Bipolar Depression

Hi all,

I'm still trying to piece together what happened with my boyfriend who I may have fallen in love with during a hypomanic state. I'm deciding whether to call his ex-wife to get the "real story", but based on things he and others have told me about her and things I saw myself, I think she may be BP. Plus, my boyfriend said that she was and that she was medicated for it, as is his eldest daughter (but, I don't know if I can believe anything he ever said to me).

So, I'm wondering here - does anyone have any experience or knowledge about what happens in relationships where both parties have some form of BP disease?? In my situation, from what I've heard, the wife's case seems to be more severe. My boyfriend (well, now he's an ex-boyfriend) appears to be higher functioning, more hypomanic than full-blown bipolar.

I'm wondering if it's a complete waste of time to call her because her version will be filtered through her illness.

Thanks all.

hey there,
I ve reread a few of your posts and i have a few thoughts ,or questions.have you met the ex in person or just hear say,is she an ex or was you part of a bipolar manic episode.you know as strong as they are with manipulating s/o they can be equally strong with an outsider.perhasp he has done return to the ex ,as many do after the high.remember as much as they lie to s/o's they can also lie to you.as you have learned.your wondering what happened and why,you may never know really.but from other stories on this site purhaps you can figure it out.myadvise to you is move on from him.as hard as it is.but you see what others have gone through,myself included.just 2 months and you expierenced bipolar,are you sure you want to continue with it.accept it as one of lifes experiences.maybe something you can use later in life.never know you you might meet tomorrow.but try not to analize everyone you meet.it will drive you nuts.

Hi Rob,

I know for a fact that the ex-wife is an "ex" - she has had a boyfriend for more than 1 year and I've seen the divorce papers. Plus, I met his parents, sister, his entire religious congregation and his entire medical office staff.
The wife also had an affair on him which he thinks may have been for as long as 12 years. From what he had told me, she used to take trips all the time, leaving him home with the kids and the babysitter. And, sometimes she used to take the eldest daughter (the one with diagnosed and medicated BP) with her on long trips to other countries.

The younger daughter has diagnosed and medicated ADD. I feel like I was thrust into the middle of his dysfunctional family with no assistance from him as to how to assimilate. For that matter, he didn't even fit in - it was very disjointed. His kids didn't really "get" him and he didn't "get" them either. He was WAY to involved with his newfound religious congregation to have time for much of anything else, including his kids, who refused to attend any religious functions with him.

I've already decided not to call the wife. So, at this point, it's all moot. But it explains both his and and the ex's spending habits and staying together for so long, in spite of their biochemical problems. It also explains why she took the kids and moved cross country 1-1/2 years before his job there was ready for him (the company he worked for was building a new hospital and he was to be Chief of Surgery there). He used to fly in on weekends to see them. That whole affair never made any sense to me - why would a woman want to be away from her husband for that length of time if it wasn't necessary? She was closer to her family (only 1 hour, instead of 5 hours by plane), but still?

Anyway, thanks for the answer. Right now, I'm just trying to make myself forget that this happened to me at all. I knew he was too good to be true.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chattycathy,

Hi CC:

Me again. I just read your post and although you said you’ve decided not to call the ex afterall, I thought I’d add my two cents. I know your situation is different than mine because you had the opportunity to meet his family and colleagues. From everything I’ve read in your posts, I really don’t believe that you were this guy’s “manic romance”. Then again, who really knows the truth from reality if bipolar is in fact what he’s dealing with. I know with mine, however, that I was definitely a “manic romance” for him. Even though I don’t believe he had a S/O that he was detaching from at the time, I’m convinced that everything he led me to believe about him and his feelings for me were nothing more than a result of his manic episode. When he started to go into a depression is when he detached from me by disappearing completely.

But I totally understand your desire to contact the ex; I felt the exact same way right after the fact, just to get some answers to all my questions. During the course of our involvement, he had even gone so far as to let me know his 2 ex-wives’ names and where they lived, as well as his ex- live-in girlfriend. It would have been very easy for me to call any one of them. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized in his unstable—and perhaps volatile—state, I could very easily be opening a huge can of worms. He had said some pretty nasty things about each one of these women, but knowing what I know now about him, I believe that the majority of what he said was fabricated, or at least greatly embellished, to make him look like the innocent victim in each of his failed relationships…and to gain my sympathy because he knew how trusting and caring I was. It was all part of the “game” to win my affections.

I guess my point is that you really should take everything he told you about his ex- and even their child, with the proverbial grain of salt. Maybe in the BP’s mind, they don’t believe they are actually lying, but from everything I’ve read, they can have a very distorted sense of reality and the truth, and they are very good at convincing their loved ones that their “truth” is reality. So he could have had his entire family believing that the ex had bipolar (and even the daughter) when in fact, they may not have. (NOTE: Mine told me that each one of his ex’s had “psychological” problems; one was “sadistic”; one was “emotionally distant”; and one was “passive aggressive”…to name a few; all things that contributed to the eventual demise of the relationships. Never once did he admit or suggest that his own behavior was part of the problem.)

