Bipolar Depression

At the end of April, I caught my wife chatting with two male "friends" in the Netherlands over x-box live and on the computer. It started out merely flirtatious. She vowed to stop, but did not as I learned upon installing spyware on the computer. We had several loud noisy telling arguements. She agreed to stop the behavior and go to marriage counseling. I took the x-box and computer out of the house. The counseling broke down when I discovered that she was still chatting with a 26 year old death metal guitar player that she is now madly "in love" with.

The marriage counselor diagnosed her with bipolar disorder.


I tried to keep the stuff away from her that she uses to chat with him on a daily basis, but this lead to manic rages in front of the kids where she has used extreme vulgaarity, threatened to call the cops on me and make up an abuse incident to get me thrown out of the house and wished for my death (she also said that she might poison my food).

My wife now has she stuff back to continue with this insane online affair while I work during the day. She treats me like crap at home, says that she does not love me anymore and that she wants a divorce.

I have told her that if she wants a divorce, she will have to file it. I have told her that despite her behavior, I still love her.

She has rejected the biopolar disorder news and refuses to have a complete pychological exam done. Even though almost all of the symptoms of mania are present right now.

With my blessing, she has booked a trip to meet her new love in Amsterdam at the end of the month. My counselor told me that this might shake her back to reality and put her into a depressive cycle, where she might agree to treatment.

I am totally stressed out and worried about the future of my family. People have told me that she could leave on this trip and not come back. She has made comments in the past about wanting a quick divorce and leaving me with custody of our four kids. However, more recently she has changed her mind about that but still claims to want divorce. But she still wants to "have fun" and be "free". But she would not be free if we divorce and she has custody. Her life would be many time harder. Her thought processes are not stable.

I am scared. Any suggestions on things that I can do to help her, myself and my kids?

blmist,

Your story makes me angry. I feel horrible for you. I think about the only thing you can do is pray and take solace in the notion that people reap what they sow. I know that is very small consolation to you right now.

She sounds very similar to my BP wife. She hasn't run off with anyone yet but she has filed for divorce (we reconciled) and cheated on me at least four times in the six weeks since we reconciled. It's not like I'm a lump of coal myself. I'm a faithful person (believe strongly in God, go to church, try to do the right thing, etc), I'm a nice guy (despite what my wife says), I've got a high-paying job, I'm pretty smart, and I'm relatively good-looking (did a little modeling in Japan). I'm not saying that she'd have to be crazy to leave me and I'm not trying to blow my own horn at all. I'm just trying to emphasize to you that 90% of BP marriages end in divorce and the problem, therefore, isn't really so much in you. Yes, you've got to do your best, but you're human and you've got limits too. Yes, you've caused problems in your relationship. But that's not an excuse for your BP spouse to emasculate you. You're not a doormat. BP's think their non-BP SO's are doormats. We're not.

I honestly don't know what to do besides pray. I've got to try to maintain my personal integrity in the face of my personal BP-fueled crisis. You're right. It's incredibly stressful. I've never been through anything like it and I've had some very difficult personal experiences in my life. This, however, is the most difficult.

I'll pray for you, my friend.