Expert: Libby Bonner - 10/27/2008

Question
Hi Libby,

I am in a comitted relationship with a woman who is bipolar 1. In fact, we are engaged and I am in between a real rock and a hard place at this point in our relationship. I love her very much and that makes this all the more difficult. She has a good job, is extremely intelligent and is a good person. There are many aspects of her bipolar disorder that are disheartening to me (like her extremely dirty house, insubordinate and disrespectful teenage children and her overall negative outlook on life in general. Her medications for the most part have seemed to stabilize her and I had decided before I proposed to her that the good in her and how she makes me feel when she's level offsets the negative. However, there has been a downturn and I'm on the verge of ending it over her insistence that her relationship with an ex-lover is simply business (they are both executives in a national organization involving sports.) We have been together for about 1 1/2 years now and what seemed innocent enough at first has turned into a full blown suspicion on my part that she's having an inappropriate sexual relationship with this guy. They travel often together this time of year to judge events and stay in the same hotels, etc. She has been very convincing up to this point that there's nothing inapproprite going on but given a bipolar person's ability to easily cross over the line coupled with events this past weekend have me convinced that my nightmare is a reality. I am in real trouble here and I hope you can help. What happened this weekend, specifically, is that there was an event in our hometown that this guy drove into town for. They both took a recertification test on Saturday and judged an event together on Sunday. Hotels are always booked for the judges who are from out of town. Well, it turns out that she never told me on Saturday morning before I left her house to be with my own daughter for a couple of days that she too had a hotel room, despite the fact that her home is just as close to where the event was as the hotel is. I threw a monkey wrench into her plans to be at the same hotel with this guy when I called her to tell her my daughter was sick and that I would not be going to see her. I told her that I would be home with her instead. Her reaction was absolute silence for about 10 seconds until she reacted angrily with a lame reason why I had to go away. She finally admitted that she had planned on going out with "a group of people" after the recertification test with this guy and that she wanted to stay at the hotel that she had "just learned" had been booked for her so she could be closer to the arena in the morning for the commute (the hotel was 5 min. closer than her own house so that argument doesn't hold water.) I basically demanded from her that she return home that night, fearinga liason with her former lover. As it turns out, this guy, who is married, cheated on his fiance at the time with my girl but before the two of us met. She admits now it was wrong but says that at the time, she wasn't comitted to anyone and that's how she justifies it. So, they have a history together and they continue in this professional relationship. When she acted so unreasonably when I found out her plans to stay at the same hotel this guy was staying, I lost my mind and she did come home. When I confronted her about it, she said that she had gone out to dinner with "the group" (I don't believe her...I think it was the two of them alone) and that besides, the organization had booked him in a "different" hotel than her. (Yeah right.) She told me the name of the hotel only AFTER I asked where she was planning on staying (funny how she didn't OFFER the information as an innocent person would) so I immediately had a female relative of mine call the hotel and ask to be connected to the room of (his name first)and (her name.) The desk clerk didn't say that he wasn't a guest there as I was hoping (I want to believe her) but instead said, "just a moment, I'll connect you." I take that to be pretty conclusive evidence that she lied to me about his not being booked in the same hotel. It appears that not only were they booked in the same hotel; they were booked together in the same room. She swears it isn't true (I never told her about our call to the hotel) and that I'm "making a mountain out of a molehill." What do you think?

Answer
I think we have a little bipolar in here, but a lot that is pure Dear Abby....tho it still leaves you angry and confused.

Here is my take on things, both bipolar and advice-column-wise.

In my own experience as a professional who traveled to conferences and meeting w/ my professional peers, it was very common for locals to book into the convention hotel/s.  Much more of importance happens, professionally, than just scheduled events, and that includes immersion w/ one's peers over several days, impromtu small unofficial "meetings" related to the scheduled events and to professional issues, and meals that are also 50-70% business.  There's a solidarity and flow that would be completely sent off course by taking time out [by going home.]

Easily 50% of what is of value at these is NOT the scheduled events.

You write:  "She has been very convincing up to this point that there's nothing inapproprite going on but given a bipolar person's ability to easily cross over the line..."  From this, three things occur to me:  your situation is not how bipolar-driven inappropriate sex occurs; you have always been suspicious about this relationship; it's possible that you are right about this affair being a past, present, and future reality.  About the latter, however, I would say that this also is not unheard of within professional groups:  a couple forms, sleeps together, maybe emails between meetings, but this is [honestly], though a departure from vows, a thing apart from either person's sincere committed relationship back home and occupies very little of their ongoing thoughts and time.

I think also that you were not given true info about this recent deal because you would have [rightly, perhaps] raised the same ruckus that accidently erupted anyway -- forbidden her to stay there, etc.

Do you live together, and for how long - most of the 1 1/2 yrs?  I ask, though you have weighed them, because of the housekeeping, teenagers, and her negative outlook.  IF you don't already live together, every day of every week, I think the teenagers, if nothing else, could blow the whole thing up....You might consider getting info and/or getting into a support group re blended families before going forward.

All that is IF you are able to separate out, and not dwell endlessly, nor question relentlessly, the goings on that may, or may not, relate to her absences and her professional life.

IF you can't let go of this, now and forever, I think that this, and the other negatives, suggest, at the very least, a delay of the wedding, if a date has already been set.

I would suggest couple's counseling but, if the "affair" is as important-but-unimportant to her as I imagine it to be, she will deny the affair in counseling.....to protect you, to protect your relationship w/ her, and because it probably actually is not a major thing in her life.  There's no good way for it to come out, in counseling.  You and maybe most people will want a guarantee that it will end.

It would help if you could see it - this is facetious, and I do know how painful this is to you - as one of many convention activities of no more interest to you than the other dull things that happen at conventions.

Pls write again if there is more you, or we, need to think about.

I hope you are able to get past this - however you finally resolve to do it - and can get on to happier things very soon.