When Bipolar Gets Harder: Cycling, Rage, and the Partner Who Stays

0:00 Hello everyone, good morning or night. Where are you from? I again I'm just going to say I was married for 10 years to a bipolar one wife that I still desperately love. I've been gone a year and it certainly got better, but it's certainly not easy every day. I wanted to talk today about how they devalue you and you don't even notice it when you're living in it. The devaluation is I'm just going to tell you about my experience. Every person is different, of course, but I noticed number one, about five years ago, my wife had what's called ATIA stroke with a mini stroke.

0:42 I tried to get her to the to the doctors at night and when it happened and she refused, wouldn't do it. We went the next day when she was still having trouble talking. She didn't have any muscle loss but trouble talking anyway after that because it was so long. I I now I'm pretty sure she had brain damage from not going immediately. Because if anybody knows when there's any stroke symptoms, you have 3 to 4 hours to get there. What I'm getting to is, is that after that, my wife literally for me lost all her empathy. She just couldn't be empathetic. She could not put herself in my shoes.

1:25 The emotional affair, irritating fights, whatever the hell happened, it was always my fault. You'll read that extensively, and if that hits with you, you know it immediately. It's sad, but she the Prior to that, her and I were a partnership. We were always there for each other. After that, it was still a partnership as long as I didn't piss her off. That's the crazy part, and the other crazy part is if you're a normal human being and you're married to somebody that you love, the absolute worst thing that you want to happen is something happening to your spouse that hurts them. Especially if you're the 1 causing it. You don't want to hurt your spouse and you'll do anything not to.

2:15 She just didn't care after that, it just didn't matter. It's called splitting if you've never heard of it, but that's why. They can go from nice and great with you, but if you challenge them or you criticize them the wrong way, they'll burn you to the ground. They'll literally try to destroy your life and then the next day it's like nothing happened. If you try to bring it up, they'll say that was in the past. Why can't you get over it? They can't put themselves in your shoes and you need to realize that. I know there's some stories that are success stories. All of them are the same. Look at my podcasts regarding that. But it's very central.

3:01 The central theme is if they're going to be halfway decent, to be married to for me is 1 hypercritical thing, self-awareness. They have to be able to see how they're hurting you and if they're older and gone through different manic cycles, they literally can't see it. I know it doesn't make any sense you're going. How the hell can they not see that? This affair is destroying me, but their brain has shut off at some point. I've heard other people talk about this in research papers that when they go manic and do the hyper whatever over and over again, they're physically unable to feel your feelings. They're physically unable to see how they hurt you. And so you thinking that somehow they're going to come back and be great.

3:50 At baseline you do see some stories like that. Generally they're much younger. The ones I see over and over again are the people that were married 5101520 even 30 years where they were relatively good and then all of a sudden overnight they're in bed with a felon or they ran off with a felon and they're living with them and they're madly in love with them and you're nothing after 20 years. I can't imagine. Mine was 10 years, but after 20 years, something like that happened. And then once that deadbeat person, the other person flames out, leaves or gets thrown to jail again, guess where they go?

4:33 They go right back to you and they're going to say and do whatever it takes for you to take them back. They'll promise you the moon, they'll promise everything, and guess what? You're going to be right back in the cycle again. True. Once again, you'll see every once in a while somebody say, oh, no, he came back and we've been great for the last three or four years. All I'm trying to say is, which I've said as a central theme over and over again, these people are the most kind, loving people I've ever run into, but they're also the cruelest. And for you as a normal person with a normal emotional structure and brain structure, it will destroy you. I'm sorry it destroyed me.

5:18 I'm I'm 65 years old. I've never been in a psychiatric hospital, never even come close to it. And believe me, I've had enough women burn my heart down to the ground. Don't get me wrong. OK? After this one I got committed to a freaking psych hospital for a week. Yes I was in there for the nut jobs. They medicated me so much for that week to try to let my brain slow down. I can't believe I went through that. The worst part about it all was the horrible impact it had on my son. He was petrified of me being in that psychiatric hospital. Just petrified. So you don't just hurt yourself, you hurt your kids, you hurt your family by staying.

6:06 Understand something, it doesn't get better. I'm sorry, my experience and what I've seen over and over again. They don't get better as they old get older. I hear this every once in a while. They get mellower as they age. That's only if they're perfect with their meds, Perfect with a psychiatrist and had you involved from day one. Involved in everything including taking their medicine every day. If they screw up, literally, you could be married to somebody for 20 years and if they miss their medicine for three days, for instance, you go on a vacation and they forget their meds. They may or may not know if they forgot or not, but whatever. They forget those meds for three or four days, they literally can blow up your life right then and be done and never look back.

6:53 And if you think I'm stupid, I love you, man. I do, but I'm not stupid. This shit happens. You have to be aware of that. And if you've got kids, come on. I can't tell you how many people I've read that said if I could do this over again, I'd never be with my husband or wife. But I got kids and I got to keep them or they're financially trapped because they couldn't get a way out. Understand something. You can have the empathy and everything else with these people. Hell, I went to the podiatrist yesterday. I can't tell you how many people, and I very reluctantly talk about it. I mentioned briefly that I was just a year out from my bipolar one wife of 10 years.

7:36 This guy piped up, unbelievable. He said I just got out of mine for two years ago. He was married 29 years and he said exactly that. He said we were relatively happy and then she blew up, Started manipulating me, controlling me. Angry, raging, sweetness, kindness, rage, controlling. Has no idea of what empathy is. People, this stuff doesn't get better. I'm so sorry. I know they're the love of your life. You spent every waking day with them for years and it's relatively good. In fact, sometimes it's freaking great and then they go manic, cheat on you, move in with somebody else, and they're gone. That is not an unrealistic or uncommon thing. This happens.

8:26 Please, the number one thing, if you're still in the relationship, you have to take care of yourself because what you do is you end up like I did, isolating yourself because of all the trauma. And what does that create? Codependency. Codependency makes it worse for you so have make sure and get out and make your friends. And by the way, if you make friends outside of the marriage, they'll probably try to destroy those because that is a risk for them. They want you completely dependent on them because they don't ever want you to leave. Hang in there people, I love you. Thank you for listening. Please do me a favor if you like this and gotten this far just leave me a review to say yes you like it because I'm really trying.

9:13 I don't always put stuff up every day because it's too hard for me. I just end up crying all the time but take care. Thank you. Bye.