Expert: Jennifer - 7/3/2011

Question
Dear Madam,

I have been with my husband for 4 years. When things are good they are good, when things are bad they are bad. He has some chronic and mental problems. I sent him similar stories of other people with his behavior and told him to get help if he wants to continue. For the past years I tried to talk to him and show him how his behavior is affecting me and that his behavior is getting worse, but he does not seem to care.

Some of his behavior:
The house has to be clean, just like an IKEA magazine. If after I took a shower there is one drop of water,  he starts yelling.
In his family there is a history of chronic illness he is always tired, ED and has loss of balance. This chronic disease can have personality changes in patients.

He changes between down and up. Sometimes it seems as if he has a mixed state during the day anger and depressed and at night a bit funny. Furthermore, he has more than one personality (old angry man and needy 3 year old child). When he is angry his face, voice and body changes. Sometimes he is acting like a 3 year old, pushing me from the bed, asking the same question 10 times.

I made a mood chart and his mood seems to go from up, mixed and then down…(1-3 weeks)
Hears voices / Smells things/ Complains that I can’t do anything right/ Problems sleeping
Hypersensitive. Has a problem with noise. Always sleeps with ear plugs and still hears every little noise. Lack of motivation. When he is normal or in an up mood he is nice, funny, motivated, talks normal and think normal.

Angry when I want to communicate or ask to do something together/Controlling behavior: he has to be in control/ He blames me for everything that goes wrong. There is no way of communicating with him. He can only yell and scream.

Withdrawal and distant and then he wants a divorce and runs away. I will beg him to come back and when I give up he tries to pull me back in. When I want a separation he will do anything to avoid it. Sometimes he will beg me to not leave him and other times he will say he breaks up with me and blames me.

When he is in rage, he will go for a walk or sleep and when he comes back or wakes up he is normal and acts like nothing is wrong. Usually when he is angry I just sit still and look at him. And later I will write him an email to write what happened, but he will never talk about it. Sometimes I try to walk away or if he sees I am mad he will ask me what the problem is and if I tell him he will yell again. Sometimes he will just start a fight with me /He always wants space, even if I call or text him once a day and at night have other plans he wants space/ Fear of abandonment/ For some reason he always wants to sleep in the guestroom /Never communicating about our problems and if we do he always blames me or tells me that he does not remember.

He used to have spending sprees but now he has someone handling his money. He can’t hold a job. I gave him information regarding jobs that he might want to try. He has his eye set on a job with status but for the past 10 years he has always failed to get the job.

Obsessed with ex girlfriends/Lives in the past and secretive about everything. For example he has albums from 15 years ago. The pictures we make now are stored up somewhere/ Has a trust issue /Grandiosity/ He lied about his education. He lies about small things/ Memory loss. He forgets everything.

Impaired thinking, problem solving and lack of insight: For example he does not see that if I pay 5 times for the groceries and he once that that has to change. Sometimes I talk to him and he says nothing/ shows no feeling (not even anger). It feels like I am talking to a little boy that does not understand what I am saying.

Double standards. He can do everything wrong, but when I do something wrong it is hell on earth / Disappearing for days turns of his phone. Always playing the blame game and emotional tests to see how much I love him and how much I fight for him. After I showed him my love (fought for him) he is back to normal/ Silent treatment/ Sometimes he gets paranoid thinks that I am cheating and better off alone/ He started calling me stupid, moron, bad educated girl and schizophrenic. I think that he only calls me names he sees himself, because I have something I was teased about during my childhood but he does not make jokes about that issue.  

Avoiding me, when he is in his episode he never wants to spend time with me/ I hate you don’t leave me dance / He only thinks about himself, he only has problems, when I tell him I am depressed, I am tired, I lost my job he just does not care. But when he has the same problems I should help him/ Push and pull dance: after a period of good time, were back on the bad time/ Ruins all the holidays/ Avoiding intimacy: always in his angry mood and then he gets mad when I don’t make avances to get intimate/ Self mutilation. I know about 4 incidents during his entire life.

Does not want to go to see a therapist because he says ‘’ shrinks are crazy and medicine make you crazy’’ or he will say that he is not sick. The odd thing is I can tell him that I think he is sick and he will in a soft voice answer no I am not sick but if I will call him at work he will go crazy and starts to yell.

He does know that he has a problem:
He always goes to the doctor for checkups
He eats really healthy and takes medicines/ injections
He knows caffeine and alcohol are bad for his health, but when he is up he will drink a lot.
When I wrote him an email telling him the Chinese herbal he was using is bad for his health he started to use vitamin D3. I do believe that he reads my emails.
Sometimes if he calls me names and I saw it hurts my feelings he says sorry.Sometimes he will say that he had racing thoughts or he was joking when he said those bad things, or what he said was something he did years ago.
Sometimes if he notices that he did something wrong, he will make it right and blame me.
He can control his anger. He will yell at me and if I look at him like '' what is going on’’ he will say yes can you please go sit somewhere else or can you do that for me.  
With other people he is always nice, only in his personal relationships he has problems. When he sees other people he can switch really fast.

At the moment were separated, due to the double standards and I had enough of this behavior for the past 4 years. Let’s say I just lost kinda lost it and for the first time in 4 years showed him how angry I am. At the moment I am not angry anymore, I have forgiven him and said sorry. I am ready to move on but:
In the event that there is an 8th world wonder and he does return and wants help, how can I keep my boundaries and help him?

Greetings

Sara

Answer
Dear Sara,

         It is good that you have forgiven him and apologized - because you are most likely going to be better off if you simply go ahead and move on. The only person who can make any changes in your husband with regards to his attitude, health, and behaviors is him. As a person who has bipolar disorder myself, I've had trouble with romantic relationships that ranged from my making a bad choice in the person to be involved with to my being unable to acknowledge that at times there were things I couldn't see and behaviors I hadn't noticed before my s/o had pointed them out to me (since they were being directed at him) - but even when I was told about them nothing changed until I realized that there was a lot more to finding a solution to a problem - it meant actively making the effort to pay attention to how I act and whether or not my behavior truly shows I've acknowledged there's an issue and am working to resolve what I'm doing that has caused the problem. It's easier to interact without much concern that there might be more serious problems at some point when that interaction is broader in scope - casual or work acquaintances, friends only seen in certain social settings - I've yet to meet another bipolar person who hasn't had an easier time maintaining relationships with people from those types of situations while struggling to hold on to family, close friends, and romantic relationships. And those who have close relationships had to first lose the ones they had and rebuild what they could - or accept that some people simply had had enough, that there were lessons to learn from the experience that made it clear there's more to dealing with bipolar disorder than just taking medications - that's merely where treatment is easiest to start.

He's clearly not ready to help himself, and as long as that's the case, you need to worry more about yourself - the mind games, the anger and blame, everything directed at you...you've already gone through four years of these things. The push-pull dance establishes a familiar routine by which you both can tell nothing has changed and the relationship will return to how it has been before following a brief period.  My advice is to close the door on that relationship, visit a counselor to work through things so that when the right person comes along, you'll be ready to move on and build a positive future with that person.