My wife and I are in our mid twenties and have been married for almost 4 years and have a 2 year old daughter. My wife was diagnosed as bipolar about
a year ago and is prescribed abilify and lithium. Throughout our marriage she has never been able to hold a job longer than a few months and I take care of all the household chores. After being laid off and collecting unemployment for the last year, she decided to go to school but was always overwhelmed with homework and complained she could not get anything done while staying home with our daughter. She would go to a school friend's house when I got home from work to study but always ended up not getting anything done. She has always been overweight and about
6 months ago she underwent gastric bypass. Despite what doctors told her, she started going out and drinking about
a month after the surgery. She has always enjoyed going out with friends while I prefer to stay home and am more of a homebody. She started slow and eventually was going out several times a week staying out until 3 or 4 in the morning, especially on the weekends which are my only days off work. I spent my weekends with my daughter while my wife slept in bed most of the day. Naturally, this began to bring strain on her schoolwork, marriage and our daughter. Most days my wife would not get up in the mornings and when she finally did, she would slip in and out of sleep on the couch for most of the afternoon. I was convinced that she had become an alcoholic.
Last week she came home and told me she did not have the same feelings about me and I also agreed that our feelings for each other have dwindled. But then she dropped the bomb and told me that she wanted to seperate. I was devistated. I tried to talk to her about how we could work things out, but she refused, she said she has been thinking about this for at least a week and had not drank in a few nights and was thinking clear. She was also very concerned that I would not let her see our daughter. She moved in with her mother and took all of her clothes, she also got a job at a grocery store she had worked at in high school (she was talking about getting the job before we seperated). We have been taking turns keeping our daughter for a couple of days at a time and have been talking here and there over the phone. She ensures me that she is not cheating on me and will remain faithful, she also told me she still loves me. She went to therapy yesterday and was told that she is having an extended manic episode and should not make any rash desicions right now. The therapist also told her to keep a mood journal and only drink and go out on the weekends when she did not have our daughter. Personally, I think that her medicine may be clouding her judgment, she was very bad about remembering to take it, and when she went out she would definatly forget. I am pretty sure she has never been on a consistant dose since begining her meds.
I love my wife deeply and know that she has some issues right now, but I am so scarred of losing her. I am going to try and let her figure things out and hope the therapy can make her realize what she is doing and help her get better. Thank you for reading my story and please give me some feedback or suggestions.