I don’t know if this helps put things in some perspective, but I thought I’d mention it. Like Rob said, I’m taking this as a learning experience; a painful one without a doubt, but nonetheless. Admittedly, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him and wonder how he’s doing. But then I remind myself that it wasn’t real, not for him. I fell in love with the illusion that he created, not the real person. And that’s not love; at least not the kind I want in my life.

P.S. I just read another of your posts where you mentioned talking to others at a party who had also been involved with somebody with BP. I remember talking to a guy I met not too long after I found out that my ex- had bipolar. He lived with this girl for a couple of years and wsa describing how erratic she was in her behavior. All the while, I'm thinking to myself "bipolar" but didn't say anything to him. He said the relationship abruptly ended when he came home one day, she approached him warmly and said "I love you with all my heart." She walked out of the room, came back a few minutes later in a complete rage and said "get the F out of my house, I never want to see you again." He said he walked out, and because of his pride, never loooked back. But a few weeks later, one of her girlfriends contacted him and informed him that the ex-girlfriend was in fact bipolar.

Hi CC, I totally agree with mystified.Bp's almost always describe others with their symptoms. I was talking to a lawyer friend of mine and the subject of bp came up (to my surprise they deal with this a lot, she said it has replaced money issues as the #1 problem that end marriages) anyway I said I cannot imagine what my ex told his new girl,was the reason for him to abruptly leave his wife and kids. She said I can tell you exactly what he told her.That you were crazy.That you had mental and emotional issues. That you were impossible to predict and live with. She said they, almost without exception ,assign their S/O's , their symptoms.And they probably believe it at the time.So I know first hand that they do lie about the people in their lives.I think that you should not give up on the idea of contacting his ex. It could give you the closure and understanding you need, to move on.This woman has probably been through the mill with this man, all those years..can you imagine. You only dealt with the unpredicitability for 2 months and you are devastated. Throw kids, and a waste of 17 years into the mix and you can begin to imagine her life.You dont know how lucky you are that your boyfriend has fairly rapid cycles to his bp moods. Mine has been going, in hypomania for over a year and I pity the woman he's with. She has no idea of what is in store for her soon. They have only been togather a few months and of course we all know how wonderful they can "act" in the beginning stage. I am sure she thinks she has found one man in a million, just like you did CC. But she will see the real him soon enough and it will be a bitter pill to swollow.I might actually feel sorry for her if she wasn't so smug and snotty about it. But even at that, I will be willing and glad to help her in any way I can if she was to ever contact me for answers.I am sure your ex bf's wife would too. After all she is the only one who knows exactly what you expierenced.And even if she should be to bitter and angry to help, it sure cant hurt.I dont blame anyone for what my ex did ,except my ex. Because despite what they would like for you to believe, they are responsible for the choices they make.Best wishes.I know how hard it is to accept what you cant change. Blaire

quote:

Originally posted by Blaire:
Hi CC, I totally agree with mystified.Bp's almost always describe others with their symptoms. She said they, almost without exception,assign their S/O's, their symptoms. Blaire

Hi Blaire,

You said it so succinctly. They assign their SO's their own symptoms. Although my experience with somebody who has bipolar was very brief (and again, at the time I did not know he was bipolar) I believe this to be true, certainly in his case. I, too, was completely captivated by this guy's "personality" in the beginning. He seemed so genuine, sincere, and HONEST! CC mentioned that her guy revealed some very private things about his life to her, as did mine. Things that revealed his "vulnerable, sensitive" side, and he even went so far as to say "I've never admitted these things to anybody else...not even my exes; they wouldn't have understood." I believe this is how they gain our trust....in the beginning! (B/T/W, I use the term "they" collectively, but I don't mean to imply that all BP's act in such a calculated, manipulative manner. Just my experience and from other posts I've read.)

But as time went on and I started to observe changes in his behavior (the moodiness, the coldness, the emotional withdrawal and the hurtful remarks) it started to occur to me that these behaviors were exactly those that he had used to describe his exes.

I could just IMAGINE what he is telling his latest on-line fling about me, if in fact he has even acknowledged that I existed. (Two of his last relationships he met on-line, as well as me. But before me, he supposedly hadn't met anybody for two years. He would tell me how he would chat with women here and there but nothing ever came of it...which I'm guessing is probably not true.) So either he doesn't even mention it at all to any new "prospects" or probably says things like "she was neurotic; she was paranoid". Although I have to admit, toward the end I was probably acting paranoid because of all the doubts I was having as a result of his Jekyl-Hyde demeanor. In fact, there were several times when I would catch him in a contradiction to something he had said once before, and he would say "you're being paranoid." It really is enough to drive you nuts!

Hi M & B,

So, if I wasn't this guy's "manic romance", what was I?? Remember, I was fixed up with him by mutual friends. I didn't meet him online. And, we didn't exist in a vacuum - he paraded me around in front of everyone who is important to him and then suddenly just stopped talking to me when I was putting two and two together and bringing it up to him for discussion. It's like I backed him into a corner with the truth and he had no where to turn, so he just disappeared. I've sent him beautiful emails begging for forgiveness and telling him that I love him anyway and that together we can deal with whatever life throws at us. Last email was 11/25/07 and on 12/2/07 he put his dating profile back up which read like an angry letter to me.

