Hi all. I considered name changing for this, but I decided I didn?t want to risk anyone thinking I was a troll. For those who don?t know me (which is probably most of you) I?m a 27 year old man. I was uncertain where to put this one. I suppose it belongs with the mental health threads, but I wanted to talk to those who don?t really know much about the problem. I guess I just want to see if others would be feeling the same way as me and I think the important things I want to know is if I handled things badly or not. Did I do the best I could under the circumstances? Or could I have done better with the knowledge I had at the time?
My DP has Bipolar, but we didn?t know until late last year. She hadn?t really been herself since DD was born. But as DD started to cut down on breastfeeding, and DP?s periods returned, she started getting very unstable. The first thing I noticed was that she far more volatile than usual, which, at the time, I put down to hormones returning. Then came the far more erratic sex drive. Again, I just thought her hormones must be returning. But the erratic behaviour and moods continued for a couple of months.
There was an incident with my mother that ended up coming to blows. It was my mothers fault (and as a result I have had to cut contact with my mother and by extension most of my family, but that?s a whole different thread. But the thing is that the fight seemed to set DP off far worse. She became obsessed with playing a certain computer game over and over again, staying up half the night. I had no idea why, and I was getting irritated that she was doing this and sitting at the computer all day. So not only did I have to take over the cleaning and children on my own, but there was no entertainment at all. I keep thinking that if I?d have known why at the time, I would have been a lot more tolerant of the obsession. Would you have? Anyway, that?s not the most important bit.
Then she wanted to go on her first night out since DD was born. Far enough. Everyone needs a night out occasionally and I thought maybe she just needed to blow some steam. So she went on a night out with a male friend, who she?d known since long before I met her. That was fine and I didn?t have a problem with their friendship, I?d always trusted her before then. But when she came back, she was different.
Something had radically changed, and this wasn?t the woman I had been living with for 5 years. Her hair changed, she dressed more provocatively than before, she wore more make up, and barely slept at all. She suddenly wanted a tattoo in a very private area that she could show to everyone. She kept going on about this male friend, how he understood her and I didn?t. That we no longer fitted together. That she wanted to, ?had to,? she said, spend the night away with him. This was already ringing alarm bells, couple that along with her confessing many times recently to an unexplained desire to sleep with another man. I don?t think I reacted well, but anything I said was met with aggressive responses.
She was also spending all her time with this other male friend. On the phone, on facebook, he was all she talked about, when it wasn?t about how much she hated me.
About a day or two later, I remembered something from my a-level in psychology. I looked it up on the internet, and realised that her behaviour perfectly fitted bipolar. But what could I do about it? I tried to convince her to see someone, but that was met with hysterical aggression which I?d never seen before.
The behaviour was the most frightening I?d ever seen. I didn?t think it was possible to laugh hysterically, scream and cry your eyes out at the same time. It is. Also, I didn?t know it at the time, but she was having a two way conversation with at least three people who weren?t there, one of which claimed to be god. Along with visual hallucinations. I didn?t know what to do, but I had seen from reading up on the subject that this wouldn?t last more than a week, which left only a few days. She was suspicious and paranoid constantly, accusing me of planning to rape and beat her, which I had given her no reason to suspect. OK, so I had shouted back several times during the blazing rows that had happened lately. But never had I hit her, and under no circumstances would I have forced myself upon her.
But anyway, Thursday evening she changed again. She was no longer bouncing up and down, just up. Almost normal. I knew something had changed. I hoped it was over, but it didn?t look like it. Friday, she went out again. I couldn?t stop her, and she had assured me that this was just to burn off the rest of the energy in drinking, singing and dancing. I told myself it was true, despite what I knew was the truth.
That night I accidently found something on the computer. A confession that she had, in fact, slept with someone else. After all that had happened recently, the anger was immense. Almost too much for me. Had it not been for the fact that the DC?s were in bed, well I?d have gone straight out and, well, given into the aggression. As it was, DD waking up brought me back to normal.
