divorce. She texted me and asked me to go to her appointments with her because she was having a bad day because of the Cymbalta withdrawals. I sat outside during her appointment with the pharmacologist when she came out I drove her to the counselor. At the counselor she tells us that she had been having thoughts of suicide that was why she asked me to come. She didn’t want to tell me but the pharmacologist said she should. I took her to a hospital crisis center and she spoke to a doctor. When he asked her history she said she was bipolar which was the first time I ever heard her admit that she was actually bipolar. They adjusted her medication, kept her off Cymbalta and lowered her mood stabilizer, and let her go home the next day.

The day I picked her up when I brought her home. I was hugging her to try to comfort her and out of nowhere she starts pulling my clothes off. We had sex and for the next week or so everything seemed good. We had sex 2 more times over that next weekend April 27-28th. Monday April 30th she again tells she is leaving me. When I ask her how she can keep doing this she claims that when everything seems good and normal that it’s only because she is trying to make things work but she doesn’t love me that way anymore and that she keeps changing her mind because she is scared and feels guilty. We had an appointment with the counselor on Wednesday that week and she pushed for putting the house on the market as soon as possible. The counselor and I tried to slow her down.

On Friday May 4th she went out with her brother and sister and I went to hang out with our friends who know what is happening. I got drunk and when I woke up the next morning she is sitting next to me on the bed and tells me that she isn’t sure she wants to leave yet. I called the counselor on Saturday to let her know that she had changed her mind again and she said she believed my wife was rapid cycling. For the next week everything seems good. She had taken Tuesday off from work that week and at her suggestion we spent the day together. We did some shopping for things for the house, we saw a movie, and then went to get stuff to make dinner that night. It was the most comfortable I have felt around her in months, there was no tension and everything was great. The night of Friday May 11th our oldest daughter had a concert at school and we went with both our daughters. Everything seemed great. We took them for ice cream after the concert and had a nice conversation in the car on the ride home. When we got home the kids sat with me on the couch and she went on the laptop, like she often does now, and went on facebook and pintrest. When the kids went to bed she disappeared upstairs for approximately 20-30 minutes. I began to get worried that she was having a breakdown and went up to look for her. When I got to the top of the stairs she was just coming out of the bedroom so I went back down. She came into the living room kissed me on the cheek and went to bed. When we are working on things she kisses me on the lips and replies I love you too when I say I love her, when we are on the outs she kisses me on the cheek. Because of the kiss on the cheek I knew that the next day I would be getting the I want a divorce speech again.

Saturday May12th was our 11th anniversary. I am a police officer so I had to work that day. I got out of bed get dressed for work and she comes walking out of the bathroom. I hand her, her anniversary present and she starts to say we have to talk. I don’t let her start I say I can’t believe you are going to do this to me on our anniversary right before I got to work. When I got home from work I walk in the house and I find that she has taken down decorations, moved a quilt rack I built from the upstairs hallway to the basement and completely cleaned everything of the refrigerator. The refrigerator had the usual kid’s drawings/schoolwork, pictures of the kids and pets etc. One of the pictures was a puppy picture of our dog, who we recently had to put down. She was like our first baby. We got her the week after we moved into our house right after we got married. Like I wasn’t hurt enough by her telling me she wants to leave me she has to start cleaning out the house that day.

The next day was of course mother’s day. I am still devastated. I watched the kids give her, her presents and I begin crying. We go to her parent’s house and I’m clearly upset and everyone knew. She says to her sister and mother I can’t believe he is giving me the silent treatment on mother’s day.

Yesterday I googled divorce and bipolar. That is how I found this board. I found so many similar stories to what I am going through. Obviously bipolar affects people in so many different ways no story will be exactly the same. Reading the posts helped me to understand what is happening and re-enforced my belief was that bipolar may be at least part of the reason she wants to leave. I asked my wife to google divorce and bipolar yesterday while she was at work. Last night I asked her if she did and she said she had. I asked what do you think. She replied all those stories were about people who had bipolar way worse than me. They were talking about hallucinating and stuff.

When we are on the good times she makes plans for the future, such as planning a trip to Vegas or getting me to coach football on the team one of our daughters’ cheers for. She has shown many narcissistic traits and has been very cold with everyone. She has spent a lot of money foolishly over the years and recently has been buying things for herself. She is a town employee and handles the 2ndbbiggest budget in town but our personal finances are a mess even though combined we make a pretty good amount of money. Bills are going unpaid and not much food in the house, we are not starving by any means, but no food for proper meals. She hasn’t been taking care of the kids needs. Our daughter told me she needed new sneakers and when I questioned my wife about it she said they were fine. I had to point out there was a hole in the toe. She has lost her patience with the kids. She is no longer close with her family or best friend. She is not the same woman that I married. She has made comments several times about wishing she could just runaway. Her best friend’s mother was bipolar and she often tells my wife, that she is reminding her of her mother and her friend tells her how devastated she was when her mother left. Her best friend has been suggesting she see a psychiatrist for weeks. When I mentioned the no food and kids shoes to the counselor, she went right out and took care of them. The fridge was full and both kids had new shoes the next day.

