I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I’ve calmed down a lot. I realized I’ve been having a very hard time finding the dividing line between my wife and her bipolar disorder. I’m a methodical, analytical guy, and I don’t like making blind decisions, so I’ve spent the last several days doing even more research about bipolar and bipolar II disorders. Here’s some of what I’ve found:

<ul type="square">[*]I believe my wife is making terrible choices fueled by hypersexuality, impulsivity and impaired decision-making ability, which are hallmarks of bipolar disorder. Hypersexuality in particular is reported in 57% of manic individuals. A 1975 study that looked at lifetime sexual experience found extramarital sexual experiences to be more frequent amongst bipolar people - 29% had had 10 or more experiences.[*]People with the disorder also have three times the rate of divorce and broken relationships as the general community.[*]Some people with bipolar disorder resist seeing the reality of the havoc that spreads during an acute phase of BPD.[*]Indeed, caring for someone who has a mental illness can be more draining than caring for someone with cancer. When a spouse does something for a mate with a physical illness, they are usually met with gratitude. People who have bipolar disorder, on the other hand, often deny the diagnosis, are unwilling to comply with medication, and - worst of all - treat one’s spouse like the enemy.[*]It is not the responsibility of the partner to oversee the other's health, and if the partner has paired with someone who refuses to accept the duty of caring diligently for herself or himself, the partner ought to hit the road and not look back. As much as it’s a biomedical condition, people with mental illnesses can’t be let completely off the hook. They must take some personal responsibility for their choices. Of course, we can’t expect them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they’re acutely ill, but during periods of wellness they owe it to their spouses to do whatever is in their power to help themselves.[*]One spouse —amid the cacophony and confusion of his wife’s ever-changing moods—made a decision that would save his now 24-year marriage. Instead of seeing his relationship with his wife as “something I would have to write off and cut my losses,” he decided to view his continued support of her as “an investment in something worthwhile.” [/list]I still believe that beneath the illness, my wife is worthwhile, and so is our marriage. I confronted her yesterday about the continued contact with the guy from the U.K. Thankfully, she’s not using her bipolar as an excuse to absolve herself from blame. That's important to me, just like Razzleberry said: the Bipolar disorder does not excuse her behaviour, but it does help to explain it.

In the last two weeks she’s been happier than she has been in years - happier with me, with her life, with her family, with everything, thanks to the medication. She has promised to go to therapy, both singly and jointly, and to work with me to study and understand her illness and her triggers. She has also promised to be honest with me about what she’s feeling, even if she’s scared I’ll react badly. I think she finally realized that, if I haven’t run screaming out the door by now, there isn’t much that’ll make me react badly. Things can’t get much worse than they’ve been already.

The two dealbreakers for me are: taking personal responsibility, and doing everything in her power to help herself. She knows she has to do both. And I know she has to do both. And then we can be truly happy, maybe for the first time in a decade.