Sure, pardner, people get over incredible amounts of angst and torment. Hint: one might even be able to get over one's spouse straying, right? Frankly, I view the irritation when a RO is served as transitory and infinitely less in stature than what a BS must get through.

Aphelion has a very cogent point. Things are going to be very dicey until, and unless your WW gets medical treatment for the bi-polar disorder.

Hang tough, Langaan. The road will get rockier before it gets smoother, but I have a good feeling you’re beginning to take charge of your life. Good on you!

Well it seems she is comming down of this episode somewhat.

She has had this mission with respect to moving, and if I wont go with her shes been thinking of going on her own.

Last night however, she seems to be in a stage where she's decided she is going to stay, but as I suspected, she feels she is being forced to stay in a place she isnt happy (imprisoned), and will never be happy.

So now the battle of getting her stabilized and seeing her doc / counsellor on a consistant basis in order to treat her ilness begins.

From there, We look at the things that contirbute to her unhappiness and come up with logical solutions (assuming we can get to that logical stage)

Im unsure however as to how I should act during this time.
For the past while ive slept on the couch, we dont talk alot, etc...

Also, even though shes now decided to stay (and that could change tommorrow), I am quite certain she will hold a grudge.
For example, this morning I gave her a hug, and its like she does her best to make me feel that she is still upset about the hwole thing, and holds herself back from hugging back so to speak.

FYI, ive been in discussions with her mother over the past 2 days via e-mail, and there is a chance I may have her somewhat understanding that my wifes illness is the #1 problem / priority now.

I have more or less explained in detail things my wife has done to her over the past cpl days, and explained her symptoms of her ilness, etc... and I think she may be comming too.

I should here back from her mom today.
I more or less begged her to understand that her daughter is ill and that she (her mother) needs to decide whether its is best to support me in getting her daughter the treatment she needs, or to continue to support her daughters ideas that are most certainly fueled by her illness. I also said that she and my wife are making a mistake if they think moving without there father is in the best interest of our children, and that they should stop underestimating my love for our children.

You should not be sleeping on the couch, you should not be not talking, etc

Do not base your actions on her actions, inactions or reactions...base them on how you would like to be treated by her.

If she chooses not to hug you back, or to pout, or to be miserable, or to not get treatment...she owns those not you. If you allow those things to dictate how you act or how you treat her, well then you have agreed to own them too.

You have stated your boundaries now, both to her and to your MIL IE you will not let her take your children, you will not move back to hometown, and you will not remain in a loveless marriage.

She is just now beginning to see that you mean them, she will test this for awhile before she sees she has no choice but to become happy raising her family, or leave.

Stick to your guns, be loving and give her time to believe that you mean what you say.

She will come to respect you for these boundaries and for putting your family (which includes her) first. And this IS what you are doing.

I already told her a few days ago that I wouldn;t let her take the children, and her response was "take my children from me and see what happens".

that was the last time we talked about that

so, she has heard from me that i wont let her take the kids, whether she beleives it or not, I have told her.

my MIL on the other hand, i cannot tell her that just yet.

If I tell my MIL that i intend to stop her from taking the children in the case that she leaves, i can garauntee with 100% certainty that her MIL will lose any interest in working with me, instead she will turn it into a fight, i am 100% sure of that.

Stay tough, Lang. I have to be out of town for the next week, but my thoughts and prayers will be with you.

Well I just got back from my counselling session.

Counsellor told me I seem to be covering all my bases and doing evreything I can, and he too felt it would be wise to get a court order just to be safe.

Ive asked him if he would consider talking to my wife's phsych, and he said absolutely, just as long as myself and my wife give him written consent.

MIL is going to be seeing someone involved with mood disorders soon.
This is good, although she sounds reluctant.

Since last Wed/thursdayish, it seems to me as though she has come off a depressive state and has moved straight into a manic state.
All the classic signs...
- instead of being depressed about where she lives, she is focusing on things like painting the entire house (again!!), putting new flooring in, and all kinds of other housework. Shes even trying to convince me to get a 10K loan to do these things instead of saving up the $$ to do so..
- she is shopping on a daily basis again
- she is very irritable towards the kids. She can explode out of no-where at them, then just go back to whatever she was doing
- she put the kids into summer soccer friday
- her sex drive re-appeared (been several weeks)
- we have spent 3 straight "happy" days together.

