[Susulaila]

For how long? Did you want them to come back? Or did you want to be left alone until you were ready to go back?

I kicked my wife out twice in the beginning of the 5 years we were together. She never forgave me for either time. We are divorcing as we speak. We lived in a studio apartment at the time and I just wanted space from her after fighting and she threatened if she left she'd never come back and well, you know how this story goes. It only lasted a few days both times. A few excruciating days, but only a few.

I wanted in the moment to be alone but I didn't want to lose her in the process. I begged for her to come home every day both times.

We finally moved to a larger apartment where we had a spare bedroom. I would just go lock myself in there to have a place where I felt comfortable to be alone. Without that, I think it would have been a lot worse. Both times I was in a very severe depression when those events occurred with a lot of built up anger towards myself.

Welcome to Psych Central, Susulaila!

Not repeatedly, but a couple times I disappeared for just a night. One time I booked a flight to San Francisco and planned to live there for a month or two and then return to him. [I would never consider leaving my husband permanently.] In that case, I ended up telling him (impulsively) before I left and he made me get a refund for the ticket. I was in the psych hospital very soon after.

My dad surely has bipolar disorder. He would have wild tantrums and then "leave", but he wouldn't go far. He actually slept in an old chicken house a few times for periods of two to seven days, or so. My mom was happy he was out of the house, and knew he'd eventually return. I don't know why he didn't just go to my paternal grandmother's house down the road. She had extra rooms, but I think he thought he was making more of a statement by sleeping in the chicken house. This is a true story.

That reminds me. Maybe about 6 months ago, I got really angry at my husband and slept in the back of my car (a 1997 Honda Civic) in the driveway. I believe in the thick of it I thought I might be OK living out of my car. He came out in the early morning and convinced me to come back into the house.

[Wild Coyote]

Hi!

Welcome to the Bipolar forum at PC!

I hope you will find the information and the support you may be seeking.
I am so glad to see you have jumped in and have started a thread! Fantastic!

Both me and my H carry a dx of BPII; yet, our experiences with BP are very different. I am more disabled by it; yet, I am always working with a pdoc, so it seems I am more stable. He, on the other hand, get more impulsvie and, sometimes, wreckless and does not work closely with a pdoc/therapist.

When he is not doing as well as possible, he tends to be angry and there is no stopping him from whatever he has decided he will do.
I don't experience anything like that. It may also be a difference in our personalities.

That said, I will tell you that my H has had a couple of major episodes of planning to leave. In both instances, he was psychotic and quite confused. He can beome psychotic and delusional. (I am not sure as to why he has a BPII dx as opposed to a BPI dx. He does fine in between these episodes.) It tends to last about a month or so. Interestingly, he never gets himself packed up and out the door. He seems too disorganized to do so. If/when he will agree to see the pdoc, he stabilizes relatively quickly and he drops his need to leave, etc. If/when he starts the "leaving " bit, I know he is beginning another episode...and/or is already unwell.

That said, we are going through a divorce as I write. He has had a lot of problems with not just BP, but with severe anxiety, and with a personality style which makes him difficult to deal with. He has developed absolutely no insight into his issues, as he will not participate in therapy. He has been unable to remain "marriage material." He might still be here stammering and making threats if I had not "helped him out the door" this time.

He can decide what type of a life he wants. Me, too. I honestly think we are in almost totally different worlds at this point in our lives.

Sometimes, after a few destructive and very hurtful episodes, there is no turning back.

I wish you well!
I hope to see you around PC!.

@Susulaila: Welcome to Psych Central! Glad to have you aboard! Great to see you jumping right in with a thread of your own!

I certainly have had experience with this issue. Episodes i am not proud of. I left my husband after we'd been together four years and he was running us into the poor-house. He was spending all his money and all my money on himself. He had an expensive lifestyle. Mine was a lot more reasonable but i still didn't have any money to spend on the few small-ticket items i wanted. His were all big-ticket items.

I had trusted him to budget for us because i had faith in him to take care of us but it turned out he couldn't budget his way out of a paper bag. He "forgot" $600 worth of monthly bills when he conned me into buying this expensive house. He sneered at me when i protested a few months into living in the house when it became clear we could not afford it unless i gave up everything *i* wanted. He sneered, "You signed the mortgage papers!"

Yes, i did that but based on his assurance that he had done a "budget" and was "sure we could afford it." I was making almost exactly as much money as he was, $40K in 1995, which was excellent money for a woman, just average for a man. He was taking a ride on me.

So i left him and went to a women's shelter. There was the appearance that he was hitting me and i'm ashamed to say i did nothing to correct the impression. I didn't ever SAY he was hitting me and the staff at the shelter and i just termed it "financial abuse." I hired a lawyer and started divorce proceedings. I rented a super-cute rent-controlled bachelor apartment in the heart of downtown and i was thrilled with my new home . . .

For a few weeks. Then i had an acute anxiety reaction and became convinced i couldn't sleep without him. I didn't feel safe in the apartment even tho it was an excellent and lovely place. I so wished i could have hung on there! That i would have hung in and stuck to my guns and divorced that sucker and wiped him off my boots like the dung he was!

Instead, i got all fearful and crippled with anxiety and couldn't function and went back to him but just for the purposes of survival. I think he knew i was only going back into the marriage out of medical necessity and my true feelings for him had been exposed, all my avalanche of resentment and rage at him being such a mediocre provider and such a con artist and incompetent at budgeting and taking financial advantage of a woman earning a salary way above average and he didn't respect me for going back to him.

His love for me gradually died and also he revealed four years later that he wanted kids, had always wanted kids, had married me expecting me to change my mind on kids when i had said repeatedly while we were dating, living together and engaged that i did NOT want kids.

So he asked for a divorce and there was a heck of a lot of other drama which i won't go into and as much as i disliked him i was still devastated that he was not going to stand by me and adjust our lifestyle to fit our budget, downsize into a condo. I guess he wanted the big house to fill with kids. Wha?

What a loser! So we divorced and i immediately lost my looks at the devastatingly young age of 29 years and couldn't attract a suitable man and have been alone ever since. I'm so f_ck!ng angry with him for wasting my best years, years when i was pretty and thin and sexy and able to work hard and play hard and could have found a suitable man! Now i'm fat and pot-bellied and look pregnant at 53 and grey haired (tho i dyed it purple today!) and no man will look at me. I'm considering that i might be bi and maybe should look for a woman partner.

I've been so hurt by the few men who i've seen since my divorce, brief relationships which quickly failed when the guy would say, "You gotta lose weight!" "You look like a pregnant lady!" Or mostly men just won't look at me at all, except as a fun person to chat with or a good Scrabble opponent. I'm so angry with men! Furious!

And yet i still want sex. It's beyond all reason. I don't like casual sex and i don't want to get to know any man well enough to be intimate with him and there's no one applying and men don't like women who take the initiative so i'm sure stuck between a rock and a hard place. Fifty-something women can't get laid, Leslie Jones on "Saturday Night Live" did a fun rant about this. She can't get laid either. It's not just me.

Anyways, for the young ladies out there, kick up your heels and enjoy your sex-life because it doesn't last forever!

Be well my friend!