Greetings, I'm new.

Jay:

It's good to know she has an understanding spouse.

Tim Tam

I read several articles and realized from the comments that perhaps I was in the incorrect place as I've seen a post that says this isn't a support group for spouses. I was really just looking insight on how her mind works in her worst manic phases...we're going through a rather rough one at the moment.

Hi JayGatsby,

This is a support group for people suffering from Bipolar and for spouses, family members, caretakers and friends too.

When someone has Bipolar or another disorder, it can be hard for their partner as well.

Please know that we are here with you. I hope you will continue posting and you feel welcomed.

UA

Hello Jay,
No offense to Bipolar ppl but I have been in relationship with my ex and he had several emotional issues know I realize.

I wish I had spoken and confronted him in a rational way but I froze anytime an angry outburst or mean behavior from him became constant.
That's how I respond I now reflect ,,,not to blame myself or him or certain times in relationship we tend not to face the realities or reflect until it's too late.
Please sit down with your wife and have an honest talk about how you feel.
You are not over sharing and you cannot ever think or understand a bipolar mind as its very different than other ppl.I mean no offense when I say this because who knows I can be bipolar.
At lease one thing is very sweet in your relationship that you are very patient and understanding and confronted her though your spouse got angry when she was confronted.
I had to move on in my relationship as my ex was abusive too.
Enough was enough and he never cared ever how I felt ...that's the reason it was never a good relationship but a failed one.
No comparisons as no 2 bipolar ppl are same.
Please get a book loaned for library for helping your spouse.
It offers lot of insight into families that need support and validation.
You might get frustrated ,angry and tired with her but atleast you are ready to try for sake of your daughter and your unconditional love for your wife.
We have your back at HW.
I always felt pity for my ex and had lots of love for him so I could continue with even bad behavior which is a big no now I know.
Take care about your sanity and your daughter welfare and it's very good to know your wife is on meds .
My ex refused to get help with meds or psychotherapy.
Get counseling alone and joint as it will seek you new communication pathways with her.
Please be her support but do not accept abusive behavior or taking you for a ride.As she will continue it .
Put your foot down when you need to and let her know boundaries as they mean a lot to you.
We all have different moral ethics in personal and relationship wise.
For her cheating is no big deal ...nothing to do do with bipolar ...that's an cause for bad behavior.
Good luck!
Feel free to post here !!

Tim Tam:

First and foremost, I love my wife utterly and completely. She is the light of my life...albeit a slightly tarnished light and I say none of this in malice or anger.

She does respond to her medication, very well. Her depression is still an issue but mildly and her personality is a complete 180. An example being...the amount of effort she is making to distance herself now, when she is on her medication, that same amount of effort if not more would be put into us when we dated and when we got married our family.

As far as alcohol goes, no, she never has been a big drinker because she also has really bad migraines and usually even when we have had a few drinks at dinner she never went very far because her headaches would flair up. Right now she is drinking because he is drinking, its one of two things that they do..from what she's told me...she still wants to tell me about it, or vent about it if something goes wrong because despite distancing herself and deciding she's completely done I'm "still the absolute best friend she's ever had." She is also M-D.

When we've talked (rather me trying to reason with her) about the promiscuity she has said "this is just who I am and I'm ok with this" "I revel in this" "it breaks me and yet I feel" me. me. I. I. I want. I will. She absolutely doesn't want to give it up at this point. When I confronted her about cheating and I yelled she just flat out out said no, I won't stop...but if you push with the state she's in she does it anyway...in a way this...stubbornness...you could call it...reminds me of my 5yr old daughter when I tell her she can't have ice cream for dinner and she throws a fit.

The adrenaline of the act as you put it...to me seems fairly accurate because in the height of her justifying her actions she has pointed out that it's much easier to do such things with people that she isn't emotionally involved in because its a means to an end, to a feeling.

Promiscuity. She had a period of time when we were in high school when she was, pre-us. Also, what happened to your wife has happened to mine...and at the height of this she sometimes says that perhaps because that happened this is why she is the way she is.

When we started dating our intimacy was at it's peak and we had an absolutely amazing connection, this continued well into our first years of marriage. And the way she would explain our intimacy lends a hand to how she explains her actions now and why she is doing this sans the emotion.

At this point she revels in the idea of our child and she being hers but not the actual role of parent. This lends to the "fantasy world" you spoke of. An aspect of that is she thinks she is being the best mother in the world but the reality of it is, she spends more time out and away or distant and I spend all of my time with our daughter but in her head she takes the credit and she does it all. She says she doesn't block out our child but she does because when with our daughter she is generally glued to her cell phone. We had a game night several nights ago and she played one game with my daughter and myself and excused herself to the study and didn't come back until I had put our daughter to bed.

