Bipolar Spouses Online Support Group

My BP ex left 3 weeks ago. We weren't together long - just long enough for him to do some severe damage that will take some healing.

Part of my healing process has been trying to understand HOW I got into this, and WHY I didn't see the signs. Here's what I've concluded;

1. When I met him, he told me he had bipolar disorder, but that he was on meds, was well managed and highly functioning.

2. I only ever saw him during the highs. I guess he either hid the lows from me, or we just didn't see each other those days. (the truth only came out once he moved in with me)

3. I realize now he was self medicating the whole time. Everytime we got together, he drank wine or gin or beer. I did not know that alcohol is a no-no until much later, when I bought books and did research.

4. There were days when he'd have 3-4 espressos in the morning. He also smoked cigars and would binge on chocolate and other sweet snacks. He was self medicating the whole time to hide the truth from me!

5. He was an incredible flirt. Just incredible. He scaled this back when I asked but then during his next episode he brought up how he didn't want any restrictions in his life. Once the episode passed, he said he didn't mean it, and of course he wanted to be with me, understood why the flirting wasn't ok, and of course he'd stop.

6. I paid for most things - even though he is 15 years older and makes waaaaay more money than I do. The money went to alimony and paying off his incredibly debt...which he really didn't ever really explain. HOW does someone gather 400k in debt? No real answer.

7. He claimed not to remember details from his 21 year marriage. His ex wife was the devil incarnate (according to him) and he tried to be the best husband ever but she could never be made happy. I have since had contact with the ex wife...and based on her behaviour, NOT her words, I see now he was probably lying about that too.

8. Every broken relationship was the other persons fault. People were cold/sick/manipulative

9. HIs daughter has bipolar, lives on her own, is unmedicated and often doesnt have money for food. But he wont let her live with him because he 'cant have her in my space'

These were just some of the signs...I guess I'm putting them on here because in isolation they don't seem so bad, but when I look at them in totality...I see how messed up this situation is.

So for anything who is starting out a BP relationship...keep your eyes open. I'm one of the lucky ones - he left me and saved my life in doing so.

I have so much compassion for all the people on here who have been supporting their BPSOs for years. I would have been one of you. I would never have left him. I'm just lucky he took the decision out of my hands.

You wrote: "2. I only ever saw him during the highs. I guess he either hid the lows from me, or we just didn't see each other those days. (the truth only came out once he moved in with me)"

I have had similar thoughts about my ex. Long before my ex came into my life I had a saying, which is "A person can tell you 99.9% of the details about their life and it is the .1% of information that they hold back that will make sense of the rest of their life."

A week before my ex went psychotic she told me about how years before she had impulsively gotten married and divorced after she arrived in the city where we had met. After all that I have been through with and because of my ex I now understand that her having gotten married was an example of poor impulse control, something that I'd both seen her exhibit in the time I'd spent with her and heard about anecdotally via other stories that she'd told me about her past.

I'm sure that if I knew more about my ex's first 23 years of life I'd be familiar with other examples of her erratic and/or obsessive-compulsive behavior.

You also wrote: "8. Every broken relationship was the other persons fault. People were cold/sick/manipulative"

When I eventually read the police report that my ex filed about me my heart broke for her because of the lies that she told about me in order to cover up her mental illness. She even tried to get a mutual acquaintance of ours to submit an affadavit in support of my ex's pursuit of a restraining order against me. I never lose sight of the fact that my ex has a mental illness and that before she met me she had been in a long-term emotionally abusive relationship. Separately, there is no getting around the fact that my ex is a sick liar whose sanity is deeply in doubt no matter how much information about the legal system her brain can retain.

My post-meltdown nickname for my ex is "Lady Hitler". No matter how much I miss the healthy person I once thought her to be I still feel as though I am watching the rise of a future monster who will damage and destroy the minds and lives of some of the people who are around her.

Post edited by: invisiblenyc, at: 05/08/2012 09:20 AM

i didnt notice

i must have been crazy too.

(really)

sadsad