Yesterday, we went to the store to look at lamenent flooring for the upstairs. We also looked at some carpeting for the basement and a few other things.
Ofcourse, like any normal couple, we had some disagreements.
For example, I wanted to put some work into the bathroom in our basement cause it needs it bad..
whereas she absolutely does not want to put any work in there because it is the least used room, and she would rather upgrade our already nice looking upstairs bathroom.
we had a cpl disagreements on carpet as well..

at any rate, when we got home, i could tell she was upset. So I went to her and asked her what was wrong.
At which time she looked very saddened and basically said theres no point looking at flooring and such cause we would never agree on what to get.
I told her "honey, i want to fix the bathroom downstairs, but I also understand that you want to do other rooms. I understand your reasons, and I have no objection to doing other rooms first. All I ask is that you understand that I wanted to do it another way, but instead am compromising with you because I want to"

she smiled and gave me a hug.

now,
5 days ago, under the same situation, same topic, if I were to even mention flooring to her, she would have been upset instantly. She would have seen it as a positive discussion about upgrading a house in the town we live in and would have completely brushed me off.

again, i know her desire to move is sincere and has nothing to do with BP or OCD. But, I also know from living with her that her mood swings clearly hinder the way she thinks about our lives and our happiness.

Im not saying medication will make her not miss her family.
Im simply wondering if the right counseling, meds etc.. will stabilize her moods enough to keep her out of the state where she believes moving means everything.

Fact of the matter is, she has been happy the last few days, she has been focused on happy things.

Im not saying she isnt possibly thinking about moving and not saying anything, im just explaing myself and trying to explain how I feel BP "might" be effecting her ability to be happy.



Now, on to her MIL.

This is the 2nd last message I got from her (we have been emailing abck and forth..

Friday:
"O.K. no point in continuting this. It sounds to me that you have definetly decided that this all falls on your wife to change with more medication and she will be happy??? You are dreaming. No amount of medication, counselling, etc. is going to change the fact that she wants out of North Battleford."

I responded by telling her she has been misunderstanding me, and that she is correct in the fact that there is no point continuing the emails.

Then she sent this to me this morning:
"Just wanted to say that I am sorry and that I am getting off track here. we are so hung up on this bipolar that we are not getting anywhere.

You are quite comfortable and secure where you are right now and happy to be where you are today. Now your wife has thrown you for a loop to add to the fuel of everything you are dealing right now - her Bipolar, Your Mom's health issues, Your brothers mental health problem. And I am sure you must feel you are being pulled in all direction and the last thing you want to deal with now is a disruptive to your life stye when you can't see the reason behind it. No reason enough to take a risk of loosing everything. You have good reasons to want to stay where you live because of everything you have there, You are doing great where you are today. Why can't she see that??? is the questions you are probably asking yourself. Why disrupt everything. But too bad, it's not that simple. Not just black and white for anyone. Just because you are comfortable and happy in your world it doesn't mean that she is happy with it. She feels she wants to be closer to her family. This is not wrong either. She has good reasons to want to move closer to her family even though you don't see that. And it is very important to her just as your job is important to you. You are both different people and both have very good points for wanting what you both want.

So, I would suggest keep your eyes open for a decent job here in the town we live in. If something would come up then you could decide then the pros and the cons??? It's not going to hurt anybody by you looking right. What do you think. This is much easier to deal with than trying to make a stance on what you want and what she wants. right now. It would take the pressure off both of you for now and maybe if the pressure is off you both can concentrate more positive and maybe everything will work out for the better other way. "



I dont know how to respond. And I dont know if I can agree to move forward with our lives and keep my wife's hope for moving alive as well.

LG,

Obviously you did not listen to me and you are just going along hoping things just get better. They will not. Your W is bi-polar. Please READ AND LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN ABOUT BI-POLAR. If you did read up on it, you would not have been surprised by your W’s current actions. But obviously you did not.

Your W’s actions scream that she is about to enter a manic depressive state. Time is not on your side. I went through several of those with my brother. You need to act fast. Your W needs to see a doctor ASAP. Not next week, not tomorrow but NOW. Once it gets very bad, it will very hard to get your W back to where she is right now.

Your W is exhibiting all the early symptoms of a manic depressive person. Wanting to do a million things at once, shopping spree, being irritable, being very sexual, etc., are all classic symptoms of bi-polar. I assure if you don’t do anything, it will surely get worse. Don’t do like my dad did and refuse to learn about bi-polar, positing your laymen theory about the causes of your bi-polar wife actions. Learn about the disease and then you will understand your W better. If you don’t like to read consult with a psychiatrist ASAP. They can quickly bring you up to speed.

I have been through this and I am telling you need to be more proactive about this than you have been. Trust me; your MIL is the least of your concerns right now. I would ignore her for now (SHE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT SHE IS TALKING ABOUT OR SHE IS IN DEEP DENIAL). Things will soon spiral out of control if you don’t get your butt in gear and try to help your W. Your W does not know that she needs help right now, but you do (or should), and you should start working on this if you don’t want your W, your children, and your life to go through a fifth degree of h*ll in the near future.