My salary keeps a roof over our head and food in the icebox and our daughter in a great school. She started this week. Lately I've pulled back. I don't give her cash anymore I've cut up all of our cards excluding one which I keep with me. So as of this week any dealings she has had with said affair haven't been on my dime..but...they still happen. I don't want to break up our family, I am focusing on our daughter and trying to keep this from spilling over into her life. Though this weekend I had a rough go of it. My wife since deciding she wanted to separate has taken off her wedding ring and my daughter found it in the bathroom cabinet and told my wife she needed to wear it and when my wife said no I don't need it my daughter broke down in sobs and told her she did over and over. I stepped in and told her to keep it safe for mommy and she was mollified.

She goes back and forth and one night she will say "I'm sleeping on the couch" but in the end I wake up and she's right there next to me...and when she sleeps its as though none of this exists...she talks in her sleep about how much she loves our family and me and is even affectionate.

Putting her out was...when I spoke to her mother about it...what she suggested as tough love...but I can't:
One: Our daughter...and there being two parents in the house and together as a family as best as we can be...even if her efforts are being focused elsewhere.
Two: Even now...I love my wife, I love her so very much and I want us to work and I know a lot of this has to do with her being bipolar and off her medication and I want to take the time to help her through this and get back on the right track and we work through this. And I would be even more of a nervous wreck then I've been in the last few weeks if on top of all this I didn't know where she was...even if it would be a tough love approach.


And...maybe this is me being stupid but I can't even begin to consider separation...even as she considers it now it just absolutely tears me to pieces...I'm so hopeful that if we can get her back on level ground she could be herself again...I'm not to the point yet...if ever to say I want to call this off...Again that could be out of stupidity.

You're right.

It's her graciousness that makes it work.

The part of your post that got me the most was:

“Though this weekend I had a rough go of it. My wife since deciding she wanted to separate has taken off her wedding ring and my daughter found it in the bathroom cabinet and told my wife she needed to wear it and when my wife said no I don't need it my daughter broke down in sobs and told her she did over and over. I stepped in and told her to keep it safe for mommy and she was mollified."

I was hoping she was too young to know what a wedding ring was.

So that’s child abuse right there, not wearing the ring in front of her child, even as her child begs her to put it back on. She is abusing the child, as she was abused as a child. She is crushing the child’s feelings, as her feelings were crushed.

She is repeating what she has learned: child abuse.

She has no concern for her child’s feelings, partly because she has no feeling herself, they were taken away with the abuse.

The only things she feels is sex, it’s the only thing that excites her, it’s the only time she feels good. She feels the sex 10 times greater than those who have not been sex abused, because it’s the only things she has.

The reason you two fit together and got married is the same reason my wife and I fit together: because the women in both cases realized they had these needs for outside sex, and realized they could roll over us.

Because we’re passive. And they are dominant.

Because they are sadistic, putting out pain, and we masochistic, tolerating pain.

My wife would talk about the reason she liked me. She said nobody else treats me the way you do. I finally figure out what that meant.

It meant, no other man would stand for her cheaing; that I treated her nice or would treat her nice if she got caught cheating

It also meant, I treated her nice in that when I took her out on a date, we went to a movie or a restaurant or something of that nature. The other guys that my wife dated, took her to a dirt road, had sex with her, and took her back to where she lived.

She loved that, because that’s the way she learned sex. No emotions. No love, no caring, just, as soon as the date starts, some form of sex. It’s their highest thrill.

Their also highest thrill, is a nice warm romantic evening with their special guy, a nice restaurant, a nice movie, and whatever follows.

How can they have two highest thrills that are completely opposite?

They are like two people, in my view, from what I have read in the data and saw with my wife. With the trauma in childhood, their ego divided, with themselves at 5 or 10 on one side, and the trauma on the other, protected by a wall.

The 5 or 10 year old child never grows up, thus the temper tantrums by our wives.

What they also do is wait till the first child is born, before revealing the other side of their divided ego. This locks you into the marriage, and gives her a permanent partner. If you leave her, the great mother gets custody of the child. It’s the perfect plan.

You are in a mess. Your child is in a mess.

My child held it together until age 13 when he heard my wife and I arguing, came in and wanted to know what was going on. I was in such a state, I told him; after 13 years, I coud not hold back.

It absolutely destroyed him. I held it together for 13 years. It did absolutely…no…good.

So, as you’ve seen, you held it together for 5 years, and all came unraveled in an instant.

Here’s the way you said your daughter handled it:

“Though this weekend I had a rough go of it. My wife since deciding she wanted to separate has taken off her wedding ring and my daughter found it in the bathroom cabinet and told my wife she needed to wear it and when my wife said no I don't need it my daughter broke down in sobs and told her she did over and over. I stepped in and told her to keep it safe for mommy and she was mollified.”

Here’s you with super feelings, and your wife with no feelings, with the two seismic plates crushing your 5 year old daughter in between, with her feelings destroyed, and your wife having no feelings for that.

My son hadled it, by proming his feet up on the dining room table, as in “I don’t care,” and yet he had been crushed. He had been forced to grow up in 5 seconds, sowing him the world was not what he thought, his own parents and own house was not what he thought.

