Husband having a hard time understanding wife's Bipolar

This is a similar topic to one below, but different enough that I didn't want to steal the other thread.

I am a husband who's wife is diagnosed BipolarI and I am having a hard time understanding/coping with my wife's behavior. I am using the site to chart her behavior atm. Nothing extreme is going on right now but she is beginning an episode of mild mania. At this stage it really does seem like she should/is able to control much of her behavior but chooses not to. She survives work/class just fine, but turns into another person when I get home (at least it seems that way since I don't observe her during the day)

I would like to be supportive of her condition but she is starting to become very needy and demands an awful lot of my time. I end up being late to work, she keeps me up late into the night so I lose sleep too, she expects me to cancel all plans with friends, etc. When we discuss these issues she cries and cries and holds a grudge against me. This makes me the enemy so later down the line when I AM needed for helping her make decisions about meds and hospitals and schedules she doesn't trust me. My friends view her behavior as tactful and abusive, but they don't have any experience with Bipolar. She views my behavior as selfish, and thinks I overreact to her slightest change in behavior.

I understand that the extremes of her emotions and reactions are being causes by bipolar, but I don't know how much of her behavior is under her control.

On one hand if she is in control, I don't want to jump in and cancel my life for a few weeks. It will promote learned helplessness on her part as I come in and try to deal with the situation, it will make me upset/drained, it will tarnish my job and relationships, and it will promote the opposite with me (the idea that she is helpless and I NEED to be in control) which I don't want.

On the other hand if she isn't actually in control, I don't mind taking the hit socially/emotionally/physically for just a few weeks if I can help her avoid a more severe episode and expensive hospitalization. I can recover from that hit a lot quicker than she can.

I'm sorry this is a lot, but any advice on what it's like from the other perspective would be very helpful right now. And if you think my perspective is totally wrong you can tell me that too, as this is mental model I'm using to make decisions.

Dear Ednark
I sure don't envy you or my husband. I'm a 40 something Bipolar 1 myself. I don't have all the answers or even claim that the ones I have are right but I hope something I say will help a bit.
I think the thing that's helped my husband and I the most is talking very clearly about what I need from him in order to feel loved and supported by him. We had the talk while I was baseline and it was a calm day. Believe it or not he didn't have a clue. He was running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to help me every way he could but it didn't work. He thought he had to do all the dishes and laundry and keep the kids in line so i could lay in bed and cry for a few days or become obsessed with writing my books and ignore everyone for a few weeks. What I really needed was for him to listen to me let me know he's behind me. I do ask him to do a load of dishes once in a while if I'm really ill at the time but as long as I know that I'm understood and supported by him it's easier for me to fight the fight.
I'm not sure what your wife needs from you or even how in control she is at the time. What you see as a mild mania start may seem very different as seen from her eyes.
My husband saw me as very needy until he found out that I just needed different things than he was giving me.
Honest communication really is important.
I let my husband read my log on this site to give him more insight to where I am.
Do you think you could get her to log on each day and journal a bit? It is hard to do for you I'm sure.
The fact that she survives work/class okay then falls apart when you get home could simply mean that she's tired by the time you role in. It takes a lot of effort to keep trying to appear normal when your illness is hitting. It could also mean that she feels safe around you so she can cry or get angry or what ever else her emotions are throwing at her. It can be a real relief to just scream sometimes, even thought the one you're screaming at doesn't deserve it.
Notice I said "trying to appear normal". No effort in the world could actually make her brain act normally if her illness is acting up so the best she can do is try her best to do her best with what she has.
Is she in therapy? Is she on mood stabilizers? Are you going to counseling too? It could help you understand her better.
Also try learning more about it. i sound like a commercial on this forum but I found a book called the bipolar disorder survival guide that has helped me and my husband learn a lot about what's going on and how to help when my illness starts acting up.
I wish you both well. I hope I didn't sound preachy. If I did I'm sorry. Chalk it up to battle fatigue please.

Thanks for the reply

> talking very clearly about what I need from him in order to feel loved and supported by him

That would be a good idea to be more direct. I read a book on love-languages a while ago that said something similar, the punch line was that often the partners are often making concessions and putting forth effort into the relationship, just not in a way the other person sees or understands. So it appears to both the other one isn't trying and is just leaving their advances unreciprocated. It does get hard to keep communication up as she gets more and more manic and I get more and more sleepless and aggravated.

> Do you think you could get her to log on each day and journal a bit?

