Dealing with bipolar relationship

I know exactly how you're feeling and that IS what hurts the most.....believing their words of love and commitment have the same "depth" that yours do, and then being left in a heartbeat, without a second thought. It really does make you question what you thought was real and if it was only in your head. I've done this for a few years now with the person I love.....he means so much to me. Yet just days after vehemently insisting how much he loved me, was committed to me and this relationship, and would do things I'd asked he do, that mattered to me, he quit talking to/texting me. After trying to give him space, I questioned what was up with the silence, and was answered with ugliness and sarcasm and blame, then him ending things via text, saying this had "run its course" and he didn't feel the same "fit" I did with him...that he needed someone he could "relate" to.....all within a week and a half of his declaration of love and commitment!! It just cuts so deep!...the feeling of betrayal and anger at myself for believing in him yet again. The last thing I want is to let him go, but I simply cannot keep doing this for years more, never getting further than this with him. Although many decide to wait out the person's "mood", life and love should be SO much more and better than this, I feel. I want someone I can count on, as he could count on me....someone whose words really DO mean something. Do what's best for YOU, Reggiane....although it's unbelievably painful right now, I just have to believe it WILL get better and someone out there CAN love me as I loved him!

update- today he rang my home and wanted to talk to me. I rang him back later and you know what, he wants to have dinner with me and make love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
he must be getting out of the depressive phase and getting to the manic. Goodness, I still love the jerk.
I need to talk to him about his BP but dont know where to start.

help someone-should I take him back????????

How long has this gone on? Are you happy with how things are, for the most part? And is this how you want the rest of your life to be? Only you can decide that....what you're willing to deal with. I understand loving them so much you don't see how you'll let go...believe me, I do. But you have to be loved and respected BACK....that's where I'm at anyway.

n2kismet

Yes, he is a mess. For all of those 7 months, even though things were MUCH better, there were times that he would flip 360 degrees sudden about the relationship, for ex, one day after a lovely weekind he got up and just announced that there were more women in the world and wanted to finish with me there and then (in bed). I let him go, only for him to return in the afternoos wanting to have dinner with me and making love again, when I said we had finished in the morning he took offense and closed the phone on me for a day,I took a train to see him he was incommunicado.Next day it was like nothing had happened. We continued our relationsip without more problems, but of course I was hurting inside.
This time it has been more difficult, as he had a major depression before he broke up and we are not back yer, worse even,he walked inside a bar and just PICKED a woman there, discounting all those months of fidelity, love, financial help, trips, care, sex. He now is phoning me again saying she is nothing for him and wanting to resume dinners and sex with me, for what I said no to the sex part, however, before I was able even to say that, he got my call in a terrible mood, said his head was not right and closed the mobile on me without even saying goodbye, this after phoning even my father after me in the afternoon. The rollercoaster is too difficult to understand and accept, to deal with.
I now wrote an email saying sex is no no because he is going out with someone else, when and if he drops her we will think again,but I do know his behaviour is not normal, he is probably end up alone,he is not young and he should by now be in a loving relationship is he was normal, but he isn't and this is NOT my problem.
It hurts that we were planning our apartment togheter and he flipped on me. He has this capacity of flipping, going, etc. It scares me that not long ago I was 'his angel, his fairy, his wife(his own words), he was 'my husband', my boyfriend, I was his only one, we were going to be togheter for the rest of our lives, etc, in such a little time he is doing a disappearing act, literally walking into a bar and picking a woman(I feel sorry for her), now saying she is nothing for him, wanting to go out with me, but giving up last minute , being rude, being extremely cool, etc.
I tell you,If God sends me a normal man I'll stick to him. I do love my BP to distraction, I get up in the morning with a stone in my heart of missing him, missing sex with him missing his company that can be good when he is up to it, but the emotional ups and downs are too terrible, too impossible.

