Needing to leave recently Bipolar and BpD diagnosed boyfriend

[Timetogrow55]

I don't want to leave him. I really don't. The thought of him no longer at my house watching films and cuddling up. The messages etc. I do feel sad. But that's pretty much all our relationship ever is. Its lifeless and centered around the home. I work and mix. He seems to have a non existing life where he just functions and muddles through the day. He's always been confusing. He's moody and then bouncy. He's caring them empty. He's unreliable and seems to take back all meaningful words when things get hard. He was finally diagnosed with Bipolar and Bpd and alot makes sense. All his destructive choices make sense. The financial mess. The lying about online behaviour. Women. Drama. Falling out with all family. It all makes sense.

He leans on me. For everything. Money. Food. Support. Yet the minute I get hurt because he's online all night talking to someone only he knows or he starts acting different , I'm a nightmare he can't deal with anymore. I've dealt with his drug use. The lies around that. Him loosing his flats because the landlords get fed up of late rent and damage. The list goes on and on. Pretty sure he's cheated and he's certainly looked at women online. He says he loves me. But he's never ever bothered with my birthday. Never had a gift. Never had dates or been taken out. He says he loves me and I'm his future and reason to continue. But then today he's decided he doesn't want to see me anymore because I told him for the 3rd day in a row I was anxious about his sudden use of WhatsApp and being intensely on the app 24 hours a day basically.

I know I need to leave. But feel so massively guilty because he's so unwell. I'm scared how he will cope without me.

Any advice.

Is he taking any medication or engaging in any therapy to help him with his diagnoses?

Anyway, it does sound like the relationship isn’t going in the direction you want and he sounds incredibly difficult to live with. Whose name is your present accommodation in? If it is his, is there somewhere you can go to stay?

I think you just need to bite the bullet and tell him…

My husband is like this (minus the other women).
If I could go back to the make or break moment…

He's just starting on quitepine I think it's called. He's allover the place. Sleeping alot. Yesterday he says he took too many and that's why he slept. This morning he said he didn't want to see me anymore because I'm making him worse. Tonight he's borrowed money to buy tobacco then as soon as he's got what he wants he's gone silent. I feel used. Luckily don't live together.

I'm just struggling to finally walk

My husband is bipolar. He’s just come out of a 3 week stay in hospital after a manic episode. My wonderful, selfless, fun man turns into someone else at that end and the other depressed end.
He’s always, even when manic or depressed, been nothing but loving towards me. This time though there was some suggestion from him on his way up that I was ‘controlling’ and ‘anxious’ rather than just reasonably worried about my husband. It’s made it much harder for me to let go of the anger that comes with the grief of him getting so ill. I do think he could have made better choices to avoid it.

He is generally wonderful and has never stolen money, cheated or anything worrying. It’s still hard and apparently 9/10 marriages when someone has bipolar end in divorce.

My advice would be to get out before you get in too deep. There’s no point breaking up with him when he’s manic so just have your speech and resolve ready for when he’s on an even keel.

However, if you do decide to stay, know it won’t go away and this will be something you will have to always manage. It can be relentless so he needs to really be worth it. If he is though, then all the best to you. Xxx

Thank you for sharing this with me. His daughter has bipolar and I have only met her a couple of times. One of the times she was manic and the other she was not long out of hospital. She seems to be kinder with hers. She's productive and thoughtful. she seems to befriend people quickly and she has done stuff like bring weed over when she visits her dad and they end up smoking it together and get off their faces. I find it all abit chaotic. She always seems to have a friend with her or several people she has to meet in one day. She finds its normal when he goes over to bring her female friends round to meet him and sometimes he ends up being picked up by a random woman his daughter has befriended last month.

Your husband sounds capable of loyalty and mostly being OK. I think because my boyfriend has been diagnosed in his 40s he's just destructive and change is going to be minimal even with medication. It's so hard though isn't it? When they go manic it feels like you've lost your routine and support. You sound like a great partner.

Also I get the making better choices thing. Does your husband tend to be irresponsible with money etc?

Please leave. Don't look back.

He is using you.

You will be so damaged by him.

You can't help him anymore. It is will take everything from you.

Do not let this happen. You are very important and cannot be dragged down as well.

I’d recommend therapy to understand why you’ve picked this person. It’s worth having a think about whether you are a people pleaser or if you tend to give too much of yourself in other ways. A therapist can help you through the breakup as well. If you work, see if you have an employee assistance programme.

Ive tried therapy 3 times but cannot seem to stick to ending it.

I'm not a people pleaser. I've left men for cheating easily and not looked back. I am terrified of the outcome for him if I go. I'm stuck amd trying to find the answer within myself. My fear is horrendous bit I don't want it anymore

He is his own responsibility.

You cannot take responsibility for another adult.

That way madness lies.

And then there's two of you in a bad way.

To be brutal - his welfare is not your responsibility. You need to put yourself first. Make an exit plan.

I mean this kindly but why are you not repelled by these behaviours. Anyone deserves a person who gives so much more and takes so much less from others. The older I get the more I realise we chase partners and friendships based on the esteem in which we hold ourselves. You deserve better. He needs to fix himself and with the conditions he has he might never choose to do that so those behaviours might continue forever. You need to fix your self esteem so that you repel these types because you deserve more.

How long have you been together?

Bluntly:
He survived before and he'll survive afterwards.
He's a parasite and he'll find another host.
It sounds like he is constantly working women, and he probably will have a replacement fairly soon.

That's incredibly hurtful, but I can't see how you can escape the fact that he doesn't love you, he's using you, and that if you want to preserve your own sanity you need to leave him.
Have you googled 'Co dependancy' it sounds like that's the dynamic you have.

You need to start valuing your life more than his, he will consume you then leave you for his next supply.

