[scooby555]

Hi

I am at my wits end as my realationship with my wife crash's into ablivion and she tries to leave saying she no longer loves me.
Her behaviour has not been "normal" for many months and after reading some of the info here i am really worried she may be Bipolar.
I will try and keep our story brief but would value your opinions plz.

My wife and I have been together for around 15 years and were married 2 years ago, we have a son who is just about 4.
My wifes first episode of depresion happened about 10 years ago after having issues with work and the college course she was on. She was treated for this with antidepresants and changed jobs and she seemed to be ok. She has always had a tendancy to over think situations and come out with a negative conclusion, she also went through a quite traumatic break up between her mum and dad when she was young and has always felt controlled by her mum.
Our more recent problems started about 4 years ago. my wife went through a very bad pregnancy and then was borderline post natal afterwards.After stuggling through the early part of our sons life making the massive readjustmnets you do we seened to making real progress towards happiness. We made plans to be married and had a fantastic wedding day.
After this things started to go really wrong. 1 week after we married my little brother died suddenly which affected us both very badly.
She then also started to have massive issues at work with someone in her office who was a complete nightmare. The woman had previously caused problems everywhere she had worked.
Unforunatley due to the process that had to used to remove this person the situation dragged on for 18 months leading to huge amounts of stress in our lives. During this time she was signed off work several times, lost huge amounts of weight ( she siad it was the one thing in her life she could control) and was generaly in a complete mess. During this time we tried to have 2 family holidays which both ended in disaster, 1 was flooded out while camping, the other where she ended up with severe food poisoning again while camping.
To finish off our disasters just as her work situation resolved itself and she was starting to feel better her grandma died.
This is where our problems really started as the cremation was due to be at the same place as my brothers and due to my own issues i felt I could not go with her. We then rowed teribly on the night of the funeral as our emotions boiled over.
We muddled through for a month but she then decided to see her doctor as she realised she was not feeling well.
She was again perscribed anti depressants but didnt start taking them straight away.
During this time unbeknown to me she struck up a friendship with a guy who had been chasing her at work. She swears they were nothing more than friends but it only came to life when his wife found out and strted making threats against them both and the police became involved. At this point is where I found out and she says the friendship and contact ended.
During this time many strange things strated happening. She became convinced our marriage was cursed due to the problems we had encountered. She went and got herself 3 tattoos even though she had always said she didnt like them. She became convinced everyone was on my side (even our doctor) anyone i spoke to would imediatly be against her.
She went on several spending sprees and when challenged said she didn't care. she set up a secret bank account and took money from our joint account and hid it in there. She claims this was incase I kicked her out. She then spent this mony on another spree.
She had always had fairly normal desires in the bedroom but all of a sudden even though she didn't love me she was dragging me off to the bedroom for kinky sex sessions.
She has made several referances to wanting to commit suicide.
She had always been an early to bed person and suddenly wanted to stay up til all hours watching mtv.
She went from drinking very little to be so drunk she couldnt remember the night before.
She started to make grand plans for sometimes us and sometimes just her to sell up and move away to live near some of her realatives a couple of hundered miles away.
Several times over this period our realationship has settled down and levelled out and then she seems to have a bad day and all of a sudden we our all off again and separating.
She is now convinced that she is ok and there is nothing wrong with her and there never has been and it is only our realationship that is causing her issues.
When she explains our problems to people when i am not there to balance the converstaion she must sound totally convincing as she has justification and reasons for all her behaviour.
we have recently started going to relate, she initially resisted this alot as she did not want anyone telling her what do do or trying to fix our realationship. After just 2 sessions the councelour has identified some of the problems from her past that she is superimposing on our realationship but again my wife is backing away from these sessions as we hit some of the real reasons for our problems.

sorry this must seem a complete jumble of stuff but im just so close to going under myself that I need some advice and opinions and help.

Many thanks

[trippinmickey]

Maybe but there is one way to tell she needs to get help and if she is she needs to get on meds. But most people i know who bipolar gets bad latter in life dont get help unless they are force to.Odds are if you do she will hate you for it. Bipolar sucks it sucks for the people that have it and it sucks for the people that love and care for them .Most bipolars end up alone on drugs or drinking and completey %#@&#! up in the head.There are some of us who get help but it a very very long and hard road and you have to really wont it .

[MyBestKids2]

Hi scooby!

I'm glad your wife started going to counseling. It is a very scary experience when we come face to face with the cause (s). She may change her mind about resuming counseling once she has a chance to digest everything going on. You are being so supportive, which I know means alot to her along this difficult path.

Good luck and keep us updated!

Take care,
Dee

[Esmerelda]

Hi there.
I am bipolar. Your wife's erratic behaviour sounds familiar. It must be so hard for you and hats off to you for being so supportive. In all seriousness i think you should get your wife to the doctors and get her back on anti-depressants because from my own experience it is the only thing that will level your wife out a bit. She may not like the idea and deney there is anything wrong but she must understand how this is affecting you. Bipolar is not something she will recover from and it will always be there. Have you spoken to your wife about your concerns? Or are you afraid of hurting her? I think she will listen because she loves you.
I sincerely hope everything goes well and hope i have helped a little.

[POLAR_K1NG]

Yes i know well of this get here checked out befor its to late bi polar messes you up bad get her on meds for a bit that what helped me.

[scooby555]

Thanks for the messages of support ladies and gents.

Unfortunately she is convinced she is on top of the world and has never been more clear about what she wants ( which isn't me).
Hopefully I can get the consenses and support of a few of the people she is still listening to when they read the info i have collected and we can talk her into seeing the doctor.
Our relate counceller has just started hitting the nail on the head in that my wife seems to be superimposing problems from her past onto our realationship and finding problems that weren't there or blowing very minor things into huge ones by changing the past.

Cheers