Living with a person who is bipolar, more commonly known as manic-depressive, can be very hard indeed. Some marriages will survive when one spouse is bipolar, but most marriages will fail that is the simple fact of life.
So why do so many marriages fail, when one of the spouses has bipolar, the answer is simple, yet complex at the same time. As we know, all marriages are different, and so are all patients who have bipolar. They are varying degrees of bipolar, patients who take their medicine as prescribed, and patients who do not take the medicine as they are supposed to. There are bipolar patients who control the sexual urges, do not self medicate, and some patients educate themselves on their illness, and some who will not.
I was married to bipolar patient for a great number of years, I understand that his illness played a huge role in the downfall of our marriage, but it was not the only thing. Well he could not control all of his urges, he could control some of the urges, but he chose not to.
Self-medication is one of the biggest problems they face balance the bipolar patient will have to deal with. Sometimes the patients will drink alcohol in excess, which can lead to many things such as being arrested for driving drunk, increased insurance rates and even the loss of innocent life well taken while driving drunk.
My ex-husband always made the choice to drink the alcohol, and once he got started drinking the alcohol he simply could not or perhaps would not stop. Alcohol became his best friend, it was always there for him, and never gave him slack for anything like the people in his life did. The alcohol comforted him in times of need, after the stress and worry of day-to-day life. Even though it gave comfort, it also brought stress into his life; it was like a merry-go-round that he could not get off.
The alcohol per more stress on the marriage than almost anything else did, up until that final point. I remember when they began dating in early 1986 that he seemed to drink very heavily but I thought this was just the friends he hung with and the whole army lifestyle. Little did I know that the alcohol was really covering a mental illness that is called bipolar?
Looking back through the years, I realize that most of the time when he lost a job or verbally abuse me; it was after a binge of alcohol abuse. There is not one holiday celebration that I can remember that he did not have at least a few bottles of beer. It did not matter how many bottles of beer or whiskey that I dumped down the sink or in the toilet, there were it always seemed to be more hidden around the house. He simply began going to bars after work to drink of solitude, away from the kids and I.
Other than the alcohol addiction, he had other addictions were even harder to deal with. Like over-the-counter cold tablets, I used to find empty packages all over even when he did not seem to have a cold or any other illness that would require these medications. With young children in the House, one can only imagine the dangers that existed with hiding this medication all over the house.
He had an addiction to lottery tickets, and would often buy 5 to 10 of them in a shot a few times a week, as many of you may guess he lost far more than he won. Sometimes, the grocery money would be spent on lottery tickets, because he rationalized that he could double or triple money we had for groceries by buying the lottery tickets. It seemed as if I was always robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it got old very quick. When there was not enough money to make the household bills. He would simply call his mom, and asked to borrow money.
In those first 10 years, we had a very active sex life, which was nice for a while, as anyone can imagine. However, his sexual addictions where too much for me to deal with as a busy full-time mother and student, he became sexually frustrated and sought out sexual gratification outside the marriage. He kept that other hidden side of his personality hidden from me for a few years, but the guilt got to him and he asked for a separation. Within a few days, I got visual proof of his infidelity.
Many of the bipolar patients will not take the medicine as prescribed by their doctors. And I think this is because of the nature of the bipolar disorder, bipolar has three distinct phases in my personal way of thinking, although the doctors will tell you, there are two distinct phases. The doctors say there is the mania phase in which everything is effect of the world and there is the Depression phase in which everything is wrong in the world.
As a spouse of the bipolar patient, I have seen three distinct phases within my ex-husband. I saw both sides, the doctors’ talk about. The mania and depressive phases I also seen what I call the middle space, this is a place where they are non-symptomatic. I doubt with the highest in the lows of bipolar for so long, waiting for the middle space to come again. Sometimes it would only last for a day or two that would make the most of those days and I lived for those days.
It was then those middle space days, and then I felt as I had that loving husband, that everyone else seemed to have, and not the monster who yelled at me endlessly over real or imagined happenings. For fear of being yelled at, I became a hermit, and only ventured out side in the real world only when I absolutely had to. I quit going to family events, but he did not he would simply leave the kids and me home.
I allowed myself to be isolated from my family, whom I loved very much, because of this man’s illness. It was simply batter to just avoid people, places, events, and stay home and try to make him happy. I did not realize that that time, what a huge injustice, I was doing to my children and myself.
I allowed myself to become his victim, because it was simply easier to deal with. That is something I will regret for the rest of my life, all those lost years. That husband is now my ex-husband, and I am very much back into the family fold. I am now, never to let another man have that much control over me and again, but I realize I allowed my ex-husband to control me simply because I loved him and I wanted to make him happy.
Perhaps some marriages can survive a diagnosis of bipolar, that is a hard life, and not one I am willing to endure any longer. I am not saying that it is all marriages when there is one bipolar patient are going to fail but personally, I did not have the strength nor the inclination carry-on, the farce that I called marriage.
