My husband won't touch me even when I ask and I hardly ever ask any more. He doesn't like when I touch him. I am starving for nurturing touch. Massage is good but it is different because I pay them and it is their job. The only nurturing touch I ever get is from my chiropractor. He seems to genuinely care about making me feel better. I wish I could be his friend. He seems to be a sincere and caring person. I ran into him at the bank yesterday and he stopped and had a conversation with me as if we were friends rather than a quick and hurried hello that you often get while running into people during errands.

My husband also has a tendency to call me the B word. I have told him countless times to not call me that. Lately he says that it just slipped out. That says to me that it is always there just under the surface. When I ask him to touch me or to be intimate he says that he can't. He is perfectly happy petting and scratching the dog a lot.

I want to take charge of my happiness and that may mean a separation or ending the marriage. That opens a whole new set of issues like money and custody battles and I would likely lose and become homeless because I am the mentally ill one. So which is better, staying and dying a little inside each day with the rejection and being called the B word, or separating and losing everything?

Being unhappy in my marriage is what precipitated my bipolar diagnosis and has been a common theme in my episodes. We pathologised everything and decided it was all due to my bipolar. I don't think so. I think my bipolar has been exacerbated by my unhappy lonely marriage.

I am at my breaking point and I don't really know what is best for me and my kids right now. They love him very much and would be crushed if he weren't around. I don't want to break up the family, but can I deal with this unhappiness much longer?