Yes, I know what you mean exactly. The insecurity they create by never matching their actions to their words eats away at trust, stability, and belief in the relationship being able to weather difficult times. The sadness/grief at letting go is like living in/moving through cement or quicksand....everything is just so hard. However, I have to believe this will pass. I know that what he's doing with me and my love for him is NOT good or right or caring. So as much as it breaks me, I HAVE to let go....let him live as he chooses. The only thing I can control is that I don't let him back into my life. I'm trying to focus on ME now.....what I feel and need and deserve. I hope things get better for you soon, Reggiane. Life is too short and precious to just barely force yourself through each day....I won't accept that as the way it has to be.

Thanks for you words. He is incommunicado again, since having asked me to go out with him and go to bed, he flipped again and now is silent. I'm letting him be. I'm not contacting him in any way.I find really abnormal behaviour to be like that, it distress me to my limit,I'm trying to concentrate on other things,like my work and friends and family, this is way too hard.
he told me that our relationship moved to too serious and he became afraid, can you believe that, a man who is old enough to know better.But there is no excuse apart from his BP to go into a bar and get a woman straight away, saying it is not going right anyway, as if it would, literally hours from breaking up our lovely relationship. As a normal person, I see that I could not by any means have another person in my life so easily, indeed it is going to take a hell of a time to have another person in my life , if ever. I believe she was his way to get rid of the fear of the commited relationship, since BPs are not good at all at relationships. Good grief, I need to move on. And you too.

update-
Horrendous yesterday-after phoning me and phoning my dads house after me, inviting me to go out and even go to beds with him, after having laughed on the phone and making me think he was out of the depressed state, I just went to say hello in the evening in the pub where he works, I could not beleiv e it, ahen he saw me he flipped, his face was full of anger, he said if I didnd leave he would call the police!!!!!!! I had said nothing at all for himtohave that extreme reaction, I can see that he is really sick, I had only waved and smille, he went in panick and started asking me yto leave the pub like if I had done something wrong or sauid something, this is amazing, he was laughing and joking hours before over the phone, I now have let him go. No way I'm going to stand abuse lke that. He is going to continue to disrupt womens lives and people in general, it is his untreated sickness, I had offered to help him to treat BP but he does not believe he is ill.

He is saying how bad he was feeling that day in the pub, that he had had a problem with his brother, etc. Excuses for behaviour that I no longer will tolerate.
He is also saying how sad he is about everything, it does touch my heart, but only yesterday he phoned me really angry and blaming me for everything, saying I have destroyed the feeling he had for me (!!!!!!) when he sabotaged the relationship left, right and front, shouting at me, being disloyal, being cold, etc. and even asked me WHAT he had done !!!!! I give up understanding, I'll be here for him, however I dont want to have a relationship as such at the moment, he is not medicated. I have a gut wrenching love for him, there is not other phrase that goes so well with what I feel for this strange person.

update after 5 months- I took him back, he just phoned me out of the blue saying he would get me at the bus station one day. We resumed things, went out, travelled, slept together, everything seemed fine till two saturdays ago, he came to see me and he was not ok, I could see that, next day we travelled and it was awful, he was angry with me for no reason, and we went down from there till we broke up by phone yet again, and Im hurting like hell, it was so unecessary. I miss him and his phone calls and his lovely voice, but not the angry outbursts and strangeness of him.

is he treated/medicated? is he taking his med?

No,bur he denies being BP. However, he said that he is not normal and he thinks he should see a shrink.

Having just dealt for the last month with a bipolar girlfriend (and ex fiance) who just told me that suddenly she has fallen out of love and, for the most part, has stopped communicating with me, I can try to give you some advice.

I have been reading a ton of literature trying to make sense of it all. I think the bottom line is that, assuming that if your partner just is bipolar (and has no personality disorders) and they genuinely are a good person who loves you and does not want to hurt you, then you should probably believe what they say. When they tell you something, that is how they are feeling at the moment, because no matter how much they love you, their sickness is often stronger than their love. If you do not understand bipolar disorder and treat what the sick person says as if you were in a normal relationship, you are going to drive yourself insane.