I know for a fact that the one daughter is ADD because she takes meds very day and I saw them (wish I had examined them closer, but I saw them). The other one (the one with BP) I never got to meet because she doesn't really speak to or stay with her father. (He called it the "freeze out" - gee, just like he's doing to me!) And, he didn't tell me about her BP until the end of my trip there and I went "huh?". But, the reason for why she doesn't talk to him never made any sense to me. (It was something about him lending her some DVD's to watch and her not returning them, and him picking them up from the house himself and her getting mad about that.) When he tries to get together with her, all she ever wants to talk about is his finances (his percentage split at the new practice, giving her money for a car, etc.) and he thinks she's being coach by the ex-wife. He sent the daughter a calm email where he said he was concerned of her of becoming increasingly materialistic and then he showed me the email his wife sent him in response - something about how he's hurting the daughter's feelings and she's "withering" away already (whatever that means). It's like I had to bear witness to all the dysfunction in his life.

We even saw the ex-wife at the son's football game. I had talked him into attending - he always went to religious services instead and I told him that he needed to do things to support his son, whom he professed to love so much. She was arriving as we were leaving and I thought it would be a good way to meet her, but he insisted on getting into the car and we just drove past her in the parking lot without even stopping to say hello. He acted like a 5 year old and kind of "waived" to her from behind my dark tinted windows. She didn't notice. Why would she, she didn't know my car.

I know that the wife's a little odd because the first night we had his son, she text messaged the kid around 30 times while were were trying to watch a DVD - asking "Does Daddy look happy?", "Does she talk more than Daddy?", "What's her last name?", "Are you having fun?", "Did you any Daddy do anything?" (Daddy apparently never made any real plans to do anything with the kids he professed to love so much - he did his thing and either left them at home, or dragged them along - but spent $700 on picture frames to put huge pictures of them all over the walls of his rented condo - something I brought to his attention that maybe I shouldn't have) .

I digress - anyway, I don't think I can get a clear picture of anything from the wife, because I think she's nuts too. I know for a fact that she did indeed have an affair because she apparently admitted it to a female friend of his who was trying to get them to reconcile. The female friend told me this herself. But, maybe she had to get comfort somewhere. It explains why she was always leaving him and taking trips. He has everyone convinced that he couldn't control her spending and that he had to provide this high class lifestyle for her, but, from what I saw there, he wanted that lifestyle as much as she did.

I guess the hardest thing is realizing that he's full of sh*t after all and that my initial assessment was correct. All of my friends made excuses for what I was seeing. Oh, he's just out of a divorce, cut him a break. So, he spent too much -he was stressed and unhappy.. So, he's got pictures of you at his house - you're pretty and he wants to look at you. Oh, the kids are always pawns in a divorce, it'll settle down soon. Oh, wait til you're living there - you'll make all their favorite foods for dinner and the kids will come and you'll have the family dinners with him and the kids that he's always wanted. And, on and on and on. Because I suspected hypomania in the beginning and my friends all thought I was looking for reasons to bail. No one's perfect, they said, everybody's gonna have something. He told me the same thing, then just tuned out one day.

I'm sure he's telling everyone that I'm distrusting and emotionally unstable and to be honest, I am. I have been uneasy about this relationship from the beginning. I questioned why he would remain on a dating website while writing me personalized fables and stories all ending in our two souls finally finding one another. That was what started my suspicion of him. He took the dating profile down as soon as I mentioned it, but that act should have come from his heart, not my mouth. Then, I cancelled out on Thanksgiving because, after I invited his kids 2 months in advance (before I had even met them), he still couldn't get them to commit to coming as of two weeks before the holiday. I snooped in his computer and his cell phone - it started off innocently, but then I found that, before he met me, he had been writing similarly flowery stuff to others he barely knew. This told me that I wasn't so special to him - it's just what he does.

And, I had barely gotten any sleep the entire time I was there. If I hadn't discovered the compulsive shopping, caffeine consumption and decreased need for both food and sleep while I was there, I wouldn't be suspecting BP. But, it made sense, given the exaggerated, overblown romantic things he had been saying and doing from very early on, not just to me, but to a few women.

I guess I am also guilty of "magical thinking". I don't want to believe what is really happening. I want to believe that I've created this problem and that somehow I can fix it. But, he can only be who he is and the man I am in love with does not exist in reality. The only way for me to get through this is to believe that he is dead. I look at his pictures and hear his voice messages and mourn for him. It's awful. I also miss hearing about his friends and colleagues, but I've found websites where I can keep tabs on some of them. So, now I'm cyberstalking everyone, including him. What does that make me?? He finally changed the angry dating profile he had up - I guess a week was long enough for him to assume that I had seen it. Now, he's inviting women to "feel" his "aura" - and he's using some of the same distinct verbiage he used in previous letters to me.

I guess what I've learned from this is to "trust my gut". Which I kinda did here - I used to say that I think he's full of sh*t, but that I'm just goin' with the flow and "we'll see". He even noticed when I changed from "we'll see" to a tearful "I hope so" and that's when it all started going downhill. That's when he knew he had me.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chattycathy,