Comments on: Bipolar Extramarital Affair

By: outraged

outraged — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:58:50 +0000

Can’t believe what fucking pricks you are!
How can you talk about leaving a person who is havinbg extramerital affairs due to a psychological disorder? You either take such a condition seriously or you don’t and thus don’t take the affected person serisously either!
How can you be such fucking sodding farts as to use terms like ‘cheat’?!
Manic people do not just need more excitement, they need more sex to put it plainly. And no, no matter how good your marital sex life is, it won’t suffice in a manic phase as those periods are all about variety, and all about not resisting your insiticts. Thus, instead of desiring others beside the beloved one, you go ahead and physically unite with them. WHAT’S the fucking big deal?!
Grow up!

By: DAVID

DAVID — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 18:08:52 +0000

i was married for 18 years to my wife, she was always loving and faithful as far as i know, on velentines day, which was one week before our 18th wedding anniversary, i proposed to her to renes our vows, she accepted but seemed very tired and unemotional, she staed she was tired and needed rest, the next day i went to work as usual and when i came home that night, she was gone, she had left me and our 2 boys, she claimed to her family that i had had an affair and had children secretly with another woman, 3 days later she had a breakdown and had to be hospitalized for 3 weeks, her family refused to listen to my claims of what she was saying as untrue,i wasnt allowed any information as to my wifes condition or what its causes were, when my wife got out of the hospital, she called me and told me that she had met a guy friend in the hospital who had also been in there and wanted a divorce, she told me she didnt love me anymore and wanted out, sot realizing that she may have been having an episode and not knowing that she had been diagnosed with bipolar i gave in, 2 weeks later we were divorced, she gave me full custody of our 2 boys and all gave her part of our home to our boys, she stopped contacting the boys and they didnt hear from her for 2 months, before long i started hearing from friends that she had broken up with the “friend” and was seen with several more guys on a weekly basis, long story short, after 2 months she came back, explained her illness to me and told me she still loved me, she addmitted to me that she had had sex with at least 10 guys while she was away from us, loving her still i forgave her and we tried to move forward,we went to counceling together and she continued taking her meds, after a year of being together i wanted to really make a fresh start of our lives so i addmitted to her that 15 years before i had also had an affair with someone close to her, she accepted my apology and we both commited to starting our relationship over from the begining,flash forward one more year, we seem to be happy,we go on date nights and get along very well, she tells me often she loves me very much and loves being home with me and our sons,our counceling seems to be going very well and then i begin to notice that she seems to be withdrawing emotionally from me, she finally admits that she cant get over the affair i had 15 years before and doesnt feel love for me anymore and wants out of the relationship, she does however still wanna be friends, she called her mother,spoke with her and afterwards asked me to take her to her moms,i did and she called me the next day and told me that her mother is gonna help her get another place to live and she is positive that she wants out and wants to start a new life, its been 2 weeks and i havent spoken to her or seen her, she does call our sons every night for a few minutes, but hasnt asked to see them yet, i feel guilty that maybe she is having a minor episode and i wasnt patient enough to wait it out, but i also feel it might be her true feelings of not being able to get over my affair of 15 years before, i have been faithfull to her fully since that time and only told her about it to clear my concience and to start a new life together clear of any lies,her sleeping with 10 guys in a 2 month period was hard for me to accept,and since we live in a small city im sure she might see some of them around,and she knows where a few of them live, i realize that 2 wrongs dont make a right and that her illness was a huge factor in what she did but it still doesnt make it easy to accept,in the 2 weeks shes been gone she doesnt seem to be repeating her mistakes of 2 years ago yet,i still love her but she seems determined to start a new life and so i have accepted that too much damage has been done to our relationship by both of us and will also start a new life, we are both in our fortys, any opinions of this story please?

