Do i have Bi-polar/Hypomania or just a bad marriage?

[chameleonsteve]

I have been married with children for 12 years, it has had its ups and downs but generally good.  My wife went to university a few years ago and i never supported her by helping with the children etc. This caused extreme stress on my wife and my wife made us split and proceeded a divorce.  After six months separation we got back together and things seemed good.  I was bitterly hurt by this separation at the time, feeling rejected and bought expensive goods (which i could afford) to make myself happy.  I was very low.  However things have changed in our relationship since, we now both socially drink (which we never did and my wife wanted to) I controlled my wife previously in our relationship, which i now understand was wrong, i was young. Since we got back together i believe my personality has changed.  I cant explain how but it has.  May i point out that my father is a suffering manic-depressive (Bi-polar?)  We have moved from England to Australia at the beginning of this year to start a new life, however things seem to be getting worse.  When i say worse i mean with me.  Sometimes i can have different moods, lately i have been arguing with my wife over nothing, it has been regular and uncalled for. (I know this). However the next day or the day before i have been the nicest person to her.  I am suffering some mood swings, however these swings can occur daily or within a day, and do not last very long at all.  I rarely feel depressed and have a extreme feeling of love towards my wife, even when we argue.  I am fine around other people, friends, family etc, nobody else thinks anything is wrong with me, but my wife believes i have what my father has, only milder.  I will admit 4 months ago, i was acting very different to myself, i could tell when i woke up in the morning my head was not working correctly.  I would have manic thoughts about doing things, sensible things, daily things but very fast and repeating thoughts and the smallest problems were a lot bigger. Till now i have kept making up excuses for my behavour, it is always something else, not me to blame.  My wife is coming to her end of patience, she has asked me 4 months ago to seek help which i said i was fine. She is now saying if i dont get help our marriage is over.  To this day i havent felt like that again, but wonder if it might happen.  I am very confused myself, my daily thought pattern changes, so many things are different all the time, there is no pattern to my behaviour?  At the end of all this information i may say that i seem to get worse when under pressure.  I have only started feeling pressured after our break-up, before i was a confident person.  A little into my childhood.  My father was abusive to my Mother since i can remember whom became an alcoholic and died of cancer of the liver when i was 21. It still hurts me 9 years later to think about.

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

This does not sound like manic depressive illness, but does sound like an age 30 transition, something I have written about in my book, Transformations; Growth and Change in Adult life...YOu still might be able to get a copy on Amazon.

I think you should get help, but not necessarily pills. You might start with a therapist who also sees couples, so if the marriage is the issue, he or she can work with both of you.

In the interim, you might try masteringstress.com.  there you can get online help to focus on what may be bothering you, but not apparent, and a whole program on intimacy.

[kitkat31625]

What you described is exactly what my husband and I have been going through. My husband's father was abusive and his childhood was not that great. My husband is a great guy however gets really moody at times. Can get nasty with myself or kids for no reason. He can be in the best mood then suddenly drift into a real bad one. Leaving me to wonder what I said or did that upset him. He also goes through times where he goes with little sleep and has racing thoughts. He will start a project, work on it nonstop and never finishes it. Then he is on to another project. He just seems to have a million different ideas going on his head at once. He also says that he doesn't feel depressed. He lost his temper at work about year ago now with a supervisor. He was put on probation at work. One day a few months ago. He lost his temper with me for something just really minor. He got a little physical with me. It all scared me and took me by complete surprise.  I told him he needed to go see a therapist for anger management or something. Luckily he agreed. He has been seeing a councelor for about two months now.  The councelor sent him to a psychiatrist because he thought there was a possibility that he was bipolar. My husband was put on depakote. (the psychiatrist never said he was bipolar though)  The depakote and councelling has helped quite a bit. No more mood swings, Losing things, racing thoughts ect.. Our relationship has been better than ever.  Go and get yourself some help!!

[chameleonsteve]

Sounds like me to a tee.  Except that i can control myself around everyone else, it seems its only my wife that gets the rough end.  And i have no problems sleeping?  I have booked an appointment to see my doctor Monday morning.

[amek]

My husband is Bi-Polar II .  WE moved about 2 years ago from a home we had been in for almost 14 years.  WE moved from South to the North.  His moods are getting worse and he is destroying his relationship with our children.  

This summer he decided to go off Depakote , Seroquel and Zoloft...wow!  That was horrible.  He went off cold turkey and just last week (after i made him move out) he went back to counselor and got back on it.  

There comes a point when enough is enough...when do we determine when we have reached that point?

[LPSD]

I can relate to your plight. It is normal to feel pain from a serious loss. Tennyson mourned his friend Halam for decades. It took me over a decade to get past a serious loss (at least to the point that I didn't obsess about it or feel deep pain anytime I'd be reminded of it). On the other hand, we must expect loss in life. Your father lost his father. And before that, your grandfather lost a father. In other words, you still have a life to live. If you are going to mourn, do it consciously, and set a time limit (“I will mourn for only the next hour”); pray for the repose of your father’s soul; and get on with the rest of your life. Regarding bi-polar and relationship, I can also sympathize. I have had the type of relationship dynamics that you describe, and I seem to have depression, and/or Bi-polar II, and/or ADHD. ADHD treatment (Concera) has worked well, but I still have a lot of what seems like rapid cycling between a tolerable mood and dysthymia. Cymbalta (a hybrid SSRI) helps but is not enough. From my experience, I’d suggest that it is important that you get help to differentiate between your baggage and the elements of your “marriage” that are deeply troubled. It is not as simple as either/or. For starters, in a marriage, once one or both partners threaten to leave or actually leave (with the intent of divorce), the basic trust of the relationship is destroyed, and without trust, there is no love. Without love, there is no marriage. Love is fundamentally and essentially a matter of feeling AND will. Just a feeling, albeit profound, is not love. That your conjugal partner (for lack of a better term) would threaten to leave is a clear indication that your relationship is deeply troubled and that no small part of the problem lay in your partner’s ideology —at least in regard to your relationship. If you want a real marriage, one in which you can grow and make progress toward fully loving and accepting your wife AND being loved and accepted in return, you need to own and declare that what you have now is not a marriage. The relationship taht you describe is putrid and just doesn’t have the good sense to know that it is dead. If you want to build a new relationship, with the same woman OR someone else, you will need help, and it will take a tremendous, wonderful amount of challenging and often painful work. You need to resolve your issues, define what you mean by “marriage,” discover what you partner means by “marriage,” and decide if the two visions are possible and compatible. And you both will need to learn how to forgive self, one another, AND life. Tomorrow can be better. Move on. If you really desire love, love, albeit VERY costly, is yours for the asking.