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I met my wife about 2.5 years ago. During the first half year before we got married everything was fine. We had little minor disagreements here and there but it was nothing that resulted in any major conflicts. When we started dating she mentioned that she had been diagnosed as Bipolar but was not on medication. For the first year of marriage she spent most of it pregnant with our son who is now almost 16 months old. During this time we were doing ok in the relationship with still what I'd consider mild disagreements. Shortly after my son was born in May of 2007 she started snapping at me a lot. Telling me she was going to leave, throwing her wedding ring around all the time, crossing out our names on our marriage certificate, verbally abusive and sometimes has gone to a physically abusive state where I'll end up going to work with scratch marks and things because of what she'll do to me at night. I snore, I've always snored and though this wasn't a problem the first year and a half it is now to the point where if I snore and in my dead sleep don't listen to her to flip over or whatever it turns into scratching and punching many times. In addition to this I've seen her become violent towards my son by the way she will grab him or the fact that she started spanking him at 9 months. Our fights also have escalated since my son was born to full blown screaming on her part complete with storming out of the house and trying to use our son as leverage. She stays in a very pissed off state till I walk away from her or go to sleep then she's all about trying to make up with me (by acting like nothing happened) for the night before or the fight that just happened.
She did not work for the first 2.5 years and just started working about a month ago. I didn't want her to work because I wanted (and she said she wanted) to stay at home and raise our son. She also spent a month with my mom due to a move before I made my move to Houston. During this time she controlled herself and the way she acted with my mom, stepdad, and always is under control at work.
She's done everything she can to try to gain the upper hand in all arguements from threatening to leave and disappear with my son, to killing herself, to telling me she's pregnant again and threatening to leave.
My doubts about her disorder are because she can very well control herself with other people and other situations. I've never seen her lose her control when there is someone else around. So can bipolar be selective as to when to swing the person into a bad mood or is her situation something that she does have control over even if she says she doesn't?
I don't know the answer, all I know is that this has really worn me down over the last year and I'm reaching the end of my rope. I don't know how much more I'll be able to handle before I figure out a way to walk away. I'd do it this instant if I wasn't afraid that she'd get custody of our son. I'm afraid of what she'd do to him as she has said a million times she doesn't want to be a mother and certainly doesn't act like a caring mother. I know she'd fight for custody just to get to me.
What you are experiencing could very well be the manifestation of bipolar - or not. It is similar to what I experienced although not identical. It sounds to me like she in fact is in control of the situation and is behaving badly. I expect you need to decide what you want and what is best for your son. The situation you describe is not healthy for anyone.
You need to make an active decision to either stay in the situation and get her professional help or remove yourself and your son from this situation.
Reading the posts on this website (including mine) will likely give you an indication that spouses of BP victims are only occasionally successful in sustaining a long term relationship with the bp spouse. However, there are some that succeed.
In any case you probably need some professional help for your situation. A marriage counselor, counseling and treatment for her and friends or counselors for you would be appropriate. You need to take an active role in determining the course of events in your life and your son's life. Her behavior is unacceptable and whatever the cause it needs to be addressed and stopped.
There are many helpful writings on this forum - even though it is recently not very active.
I was wondering that myself. My husband has claimed that he has never been diagnosed as a Bi-Polar (Based on some medications he has received, I don't really believe him), but he seems more controlled in certain situations than in others.
I have seen him yell at his boss (we used to work together), but he always seemed to be able to control himself more at work than at home...or on the road.
I remember one time he wanted to stop for doughnuts on the way to work one morning and I spaced and drove by it. He started kicking at the floor and yelling, like a 2 year old having a tantrum. I have never seem him do anything like that at work. Why does he seem more controlled around certain people?
One thing is for sure, and that's that it sounds like your wife has borderline personality disorder, which often shows itself as a tag along with bipolar disorder (but not always). People with BPD tend to only see things in black and white and are incapable of seeing things as grey or seeing the full picture. If you do something wrong you're bad, and if you do something right you're good, no inbetweens, no looks at previous behavior. Someone with bipolar disorder only isn't going to be able to show enough control to act one way with you and another way with everyone else, but someone with BPD will. My mother has BPD with bipolar and this sounds exactly like her.
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