I know I may not be the most logical person on the planet. At times I can be quite hardheaded – especially when it comes to my children. That’s why I find it difficult to feel confident in my feelings and opinion when it comes to what I like to call “the broken logic” my husband possesses at times.
One of my biggest struggles in living day-to-day with a spouse who suffers with bipolar disorder is the fact that our thought processes seem to be on two very different waves at all times.
Having attended several support groups for families of mental illness consumers, I’ve learned we are never to push those with mental illness. As a spouse, it’s a constant, ongoing struggle – especially when I feel so many responsibilities are being thrust upon my shoulders that I didn’t sign on for.
When I said in sickness and in health, I didn’t know it meant five long years of roller coaster emotions and mood swings.
During some of the manic phases, my husband would go on his spending sprees. Once the mania was over, the bills were left in the wake and everything else would remain the same – I would be pulling down 12 to 15 hour days working while he would struggle to maintain a 20 hour a week part-time job.
In the beginning, 20-hours was all he could handle because the medication he needed to maintain an even temper would cause him to lapse into such a weakened state of exhaustion.
As the one who is forced into the position of complete and total responsibility, I’ve found it most difficult to struggle with a growing resentment. There are times I want to just scream…”When it is my time to be exhausted and sleep?” – “When is it my time to work 20 hours a week?” – “When is it my time to go on a spending spree and spend on me, me, me?”
At most I can look forward to the few nights a week that the kids go to bed early and I may steal away a few hours to myself to read or lay back and watch Lifetime Movie Network.
Do you struggle with the constant battle of resentment and guilt? The constant emotional tug-of-war? If so, please feel free to chime in.
Even better – if you have words of wisdom for we spouses that struggle with trying to provide balance and responsibility to our families while we wait patiently and anxiously for our loved one to heal enough to help us pick up the pieces?
When I first saw your title, I was thinking it would fit my current struggle with my mother’s decline into dementia. She’s making less and less sense in her dealings with me, while seemingly normal with social contacts. That’s normal for Alzheimer. I often feel stuck – my step-dad died three years ago and I’m her only child. My step sibs don’t feel it’s their problem. No real difference from birth families I suppose.
Of course, once I began reading I saw that it was about bipolar. I have bipolar and have recently come through a manic phase. I wrote a check for my health insurance and deposited a check to cover it in my other bank. I wouldn’t have done that in a more rational phase. My therapist thought I was having a manic episode because of some visual disturbances but I never thought it was affecting my thought processes. I’m glad it wasn’t worse!
Your post really helped me see what we put our spouses through. I never understood how hard it was on them.
Great post – much food for thought.
My husband has cancer, and has not worked for 2 years. Luckily, he had a job and disability insurance. If he had been free-lancing and not had that insurance, we would be deeply in debt. I think that there are financial problems that come with every chronic illness. I can’t help wonder if the stigma of mental illness, a topic I am passionate about, makes the spending-spree’s of the manic depressive seem somehow less valid as a side-effect. Even if this side-effect is well-known and documented.
Best of luck to you. Keep writing.
Kat, I was able to take the checkbook and the debit cards away from him. He has no access to the accounts. That didn’t prevent his going online and getting credit himself.
That was well over a year ago and he had done well with not going to that extreme since, but he still has his manic phases every other week when it’s his payday for his part-time job.
It’s almost as if he needs to go spend it before he comes home.
We almost divorced once over coffee cups. He was purchasing coffee cups left and right. $1 cups from the Dollar Tree to $40 cups from mail marketing fliers.
The toughest part is we are a blended family and I feel SO guilty because I’m placed in a position to care for a child that is not mine 100% when I don’t care for my own 100% (their father pays support).
I know there something to be learned here and that which doesn’t break me will make me stronger, but it’s a painful struggle. My boys are 15 and I don’t want them to have such horrible memories of being at home. Ya know?
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Isn’t there some way you can get control of the finances away from him?
Our first struggle with mental illness was with my husband’s depression, which he’d had off and on from childhood, but which his parents were not equipped to deal with–and which he hid fairly well from them, anyway. By the time we were married and had two small children, I was considering leaving him for their sake. He was short-tempered, angry, sullen and very impatient with the kids. It was finally knowing that he was leaving his children with terrible memories of him that pushed him over the line to talk to a doctor, who got him on medication right away–finally.
I know that’s not the same as your situation, but I know how it is to have to deal with someone you love, and not always feel like you have it in you to be loving and understanding all the time. Maybe they’re hurting, maybe they can’t entirely help the things they do, but we can’t do everything ourselves. Soemtimes it feels like something has to give.
Hang in there, hon. I’m thinking about you.