I'm sorry

I'm bipolar and relationships are hard when you are bipolar. My partner says he hates it when I'm depressed and hates me when manic.
We have been together for nearly 20 years since our teens and at times it nearly broke us apart. The things that keep us together are mutual love and respect for one another and me taking responsibility for my mental health. Thankfully I have more of a tendency towards depression when medicated and have only had one really bad manic episode. That was the one time we briefly split up. I take my meds, I eat properly, sleep properly, don't engage in drugs and live a broadly "dull" life. It gives me a stable life and allows me to be a rounded person and a person that can build relationships. I've lost so many friendships over the last 20 years because of mental illness. I value those that have made it so much but I have no ill feelings to those that have drifted away. They just weren't meant to be, wrong time, wrong place. It sounds like this relationship is like this. For all his potential good qualities right now he's not in place where he can build a good relationship, one that could withstand the rollercoaster of the early days of a bipolar diagnosis which can be HARD. That's ok. You can put your own wellbeing first.

Don't feel guilty. It's very sad for you both that he is ill, but you can't fix him, it's not your responsibility to fix him and you are perfectly entitled to leave him and live your own life to its full potential.

I say this as a mother of DS 22 with BPD (and other diagnoses). Don't be guilty- it's not your fault. I think I would have found it hard to stay looking after my son if I didn't have to!!!! He is so dependent on me to help regulate his mood and remove any negative emotions. It's exhausting. It's distressing. It's brutal.

Try and leave with integrity. Consider that, with BPD, rejection is perceived sooooo sensitively. But none of that changes your complete and utter right to end a relationship that doesn't work for you.

You've been amazing.

Go. And good luck x

From another MN poster - "Women are not hospitals for damaged men".

He sounds really horrible actually. If he weren't 'ill' you wouldn't put up with this. Why do you think that you are somehow the 'cure'? He's told you that you're not.

Dump him and block so that whatever the outcome, you don't involve yourself. Anything he does or doesn't do is on him. He has a child, his responsibility is to them. Yours is to yourself, not this whining, using idiot.

Only in the littlest of ways. He bought a £30 lamp and some gig tickets he might not otherwise have done, but nothing extreme. I don’t think bipolar turns you into someone else, just exaggerates parts of you. If his daughter is kinder with hers, then she’s probably just kinder. If my husband wasn’t as kind as he is, I couldn’t do it. I think this thread has given you the answer you need but I know it’s brutal and nothing is simple. I wish you all the best x

Thank you. I have focused more on the BPD as being where the awful stuff is coming from. I feel like bipolar is somehow less likely to cause the abusive side of things. But perhaps I'll never know where the lines cross. Unfortunately he has done drugs and he has made poor choices. His sleep and food Is allover the place and he's rarely able to accept when he's been caught out he should be honest. You sound great and like you are more than willing to put the work in. I've been so supportive of him and tried my best to keep him on track in life. It's been so confusing as I've never met a human being like this.

It's like he's been asleep since 1pm. Just messaged me at half 8. Didn't reply and then went on WhatsApp and didn't bother messaging me after coming off WhatsApp. I just don't understand him at all lately.

I think even before his diagnosis he was treating you badly. He has probably cheated on you. He probably feels that he is always right and refuses to take any responsibility for what he does or says. He is quiet happy to have you there for the support and to solve his problems.
With his diagnosis he should not be smoking weed or drinking as that's going to make his conditions far worse.

As one of the other posters said here to keep her mental health well she takes he medication, eats well, exercises and follow medical advice.
I don't think your so called partner will do this. You have already experienced what he is like and he has cheated on you.
In your situation I would end things and block him. Why stay with a man like this because he will just drag you down and make your life far harder.

The beauty of time! I was a very different person in my teens and early 20s. Very much ruled by my mental health. I was diagnosed mid 20s. I was doing a PhD at the time and it was very much that if I wanted a career and a life not at the mercy of my mood swings I had to find away forward. I had brilliant support from the early intervention mental health team for 3 years and I got a much better understanding of what drives the ups and downs of my moods and that has given me more stability.
It took the full 3 years for them to confirm the bipolar diagnosis based on my history particularly ages 13-21 there was definitely indicators of bpd. Lots of self destructive and impulsivity so they wanted to determine if there was any comorbidity.

I still have episodes but much more stability in the gaps. The first 2 years I was lucky if I had 6-8 weeks in between episodes. Then i had another few years of depression every winter and hypomania every spring. Leaving academia after getting my PhD for a lower stress job but still in science made a difference. I've only had 2 episodes since then hypomania after a house and office mood and then a bad episode post natally when I developed treatment resistant depression and psychosis. It took 2years to recover from that and I have been stable for the last 2 years. That episode was hard on my partner, the psychosis meant that I wasn't sure if I could trust him as he didn't have the concerns I had (baby wasn't real/ours/ had been swapped) so he must be in on it.

The pp that said it exaggerates the person you are is probably at least partially right. I spend more on books and pens which are things I tend to spend more on anyway. If I come home with a new notebook and pens with grand plans of writing a cook book or french phrase book (I didn't even speak french!) or similar my partner knows I'm on the up! 95% of the time I am still there in the episode but there are the odd times when I act out of character. I hate all things wedding related but in one episode I almost bought myself a wedding dress and engagement ring! I was a student at the time and it would have been about 6 months pay. My partner came home and it broke the online shopping cycle and I went on to my next obsession.

For me at least the diagnosis was just the start of a lot of work to learn and understand my moods. It took time to find the right medication regime for me. I have got a lot of things wrong but probably 1.5-2 years after the initial "possible bipolar" diagnosis the tide switched and I started to get more things right and I started to get the framework on how to live with bipolar.