Spouses of Bipolar in Active Relationships

Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray! Another success story in the making!!!!! Bipolar mania BE GONE!!!!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!

We had our 1st visit with the pdoc last night as well and 2nd marriage counselor session before. Both went extremely well. At the pdoc he was disappointed in the family doc for prescribing 300mg of seroquel right from the get go. The pdoc said it could take him 3 months to work up to that dosage. My husband and I were thrilled to hear this because he's been so exhausted and somedays this week could hardly function. The pdoc is keeping him on seroquel but only 50 mg for the next month until we see him again. He also dded depakote at 50 mg thru the weekend and increase nexxt week to 100mg for the remaining month. The pdoc said he has attys, drs, dentists who are bipolar and once they seeked help have managed wonderfully thru meds and therapy. This was such a relief to hear this. The pdoc set my husband up wih a psychologist in his practice who he will begin seeing next week on a normal basis as well. Has anyone had these 2 combinations of meds together and if so how did they work? My husband has been home for 1 week and on meds for a bit longer and we do notice already a calmness to him like we've never seen. Lots of wok ahead of us but its worth it! One day at a time

Things are going well. My husband is going to marriage and individual counseling weekly. I've noticed a real difference in his attitude with the mdication. Question......last night at 12:30 a.m. he gets a text from a woman from years ago that he started talking to again while he was gone this time. The text said "heart". That's it. He was sleeping and I saw it come thru so he doesn't know I know. He told me he told this ex from his past he was coming back to his wfe. I'm not sure how to approach him with this. Please any suggestions are appreciated. Thx!

First of all I commend you for your composure. Jealousy is a struggle for me and I don't think I could have maintained my calm.

If you can do it. My advice would be to find a time to talk to him calmly about it. Maybe before your next marriage counseling appt. This is really a tough one. I feel for you. Things are going well but the fallout is still there and has to be addressed.

I work hard on trying to let go of the past abd it's not always easy. But it is essential.

I'm also glad to hear about the med change. It all sounds very positive

I5032, my advice is to bring it up at your next counseling session. This procedure helped me a lot, because my husband wouldnt have time to think of how to respond to the dr about certain subjects. The dr was our mediator which didnt make me the bad guy. I voiced things using the word "concerns" of mine, then the dr would opine on whatever behavior it was. He also used the word "standard" instead of normal which seems to be received better with my husband. My concern is if I were to bring things up at home instead, I did nt know how to handle whatever response I was going to get, so I bit my tongue until our next session.

I agree with Hopeful

I agree with hopeful, as a person who has BP, I wouldn't know how to react to that situation other than in a defensive way if I were him. So I agree it is best to bring this up while you have a mediator there to guide him through the proper way to handle this. I can relate with him having someone who won't leave you alone even after I had told them I was done and I was sick at the time the interaction was going on. Some people get off on being a home wrecker, regardless of the situation, i.e me being sick while I was talking to them and being influenced by them. I was told over and over that I wasn't sick, it was my wife controlling me and playing mind games on me. Just as it is a sensitive topic for you, the same holds true for him. That is IF he realizes that HE IS sick and those actions were done WHILE he was sick. Good luck with this.

Things have been going great. He is going to marriage counseling every week with me along with his own psychologist once a week and we both go to his pdoc once a month. It has now been 2 months. He was in contact with his ex from 10 yrs ago while he was away for the 7 weeks and when we got back togther he told her to leave us alone or we would take legal actions. I wasnt too worried as she lives in North Carolina and we are in Michigan. She just moved to Michigan.....10 miles from my home and is posting all kinds of stuff directed to him on her facebook acct. Thats how I found this all out.....my husband doesnt know. Im extremely uncomfortable now. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. What kind of woman would do this?

The same kind of woman that gets involved with a manic married man: an unbalanced one.

I would definitely wait for the next marriage counseling session. Hang In there.

You can and should block her from BOTH your facebook accounts. Block her phone, if you know it, and her email (and text, if that is different).

I wouldn't assume that your husband is inviting this contact. Our retired Group Leader, Lollipop, had the OW from her husband's manic cyber cheating continue to try to contact him long after he told her "I love my wife. I was in an episode. Leave us both alone."

If you tell your husband, won't he talk to a lawyer and see what remedies you have? (Not a lot on many online sites.) I would let your husband call the lawyer even if the lawyer can't do anything. It will be good for him to have to deal with the fallout of his manic episode.