Expert: Libby Bonner - 5/21/2008

Question
Hi Libby,

I believe my husband is bipolar. Last Christmas he searched for and found on the internet his old highschool girlfriend. She lives several states away and has been married for 13 years with 2 children. David & I just had a baby last summer who is turning 1 next month. I believe the stress of the baby and disrupted sleep patterns triggered the bipolar. He was very depressed this past winter and I found out that he spent thousands of dollars on electronics and games. Money we don't have.

It only took a few days of emailing this woman before they were madly in love, exchanging naked pictures and sex stories. Within 2 weeks of that David told me he wanted a divorce and she told her husband she wanted a divorce. I found out that they were already talking about her moving to our state and them getting married before they even told their spouses they wanted a divorce.

I tried to be supportive, but David says he doesn't love me anymore and continued to spend hours every day calling her, texting her, online chatting with her and emailing her. She's a stay at home mom so she is available to him 24/7 to respond.

They have flown back and forth to see each other almost every other weekend and they have been having sex. After 6 weeks I told David he had to stop the affair or move out since I had lost 40 lbs in that time and couldn't eat and/or would throwup all the time and I could barely sleep. He chose to move out.

She has managed to convince her husband to relocate up here with her. I can't believe this whole family is leaving their state so that she can be with David. Her husband is scared of losing the kids so he's decided to be friends with her and David.

That's the short version of my story. Up until recently I've been willing to forgive this if it was the result of bipolar. But it is literally killing me and I think for my own sake I need to let go and move on. It's hard since I've been with David for 13 years and until all this happened he was my best friend. So I'm losing a lot and it's hard to adjust to, and take care of the house and cats and my son by myself while working full time.

One more thing - David is OBSESSED with this woman. She is the most beautiful, sexiest woman in the world. His e-mails to her are primarily sex based. He's up around 3:30 am sending his first text message to her and he's texting her around 2 dozen times throughout the day. So he's not sleeping much.

My question to you is - Can you explain what was going through your mind, how you were feeling, and what you thought about your husband during the times you were having affairs?

People may think I'm stupid or nieve, but I honestly thought that David would NEVER do this to me. I thought we'd be married forever. I thought if we ever got divorced it would be amicable because I never thought he'd cheat on me.

I don't believe there is any relationship left to save at this point, but I really, really want to understand what has happened to David. He seems like a stranger. I don't want to have false hope that the old happy, funny David will come back if he is gone forever.

I appreciate any insight you can give me on this situation.

Thank you!

Kristin

Answer
One correction:  I was not having affairs, nor was my bipolar husband:  he was just hypersexual, w/ me.

David likely is bipolar.  If so, you certainly cannot win him back while he is ill, because his thinking is so screwed up.

IS he bipolar?  Never diagnosed, never medicated, regular guy til now?  Ah well, the spending: that's pretty diagnostic.

Sorry, but I am home w/ pneumonia, so this will be short.  There isn't a blessed thing you can do about this while he is so ill. And/or he may indeed have mostly flipped per the internet, as is ever more common.

Find out more about bipolar at nami.org or mentalhealth.com

Until and unless he is medicated and STABLE, it's hard to know what David will appear, how well he can hang onto stability, whether the meds will work, whether he will take them.

If you are able to get a legal separation, consider that....but I don't like that it leaves hope in your life.   

Pls connect w/ a local NAMI group and pls see an atty and pls see an acct to see what of your assets can still be salvaged.