This is a very complex situation,I’m very grateful to anyone who reads it.

I’ve recently separated (34M) from my wife of 11 years (33F). We’re kinda sorta back together, but we’ll circle back to this.

My wife and I met very young. We worked together and randomly hit it off one night when I walked her to her car late after work. The rest was history, I fell for her head over heels.

Our relationship has always been a challenge, however. She’d been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (type 2, the less crazy one, more on this later) and it’d started to squeak out at times. In particular, it led to - or so I believed - a lot of infidelity on her part over the years. Twice before our wedding which she told me about AFTER, 3 more times over the last 8 years, all of which I’d attributed to Bipolar episodes around either our relationship being in a tough place, having kids, or COVID causing us to both work from home in the same room and drive each other nuts. After the last occurrence, all of which had been one night stands, we’d managed to move on to a better place (or so I thought - I at least had) and I was actually quite happy. Our kids were going to a great school, we live in an area we love, and we had close friends that lived only blocks away. I’d also been going to therapy for two years in order to improve myself. She’d been requested by me to go due to her Disorder and her infidelities to work on herself but never went.

Now, cut to April of this year. Out of seemingly nowhere, I find out that she’s miserable and not appreciated. This all blew up late night after we’d had sex. She was apparently miserable and cried about how little time I’d spent with her and she was lonely. We rarely had sex, something she’d blamed on me entirely though I’d been desperate for the same affection for months. She’d been stressed at work and I’d tried to support her. Big mistake. Within 2 days of us separating, she started seeing her direct employee at work. Over the next couple months she’d rave about how amazing he was, meanwhile my life was imploding. Seems pretty easy to walk away from this one, right? No, as I have an image need to save people.

In the last two weeks, we’ve discovered through her new therapist (yep she’s seeing one now that it doesn’t affect us) that she doesn’t have Bipolar Disorder, she has Borderline Personality Disorder. For those that don’t know. Bipolar cause sever highs and lows, always inverse to each other, but can generally leave a person’s mental intact. Borderline Personality Disorder is what many would describe as “crazy ex-girlfriend energy”. They’re severely unstable at all times, have a pathological fear of abandonment, and have explosive rage. Due to this shift, I pleaded with her to come back home as we have a new diagnosis that drastically changes how we view her actions and how I could love her how she needed as I’d been attempting to love her the way she’d shown … by showing me she was independent. She was actually highly codependent and volatile.

I say all that to say this. After two months of personal hell for me, she finally decided to leave her boyfriend to come home. I’d even temporarily dropped my attorney. She’s now agreed to come back, but has made it clear she was deeply in love with her boyfriend and is no longer in love with me. She said she wants to try to make us work, but maybe I’M just getting worked. What would you think?

Edit: She somehow saw I was writing a comment and flipped because I was talking to “my internet friends about how awful she is” Maybe I’ve complicated this so more by asking her to come back. Maybe I should have just let her go.