So lost

spejsr · 2019-01-24T18:18:40+00:00

It is very important to know that you are truly blameless here. Secondly, this is out of your reach and responsibility. Even if you were married it is the same.

My ex wife got depressed. Pills helped her mood but she stayed cold towards me. It took me a year to accept this is beyond my power or influence, and even if it is caused by sickness it is nothing less real. Mental illness destroys relationships, that's a fact and a statistic. It wasn't you, it wasn't her, there is no guilt, it's the illness. We are often powerless against it even if someone is taking therapy.

Of course sometimes you say shitty things to people, everybody does it, thats a normal part of life. Just unhealthy people dont know how to deal with it. It could have been something else, completely random that threw her into this, just since you were most often around her chance was biggest something you do was the trigger. I was eating myself about what and how could I do differently for so long.

What pulled me out of that funk was getting my own place, making it my fortress, setting everything up just as I wanted it. Then on top, physical activity, and lost of it. Hiking, biking, swimming, lifting, anything to get myself tired enough to be able to go to sleep without a beer or a joint. Then one day I was fine. Since we have a kid together I dont have a choice for completely getting her out of my life and we still communicate pretty much daily but I'm able to make a distance 95% of the time. Sometimes she says something and I see she's still not out of the depression completely, I get back into this loop of worrying what if something happens, and then I remind myself to focus on present and immediate future, and that I'll deal with the shitstorm when it arrives.

nerves76 · 2019-01-25T08:13:06+00:00

My marriage began with losing our baby at 7 months. A still birth. We tried again and had a Wonderfull little boy. But the relationship was always riddled by hardship. My wife and I never found a rhythm that worked. We argued about everything. Sometimes two people love each other but don’t work together. It’s no ones fault. I find peace in that I am no longer subject to the criticisms and argumentation. I am saddened by what our 4-year-old child is enduring since we separated. Chances are your wife will change her tune at some point, as a bipolar person she may even decide she wants you back. It’s important for you to acknowledge your love but also understand that some people just don’t work together. It does not sound like a good relationship. It’s ok to love someone and not be married to them. Focus on your future. You could find someone who makes you a better you.

pharmd718 · 2019-01-24T22:17:29+00:00

I promise you things will get better. It sounds as though you were walking on eggshells in this marriage. That is no way to live. Being married to someone who is bi-polar is extremely difficult. If you stayed with her your life would have gotten worse....especially since she is refusing to take her medications.

I know it really does not seem this way to you at this time, but she has done you a huge favor. I promise that a few years from now you will be at a very different place and you will be happier.

It can only get better from here

throwaway_b1978 · 2019-01-25T03:09:18+00:00

This was a situation beyond your control. Do not beat yourself up over it. It takes two to stay married. She chose her path, didn't seek help, no matter how much you insisted that she do so. Go to therapy, talk over your feelings, the marriage, the arguments, the whole history. You'll be able to process what happened by talking through all the issues with a therapist. You may also be able to come to some new conclusions about what happened during the marriage, to perhaps see more was at play than just the bipolar disorder.

I'm 5 years out from a 7-year marriage to a bipolar and BPD woman. (extrovert, the type that projects out her disorder) I did not know my ex-wife had BPD while I was married to her. I'm not a psychiatrist. After the final separation, I went to therapy and talked to a therapist in detail about my ex, how she refused to get help, how completely and utterly lost I was without her (I was co-dependent), the gaslighting she and her mom created in my mind, her frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, her unstable sense of self, her extremes of idealization and devaluation of me (yo-yo relationship pattern, breakup then makeup), her impulsivity (shopping and food), her recurrent suicidal threats, her intense episodic dysphoria and irritability, her chronic feelings of emptiness, her inappropriate intense anger, public outbursts, her frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights, her transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

