If you want her to stay married to you, you need to set loftier goals. It is unreasonable to expect her to put up with an unsafe situation.

No you should come up with a PLAN in which no matter what happens with your condition - she is safe from being bartered with or ignored.

Markos made two very good suggestions of how to do that which would make her feel safer around you.

If markos had ever said that to me after I had kicked him out, I never would have let him home.

Moses, I'm concerned that your picture of reconciliation looks like "My wife will accept that we can never be 100% safe and will learn to live with it if I am nice enough to her." I can tell you from my own personal experience that that picture of reconciliation is not very realistic and will probably lead to the end of your marriage. A much better picture of reconciliation is "I realize that I am the biggest danger my wife will ever face in life, and I will take steps to make sure that she is 100% safe around me and will never have any negative consequences from my behavior, ever."

That's good but you need to earn a lot more trust than that.

At any time she could decide your word isn't enough and she could just get this via a lawyer.

You need to offer more safety net.




She knows it was just a threat - but you made it so you could do as you please consequence free.


We have seen many women actually choose to downgrade their income and divorce for just this reason. They find it terrifying to be subjected to the threat of financial control.

It's always a very silly threat because the woman has legal rights. She can choose 50 pc of the former income and 100 pc control of her household and life - or 100 pc of the marital income but 0pc control of her marriage.

They always go doorway no 1.

My mother was put on hospice care today. The doctor said she has weeks or months to live. I do not believe I said that no medication could prevent an episode but I am not reading back through all the posts to see. I believe what I said was that there was no medication in the world that would prevent a bipolar person from going manic given all of those incidents. Mania, in point of fact, does not have to lead to any form of abuse. It is easily handled by educating and providing a wellness plan for the patient. I am working on that currently. When my mother dies, that trigger will be removed. I am sure my wife and I will still be separated when that happens.

For the future I am in intensive outpatient therapy learning to recognize triggers and change the way I handle them.

Hmmm. I hope so, but in the recent past at least, it didn't really happen like that though did it?


Can your wife be included in the treatment and given feedback on how to prevent future episodes?

I am offline again for a while, maybe tomorrow afternoon. The discussion is going much faster than I anticipated, I will read through again tomorrow and reply. Thank you very much for all the replies. I will save this thread for future review.

According to dictionary.com, the definition of safe is "secure from liability to harm, injury, danger, or risk:". Anyone who thinks they are "100% safe" is ignorant. You say I must convince my wife that she is 100% safe around me. The number of pssobile dangerous scenarios is infinite. I will provide just one example and ask you how I could possibly make my wife 100% safe.

Lets say she gets up in the middle of the night to use the rest room. How would I go about eliminating all possible danger of her stubbing her toe? If I do not eliminate all possible danger, she is obviously not 100% safe.

If I can prevent her from stubbing her toe, how would I prevent her from getting hit by lightning, or shot by a drive by gangsta, or having a heart attack. In your words, I must provide an environment for her that is 100% safe. How would I do that?

If I were to simply assume that you meant safe from me, how would I prevent myself from getting alzheimers disease, or falling down the stairs on top of her, or having an involuntary muscle spasm and hitting her in the head? If I do not somehow maintain 100% complete control of my body then there is no way she can ever be 100% safe. It is logically impossible.

That's highly facetious.

She must be safe from YOU, not stunning her toe.

You've tried to convince her you are inherently unsafe.

That argument works against you.

Moses,

If your answer is not "Yes, I can make her safe from me," then nobody can help you reconcile.

What I am hearing is that you don't realize/agree with this. And what I am telling you is that if you want to keep your marriage, you need to realize this. Since you don't, this isn't going to work. You can expect that she is going to have less and less and less willingness to be with you. Her willingness might rise for awhile, but then it will go right back down, lower than ever before.

This thing here is going to be the end of your marriage. There's no way to reconcile permanently if you leave this out.

Dr. Harley teaches us that the Definition of marriage is: A relationship of extraordinary care.

You need Knowledge, Rules, and Safety Precautions in place to put a bubble around your marriage and protect your spouse from your own hurtful instincts and weaknesses.

Good Marital Habits and Rules, (especially the Policy of Joint Agreement) are what protect your wife from your worst self when you are healthy.

Extraordinary Precautions are the framework that you put in place to PREVENT a disaster. They set boundaries and provide safety features for situations which we know COULD happen.

Both you and your wife know that you have a condition which is high risk. You have enough information to create a disaster prevention plan. However, it doesn't sound like you are willing to implement one. Your wife needs some insurance and you are asking her to go without.

This is obvious to her, but not so obvious to you?

Most of us here have gone through some type of crisis where we know that our spouses can't be trusted under certain conditions. We accept that and are willing to continue investing in our marriage, because our spouses were willing to implement Extraordinary Precautions. Why leave our futures to chance, with unmitigated risk for the future?

Your wife is a smart woman. Too bad you won't be able to keep her around.

Moses, did you contact Dr. Harley?

Again, if markos had ever said anything like that to me after I had kicked him out, I NEVER WOULD HAVE LET HIM COME HOME.

You are not safe for her to be with.

Most men put time and effort into making their wives feel safe and provided for. In all eventualities. Maybe not every one - but most of them.

You put time and effort into arguing that it's impossible and she should just suck it up. Life is hard and you can't be bothered making it any easier.

You've put her through hell recently and Markos gave you some very good ideas of how you could make it impossible for that nightmare to happen to her again. You could give your wife reassurance on a plate with his ideas, but you've been too lazy to even respond to them.

The 'she should suck it up and love me no matter what' attitude you exude is far, far more dangerous to your wife than your mental health condition.

Your condition can be managed, you can take precautions. You can make arrangements if something happens so that you can't care for her.

But it's not a case of can't - it's a case of won't.

This is the best comment so far. It does not say anything about needing to make my wife 100% safe. Instead, it implies that I must only make her safe from my intentional actions that are capable of causing hurt to her. Essentially, I must put a plan in place that makes her feel like I cannot hurt her again. I realize that now, and plan to implement it fully.

Most of this comment is rude, judgmental, sarcastic, and degrading. We put my mother on hospice care this week and I am working on physical therapy for my hip plus a regularly scheduled therapy visit. I have been going from 4:00 am to 9:00 pm since Tuesday. If that is lazy, I want the dictionary rewritten.

My mind processes things differently from most people, yes. When I see 100%, I realize instantly that it contains infinity. To tell me that I must make my wife 100% safe, to me sounds like a very different thing from saying "You have to create a plan that makes your wife feel as though you cannot possibly harm her again." I was simply trying to figure out exactly what was meant.

My wife means more to me than anything else on earth. If she asked me to, I would give away everything I own to be with her. I am on this board because I am willing to learn and change.

Please be patient with me.

I emailed Dr Harley and he has not so much as even returned my note to tell me he is not interested in putting it on the radio. Zero response.

You're right. The first time I saw this, I did not agree with it. However now that I have had time to process it, I agree with you; the reality is I have been and still am the thing that is most likely to hurt her. I need to take steps to change that.