I know I am being redundant and emphatic to you, but I just don’t want you to go through what my family went through. You still have some time, and only you can help your W right now (as her mom, like many family members of a bi-polar person, is in denial).

Good luck.

P.s. Check the links below. A rudimentary google search will tell you much more about your situation than you currently realize. Treat the bi-polar first, as everything else is a distant second…for now.

http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic240.htm

http://www.medicinenet.com/bipolar_disorder/article.htm

Actually UVA i have researched it alot and did forsee and expect all those things.

The problem I have now is that I want to work on it with her, but she isnt co-operating.
She stopeed going to her counsellor, she wont go to other counsellors, and she more or less tries to avoid the subject entirely. Again it seems like she feels im trying to get her medicated to all of a sudden enjoy living here. She doesnt beleive that I am trying to help.

any suggestions?

she seems to be in a somehwat level - elevated mood lately, and it may be the best time to try again...

LG,

I am glad to learn that I was wrong about you not educating yourself on BP. It should be clear then that your W is exhibiting the classical symptoms of BP.

As to convincing your W to see a doctor, I would continue to bring the subject up until she agrees to do so. Unfortunately, one of the major problems with BP is that those who have it tend to be very reluctant to get help with it. They are usually in major denial and would do anything than to have to face BP head-on.

When I was younger, I would sometime ask my dad for money. When the sum was substantial, my dad would get very upset by my request and go on a diatribe about why he could not give me the money or why I should not have asked. But eventually, over time, he always relented. What I learned from this was if I did not EXPECT my father to go along with me right away and allow him to express his views and feelings on my request, I would eventually get what I wanted. The key was not to EXPECT immediate result and not to burn any bridges in the process.

Even though a person may at first have an adverse reaction to a situation, if he or she is exposed to it enough time, the person would eventually desensitize to the situation. That is exactly what my family and I did with my brother. We knew he would resist our advice for him to get medical help at first. But we knew if we persisted, overtime he would probably agree to seek the help he need (with our guidance, of course. You will probably have to do most of the legwork on this). Fortunately, my brother followed our advice. Keep in mind that my brother has experienced several manic episodes and we’ve had to go through this process in each case, but, so far, it has always worked out.

You may want to try the same tactic on your wife. Do not expect her to agree with you right away, but keeping on bringing the need to see a doctor up in a loving and non-threatening way. In time, your wife may agree to go see a psychiatrist for her BP, if for nothing else to get you off of her back. So be patient and persistent in this. Do not LB at anytime.

Your situation requires persuasive and negotiation skills, skills that I am not an expert on. (If any one else reading this has any suggestion on how LG can persuade his wife to get help, please chime in.) But for what it’s worth, this is how I would approach your situation.

P.s.

Apply the same technique on your MIL and do not worry too much about convincing her of anything right away. Your job is to keep planting seeds to desensitize your W and MIL of your W’s need for help and hope and pray that they bear fruits.

as of last night, we decided to do the following:
- Seek a marraige new marraige counsellor.
- And she will likely spend the summer at her moms with the kids for each of us to have a break.

as of this morning, she called me at work and asked me to come home to watch the kids for an hour because she called her pdoc and had her appointment moved up to today.

The pdoc is taking her off serequel over the next 3 days, and she is starting 2 new medications, with the next appointment 2 weeks from today.

I gave her a letter to give to her pdoc (since i couldnt go), in which i gave him my observations of her behaviour.
She told me that when she handed him the paper, her pdoc asked her "what, does he not beleive you have bipolar?"
she responded "nooooo, the exact opposite. My husband thinks I def do have it and it has gotten worse"
she also told him she agreed in that it has gotten worse by means that her elevated moods have almost disappeared, but she is experiencing long and frequent depressive phases (which I also pointed out in my letter)

she mentioned to him that it is causing some problems at home with the marraige, and he told her that we shouldn't have any improtant conversations, or making any important decisions until her moods are stabilized.

We are both looking forward to a stress free environment for a couple weeks

Oh, I get it. By saying she is "spending the summer with her mother" she gets to move away with the kids and gets you to finance it. Essentially, she is taking the kids from you and moving back home by callng it "spending the summer with mother" ON YOUR DIME. That's pretty clever of her. No wonder she is being so nice...


The worst possible thing you can do for your marriage. You can't work on your marriage if you are not together. This will only add to the problems by causing detachment.


Whatcha wanna bet she "changes her mind" and doesn't want to come back when summer ends? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Have a break from what? Aren't vacations supposed to be family things. As in you, she and the kids...together?

