[bayoumagnolia]

This will be long, I appreciate anyone with the time and inclination to read this and offer any advice or support.

I've been with my husband for 15 years. We've had our ups and downs, and usually they happen in a very cyclical pattern. I noticed the pattern after we'd been together for about 7 years. He has a genetic history of bipolar in his family. His sister is bipolar with borderline personality disorder. Last year I discovered he had very likely been with a prostitute, and on the advice of our marriage counselor and my priest, I stopped sleeping with him (one week after I became pregnant with our second child). He has his addictions as well, specifically alcohol and marijuana, and he has dabbled with crack cocaine from 2006 thru 2008. The marijuana he refers to as his "medicine." It appears as if he's self medicating his mood disorder. I started to wonder whether or not he suffered from cyclothymia last year while researching a project for school. From this website: "ptypes.com/cyclothymicpd"
He exhibits the following symptoms:

~ has depressive periods: depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities and pastimes alternating with hypomanic periods: elevated, expansive, or irritable mood (American Psychiatric Association, 1980, pg. 220);

~ becomes excessively involved in pleasurable activities with lack of concern for the high potential of painful consequences alternating with restriction of involvement in pleasurable activities and guilt over past activities (pg. 220);

~ alternates between over-optimism or exaggeration of past achievement and a pessimistic attitude toward the future, or brooding about past events (pg. 220);

~ is more talkative than usual, with inappropriate laughing, joking, and punning: and, then, less talkative, with tearfulness or crying (pg. 220);

~ has shaky self-esteem: naive grandiose overconfidence alternating with lack of self-confidence (pg. 264);

~ engages in occasional financial extravagance (pg. 264);

~ engages in uninhibited people-seeking (that may lead to hyper-sexuality) alternating with introverted self-absorption (pg. 264);

~ may use alcohol or drugs to control moods or to augment excitement (pg. 264);

~ makes frequent changes in residence or geographical location (Akiskal, 1995, pg. 1143)

I gave birth to our second son this past new year's eve. In June of this year, my husband gave me an ultimatum to either move to another home, or he would divorce me. We didn't have enough money for a move, he had a lay off from work looming in the near future, and we had not slept together for over a year, but he set the ultimatum in front of me anyway. I refused, said we needed an emergency fund in the bank, with moving expenses on top of that and that we had to be in counseling working on our marriage if I were to consider moving. Three days later he filed for divorce, and then bought a new mattress set for himself to move in with his father. A month later, after I asked him about his moving some things from our yard to his father's house, he finally told me he had filed. Three days after that, I asked him to go ahead and sleep at his dad's.

I hired an attorney and filed an answer to his petition for divorce. I'm assuming he will fail the drug test and will be given supervised visitation only, at least as a temporary order. I don't know what will happen after that.

I still love him even so, but he makes me absolutely sick. He only wants to fight with me, every time we try to talk, everything is always my fault. I'm lost. I miss him. He won't listen to me, and now that he knows I'm fighting for custody, I don't know what's going to happen. Neither one of us is working right now. He was laid off a week ago, and I've not worked since our first son was born in 2006. I'm hoping to get work soon, working with temp agencies, contacting old workmates for references and such. I'm not too worried that I'll find a job, I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

He's so high on the drama of this disaster he's created. I'm trying to pick up the pieces, and protect my sons and my home. He just wants to see the kids, he's pushing for overnight visits, which I've said absolutely no! I do believe he's cleaned up his act for now because he's high on all this drama, but that won't last, he'll be back to his addictions with time, because he won't fix the problem. He actually told me that he thought I was the problem. I'm the only person who's genuinely cared for and loved him in all his life. I just wish I'd known about the disorder cyclothymia ten years ago. His sister is so severly bi-polar, there's seemingly no comparison to his behavior, but now I can see the similarities. His sister in the last three years destroyed her own marriage and can not even speak to her first three children on the phone now. She's also remarried and just had a new baby three months ago, all within three years!

So now I'm the enemy. I never wanted any of this to happen. I've stayed by him for years, through really hard times, and he left me because he wanted a bigger yard!

I hate the custody battle I'm having to fight, but I feel compelled to do so. I'm still letting him see our three year old son, frequently, but I can not abide overnight visits. I feel like I have to establish hard line boundaries with him up front so we're all protected when he does something he shouldn't.

Thanks to anyone who has read this far. I sincerely appreciate any help I can get, either to just let him go, or to somehow help him.

[ADHD1956]

YOU need to let go of HIM and just move on with your life. HE needs to get help for HIMSELF, it is up to HIM; YOU need to move on! I wish YOU the very Best!

[VickiesPath]

Dear Bayoumagnolia,

My heart aches for you, it truly does. I am 56 years old, have been bipolar my entire life, was misdiagnosed in 1985 as unipolar and treated with antidepressants only (which only aggravates bipolar disorder) and was finally diagnosed correctly 4-5 years ago.

I spent my life trying to make a normal life for myself, i.e., go to college, get married, didn't particularly want children (that changed later), married right out of college, and in the course of 32 years, have been married 4 times, the current time for ten years to a wonderful man. But trying to maintain any kind of normal relationship or life while not knowing I was bipolar and dealing with it by self-medicating with alcohol, going to AA to stop that, failing at marriage three times, reading and studying and trying to figure out what the devil was wrong with me made me feel like the biggest loser on the planet. It wasn't until I had enough therapy, enough hospitalization, enough spiritual development, enough correct medication and got sick and tired of being sick and tired....that my life started to come together.

It is true that some people do not "agree" to be bipolar. They do not want to take medication. It may be that your husband may never "agree" to be cyclothymic. He would rather smoke dope, drink alcohol, take drugs, lose jobs, destroy his family, live with his father......anything but be mentally ill. If that is the case, then there is nothing you can do to change that.

Please know that my prayers are with you.

[bayoumagnolia]

Thank you both for your replies. Vickie, I really appreciate your perspective. I'm sure my husband knows there's something wrong with him. When manic though, he's certainly not going to admit that. Another piece of the puzzle became clear after I read something on this website about drug-induced mania. He recently took a long course of prednisone. We both expected it would make him aggressive and irritable, but neither of us expected he would succumb to a full blown manic episode.

Living with his father is exactly the wrong place for him to be if he's going to get any help. His dad is very likely bipolar, and certainly suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. He's very abusive to my husband. His dad's family has mental health issues encompassing child molesters, bipolar, and suicide, within very close degree relatives. His dad does not believe bipolar is an actual disease, and my husband agrees with him because he idolizes his father, and also because he just can't disagree with his father, it's not permissible. Everything that his sister has done due to her bipolar is just because she has "bad character," is "evil," and because their mother didn't raise her right.

Everything is my fault, he's so very combative with me, and picks fights for no good reason. I still have to see him because we have two children together. I usually try to have someone present when he comes to visit, because he doesn't pick any fights if there's someone else here. When I'm alone though, he always tries something, and it's difficult for me to know how best to respond to him. I'm still so emotionally invested in him, I'm hurt and mad. Letting all that go is a whole lot easier when he's not in my face.

Once we get court orders in place for visitation, I'll try to get him to read more on bipolar. All the stress in our lives is probably only going to feed his mania though, I wonder when he'll crash? I'm sure he'll be a lot more receptive once he falls off his all-powerful pedestal.

I'll feel so much better once I have a job. It's SO very difficult right now to find work!! The job market is flooded with qualified applicants for every position, and I've not worked in more than three years! He couldn't have chosen a worse time to fall apart than right now.