But the most hurtful thing about it was how she had so casually thrown away our life together. The way she casually said that it wasn?t that important that I left her now. I didn?t want to touch her again. She rolled in at 5 o?clock in the morning, and I was still awake. I didn?t sleep at all that night. Even though the man I knew had done this with her was in my house with her (and I wanted to do something very nasty), I controlled myself knowing that to tell her I knew would send her down, and likely to a suicidal point.
So I kept quiet. I seethed. She went to bed, and soon called me. Somehow, I knew this was my DP. Not the stranger I had been living with for the last week. Shaking, she asked me to cuddle her to sleep. I was reluctant to, mainly because I was still angry and disgusted. But I did, just to stop her from crashing. And then, for some reason I don?t fully understand, I felt calm once she was lying asleep in my arms. Later on, I held her head as she was sick and shaking with the come down effect of leaving mania.
I told her the next day that I knew. She told me what happened, but refused to apologise for it or her behaviour. On the Monday, she finally saw a psychiatrist who wasted no time in referring her. For the next month, she still wasn?t herself. She expected me to leave her, so she kept her distance. She refused to admit that it was wrong to cheat. Even if she wasn?t herself, and I understood that, a part of me wanted her to show regret. To show that she didn?t want it to happen. But no, instead she made jokes comparing penis sizes, she spoke of the event as if it was humorous. And she was angry when I didn?t think it was very funny.
I became quite depressed. Please note here that I?m a very solitary person. I have no friends outside of work, and I?m not really close to any of them. I had also just lost my family, so I had no one to talk to about any of this. This is going to sound absolutely pathetic, but I actually talked to my boss about it. We get on very well, yes, but not enough to talk about personal stuff, if you know what I mean. I made out it was because I may have to take a day off now and then if anything happens, but I think he knew I just wanted to talk about it. I didn?t mention the other man, though. I haven?t mentioned that part to anyone. I can?t mention to anyone because I?m afraid that they will just tell me to leave her, I shouldn?t put up with it, I should hit him many times, etc.
She?s doing very well now, and I know exactly what to do if it happens again. In fact, I could probably write a thesis on the subject. She?s come close a couple of times and with my help has remained stable ever since.
I guess I just wanted to talk about this. So did I handle it badly? I don?t know. I will always wonder if I could have done better. If I had, would she have turned to me as she does now, and not this other man?
And although I can?t blame her or be angry at her, I can?t let go of the anger towards him. He knew there was something wrong. She had told him about the voices and the hallucinations. And yet he encouraged her to leave me, to turn against me, and to sleep with him. I?m so angry towards him that I really don?t think I could ever speak to him without receiving a hefty prison sentence. I still look around town whenever I?m there, hoping I?ll bump into him so that I can exact revenge. I don?t want to feel that way. I know better than anyone that holding onto anger can destroy you, and I am not a violent or aggressive person at all. I just want to be able to forget it ever happened.
How we eventually became a couple again is another part I feel guilty about. I needed a friend. I needed someone to talk to. So I found someone on a forum like this one (though not this one) and talked to her through a series of private messages. I thought it was safe, nothing would happen as she was on the other side of the world and I just wanted to talk. But I could see she was getting the wrong idea, and I was getting far to personal. While I was thinking of a way to end the conversation, DP came across out messages and it nearly sent her over the edge again. After I stopped her trying to kill herself, we talked all night and found our closeness again. I?m ashamed to admit that part of me was pleased with her reaction, as guilty as I felt about it. It showed she still cared when she had barely spoken to me in two months.
I discovered how violated the incident with the other man had made her feel. How she feels as if she was raped because she couldn?t give consent and would never have done that under normal circumstances. And I still think about. I blame him, and I blame myself for not being a man she could turn when she?d lost her mind. I know I could have if I?d have just know what to do, or what was going on. And then my DP wouldn?t have been through what was paramount to date-rape.
Am I right or not? Am I at least in part to blame? How would you have reacted? What would you have done? Thank you for reading this, sorry its so long. I had a lot to say that I haven?t spoken to anyone about before. I guess I just wanted to talk about it and get it off my chest so we can truly move on and forget about it.