Please help my fiancée'

My name is Brian.
My fiancée is bipolar. We are planning on getting married soon, but we have a serious problem that I need help with.

We are 100% committed to each other and ready to start our lives together, but she has a major fear of change. I've studied bipolar and I'm aware of this issue, and greatly sympathise with her problem.

However, it seems to be a roadblock in our progress. Everytime she gets the courage to move in with me, fear takes over and she backs out at the last minute. This has happened several times over the last year. As I am aware of the issues bipolar people have, I have been very patient, but we need help.

What advice can you give her that might help her make the final push to move in and begin our lives together? I love her and am willing to help in any way possible.

Her name is Genevieve, and if you post a response, I will direct her to this forum and your answers.

Thank you in advance!

I am no doctor, but first this that comes to mind: do not move together. Do everything like you live together, until she does the move by herself and not as a response to your push.

We can't do anything like we live together. We live 128 miles apart.

She might not need or want help and her not wanting/not being ready to move in together might have nothing to do with having bipolar disorder.

Plenty of people with bipolar disorder live with their partners so honestly I don’t think it’s a feature of the disorder, it’s not common. Perhaps her doubts are due to something else

We total strangers cant really tell someone we don’t know to move in with a man.

When are you getting married and how long you’ve been engaged or knew each other?

@brian10x, does you fiancee plan on moving in with you after you are married? What are your marriage plans? Perhaps she wants to wait? Is she more traditional? Maybe a candid conversation about what is holding her back would help? I agree that it cannot be forced, but it's odd since she does plan on marrying you.

sorry, but she's the only one who can seek help or make that decision, we can't do that for her

Sorry, but are you even close emotionally and romantically? I assumed as much as you have said you are both 100% committed.

But how come you can't do things together on such a mature stage of relationship with 100% mutual commitment and marriage plans? What 128 miles have even to do with it?

Do shopping together. Come to each one's house and share chores. Pick up each other after work. That's just from the top of my head. You yourself should have more relevant list of possibilities. Living together is not about sex.

Are you sure the relationship is healthy partnership and not you exploiting your fiancée?

That is pushing *your* agenda onto her. It is never a good idea to coerce someone to do something that they fear doing. She has her reasons and you ought to respect that.

Your fiancee(?) is not a diagnosis and not all "bipolar people" or "bipolar people issues" are the same.

The best support you could offer her is guide her to mental health support, for her sake not for yours. Only she can work on her issues, with support - not by making her do what you want.

Maybe she is having second thoughts & not saying anything until she really knows. Better NOT to commit to living together until totally sure. She has a right to work through whatever is causing her not to want to live together at this point. Pushing may totally drive her away & bipolar most likely has nothing to do with it

Going by what you posted on your other thread, this lady is married to someone else. Not separated or in the process of divorce but actually living with her husband. I am not sure you can be engaged or marry people who are already married. So she needs to take care of her situation by finishing first marriage if that’s what she wants.

Sounds like it’s you that needs the help tbh. If this woman is still married and living with her husband you may be nothing more than an ego boost when she is feeling low.

When there are problems in a relationship it’s important to step back and look at it realistically. Otherwise you are wasting time imagining something that simply doesn’t exist.

You're spinning your wheels here. Please do not sit and wait around for her to resolve her marital relationship. You could be in the same place 10 years from now.

Tell her when she gets her legal work done to check back with you and if you aren't in another relationship you can consider restarting one with her.

I hope you have not sent her money. You know nothing about her except what she claims from long distance. I urge you to get a therapist and talk to a real person about real relationships.

She's a pretty traditional person that has been trapped in bipolar issues for decades. Self-medication just exacerbated the issue.

If she can find the courage, she wants to move in ASAP, then get married as soon as the divorce is through.

She is not divorced yet and you are engaged? Be careful - she could flip flop. People who are going through a divorce, like any major breakup, tend to go on the rebound. Being the rebound person is risky #1, and #2, be sure it is for real. She could mean one thing now and change her mind after or before her divorce. That's what some guy did to me once when he was only just separated. It can happen.

I find your hypothesis that this issue has to do with her bipolar diagnosis really, really odd. Bipolar people typically have the opposite problem: when in an elevated mood, they make rash decisions and move in too fast with new partners, instead of waiting and acting more rationally. They may make other impulsive decisions they later come to regret when they return to the baseline: divorcing when it was not called for, overspending which may be in really big figures for some (cars on credit, new houses), moving to another continent on a whim without having any support network or viable plans at the new place, etc. Or they may make impulsive decisions that in the final accounting they are grateful for (I have been there). So it is not always something they later regret, but the impulsivity and the rashness are there. Not pondering the consequences nearly enough.

You said that what you call her "major fear of change" is because of her bipolar according to what you found out by "studying bipolar". May I ask how exactly you "studied bipolar" to arrive at "major fear of change" being a telltale symptom of the disorder?

You said that what you call her "major fear of change" is because of her bipolar according to what you found out by "studying bipolar". May I ask how exactly you "studied bipolar" to arrive at "major fear of change" being a telltale symptom of the disorder?[/QUOTE]

>>I read a couple of good books. Seems reasonable to me.

Oh dear God. Sorry. I. hear that and I want to puke. Come on. Bi-polar means she has a major fear of change? I am so sick of hearing people excuse others behaviors because of a mental health condition. The woman isn' t divorced yet and she's still moving in with someone new and getting engaged? That's much more likely the issue.

>>I read a couple of good books. Seems reasonable to me.[/QUOTE]

Unless you’re her doctor or therapist, you have no basis to say that.

She is unavailable. She is married. She is with another man. That’s why she’s not moving in. Period.

>>I read a couple of good books. Seems reasonable to me.[/QUOTE]

Look up a common cognitive distortion called

Confirmation bias