Most relationships between mentally healthy people fail, and bipolar relationships fail about twice as much for the simple reason that a bipolar person probably is not going to be able to love you the way that you love them. My girlfriend used to love me so much that I felt guilty that I could not feel the same intensity. For a lot of the past two years, that was often the case (though there were long periods of what I would call "normal" love), but a month ago she "fell out of love" with me in a week, for no reason. The sickness is stronger than the love.

If you are willing to understand the extreme difficulties that a relationship with a bipolar person will entail (like them going through a depressive phase and telling you that they no longer love you), AND your bipolar partner is willing to follow a treatment plan designed by a psychiatrist, then I recommend pursuing the relationship.

As for my girlfriend, assuming that she ever starts calling me again, I think it is best for us to remain friends, maybe a little more. Marriage and other serious long-term commitments will never work without a commitment from both partners to educate themselves and do what it takes to deal with the illness. As sad as I was at the time, I am glad she called off the wedding because she clearly is not ready to commit to being healthy, and her condition is probably a lot milder than many people dealing with bipolar disorder. I wish I had realized this all two years ago.

Also, in your case, he sounds like he might be manic. There are two major types of bipolar disorder, and type I causes full blown mania which usually creates a lot more problems with lasting repercussions than hypomania or depression. He needs to be evaluated by at least one psychiatrist, and a second opinion would not hurt. If he is not committed to a treatment plan, I strongly suspect things will only go downhill.

Could you explain 'manic' in his case a litte better please?

In type I Bipolar disorder, people often experience full-blown mania. In Bipolar II disorder, they will experience a milder form of hypomania. In the milder forms (which can also occur in type I), the hypomania may make them feel very good, hypersexual, impulsive. One might almost think of it as returning to being an adolescent, feeling full of energy, somewhat invulnerable. This is certainly something I witnessed in my girlfriend. When she was hypomanic, she would buy things she really could not afford, want to make love all the time, take on new projects. To be honest, it was kind of exciting. I had no idea what was going on, I just assumed that it was her natural personality and it would last forever.

In full blown mania, bipolar people can often completely lose any realistic perspective of the consequences of their actions. Instead of buying a bunch of new shoes, they might take all of their savings and investments and gamble it in a game of roulette. They might feel so invulnerable and confident that they do something incredibly physically dangerous.

In the milder versions, this might lead to infidelity. In the worst versions, they might leave a twenty year marriage because they feel really good, really confident, and they just cannot realistically conceive of the negative consequences of their actions.

In the worst cases, they may require hospitalization. They may hear voices or believe that they are on a mission from God, or they have a cure for cancer, or something they have no realistic chance of ever achieving.

There are basically two halves of the illness that can have serious consequences on personal relationships. One results from feeling really good ([hypo]mania). The other results from depression If a bipolar person is jumping into new relationships, it is probably not because they are depressed. If the decision is based on something absurd, or something that really does not fit their normal personality, then it probably is (hypo)mania.
If he is withdrawing from you, shutting himself off, not talking, I would suspect the depressive phase of the illness. If he is immediately taking up with new girls, it might be the (hypo)manic phase. It is also possible he left during a time of depression, then met someone new when he was stable or (hypo)manic.

If he is threatening to call the police on you for no good reason, you can almost guarantee that is a result of mental illness, probably full blown mania (because that action seems very detached from reality), but only a proper evaluation by a psychiatrist will be revelatory. Bipolar disorders are not the only mental illness that can cause the sort of behavior you describe, but unless he has shared his precise diagnosis with you, you can only guess. Full blown mania is usually a symptom of Bipolar I disorder, which tends to have more negative consequences than the other forms of the bipolar spectrum, because of the possibility for extreme detachment from reality and extreme behavior.