She does this on her own, just not on this newfangled fancy internet

> It takes a lot of effort to keep trying to appear normal when your illness is hitting

I've heard basically the same thing and it makes sense. She has said a variation of this. It's just that being in crisis is a great way to get attention, and I do know people who do NOT have a mental health diagnosis that are professional crisis-havers and get a lot out of other people with it. I know she's not playing me all the time I just get the impression sometimes that she's milking what she does have because she's learned I'll respond to her in a positive-for-her way.

> Is she in therapy? Is she on mood stabilizers? Are you going to counseling too? It could help you understand her better.

She is doing all the correct things: good therapist, good psychiatrist, doing better on the friends support network, takes her meds voluntarily. I go to group therapy but she uses up all the allowances for therapy in our health insurance. She recently had to go off her anti-psychotic due to some bad side effects, so that is definitely part of the issue.

Ednark,

I'm the husband of a wife who was diagnosed as bipolar 2 shortly after the birth of our first child 12 years ago. When I read your post it reminded me of all of the frustration I periodically go through when things aren't on an even keel. Some years have felt longer and more difficult than others. I can honestly say that it has been both extremely challenging and very rewarding. But, rewarding isn't really the right word for it. Let's just say that the illness has given our marriage an added dimension of strength and caring that I don't think it would have if we never had to deal with the illness.

Mooky is right on about honest communication. When you're really listening with a real desire to understand your wife and what she's going through, sometimes you'll be able to connect the dots and really understand. At other times you just won't be able to. The point is to keep trying and never give up. One more thing that comes to mind about communication. If you get to the point where you know your wife isn't being rational, don't get emotionally sucked into arguments and frustrating situations. Think to yourself, "my wife's brain is misfiring right now. She will come out of it soon". I remember a time when my wife was really acting psychotic. At first I felt angry and frustrated, but it was so calming to just chill and realize that there was a biological reason for the problem, and that it would pass. It completely diffused the tension.

Another thing that you may try is to negotiate a "night off" where you're both able to do your own thing one night per week. On the night she's off you pick up the slack by doing extra chores, watching kids, etc.. You use your night off to decompress and rejuvenate yourself. I like to use my night off to exercise, hang out with my parents, or tinker on my hobby. My wife likes to go to the library to catch up on some reading. It has really helped us balance our time.

Anyway, it's really late and I'm too tired to keep typing. Hang in there. Things will get better for you soon.

Ed
You're right. She may be using her illness to get attention. I know I did. But the reason I did that is because I wasn't getting the kind of attention I really needed.
In the book 'Men are from Mars and women are from Venus' it lists the various ways people show and accept love. My husband is as acts of service kind of guy. To him running around fixing everything for me was his way of supporting me and showing love. The more he did that the more I craved what I really needed so the more I exaggerated my symptoms. I'm a personal time and touch kind of gal. I'd spend all day lonely and craving just to be with him but when he got home from work he'd go into service mode and I felt forgotten so I started sounding more and more needy. With the help of my therapist and a lot of talking and crying we got this ironed out.
Now when he gets home from work I get at least 15 minutes of his undivided attention. He just hugs the kids and he and I go to the bedroom. For those 15 or so minutes I'm his number 1 priority.
Most of the time all we do is hug. Sometimes that's all I need. Sometimes I need to talk to him about what's going on and know that he's honestly listening, and sure, sometimes things get a little more romantic than that but i need that too.. This is not a time for him to tell me how work is or whether the bills are due. It's my time.
So now instead of spending day after day driving us both crazy trying to help me, all he has to do is spend a bit of time each day alone with me.

I'm not saying that your wife needs the same things I do. I just thought I'd show you how understanding what she needs might take a huge load off you both.
I truly hope you can both find a good balance in your love. It made the world of difference to me.

Being a husband with bipolar with a supportive wife, there is an added dimension of communication issue that arises when your view the world through your disease. The worst feeling I ever had was having an argument with my wife about a conversation that never happened outside of my head.

I bought her the book "Loving Someone with Bipolar" and it has seemed to help with our communication because we do not have the issues that plagued us for a decade while I was first being treated. There are times she realizes that it's not me talking, it's the disease and other times it's just me.

I also find it's good to find a support group in your local area for family members with BPD. It's a good place to find other people that are in your situation and get contacts that you can call when everything else seems to fail.

Good Luck.

I have bipolar II and an issue just came up with my husband this am. We were having what I thought was a political debate and he said I was getting so vehement I made him feel unwelcome in the room??????

Now, I thought we were just debating, we were talking politics, not personal, but he took it personally. If you wife sometimes gets vehement about non personal stuff, like politics, don't take it personally.