By: kim jaques

kim jaques — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 02:28:28 +0000

I’m BP as well and could rrlatr to many of these letters. It helps not to feel alone. I think I could benefitrom reading more and even contributing. Thanks
L

By: Kaoilfhionn

Kaoilfhionn — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:20:00 +0000

I apologize for the second comment, but I wanted to respond to Kim’s post. It’s very common for BPs to self medicate – whether with alcohol, pills, weed, etc. It’s more likely that the person was already bipolar, but had been doing that for awhile to deal with it. I’ve been sober for 21 years, and know that in the first year of recovery, many people are misdiagnosed with all kinds of personality disorders, only to find later that it’s because of the drugs or alcohol abuse. A good friend of mine has been sober for 30 years, and runs a treatment center. While we can laugh about it now, when he first got sober, they diagnosed him with antisocial personality disorder, which turned out to be totally not true. It was the affects of the years of drugs and alcohol.

By: Kaoilfhionn

Kaoilfhionn — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:07:21 +0000

I was married to someone who is Bipolar I. We are both in our early 50′s, and he was diagnosed in his teens. It took 35 years to find the right combination of meds that finally worked. In the beginning, I read every book or article I could get my hands on. I went to bipolar support groups and counseling with him. During the course of our 8 year relationship, he had at least one affair that I know of, signed up on a singles website, had women from foreign countries sending him pictures, etc. The affair started when we were on married for 3 months. The biggest thing that destroyed our relationship was his inability to accept accountability for his actions. He would say he was sorry once, and then become furious if I wanted to talk about it at any time with him. We are both in a 12 step program as well, and I know that making amends is not just about saying you’re sorry. It’s about living the amends – which includes hearing how much pain the person has caused. I’m not talking about throwing it up in the person’s face often, but there are triggers that will bring the pain up for quite some time, and if that is not talked about, and owned by the person that did it, it’s probably the beginning of the end. Even though his meds are finally right, and have been for 2 years, I don’t know if he will ever be capable of feeling/processing feelings like a normal person. I think that after a lifetime of depression and mania, he is left incapable of being able to do this, and does not have any interest in doing the work necessary that could have probably saved our relationship. I was devastated when I found out about the affair, but was never able to deal with it, with him in a healthy way. After the initial “I’m sorry”, he repeatedly told me to “get over it”, which caused even more pain and damage to our relationship. At this point in time, he believes it’s me, and that he is capable of having a healthy relationship with someone else, and I know he will move on easily and start again. I am still hurt, after spending so much time and energy in helping him with this illness, only to be discarded and blamed. There’s no gratitude or kindness in regard to any of the things that I did for him…including working and supporting him while he went back to school, which is when he started having the affair. Good luck to all of you, and if I am able to give any advise from my experience, it would be to appreciate the time, love, loyalty and devotion that a partner of a BP puts in. If anything is done to hurt them, own it. Not just once, but for as long as it takes. I truly believe if it’s done in a healthy way, it can be forgiven (not forgotten), but it will not need to be continually brought up. I still believe my ex was only sorry that he got caught, and not that he hurt me. He was initially, but that went away pretty quickly. There isn’t enough space or time here for me to write all of the unkind things my ex did during that time, but over the years, they added up, and destroyed even the possibility of saving the relationship. I know I will heal from this, but it will take time. Since he is on disability, I know he will look for someone that will be able to take care of him financially, but has to be attractive as well. He is from Ireland, is very charming, and is very believable. I found out after talking to his ex wife, that a lot of the things that he had told me were very twisted to his advantage. He did basically the same to her, only left her with 2 small children to raise by herself. She’s since met and very nice man that she married, and adopted his 2 children, and has moved on. I’m very happy that it worked out well for her. Even to this day, he has difficulty in remembering the way things really happened, and so I’m sure there will be another gullible woman out there that will be willing to try with him. I realize I have my own issues to deal with, and I’m a bit angry with myself that at age 51, I still have these codependency and abandonment issues to deal with that I’ve been working on for over half of my life. I wish there was a way to speed up the process, but unfortunately there is not. Godspeed to everyone here. Whether you choose to stay and try, or move on, it will probably be difficult, but perhaps if we reach out to each other in places like this, we can start to understand each other a bit better, and maybe hearing the same words from a stranger will touch someone’s heart, and hopefully help in some way.