My goal is to convince her to see a psychiatrist and get properly diagnosed. Then hopefully get the proper treatment. When she is treated and leveled out if she wants to get a divorce I will respect that. I keep telling her not to rush into a decision that will change our lives and our children’s lives forever. Her family is ready to do an intervention if I can’t convince her to see a psychiatrist at our marriage counselor appointment tonight.

I love my wife and will do anything to keep my daughters from being hurt. I’m sorry if I rambled on forever but I hope to get the opinions of people who have been affected by bipolar if they believe as I do the disease is influencing her decisions.

Thank you,
Frustrated Husband.

I'm sorry if my post here wasn't proper. I had found several other posts in this forum that were from spouses so I believed this was the appropriate place to post.

Thank you, It's Genetic

It means a lot to me that someone so familiar with bipolar agrees with what I am seeing. She had me doubting myself and her mom feeling the same way.

Frustrated Husband

It's Genetic

I have seen our counselor on my own a couple times but I agree with you that I do probably need help right now. I know that my self esteem has been damaged and I have been depressed at times.

Thank You Again
Frustrated Husband

So last night we went to the marriage counselor.  We both had different agendas going in.  Her's was to talk about getting the house ready to sell and other divorce related things.  Mine was to try to get her to see a psychiatrist.  I had spoke to the counselor last week after she had changed her mind about divorcing again and the counselor said she may be rapid cycling and would support me with trying to get her to see a psychiatrist.  When we get there the counselor basicly sits back and lets us battle it out. 

She never mentioned to my wife that she thought her behavior may be related to her bipolar and when I brought up the psychiatrist she was wishy washy.  My wife said that she had seen a psychiatrist at the hospital and that her pharmacologist works under one.  I told her that I thought she should see her own that could actually spend time with her unlike the one at the hospital.  She finally agreed to see a psychiatrist if I would agree to working on the house and letting a realtor come in to give us an idea of what needed to be done and how much we could get.  Denial and bargaining??

When we got home I gave her a list of psychiatrist that I had printed from our insurance companies website and showed her one that I had highlighted.  I told her the one I had highlighted was educated at Yale and had done her residency at a very prestigious local hospital.  She replied I'm going to go to which ever one I can get an appointment with first.  I don't think that is the right frame of mind to go with but at least she is going to go.  She is currently only on 50mg of Lamictal.

Today while I was at work I get this in an email from her.

I just had a guy come in here to the counter.  He was 85 years old.  He appologized for tearing up because he had just left church.  He'd lost his wife of 58 years about a month ago.  It would have been 59 years this week.  When they met, he was 26 and she was 18.  He was a cop.

I'm not a big religious person as you know, but I do believe in God.  If this isn't a smack-you-in-the-face sign, I don't know what more it could be.

I am a cop and we met at the same ages.  I don't know what this means yet.  I'm waiting to see what she says when she gets home but it looks like she may be changing her mind again.

Frustrated Husband

50 mg lamictal is not enough. Most people don't notice any effects until they get to 100 or 125 mg. So she is essentially unmedicated.

Okay, Frustrated Husband, I appreciate your keeping in touch about how things are going.

First of all, the amount of Lamictal she is taking is not easily diagnosed as not being sufficient to be medically beneficial. That much can be effective for some who do not have a severe case of bipolar illness. It all depends on the seriousness of her bipolar condition. I guess it's best to leave the dosage to her doctors. It is a real struggle for some to find the amount and medication that are satisfactory to treat bipolar disorder. I found 15 mg effective when I took Lamictal.

You will find other bipolar patients who take as much as three or four different medications. Bill (on this forum) is one who takes none except when he senses that he needs medication for his condition. Please don't be alarmed by the thread which directs you that she must take 100 to 125 mg daily for Lamictal to be therapeutic.

The most important thing I see is that she plans only one visit. That won't do it, Frustrated Husband, so you have to see your way clear to help her decide to accept the psychiatrist's evaluation and do what he suggests that she must do to have her chemistry balanced.

She seems frankly to be in a bit of a stubborn mood for whatever reason.

I suppose you're going to need to wait to see what this new psychiatrist has to say about the situation.  If she doesn't seem to

begin to show some effort to co-operate, you might continue to keep in mind an intervention.  I gathered from your earlier posts that her mother thought that might be called for.

In the meantime, keep your appointments with your own specialist so that you don't continue to feel so frustrated and alone in this.

You're doing all that you can do, and that's all that's expected of you.

