bipolar and infidelity? help!

hey there.

i'm new to the forum and have a question for everyone.

i think my husband has experienced an episode of mania.

he has been taking lexapro for depression for a few years now but i have always suspected he's bipolar-his mood swings, his self destructive bahaviors, etc....

well, 2 months ago-he finally experienced his 4th traumatic event of the year by being suspended at work for something he ended up proving he didn't do (the other 3 events were the birth of our first child, an arrest for a DUI and major home repairs).

Well, after almost 9 years of being together-and all of these years faithful-he went out and met a girl 13 years younger than him and he made plans to spend a week at the beach with her-and went-i found out-and now he says she's the most intriguing girl he's ever met-that our marriage has never worked (did i mention we had just come back from a fun vacation together?)-he's not staying at the house w/ me or our son-he says she's just a friend of his-he vacillates between telling me he doesn't love me, to he loves me, to i brought this on myself to that he's indecisive about me. let me say that we may have had some ups and downs in our marriage but this is WAY out of the ordinary behavior for him-he's become cruel, deceitful, irrational.....all of his friends, his family, my family-we all think he's snapped.

he has been gowing to a group for people w/ bipolar and he has confided to me that he feels a kinship w/ them b/c he thinks he does have bipolar-but he doesn't seem to want to go get diagnosed. he has shared that he doesn't feel like he knows himself anymore and he has said it has nothing to do w/ me, that it's him. he still continues to see this girl but insists they are just friends (on this i don't believe him but whatever). when i mention splitting up from him-divorce-he seems confused as to why i would bring that up. he says he answers people w/ what he is feeling at that moment-whihc explains why he will tell his mom it's over between us, tell his sis he's indecisive and tell me he doesn't know what he wants.

i told him last thursday that i would agree to a moratorium on clarifying our relationship for 3 weeks to let him get his thoughts in order, on the understanding that after 3 weeks he will need to sit down and have an honest discussion w/ me. We will continue to have contact-about our son, school our lives, etc-I just won't nag him to make a decision. Honestly, I don't know if he's in his right mind enough to make a decision about something to major.

I am trying to get him to see a doc to get diagnosed-b/c he's being more and more erratic and irrational and he's starting to let it affect his job. I am doing the hard thing of stepping outside of my role as his wife and trying to be a friend to get him some help.

Someone had told me that the marriage issues won't even make his radar until he can get his moods under control.

Does anyone have any experience w/ this sort of sudden behavior change? (trust me-we were not unhappily married before this-he went from being a super affectionate and loving husband to this!)....and, if yes, am i handling it right by calling the moratorium?

It's just so stressful to me b/c this has all happened-out of the blue-w/in the last 1 1/2 months!

i know this is long-thanks for reading! 

thanks for the reply.

I do think outside of the bipolar, there are some issues we need to discuss.

However, the change has been so sudden that everyone thinks he's lost it-even his best friend of 25 years!

he has told me that he doesn't know why everyone is treating him so strangely and i tried to explain to him-w/ examples-how he has not been himself. he listened and later sent me an e-mail that said, "you're right. i don't even know myself anymore.".....and then last night he sent me a text mssg stating that he's such a mess and then apologized for being such a mental case. {sigh}....

i hope i can convince him to see a doc-and soon.

thanks again for the reply.

Hi Lucy,

Your post sounded uncomfortably familiar to me... . Ok, so I'm not married and don't have kids, and there hasn't been any affair, but my ex/partner (you of all people will understand my use of *both* terms here!) has been all over the place in an *extremely* similar way otherwise. All the things you wrote about his indecision, his to-ing and fro-ing, the sudden binning of a relationship that might have had some issues (like most relationships) but was basically good and strong), and the impression others too have that he's snapped (or is close to doing so) ... even down to the admission that he thinks he's bipolar but the refusal to seek help. For me this started about 5 months ago: he was away for 10 days, came back and announced we were finished -- best friends, but finished; then we had the will he, won't he move out; then the backwards and forwards after he moved out and the loves me/loves me not. He did seek treatment at first, but packed it in a week or so again and stopped taking his meds (which I don't actually think were right for him, but would have much preferred that he addressed that with his psych than binned the lot!). He then spiralled and on Friday night had the worst low in months. He has now promised me he'll start the treatment process again, but I can only now believe it when I see it. So you see, I feel like you a few months on, but not very far ahead in terms of progress. What I've learned is that this is one pattern that is known to occur with depression and bipolar. The fact that both of our significant others are still talking to us and telling us things that perhaps they're not telling anyone else (I certainly know this is true in my case, and certain things you said make it sound like it's the case for you) is a strong sign that this is to do with the bipolar rather than the relationship. Well, that's my opinion anyway... I hope I'm right!!

One thing that I know very well -- from my experience, reading and what others have told me -- is that, if your husband is bipolar, he needs help (meds and therapy): things will not just "fix" for him without him recognising this and accepting it. If he's not bipolar, I would still say that *something* is definitely wrong and that it seems to go beyond your relationship. Again, he needs to get help. Being diagnosed with bipolar must seem like a life sentence, I realise that now; so I can understand your husband's fears, especially if he's in a cycle which means that he can't think straight anyway. But it doesn't have to be a life sentence: there's so much treatment out there -- it just needs to be taken advantage of.

Keep posting, hun: it's really helped me to get things off my chest and think things through.

Take care of *you* too.

Rosie x