Bipolar wife,what to do?

hi,i have been married for 17 years to my wife. she has always been an unhappy person and mean and unreasonable, jealous and paranoid. she was only formally diagnosed in 2004 as bipolar which explained to me the hard time i have always had with her. now i am at my wits end. i wake up everyday to arguments and insults and just purely negative outburts from her. nothing i do or say makes it any better. i have pleaded with her to get help,let me administer her meds so i know she takes them and to let me attend counseling with her but she refuses. once in a while i get to see the person she can be and i love that person but the rest of the time, 99% of the time she is unbearable. I am told on a daily basis to leave,that i am lazy and sorry and no good,that my children have no need of me and so on, i seem to be the cause of every problem that we have. i have stuck around for the kids because the times i have left her they become the targets. she had a doctor that prescribed meds for her but only has her come in 3 times a year.there is no therapy going on and she does nothing to help this,only try to make all of our problems my fault. she just started a new therapist,1 appointment so far who told her that what she does is ok because she is bipolar and can't help and that i am the wrong one because i have on occasion thrown things out of frustration after weeks of verbal abuse.it also bleeds over to my kids,she takes any opportunity to punish them,berate them and shows no motherly concern for their self esteem. I have had to quit or gotten fired from every single job i've had in 17 years because of her fighting me before and after work and even calling or showing at my jobs to scream at me. i am now disabled and have to hear how lazy i am because i don't help much with the house work because of my severe back injury. important things never get done because of the fighting and nobody that knows us wants us around because of her behavior,her family included.and she makes appoinments to get help sometimes but it always ends in nothing. our lives are in shambles because of this and i am to the point now that i would really just commit suicide if i didn't know my kids would suffer for it and then become her focus of abuse.everytime i leave her,she finds where i am and causes trouble there until i am asked to leave,she will shut off the utilities if she leaves and call the law to make false claims of abuse on my part which is enough in my state to get me arrested. i have left so many times only to lose everything we have and have to start over when i give in and come back.somebody please help me and tell what to do,i don't feel i can take another day of this

My heart breaks for you   I am currently separated from my Bipolar husband. We have been married for 9 yrs.( 2 yrs ago he was diagnosed). The last 2 yrs have been a living hell for me. I was no longer his wife I became his caregiver. 2 weeks ago my husband left to see his mom 5 hours away. And all of a sudden he says he doesn't want to be married. We have 4 children which 3 are disabled. I also have a thread tilted (Wife to a Bipolar husband..recently separated) there you could read my story.

I feel I lost myself caring for my husband. You need to really do whats best for you & your Kids. It worrys me that you stated you rather not live. But think about it if you where not around your wife will be raising your children by herself. Your children need a stable parent to turn to with their everyday things.

My husband has been gone almost 2 weeks and I hate to say it but I have so much peace in my home & my heart. I don't have the stress of always worrying what mood he is in. I was suffering panic attacks & depression. And OMG!! they are gone. It was all him ..he was my anxiety. It hurts what he has done mostly for my kids, but I truly feel our lives are normal now. I definietly feel we are heading for a divorce. It's time I put myself first for a change. I am healing. It's hasn't been an easy road for me. But him not being home has made my eyes open that ..that is not the way of life. Please maybe see a therapist for yourself I will be going to one as well. There is lots I have to vent. You are so strong by staying by your wife's side despite all you have faced with her. Sometimes we have to let go. We can't heal them there is no cure. You need time for yourself to heal. By all means I wish Bipolar didn't exsist it's an awful illness. I know they face it everyday. But sometimes they should be responsible for their actions & behaviors.

Put your children & yourself first. Hope the very best for you! Somethings are just out of our hands. Take care.

Post Edited (mt4) : 4/20/2011 6:13:02 PM (GMT-6)

Hi dr863,

I know exactly what you are going through. I got married 2 years ago to someone with a bipolar disorder. She was never diagnosed, but fits the discription of all the research I have done. When she was five she was in a car accident which she had her skull crushed, and was in surgery for five hours having skull fragments taken out of her brain. She definately has scar tissue which I've read  could be causing her problem.

I should have known better because she was very explosive with me before we got married. She went as far as loosing 68 pounds in order to seduce me into marriage. I married her, but while married she had gambling problems, impulsive spending on my credit cards because she couldn't get her own. She kept telling me I had a house and credit cards and she didn't have anything. I now have to file bankruptcy because she helped get my credit card bills up to $56,000.00. She helped with the bills, but only bare minimum. I would be paying the cards off for 30 years. You see between the both of us we made over $140,000.00/yr. I couldn't see us living like that with this sort of income. She told me once that if she stopped gambling and her impulsive spending that she would have a lot of money. I told her, then we would be able to do things as a family, but she replyed that I save for that. She has a child that would wreck my house by leaving food all over the place, got makeup and finger nail polish on my new carpet, but when I tried to teach her daughter right from wrong she would repremand me in front of her child, so her daughter started to treat me as if I didn't exist. She also told her daughter that I have personality disorder.

You see, I'm not the only one she can be very explosive with. She explodes at her mother and other family members also. She can explode at her friends as well.

She moved out, but cried saying she doesn't want a divorce. I go to see her, but she keeps telling me things like I through her love away. It's as if she is punishing me constantly, but says she still loves me. I believe she is just using me because I spend $558.00/mo to keep her and her child on my health insurance. You see she gets prescribed 200 vicodin/ mo on my insurance, but would only get 30 vicodin/mo with her own insurance. She also is back at the gym I think to seduce the doctor  she works with because she dresses seductively when she goes on patient visits with him. She then tells me that he told her how stunning she looks and that her butt looks great with the pants she was wearing. Anyone elsee would have a sexual discrimination case against this doctor, but not her. He apparantly is having problems with his wife, and I feel she is waiting for him to get a divorce so she can make her move like she did to me leaving the boyfriend before me. I approach her on these matters but she tells me I don't know what I am talking about. Every time I go to see her I feel like I am an intruder. Her daughter even makes me feel like I'm not not welcome. Her mother leaves her daughter alone constantly to go gambling for long hours at a time. Her daughter is home during the day when she works because her daughter can't get along with the kids at school, so my wife took her out the school for home schooling for the second time. Her daughter will have no social skills at all. The daughter is only nice to me when she thinks I'm going to give her something.

I am at my wits end. I go to see her and do many things for her like fix things around her house. take her and her daughter out to dinner, but I still get treated somewhat coldly. She knows she has me good because I have a sexual disfunction and tells me all I would be able to get is an old woman. You see, I'm 59 and she is 48. I also have diabetes. She said that she went after me because I needed her being she is an RN. I don't know what to do because I strongly think she is temporarily using me. I do love her, but I think she is making me hang on for the insurance, then when she don't need me she will cast me to the wind.

You see, you are not alone. I will keep you and all that are out there with this problem in my prayers. Sometimes I feel like it's not worth going on anymore. I wish you all the best with your situation!

Bob