Take care of yourself and the children.

It's Genetic

Post Edited (It's Genetic) : 5/17/2012 7:20:09 PM (GMT-6)

Good morning, Frustrated Husband, I'm a litle late getting back to you but I am catching up this A.M.

Well, you are talking and that's good and it sounds as if the Lamictal may be working. Her interest in going places, visiting with friends, etc. are all indications that she is emerging mildly from depression. The tears, however, don't indicate that.

What she needs is to discuss the intimate affair of the past months with her psychiatrist who will alleviate the problem from her psyche. Remind her that psychotherapy is the way for her to finally be free.

You're handling it well, in my view. Keep encouraging her to talk with the psychiatrist about what's in her mind. That's going to be the resolution--that and taking the medications prescribed.

I hope this is going to work positively for your relationship, I genuinely do.

I hope you're feeling better this morning about it all.

Take care.

It's Genetic

I think it's super that you're going to talk to a psychiatrist, Frustrated Husband. He can advise you much more accurately than we can.

I do think, however, that your wife is out of line in pushing the home sale for you and the children. After all, you and your children are a big part of it all.

She still needs to have psychotherapy to work out all the problems of her infidelity first. And I would suggest that you postpone anything to do with the home until she has had several sessions with her psychiatrist. It's that lingering depression about the marital affair that is causing her to want to give up everything with you and the children, I think.

Ask her if she has thought about the fact that you might be given custody of the children in a separation. Ask her if she has thought that, since she is the one who has been unfaithful, what a judge would think about trying to split things 50-50 if that's what she's after--it sounds to me, frankly, as though she might have some delusions about the money and what she thinks she might be able to do after the divorce.

She needs definitely to have further psychiatric help.

I keep thinking that she will concede to the recognition that she needs to see a psychiatrist. Frankly, between you and me, this ploy of hers may be a way to try to maintain control of the home and everyone and everything in it.

It won't work when you're in the process of seeing a psychiatrist. He will give you some real ideas to work with in resolving this.

Take care.

It's Genetic

Post Edited (It's Genetic) : 5/20/2012 4:34:06 PM (GMT-6)

I'm sure her psychiatrist is going to want to continue to see her, Frustrated Husband. Your counselor is right; she is not recovering from the guilt of her affair. She must deal with that.

I get the feeling that she wants to lead the family in the business affairs as in "I won't take too much from you in the divorce". She has no control in what happens in the sharing in the divorce, except for custody of the children, and even that, in my view, is debatable since she went through a period of not giving them the attention they needed and the care--as in one of the children's needing shoes, etc.

You give her an awful lot of freedom in her demands. Maybe you should talk about this with your counselor and see if he/she recommends that you clamp down a little on your own wishes in this marriage.

I agree with you about living conditions. It's very, very important for the children's mental health that they be kept in a safe, clean, friendly, secure environment as they grow into their older years. They are learning now what life is to be about (in their view).

If your wife were to be divorced right now, she would realize the HUGE mistake she made and how difficult it is going to be for her to make it on her own, considering how well she has been provided for in her marriage to you.

Take care; continue to question your counselor, and hope for the best.

It's Genetic

Well, I think we'd better leave the sex discussions out of the forum, Frustrated Husband. We have youngsters as young as 13 who read these posts, and we don't want to give them the wrong ideas about anything.

Your wife's conduct is still part of bipolar illness. The wake-up call that she isn't going to get what she thought she would get in a divorce settlement financially brought her back somewhat to reality. I'm glad she learned that. She needed to know it, frankly.

I'm glad that she will continue to see a psychotherapist and try to get out the remainder of the affair so that she is free to remain a mother to your children and a good wife to you.

Hopefully, you'll see changes as she continues the therapy.

Continue your therapy, also, to reduce the pain of it all.

Take care.

It's Genetic

Frustrated Husband,

I'm sorry you had to read the thread above, but I have seen enough evaluation of your and my communication here that I think it's best that I drop this correspondence with you and tell you that I think you are doing everything just right to bring your homelife back to a normal state and that I believe the answer is going to be the continued help that your wife gets in psychiatric help.

I want you to know that I am very sympathetic with your situation and hope that you will overcome it with faith, hope, and continued therapy for yourself to overcome the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome that is naturally occurring in broken relationships of this type.

Take care of yourself and I wish you the best.

It's Genetic

Post Edited (It's Genetic) : 5/23/2012 11:31:55 AM (GMT-6)

I wish you would join the forum as a regular member, Neuropathy10. You have made some significant points in your post about his wife needing to be hospitalized for a minimum of three weeks, etc.

People need all the advice they can get and all the compassion they might receive, even when it's "tough love" to find a way out of the miserable condition they're suffering at the moment they post.

Please join the group.

It's Genetic