When I first started seeing my husband, he was living with his 4 year old son (his ex wife had left him a few years previously after taking everything he owns, then committed suicide a few months later). He drank quite a bit but I just put it down to suddenly becoming a single father...
After we had been living together a few months we had some friends over for bbq - but they went home "early" (around 10pm and he still wanted to party), so he glared at me and said "what did you do to make them go home?" Then he started going on about how they hate me anyway and tell him to get rid of me, and how his family all hate me, and as soon as he can he is moving out, then he spat on me and kept calling me names. I remember sitting on the floor sobbing and he called me pathetic.
The next morning he apologised, said he didn't really remember much about it, and blamed it on the alcohol.
It happened again a few months later after we bought our home. He was drunk, and was quite angered that his football team lost a game - which apparantly was my fault. Once again I was told how much he hated me, that he is only with me so I can babysit his son, how his friends and family hate me blah blah blah, but this time he also grabbed me by the throat and pounded my head into the floor. He only stopped because he was sleepy so he went straight to bed and fell asleep. Next morning he said he remembered nothing and once again blamed it on "too much alchohol". Thankfully, this was the only time he was physically violent towards me.
I would get so scared when he drank because I didn't want to keep going through this, but then I noticed that he would also fly off the handle very quickly when he wasn't drinking. I would have to choose my words very carefully so not to upset him.
Even on our wedding day (we married in our backyard), I was getting dressed and he actually abused me for not doing more to help the kids get ready (I had already dressed them and done their hair, all he had to do was put the tie on his son) - I couldn't believe it! Our wedding day and he was telling me off! I told him that I was not going to go through with it but he apologised and begged me to still marry him.
It has come to the point where everyday is a challenge. His only "good" days are the ones where we walk on eggshells and try very hard not to do or say anything that might upset him.
When he is angry, he will talk to himself (like little conversations with someone, he complains about us) and he likes to go outside when he's telling us off, so the neighbours can hear what "rotten" people the kids and I are.
In the 3 years we've been together, he's had 7 jobs. Thankfully I am in charge of the money so he can't blow it. He is always telling me that he is going to quit and I can work full time instead (I work part time).
He is very jealous and possessive. He will check my mobile phone messages to see "who I've been talking to".
His father, I think also suffers from BD. He is an old man in a nursing home now, but in his life he only ever held down a job for a week. He was a gambler and moved in and out of the family home for years until my mother-in-law finally kicked him out. He doesn't shower. (He uses a rag and metholated spirits to wash himself). He won't eat in the dining room with the others and won't eat their food. And he cuts the top off his clothes (underwear, socks etc).