Spouses of Bipolar in Active Relationships

My wife now knows about this site and my post about our problems. I have no idea if she has read the post or not so I do not know of any kind of reaction she may or may not have.

Has anyone else had this dilemma? What was the outcome?

Dvsmp, I went through this with my spouse a couple years ago when he was manic. I use this site to vent a lot and most of the stuff I posted did not show him in a good light. When I saw he had been on mdjunction I deleted all of my posts and started a new profile. I noticed another time, mdjunction on his web history. I asked him about it, his response was I wanted to see what it was but once I saw the name of the group I got off. I use this site openly now, I have found through my own experience and others who have posted that most spouse’s don’t care to see what goes on here. Not to say that is always the case but Lollipop posted about it in one of the pinned discussion s “Hey Newbies----ever notice these things.” Maybe your wife will be just like many others and not care to look but if you are worried about it, you can edit any post you made, you can even start a new profile like I did, if you think it might help.

I have. My wife is not internet savvy enough to sort the whole thing out, but after I discovered that she had navigated around my search history, I told her a) yes I study up on bipolar disorder so I can learn how to make things work and b) next time, just ask me and I'll tell you all about what I do online!

My wife wants to pretend that this is all something that happens to her and everyone else should carry on unaffected. My message to her was, nope, this is absolutely something apparently unavoidable in my life and I'll treat it with the seriousness it merits. That doesn't make her happy, but I've decided my words won't always make her happy.

But nothing you've posted has been negative (I think the worst you wrote was "she's not being very nice at all" or something like that!). You have sounded concerned, at your wit's end perhaps, but not at all negative about her. She needs to accept that her illness affects everyone around her.

She told me she has "very little" emotion towards me anymore, and has a very hard time showing any kind of emotion to anyone besides our kids. What bothers me about it is that she realizes this and realizes that this could be a side effect of her medicine yet is still making this huge life altering decision that effects everyone including our kids.

We are going to see her pdoc this week though, and I really REALLY hope she will shed some light on what is going on and if this is in fact a side effect. I also hope that she tells my wife that these things will change and she should really think about what she is doing. I have never seen a pdoc before so I have no idea how these things are handled.

I hid it from my husband at first. He left me and our 2 girls just a few days after I joined the group. I learned a lot here and changed my reactions to him. When he came home, I was different from the knowledge I gained from this site. He still didn't know I was coming here. Mind you, he was diagnosed in 2000 and I stumbled here in 2010. Up until that point, I knew no one who lived a life like me. I finally found people like me! Well, I felt really guilty about hiding this from him, so I told him about it once he starting reaching stability. He actually said that he could tell that something was different that last time that he went manic and came back....it was ME! I can honestly say that I do not know if I would still be with my husband if I had not found others like me. He recently joined as well. He has been stable for over a year now.

As far as the pdoc....do not hold anything back. You will not get the help you need unless you are completely honest. Don't worry about being judged or embarrassed about anything. I'm glad you are going with her!!! Hope it goes well.

My spouse found my discussions as well. He said it just popped up in my e-mail ( we have an ipad with both of our emails on there). It just magically popped right up for him to look at.

My response was, you did not have to take the time to read the entire discussion. He was upset by what I posted. It was not negative or meant to hurt him, just for me to vent and get some advice.

We talked about it and he was ok, eventually. I have deleted my e-mail account from that computer and have not had any run ins again. That I know of.

My wife knows and did from day one. There's no secrets in our house. She gave me tons of books and reading material when we started dating. She wanted me to know what I was up against. She's been stable and med compliant for 5 years with only minor episodes in those years. We go to her doc together and don't hold anything back. Except for the minor episodes it's pretty normal in our house. She won't join here she's too private for this open of a forum but with friends the tod and occasional group therapy she's fine.

omg i almost cried when i saw this post-- i had an ex that didnt want to be with me because of my BP-- she said had she known in the beginning she would have never gotten involved-- i was diagnosed at the same time i began dating her-- mmm that kinda says ALOT doesnt it lol -- glad to know that there are people out there that can accept someone for who they are

jax, many of us here love our bipolar partners dearly!

My girlfriend told me she was bipolar along with her other health problems even before I met her in person. She wanted to be wide open about what I was getting myself into and I surprised her by not running. I did the exact opposite, I started educating myself about her conditions, I spent a lot of internet time reading. Every once in a while she would tell something about what was going on, but I usually didn't pry, I would let her tell me what she felt comfortable to tell me. I am proud to say that we have been together almost 7 months and I would not have done anything differently.