Bipolar Wife Kicked Me Out After BP Episode

My common law wife of 11 years asked me to move out last month after I confronted her with evidence of an affair.

She was 2 months into a manic depressive episode when she started hanging out in a lowlife dive bar just about everyday and wouldn't come home til late at night. She had all the usual manic symptoms: Blasting stereo early in the morning and singing and dancing like a lunatic, not sleeping more than an hour a night if at all, going to rock concerts out of town many nights in a row,

not letting me touch her or hold her hand, avoiding sex completely with me etc.

Note: This episode started the day after we moved into our new home(trigger?)

I caught her with a guy in the dive bar and I have emails she sent him about meeting there and at church on Sundays(she would spend all day with him after church and not come home til 9pm sometimes. She also would get mad at me if I tried to accompany her to church saying: "I have a female friend I met at Church and I don't need anyone with me".

Before  her 2 months of hanging out at the bar she was in a "day hospital" for 2 months on disability. She had been giving new meds. She was having pyschotic episodes before the day hospital due to not sleeping at all for 2 weeks which drove me crazy.

She turned the apt. upside down many times(usually at night while I was sleeping)and ende up with dozens of bruises on her body.

We have been engaged to be officially married for 7 years but I did not tie the knot due to her illness.

This is the first episode she's had in 7 years and she credits me with helping keeping her stable. Before she was with me she had an episode at least evry 4 years and they seem to last 5 months.

In our 11 years together we were really in love and both faithful and very happy. She was always loving, caring, sexually available and very hardworking.

I had no issues with her at all and looked at her rare bipolar issues as a inconvenience but was willing to deal with it.

I'm out of the apt on my sister's couch far away from her in the country. I have no job at the moment and being far away from my home for 3 weeks now is making it difficult for me to get a job and also toget access to a therapist which I deperately need.

I'm so devastated by her betrayal that I have had suicidal thoughts daily since our breakup. She has said to me that there is too much water under the bridge and that she is done with me.

I know her illness is to blame but she says it isn't and that we are very different people and have very different interests.

That is not true at all. Before her episode we did everything together and were inseperable. I was very attentive all these years and worshipped the ground she walked on.

I can't stand the loneliness and don't know what will happen.

I am 54, and she's 48.

I don't know if she'll snap out of it and want me back and I don't know if I can forgive her for the infidelities.

I'm also concerned with std's and Aids if we did reconcile.

Neither of us have any children.        

Thanks Kitt!

I'm seeking therapy.

Hi Buriedalive:

I can fully empathize with what you are going through, as my partner of 33 years has – in her current and prior episodes – been exhibiting the very same behavior: “…Blasting stereo early in the morning and singing and dancing like a lunatic, not sleeping more than an hour a night if at all . . . “, driving around all night to remain awake, chain smoking (she otherwise does not smoke), having delusional concepts about love and relationships and what and how they ought to be; exercises reverse psychology by attempting to fix in others the psychological problems and paranoias she herself is going through, etc., etc.

She was clean the last 20 years, even though she had stopped taking her meds. Prior to that, she would be having a manic bout every 9 months or so, and each episode would last between 3-5 mos, the peak being around the 2nd month. When she would come out of it, she would always find some rationale to justify what went on without taking full cognizance of the fact that she had gone manic, or that she has an illness that has the lasting potential of recurring over and over again unless she resigns herself to a life of serious meds and therapy.

When she was clean for the last 20 years, I thought she was cured, but when she relapsed last December (she has still not completely come out of this one yet), I lost faith and hope. After doing additional research and going through different forums (in particular this forum), I have convinced myself that there is no such reality as a permanent liberation from that illness. It is all left to the individual to make the cure happen and maintain the status quo for the rest of his/her life.

The most important thing is to do your best to isolate the person from the illness, because once the illness takes over, you are no longer dealing with the person you once knew, know or still love, but with an illness you will have to live with and gradually begin to distance yourself from or painfully abhor. And it is not uncommon for your partner to talk of separation or divorce when going through her episodes, or even walk out. It comes with the illness and the consequences can be tragic if one is to rashly act upon such promptings emanating from the person in the course of a manic bout.

You are not alone and if we had a crystal ball, we would all have precisely known how to respond and when to quit. No one has it and therefore, we must take each day as it comes, endure the onslaught or ordeal the best we can, and attempt to find some constructive resolution once the dark clouds or mental tsunami blows over and the sun shines once again.

Hi Buriedalive:

Good to note you have moved on. Sometimes, it takes greater courage to create the light at the end of the tunnel than to wait for it, anxiously or hopelessly hopeful.