Expert: Libby Bonner - 4/8/2007

Question
QUESTION: My wife and I have been together for 5 years now. We are a very loving couple and always have been except when she goes through her "thing". I have been through her couple of affairs that I know of and forgiven and stayed with. I am very commited and beleive her when she says she did not mean to after the fact. last year she had a bad episode, took off out of the blue right after having her tubes untied so we could try for another child, had an affair, snapped out of it, came home and has been good all the up until now besides a little hypomania monthly. everything was good....great for the most part until last thursday in the middle of the night after asking her for three days if she was ok, she told me she did not love me and maybe she has not for a while and packed up to leave to her mom's. I am left with all the household duties and I have a 3 year old with her to be responsible for. she swears that she is not having an episode and says she is very clear that this is what she wants.She also only got diagnosed for this 2 weeks ago where they used to think she was only depressed due to her eating disorder (another monster in itself). My question is.....is the teling me that she has no feelings for me part of bipolar. whereas she has always told me how much she loves me before and now suddenly not. As a matter of fact we have been trying to concieve and bought some baby clothes 4 days prior to her leaving. the more I try to make sense of this with her the more irratated she gets at me. I am lost and afraid that I am going to lose the best friend I had in my wife. where is she and will I ever see the woman that loved me again. please help....thank you. (I could write a book about this now lol)
ANSWER: This is the follow-up that I promised.  After re-reading what I have already sent, I don't see more to add right now.  As things evolve and you have specific questions, pls do write again.

To learn more about mental illnesses, do see www.nami.org
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Will answer at length very soon, but you needed to hear from me now.

Everything negative is the bipolar [including the affairs, which were virtually involuntary on her part.]

Do NOT 'try to make sense of this WITH HER' right now - she is too sick right now to do so and it irritates her and confuse you.  Don't go into 'whys' w/ her - she doesn't know why.

I will write at much greater length - do stay on good terms if you can w/ the in-laws.  They, and you, will benefit from contact w/ NAMI locally, if it is available: www.nami.org     We'll talk more about that soon as well.

IF you can get into counseling for yourself right now - someone recommended highly by someone you know - it might help while things are so confused.

Think you and she will make it back together....and once she is on the meds she's needed for awhile, things could be better than before.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: do you think that this "love loss "she is experiencing is a normal symptom of bipolar or depression. Do you think that time will heal and she will regain those feelings? Does the not talking about any of the situation really heal or does it just make it easier to walk away from the marriage? thank you so much for your time and response, you are a wonderful person to do what you do. I f I get through this I would love to do the same for others.

Answer
I've just re-read all of our correspondence w/ great care and I find that I have more questions.  She has been under a psychiatrist's care for depression and/or eating disorders?  And takes meds for either/both?  Most importantly, WHAT HAPPENED to cause the diagnosis to be changed?  I am not doubting the diagnosis, but what brought about the bipolar diagnosis?  She is still w/ the psychiatrist who had been treating her?  Did she need to be hospitalized [when diagnosis changed?]  Have her meds been changed now - I would expect so.

Oh, and the child is w/ you and not w/ her?

How was, and how is, your relationship w/ in-laws, and how do they view her return to them?  Do you think, do you know, that they believe and understand that she was and is ill?  

One of my priorities would be to keep up a dialogue, if you can, w/ them, emphazing her illness, her new meds, etc., rather than your own losses....though you can certainly assure them that your feelings for her have not changed.   

Did they see your marriage as a good one?  And was she still at home, their home, when first diagnosed w/ depression and/or eating disorders - and did they believe these diagnoses and support her and try to get appropriate help for her?

I need most of these answers or I risk wasting our time.    Many thoughts occur, some of them conflicting, because of not having info.   One of the likeliest, and maybe most hopeful thought, is that her leaving is a direct reaction to her new diagnosis and its impact on her sense of self.  She may now see herself as quite a different person [aside from whatever irrationalities she is also believing because of illness - I don't know how symptomatic and ill she is right now]- as a person of less worth now, as a person whose place in the world is now unknown, as a sick person [something she maybe didn't consider herself to be before.]  Most people have a very hard time accepting this diagnosis - it is much more stigmatizing than depression.

Remember, too, that she probably is on new meds, and it is likely to be weeks/months before the right meds and/or doses are finally found that will smooth things out.  During
some of this, she could even get worse, briefly, rather than better.

And w/o regard to any answers you send, you are now very likely in, at best, a period of extended transition....while everyone sorts out their new relationship to the diagnosis, to her, to evident illness [if any], to an unknown future...unknown until the meds kick in.  And at the end of the transition, there will then be the next/last transition: the return to being less ill and everyone sorting out what that life will be like.

Ah - critical question.  Did your wife ever sign a release w/ her current psychiatrist permitting them to speak w/ you and/or the parents, and vice versa.  Life will be much easier if that is so.....and if none is signed now, perhaps she would still sign one for her parents.  The privacy curtain that stands between psychiatric patients and families is difficult and damaging and, ususally, unbreachable.  

As you will have gathered by now, there is probably not going to be the quick resolution that you seek.  Take it as a great plus if she and the parents still welcome your calls and visits.  Keep the pressure OFF her about what will happen.  Let her take the lead whenever you are alone w/ her.....welcome healthy statments and be rather non-comittal about negative ones, or respond w/ something like - It's hard to tell now....we'll have to wait and see.....I'm not sure I know right now, etc etc -- keep the temperature low....and possibly keep the contacts rather brief.  Talk more about neutral topics or about her, rather than about yourself.  Stick w/ right now.  Don't press for promises.  And don't be coercive re the child: how much the child needs/misses her.  Touch on it only briefly.

Do do do see if you have a NAMI group locally.  Talking w/ family of bipolar patients will help a lot.