Expert: Libby Bonner - 12/14/2007

Question
My husbands grandfather, father, and both aunts have bipolar.  2 years ago he went into deep depression.  He was obsessed with the fact that he doesn't want to grow old or die. He kept getting more verbally abusive.  In January he walked out of mine and my daughters lives with no warning.  Now he is going from one person to the next.  He gave up everything he loved like fishing and friends and went on spending sprees.  Now he has settled in with someone else.  I believe he may be bipolar like his family.  If he does have this could his thinking change if he goes on medicine where he may remember that he loves me and I love him, or should I just give up on him and let him move on ?  I can forgive him for the affairs because I know it stems from his illness.  I should say too that the doctors had him on trazadone, zoloft, and topamax all at the same time.

Answer
It seems likely that he has bipolar disorder.  

Multiple meds for bipolar would not be unusual at all, though this combo might not be the combo used most often.  Did these meds work when he was taking them?  A psychiatrist apparently prescribed them....?   When did he start taking meds and when did he stop?  Did no one ever tell you, or tell him, why he was being given the meds??

His thinking certainly could change if he had the correct diagnosis and - over time - was finally on the right doses of the right meds, AND if he took them faithfully.  It's not possible to say, though, how well he would become nor what choices he would make w/ regard to the marriage.

I am assuming he does not take meds now.  So your biggest questions may be:  why would he agree to see a doctor again, or start meds again; how would doc and meds be paid for.

If you have further thoughts on this, pls write again.