Lang,

My FWW A happened when she went back to visit her family with my kids for the summer.

We had fought about moving back by her family so I though giving her time to visit would make her happy.

Then she had an A on her 1 month vacation to visit her family.

I think part of her A was the fact she wanted to prove to herself that she could have a life where she wanted. With or without me.

You may think you are doing the right thing.

I beleive my FWW's logic was "maybe it would be good to spend a little time away from each other"

BTW our M was pretty darn good, for her, before the trip.

After the A and MC she now sees how selfish she was for her attitude and of course the M.

A man where she wants to move is going to be more attractive because he is where she wants to be.

Watch out is my only advice.

Been there done that.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I asked her about the trip to her moms for the summer AFTER the session with her pdoc, and we more or less agreed that it would qualify as a "big decision" and at this point the trip is up in the air. We will discuss it again when her pdoc feels she is stabilized.

Unfortunately, if in a cpl months she is still not stable, Im not sure what we are going to do. If it gets closer and closer to the time where she had planned to go (JUNE) and if she is still unstable, her pdoc will suggest not going on the trip, but her counsellor will suggest otherwise.

If it comes close to June, and if she is still unstable, I will likely go with her to see her pdoc and tackle the issue there (if she is in the right mood). If she is in a depressive state, it is likely that she will do whatever she wants.

Also, weve decided to hold off on the marraige counselling until she is stable as well.

So at this point, we are not even discussing the idea of her going to brandon, we are not seeing a marraige counsellor or anything until her moods are stabilized.

Once she is stabilized, we will seek marraige counselling and go from there.

As of now I dont feel telling her she shouldnt go to see her mom for the summer is a good idea, atleast not right now. we have although agreed that it would fall under the category of a "big decision", and therefore as long as she is not depressed, she will understand that going to Brandon (if unstable) is not a good idea.

Well here's an update:

The 2 new medications caused several side effects, nausea among several others, so her pdoc has taken her off and put her back on serequel until her and I figure out which med to try next. He gave us 4 meds to research and we are supposed to get back to him.

Also, when she got home from seeing her pdoc yesterday, she told me about the above, and then said that the pdoc would like both of us to go to the next appointment (next week), and she said the pdoc said "he wants to explain something to me".

I asked her what he wanted to explain to me, and she told me....
She said she had talked to him about this moving situation, and this is what he told her...
He said that she needed to make a decision. He said that he felt he would be able to get her to about 75%, and would likely have her on 3-4 medications. Then he said that if she lived near her mom he could probably get her closer to 100%, and that it would probably only take 1 medication to do so.
So she explained it to me as her having 2 options:
1 - Be on 3-4 medications for the rest of her life and only be at 75% (staying where we live now) or...
2 - Be on 1 medication and be at almost 100% (living near her mom)

She also said that he explained to her, and will explain to me, that it doesn't matter whats right or wrong, all that matters is whether or not she perceives it as right or wrong.

So basically, her pdoc told her he could get her to 75% here, but she could be better if she moved, AND that the reasons for her wanting to move do not matter.

Now I have no idea what to do.
I know that I can't be happy moving to where she wants to move, and I also know that she could be happier if we moved. But with that said, the pdoc also confirmed what Ive suspected all along, and that is that she can be happier here, but maybe just not as happy as if she were living near her mom.

now can anyone explain what exactly her pdoc means by this?
does he mean that he can get her to 75% stability, or is he referring to her happiness? Is he saying she would be happier, or more stable if she moved?

and also, what am I supposed to do? I still can't imagine myself moving.
I won't lie, even with the knowledge that her pdoc thinks she would be better off moving, I still dont want to move. It sounds as though he thinks its ok to dictate our decisions about our life based on what she "perceives" as to be the best for herself?

am there something wrong with me that I still dont want to move? Am I out of line for not wanting to sacrifice my happiness and my kids stability for that extra 25%?

Does what the pdoc is saying make any sense to any of you?

We have an appointment with him next tuesday.

None.

Get a second opinion.

Langaan,

Did your W just develop this mental illness, or did she always have it? Has she always seemed immature?

In your opinion is there any merit to her wanting to move back to her hometown?

How old are your children?

It's hard to be objective when we only have your side. Are you able to be objective about this?

Here it would normaly be considered a POJA issue.

Was there infidelity in your marriage that brought you here?

I don't believe the pdoc is making sense. I bet he didn't even really say that. Your W may have heard it that way, but he probably said a lot more and a lot differently.

"She also said that he explained to her, and will explain to me, that it doesn't matter whats right or wrong, all that matters is whether or not she perceives it as right or wrong."

Ditto with this.

Get another doc.

Continuing advice: Get that court order ready !

with prayers,