My husband is currently going through a very long manic episode, continues to take his medication but the neglect of myself and the kids has gone on for too long. I lost my patience and exploded angrily on Friday. I believe that being patient for this long has not helped me staying detached emotionally from this horrible chaotic disease which is living in our home.

My husband did threaten me on Friday to seperate/divorce and I have moved our of our bedroom and currently putting some boundaries in place to help me and kids stay more focused on ourselves to make the right choices.

I want to continue to be supportive and helpful but my husband has not taken the seriousness of his disease into URGENCY. Is it that he can’t or do I continue to take care of an individual who has a mental illness and is not aware of what is happening or just can’t do it?

The only thing I can try and get my husband to process is that the kids and I are his support and help system currently. I know he knows that too and I am concerned that if I push too hard or get too angry that my first priority is also to ensure that the kids and myself and safe from the explosions of the disease.

I am thinking about divorce…… I love him but if he is not taking care of his disease and keeping some stability in the home that I better at minimum save myself and the kids.

I know I have the courage to make the right choices and always be compasionate and kind.

I loved the man I could see his potential. He had moved here from out of State and I have a great job so I thought I could keep us afloat while he got his career together. So against sound advice from my Mother and my friends and his Mother and his brother etc etc…I married him.

Our life was great for about 4 months. Then out of nowhere Mr. Hyde showed up. He was still not working but he stopped looking for work. My son started getting on his nerves and he just knew we needed to move away so we could make a life together. I refused. I live here and my work is here so I put my foot down. He sulked for awhile but then got a brilliant idea. He would go back to school. He started school and then up and left me- Yup for whatever reason he just left- He said he didn’t want to be married any longer and he was no good for me.

My world went spinning. I could not grasp what was going on but to save face I let him go. He moved in with his Mother (he had reconciled) and he didn’t call. Finally after a few months he showed back up. Of course he was sorry and he didn’t know what he had been thinking. So I took him back. I loved him. What would you have done?

Months went by. We were fine ~ sort of~ He had changed majors (again) and refused to work. He started getting angry again and blaming me for his unhappiness, he was obsessing over things and dropping them for something else, he starting getting in my face and saying very hurtful things and to make matters worse he started not sleeping and hardly ate. He smoked and played video games and spent a lot of time on the internet but would not take care of himself. Then he started “bleaching” the apartment. It sounds strange but everything in the house got a dose of bleach, He would clean from morning til I got home at 4. I tried to talk to him. Anyone could clearly see he was in pain, or …something but he would not open up to me.

Halloween night I planned a little party to watch scary movies, drink a few beers and just have fun. Before guests started to arrive he became deathly quiet. He then hides in our bedroom on the computer even as guests arrived. When the movie was over and the guests left (because they could feel the tension of my husband, their host, refusing to come out of the bedroom) he came out of the bedroom and told me I was selfish and that he was leaving again. HE packed his stuff up so fast my head spun. Again he left and didn’t call or come by.

He then started showing up to “check” on me. At first it was once every few weeks and it was completely friendly then it progressed to more romantic and then before I knew it he was completely back in my life. Again life went back to good. He is an amazing man and when he is good he is real good.

This past weekend he needed to go to his family’s farm to help his brother and Father out.(in hind sight I should have seen this coming because he was bleaching again and he changed Majors again etc etc) I was okay with that and planned things for me to do in his absence (Shopping, girl time etc etc) He came home briefly on Saturday to get his computer and kissed me and told me he loved me. Something was off so I asked if everything was alright. He said it was. Jokingly I asked if he was coming back and he said he was.

I got off work yesterday to find all his things gone. No note no phone call.

This time I reached out to his family, His sister in law (his brother is Bipolar as well) said that she knew this would happen. She had wanted to talk to me so many times but didn’t want to interfere. She had said that his family had talked him into seeing a doctor years and years ago (he is 34) and he had been diagnosed but he refused to comply with it. He refused to be “one of those people” his ego can be soooo huge sometimes.