The only way to be sure what you are dealing with is a proper diagnosis. If he is not willing to share it with you or be reevaluated, I think that you should not believe anything he says. If he is an honest person, he probably means everything he tells you when he is stable, but his chances of remaining stable without proper treatment are very low.

Thanks for the reply, it was very interesting and Im reading it again.

I think I should also correct myself and say that episodes of depression can be just as bad as mania, and they tend to be a lot more common in Bipolar II. A lot of bipolar people will contemplate and sometimes attempt suicide during depressive states. They also may stop going to work or school and push away loved ones. T

My girlfriend told me that she used to hole herself up in her room sometimes and not come out until she had to, not leave the house until she had to. I strongly suspect that is why she is withdrawing from me right now, although I think she has gone through worse episodes of depression. Still, it is so hard to be ignored. I don't know if she is doing the same to most of her friends and family right now, but I know she has done it to them in the past, so now I get to experience it. It makes me feel very alone. She has become my best friend, but because she lives too far away for me to just drop by, there is nothing that I can do. All I want from her right now is to talk to me.

There is also the possibility of mixed episodes in Bipolar I. I think one common trigger is using stimulants, especially heavy ones like cocaine (as opposed to weak ones like nicotine or caffeine), assuming I am remembering what I read correctly. People in this state can be very dangerous to themselves, because they can be depressed enough to want to kill themselves, and manic enough to be very successful at it. I seem to remember reading something about a woman in this state who started driving from New York to California with the intention of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge when she arrived. Luckily for her, her episode ended before she got there.

thanks again. Im in a real mess. I went out with him today and to my surprise he is very normal , very loving, very kind with me, very himself. We had a lovely lunch and a great time and he invited me for Friday again. Im going to Britain for a while (Im im in South America) and he will stay on his own, he is showing signs of missing me already, however if we do get back together things will have to be different, I talked to him about seeing a doctor.

Update- July 2011

We continue separated, however writting to each other nearly everyday. I phoned him some four times, I felt him cold, flippant, disconnected,saying things that did not made sense.He seemed to be very sure of himself and that he didnt need me in his life anymore. Somehow, now he is telling me he is very sad about what he caused to our relationship, so he is changing again.Sad is a feeling, so it is a good start, because he can be so unfeeling with me sometimes. I havent got much hope unless he sees a doctor, Im trying to convince him to see one soon.Ill be back to my city and Im sure he will contact me again there by phone.I still dont know how to react, I dont feel I should take up with him again because it is only a question of time and he will go away saying he has no feelings for me.

New update- "We have ended things I think for good this time. He told me he didnt have anybody new, he was going to concentrate on his job, however I phoned him two days ago (im in another country)and he coldly told me he got yet another woman, and she was there with him. Immediatelly he said it is nothing serious.
The pain and the hurt was unbeliavable, but I know he is well capable of doing things like that and going back on it afterwards. However, this time the hurt was too much because he said he doesnt want anything to do with me, only friendship. Now I would understand a man getting so upset with a woman who treated him badly that he falls out of love with her, but in our case nothing bad happened, everything was the same, i was the same loving person he so much appreciated before, he pestered me for sex for ages, we finally had such a good sexual relationship and he said our love and sex life was made in Heaven. He said i was his angel, his fairy, a wonderful woman, he had feelings for me, he would never finish our relationship,he would spend all his life with me and I was his wife. If I say anything like that to someone I would mean it, but not him, he now can get yet another woman and say he doesnt want anything to do with me for no reason than his head changed.I have done nothing different, I onoy have been his best friend, his support and help, his confident and his companion, his lover and his woman, and he flipped completely on me. Also, he is saying the second woman is called the same as the first he cheated on me with, he is such a lier that I think it is the SAME woman again, someone he called names and said she was so easy.
Please someone help me to understand this complete change of heart and I would love to hear from someone who went through that as well.