Expert: Jennifer - 9/29/2009

Question
I have been with my botfriend for a little over 2 years. During this relationship I have noticed some patterns of disturbing behavior. Let first say I love him very much and know that he def has a mental condition I am just trying to figure out how to deal with this.
When we first meant he was one of the most compassionate kind men I have ever known. As our relationship develope we really bonded. I have a lot of patiences and could see him struggle with his finances and knew he made bad decisions. Wasnt sure why. After about a year he cheated on me. I left him. The female he cheated with is not someone you'd take home to mom. He claims that he doesnt care about her and begged me to take him back and even suggested counseling claiming that he doesnt know why he does the things he does. We went to counseling for 4 sessions then he quit. I continued for a couple more. The counselor suggested that he was very depressed and had concerns for him. I took him back anyway. He goes threw serious times of depression where he will sleep for days and have no energy, mind you he's a basketball player. He is down right miserable. I have left him more times then I can count because he can be very mean and abusive. He seems to rally some of himself back and promises change and the pattern repeats. I got pregnant in March and excitedly shared the news with him and got a very odd reaction "how". then he seemed to fall into this depression, craziness again. In July I caught him cheating with that same girl. This time when I confronted him he physically attacked me. I had him arrested and have not spoke with hm until yesterday, because court is still pending. I had sent him info about bipolar and he called to ask me why. I told him I think there is something going on that he cant help. It was the first time we talked about the attack. He says he doesnt remember any of it and cant believe he had donr the things I say he did. I really believe he blacked ou that day. I have seen his rage before and its very scary. I asked about the girl and he said she isnt anyone to him again. He said he didnt "plan" it but cant understand why he keeps doing it. I am trying to find answrs> I am trying to help him so that my daughter has a father. Please any suggestions would be helpful>

Answer
While the information you have shared does seem to suggest that this man and father of your child may have some psychiatric problem that would need to be addressed by his going for an evaluation and should a diagnosis and treatment be made and subsequently suggested (in that order, since trying to begin treatment without an actual diagnosis isn't impossible as we've seen many times over in the news these days - mostly with celebrities - but doing that is only going to add to a laundry list of problems that are already very concerning.#  

All that being said, I honestly feel that it would be better for your daughter to not have a father in her life if the biological father continues to be violent and to be blunt about it, doesn't think much of any female who is involved with him whether it's the other woman he's repeatedly slept with and then told you she was nothing - how do you think that he would be likely to refer to you when she asks him what's going on and why he cheats on *her* to be with *you*?  After reading some substantial research into the subject of exactly how much babies know when they're born and what is key to their development in the earliest period of life which will define how successful they will be over their preschool through high school graduation experience, this is what was made clear:
 
  It is imperative that the mother have a interactive and loving role with the infant, from talking and playing with her baby even before leaving the hospital.  Babies watch their mothers, learning facial expressions and even know the sound of her voice and recognize her from others in the first month.  You don't have to get them into an advanced start program to get them on their way to speaking a foreign language by 3 or already doing math and vocabulary exercises before they are actually going to school and taking lessons to play a musical instrument beginning in preschool!  It is important to read to the child from early on in their life, but that is more about bonding than trying to fast track them into the ivy league when what kids REALLY need from their parent#(s)# is time spent being with them.  It is important that a child have someone in the caretaking role who takes an interest in them as much as they do with the adult who is providing that care.  

He may or may not have blacked out the events that led to his arrest, he may be telling you he doesn't remember because he's too ashamed of what he fully knows took place but cannot accept responsibility for it much like any other bad decision that has come up in the past.  Right now you should be more concerned about being a good mother with your daughter, and let him worry about what is causing him to act in ways that GET HIM ARRESTED, and don't give him the option of coming back to you in the times where the other girl is more than likely getting pissed about how he treats her and does her own cycle of on and off again with him the way you do as well.  If you don't believe that your daughter will learn her later perception and behaviors with men from what she sees from her earliest memories and on with what she sees going on at home, you would benefit from taking time to look back and see how your own experiences shaped you.  My parents have always been a team, and to this day I cannot recall ever once hearing them fight or say anything hurtful while I was growing up.  The problem came when they were also very private and did not give me anything to learn how to open oneself to emotionally connecting with someone else and while intellectually encouraging me they had no idea that they should actually sit down and talk to me about drugs, sex, smoking, and all those other social issues because I could learn from academic sources #in their belief) and should already know how they feel about having premarital sex and the smoking cigarettes.  My parents were married in 1968 right after they had finished college, though my dad went back for his masters while he worked a modified schedule during the early years of marriage.  They have never been with anyone but each other, and grew up in very conservative and quiet homes - it just never occurred to them that either of their own two kids might have tried experimenting with all the things that existed out in the world we could find with as many and as wildly opposite to anything even considered at home being the most intriguing.  So we all had to learn the more difficult lessons when we'd become adult children and moved out on our own - which was right in the middle of when I was in full swing on full-fledged bipolar episodes that I'd been building up to since the moodiness of high school. Now that I've been on an effective medication regimen, which varies for one person to the next, I'm going to be sitting for the bar exam next month and have completed law school at the age of 32 which is practically treated as if they just saw me move mountains *literally* for the extended family, after everyone worried I wouldn't be able to make it back into school to finish my bachelors degree many years ago! The trick is for the person with bipolar to recognize how much they can achieve just by taking the appropriate action and starting treatment - once we do, the sky really IS only limited to how far our imagination and drive goes to set that limit.