My therapist helped me figure out that my ex was not only bipolar but also had BPD. I was able to join support groups for former or current SOs of BPDs and I was able to put a framework around all the guilt and confusion I was feeling when the relationship imploded. In my case, working through and processing the history of the relationship with a therapist helped me realize that divorce was inevitable, that my ex-wife was on BPD auto-pilot (the disorder was in control of her life) and that there was nothing I could have done or said that would have salvaged the marriage. It was doomed from the start. I was a real trooper for hanging in there for 7 years, standing by her through a manic episode, her getting 5150d and getting committed to a mental institution, her attacking me on multiple occasions, her getting me arrested on false domestic violence charges (I got back together with her even after that), 2 pregnancies and raising two infants, countless fights and arguments, her public outbursts, her countless ultimatums (i.e. her and our kids or my parents, best friend, brother). All that crap. I realized that I put up with a lot of shit and she didn't do anything she promised she would do. If she was unable to seek help for her problems, why should I have to continue to take the abuse caused by her disorder (that she was unwilling to work on). Was it my fault? Definitely not.

My hindsight of the relationship after therapy was very different compared to my hindsight before therapy. Don't beat yourself up. It's possible that you're co-dependent and that there's another mental illness co-morbid condition at play in your ex's mind.

Go to therapy. Fill your life with exercise so you'll be too tired to worry and stay up at night. Focus on work and yourself. Time will heal all. You'll also be able to process the marriage with time and therapy and you will see the absolute futility of being married to someone who is mentally ill and who refuses to get help. This was not a war you could win. No marriage could survive a partner who is mentally ill and who refuses to get help.

5 years out from the final separation, I'm divorced, got 100% custody of both my kids and my ex is out of my life and their lives (she did that to herself because she allowed the mental illness to take over and make decisions for her in court and during monitored visits) She never got the help she needed to get and unfortunately she's now prohibited from seeing our kids for 5 years out. Don't feel guilty for something you had no control over.

Shep432 · 2019-01-24T18:40:13+00:00

I really want to let go of the guilt but I truly do feel at fault, it’s so hard not to play the what if’s over and over. My hardest problem is just finding the motivation for anything lately it’s like I can’t even make myself shower regularly. I still feel in the denial stage I don’t want to accept it, I put whole self into her and now that she is gone it’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore. I am thankful we don’t have kids involved I can’t even imagine how hard that must be

Shep432 · 2019-01-24T19:41:48+00:00

And she has cut off all communication with me I just want her to know how sorry I am it’s like she never let on she would just up and leave we should have gave it our all I want to fix it so bad

dushnykrahl · 2019-01-25T14:24:43+00:00

Some fantastic advice in this thread wish i could quote people. But the best gist that is common is that (apart from our inevitable self-protective reflex responses against what feels like sustained abuse) there is very little to nothing we can do to combat a spouse's overwhelming mental illness.

Even skilled mental health professionals struggle to help some people, for a variety of reasons from patient unwillingness or partial willingness to comply, failure to take medications or partially taking them, or drinking heavily while on medications which alcohol renders ineffective...

A lot of our stories are similar, in my case she was depressed and had substance issues, but was able to maintain some stability. Those were the good days.

In the end, for me, the violence and attacks and extreme alcohol consumption, paired with the relapse and attack patterns, and a false domestic charge report, and the erratic behavior...

Ugh I can love someone but I don't have to be destroyed by them...

It's hard but sometimes you have to let people go who are not capable of being stable for majority a healthy relationship's term.

Shep432 · 2019-01-25T22:47:25+00:00

Trying so hard to focus on myself but it just gets so overwhelming, the antidepressants and anti anxiety medicine doesn’t work so lately I’ve just been trying to drink it away I just want to stop thinking about it it is just all so unfair

Shep432 · 2019-01-26T02:09:13+00:00

Any tips on making it through the nights? The minutes seem like hours can’t seem to find anything to occupy my thoughts

Title	So lost
Author	Shep432
Upvotes	3
Comments	9
Date	January 24, 2019 5:43 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/ajews9/so_lost/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/so-lost.819816 https://theredarchive.com/post/819816

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