On a whim I called his ex wife. As far as he had said she was a wicked woman and hated him and hated me. But I called her and found her to be the exact opposite. She was open and honest with me without her own agenda and what she revealed to me was history repeating itself. She said she wished she had tried harder to save the marriage but that she wouldn’t trade places with me. She said her personal hell brought on by him was horrible.

She also wanted me to understand that he may have another women as that is usually the final straw on these episodes.

I looked on our home computer the best I could and I found porn but nothing “affairish”.
It seems to me that all this time (we would be married 3 years this Feb) he has purposely kept his “family” separate from me. It’s easy to do we live about 3 hours from each other. But he has always told me his family doesn’t approve of me or my son (he is 15) and that is why we are never invited to their house. I think its too keep me away from them as I would “see the light” and demand he get help.

I am willing to put our marriage back together and I am more than willing to work with him on our problems but I can’t work on it by myself.

The sad thing is I love him so much and I’m scared that he was just a soul fluttering by, that will be gone and out of my life with no real reasons or regret from him. Like I’m a piece of trash he can just toss out. I understand being in a “state” and needing to run away but he is killing me. Why can’t he see that? I would do anything for him (including letting him go) but I cannot and will not be tossed away like last night’s dish water. I love him and I feel for him and his illness (which I was not privy too until last night) but I feel like I have been fooled, duped and robbed.
I did promise sickness and health and I would love him and be there for him if he would only let me.

Anyone know what I could say to him (if I can find him and if he will talk to me)? Any help here would be great!

My bipolar ex-fiance’ and I met online, and had an immediate and intense chemistry. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I still have his emails…he is very intelligent and eloquent, and they left me almost breathless. Then he told me he was bipolar. I had no understanding of this until the first time he flew into a rage over a joke I made on the phone, 2 months into our relationship. He broke up with me very angrily, saying vile and horrible things that I will never forget.

Within a few weeks he had hooked up with someone else online…within a few weeks of that, he was back telling me how much he loved me, but he just couldn’t leave her. I was still madly in love with him, so I played “the other woman” for over 2 months.

Then she dumped him, and he wanted me back. I agreed. That was in July of 2009. We met in person in October of 2009, and it was absolutely heavenly. Our online chemistry translated completely into real life, and it was 5 days I will truly never forget. He asked me to marry him, and I happily said yes.

Fast forward 8 months…we’ve had some problems along the way, but I am constantly reassured that he loves me, that I am the light of his life, I give him a reason to get up in the morning, and that no matter what, we will be married someday and start a family.

Sunday, June 13, 2010…we talked and hung out online as usual. We discussed our next meeting, which we were planning for the end of July. He said that holding me in his arms had been “perfect”, and he could hardly wait to do it again.

Sunday night, I said something that annoyed him. Monday, he broke up with me, saying he wanted to be single to flirt with other women.

To say I am devastated is an understatement. I have endured massive mood swings, verbal abuse, him saying such bizarre things that they defied imagination…and my reward is that I am now cut out of his life because…he wants to flirt with strangers?

I have been told repeatedly that we were soul mates, that it would take a nuclear fallout for us to quit speaking, and yet…here I am. Lonely and miserable and wondering what the hell happened.

I was having a hard time trusting him after the first time he dumped me for no good reason…as much as I still love him, I am beginning to recognize that I really couldn’t -ever- trust him after this. He keeps telling me that he won’t come back this time…which I’ve heard before. Sadly, for the first time, I don’t really think I want him to…yet, I’m sure he will. Two days ago he said, “This is our last contact, ever”…the very next day, he was writing me. I’m scared that when/if he does come back, I won’t have the willpower to turn him down, because I do love him so damn much.

And for those who say we’re blaming all this on BPD…damn straight. This is a man who is normally WONDERFUL…kind, loving, and caring. But when he goes manic, which he is right now, he becomes a complete stranger, and a complete jerk, as well.

Some say I have dodged a bullet, because at least I’m not married to him. I keep telling myself that, but it doesn’t seem to lessen the pain of what I have lost.