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Bipolar and jealousy

I am living with bipolar and have this outstanding jealous way of being that I know I can drive a man to drink...I accuse and blame and actually see him doing things that causes me to act this way...lately I have a trust issue that is going straight into a pit and don't know how to overcome it..there are days that I can sit at home and think of all the reasons he does what he do and end up getting upset...for example he just bought a cell phone and I accused him that it's to stay in touch and text women when I am not looking. I hate this about me I was never this way and I need feed back on this behavior.
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Avatar universal
I am really struggling with my feelings and errattic mood change atm. I have been with my new partner for 2 months and already feeling the insecurities and jelousy, and I'm fearing that I will push my bf away. I get very jelous of any guys past always comparing in my head (am I better then his ex, did he love her more then he loves me, am i better looking this sort of comparing etc) iv undergone councilling in the past and it's not helped please can someone who understands what i am going through give me advice as its starting to screw my emotions in my head I'm on Zoloft and i take diazepam for when my biopolar really kicks off I would really appreciate some advice xx
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I wish I could help but all I can do is emphathize because I’ve been a jealous mess in a lot of my relationships with men.  There was one partner who I was not jealous with because it was clear that his attraction to other women was purely and almost grossly physical.  He was not capable of having emotional attraction or romantic attraction.  So he would have been the perfect lifetime prospect for me except he was abusive so I had to leave him !
Avatar universal
I've no idea if this linked to the bipolar or if it is due to other things but I have a terrible jealousy problem.  I've learned over the years not to let it spill out into the marriage and button my lip but I find it really hard.  I'm also possessive over my friends and family.  Like you I have real trust issues, I think being stabbed in the back once too often and treated badly makes you feel that way, it also means I find it hard to let people in.  My psych suggested therapy for me to sort this out but I literally freaked at the thought, it scares the **** out of me :/
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I’ve never been afraid of therapy but I just thought I’d mention that, in every case, the therapist has always been on my side.  It’s actually very fortifying.
1039200 tn?1314912008
Yeah, I have a form of bipolar which includes bigtime paranoia, and this could easily turn into jealousy because I am always expecting something to go wrong in some way. Like g_sev I cannot trust my gut feelings and it makes me so frustrated that I cannot 'tell' for sure what is going on behind the scenes. I try and rationalise, but I have no proof either way so I am left with suspicions which bug me and eat away at my relationships. The thing is, I usually don't have outbursts with the people involved or accuse them of anything so I never get to 'clear the air' or get any reassurance so my suspicions just grow. I am seeing a therapist for it at the moment, I guess my advice would be to do the same.
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You are the 2nd person to mention not being able to trust your gut because of the contamination by the bipolar illness.  Perhaps we can trust our gut on things where strong emotions are not at play.  I sure hope so !
1255530 tn?1269867619
I used to be very obsessive about my husband being unfaithful. while he's never done anything to deserve it. I'm not sure if it is linked to bipolar or not but but it sounds like it could contribute to being obsessive about it.one day I just snapped out of it and changed the way I thought. It was at a point where my husband no longer wanted to be with me because of it. He expressed how it really offended him that I could think so little of him and are marriage. something just clicked on how he was right and I'm still jealous sometimes but  it made since. I'm sure that some therapy would be good for you and your partner. I wish you the best of luck. Find a professional who can help you sort out your feelings  and how to deal with the feelings your having. I wish you two the best of luck.
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1256754 tn?1325869999
Hi Evelyn,

I can sympathise with this as I have been in situations throughout my life where this seems to be a problem. Over the years, and especially since I have been diagnosed I have come to accept that people carrying BP on their shoulders are not able to use intuition in the same way that other people are -

This means in my own experience that I can be suspicious of everyone and anything because I cannot actually trust my gut feel due to the condition effecting my judgement.

While this is really difficult, there is an amount of work that I have to do when ever confronted with feelings like this - I ask myself what is the likelihood that I am being cheated on / mislead - and then I examine all the facts and behaviours in a calm and rational manner - sometimes even listing them - this of course can be the difficult bit.

But if my partner is actively helping me, sometimes putting up with my outbursts, being supportive of me and also going out of her way to re-assure me, then I look at it in order to assess whether or not she is pretty much lying about everything and anything she does is just a fantastically well fabricated act of deception or on the other side of the reality line, whether or not it is the BP making me think this......BP making me think this works pretty much all the time.

The hard fact is that it requires more work than most to think about our feelings, but when all is said and done and the deconstruction of how and why we feel the way we do is complete, in most cases the people around us are alright and on our side, in cases where they aren't - who cares, we are better off without them.........
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1 Comments
Reading your comments made me wish I could go back over the relationships wherein I was a jealous mess, always suspecting my partner not of physical cheating but of emotional infidelity - in other words being in love with other women.  If I could do it again I would not be such a mess because I would bring to bear in my thinking the fact that I was bipolar and therefore subject to ‘paranoid fantasies’.  At least that would mitigate the situation somewhat, even if I was correct some of the time.  
952564 tn?1268368647
You say you have trust issues, so this is a big concern if you want to be in a relationship. Since you already have bipolar you must have spoken to someone about your illness. It may be a good time to get into some talk therapy and bring this up specifically. Constantly accussing someone of cheating when they are not is very hard on a relationship. If he is cheating, that is a different matter. Also maybe the two of you would benefit from couples therapy. If you cannot afford it, maybe start with a local church. They will be able to point you in the right direction to get help on this issue.
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