Bipolar Support Group

To answer your question, yes, a marriage, or relationship CAN work with a bipolar partner. Myself and many others here are proof. But it takes work, and committment, just like any relationship. Both need to be committed to the other, and both need to be committed to being healthy. That includes being mentally healthy.

It doesn't sound like your wife is mentally healthy now. She sounds like my wife was, when she was manic last year, on the run living in hotels, spending uncontrollably, demanding divorce, portraying me as abusive. That won't work in a relationship. But my wife finally found stability, thru persistance (and six hospitalizations!) I am encouraged that your wife is seeking treatment. If she keeps trying, by finding and taking the right meds, and attending therapy, then she has a good chance of finding stability. You should probably work on your own mental well-being too. Get into some therapy, if you haven't already. Learn all you can about bipolar disorder. Keep yourself healthy. If you are both committed to these things, and each other, than you have a good chance of a lasting relationship.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't easy. Don't about 50% of marriages end in divorce? And I have read, but don't know how true it is, that 90% of marriages that include a bipolar partner end in divorce.

But it can work. I know.

Despite my wife's spiral into a manic, delusional, paranoid, psychotic state last year, we have had (for 20 years), and continue to have, a wonderful, loving relationship.

All it takes is love, and committment.

You and your wife really have your work cut out for you, and it won't be easy, or happen overnight. But like I said, if she is seeking treatment, then there is hope.

Let us know how thing are going in the coming days, and weeks, ok?

Paul