Crushing for the other parent, part of the process of having outside sex for the other parent. In both cases, the sex is more important for the wives in this case, than is the feelings of the child. They have to have the outside sex, they don’t have to have a well-balanced child.

You can’t give what you don’t have, and what they don’t have is the ability to care for somebody else.

My wife also enjoyed telling me about her escapes before we were married. She would also revel from time to time, indirectly, hinting about some form of outside sex that may have been after we were married.

My wife couldn’t tell more because I knew who the guy was.

Since you don’t know who this guy is, she’s telling you a lot about this; she’s reliving it, and getting a kick out of dishing out pain, being the sadist that she is, as my wife was. And you are reveling in it and refusing to leave it (“I love her dearly”) because you are a masochist, as was I with my wife.

You said, “her personality is a complete 180.” Actually, she’s one person divided in half, from the trauma, not one person turning around.

All of our two posts are describing a condition called borderline personality syndrome, in my view. I think you need to look that up on the next and read what it says since you’re living with that, whether you know it or not, in my view.

You said, in effect, “when we dated, she was great.” Actually, she was keeping up a façade, until she could get you married, and have a child. She needs a marriage, so she’ll have a house to leave from when she goes to see her boyfriend, and a house to come back to.

You said, “drinking, its one of two things that they do..from what she's told me...she still wants to tell me about it, or vent about it if something goes wrong because despite distancing herself and deciding she's completely done I'm "still the absolute best friend she's ever had."

Telling one side of her life (you) about the other side of her life (her boyfriend) is how she bridges the two sides of her one physical being.

You said, “When we've talked (rather me trying to reason with her) about the promiscuity she has said "this is just who I am and I'm ok with this" "I revel in this" "it breaks me and yet I feel" me. me. I. I. I want. I will. She absolutely doesn't want to give it up at this point.
“When I confronted her about cheating and I yelled she just flat out out said no, I won't stop...but if you push with the state she's in she does it anyway...in a way this...stubbornness...you could call it...reminds me of my 5yr old daughter when I tell her she can't have ice cream for dinner and she throws a fit.”

This is who she is, in my view. Half of her is wrapped up in sex, which is what she learned early. She acts like a 5-year-old because she is an emotional 5 year old.

You say, “she has pointed out that it's much easier to do such things with people that she isn't emotionally involved in because its a means to an end, to a feeling.”

Unemotional sex is what she first learned, and that’s what’s greatest to her. I was sexually abused, and I can tell you that does have an attraction.

I’ll have to say here too, that, were you sexually abused? Because you said in your post that you two have and had great sex. That was one of the reasons my wife and I were attacked to each other, we were both sex abused. We both liked the same thing.

So the question here is, were you sex abused? It doesn’t have to be a full situation, it can be a slight event, so to speak, and it can be sexual abuse. I would look that up on the net search engine also, to see if there is any area of that which you might be connected to.

She liked that in you, and you liked that in her, possibly. That was the situation with my wife and I. You two are birds of a feather.

You said, “When we started dating our intimacy was at it's peak and we had an absolutely amazing connection, this continued well into our first years of marriage. And the way she would explain our intimacy lends a hand to how she explains her actions now and why she is doing this sans the emotion.”

You said, “At this point she revels in the idea of our child and she being hers but not the actual role of parent. This lends to the "fantasy world" you spoke of. An aspect of that is she thinks she is being the best mother in the world but the reality of it is, she spends more time out and away or distant and I spend all of my time with our daughter but in her head she takes the credit and she does it all. She says she doesn't block out our child but she does because when with our daughter she is generally glued to her cell phone. We had a game night several nights ago and she played one game with my daughter and myself and excused herself to the study and didn't come back until I had put our daughter to bed.”
You’re getting great sex from your wife; you, as a machosist, are getting sadistic treatment by your master, what’s not to like by people like us, and my father for that matter.

Another point is that, how successful were you with women before you met your future wife? I was not successful at all. Looking back on it, I now realize my attraction to borderlines. They are emotionally immature, and do not threaten me like a mature, well-balanced female. I get to be the big man.

While feeling inferior to mature women, I feel superior to borderlines. So I feel comfortable around them. Do you recognize yourself in that? Also, I was sex abused myself, and feel comfortable around borderlines for that reasons, and for the sex reason, also, as mentioned above.

Also, I only realize, my dad was like that. My mom was sex abused, my dad very uncomfortable around women, perfect match.

She needs a wimp, she doesn’t like macho for it was macho that sex abused her, he needs a female and doesn’t feel comfortable around strong females, again, perfect match. A marriage that’s going to be doomed, but, hey, you can’t have everything.

Maybe you thought you’d never be married, have a child. Now you’ve got all that. But at a price. So you see how we played into this?

Another point I've been leaving out is, while concentrating on my wife's faults, I've been leaving out my faults. Actually, we were equals in the amount of faults.

I had manic-depression, could not hold a job, and other problems while she had a good salary our entire marriage.

I had had a nervous breakdown six months before we got married. So, it wasn't all her. So, I guess one question here is: what are your problems?