Hi, im new to this site. I am 28 years old and currently dating a 30 year old female with bipolar. She has been on medication for the disorder for 15 years. I have been going out with laura for 14 months now and we do not live together. I am in the uk air force and just signed up well about a year ago and live on base and she lives with her mum and sister. She has had long term relationships before but they have ended in the past with the bfs cheating on her etc and I am her 3rd long term bf. I love her very much, she is stunning, kind, generous, helpful and when things are good they are good. Now I have never looked into this bipolar condition much, and it took her about a week when we started dating for her to tell me, but it didnt bother me. I thought I would be able to battle through and as long as she takes her meds she should be ok..Now im quite a stubborn person and can be quite argumentative and have learnt from previous relationships to control this and it makes me better person, so I would be classed as quite chilled out now I would say! In are relationship it started with her arguing with me over silly tiny things, even though I knew I was right about something and she may even knew I was right she would still argue and argue until we would just get pissed off or she would get into a minor state and I would tell her to calm and she would say she is calm in a erratic behaviour. This is just minor things that started to happen. I got used to this, but it happened a lot and I would always think that its her disorder that makes her do this. Wheres if I ever said to her it was her disorder she would flip....Another thing that used to upset her was the fact I had quite a high sex drive and obv bipolar people dont unless there on a high...so this would cause problems, but I got over this. There was a stage when she wanted to brake up as she thought I wanted sex to much and she couldnt cope and that she said we argued a lot. Now I didnt think we argued a lot, as the arguments would just be minor little things but guess she thought this was serious wheres I didnt. Over the past 6 months and it happens about every 2 months, she get into stage where something will happen. For e.g. I may be texting her to much during a day and she may be at work or with a friend shopping and she may say I am suffocating her or coming across needy....now I dont think I am doing this, but it blows up and then she will say that she has had enough and that she cant deal with it any more and that she wants to be left alone. No ringing, no texting. I find this hard as I obv want to sort the problem out and I guess normal functional couples would do this but I guess this is a bipolar thing that they want to be shut away from you for a week or have no contact. When she pushes me away like this it really upsets me and makes me feel depressed and paranoid. As I want to know whats wrong and how we can fix it. I forgot to mention she loves me very much etc and has told me she would marry me if I ever asked her and that she wants to live with me etc and have holidays together. Another massive argument was the fact I would love to have children and were not getting any younger and this stressed her out again as obv she would have to come off meds for 9 months and there chance the baby could have it etc...so I think I may have gone off this idea....and she says she hates children....i would love children but she has also said she would never say never. She often suggested having a dog would be a better solution!! Ok so every couple months we have these stressful stages where she blocks off contact, says we should brake up or have a break and then about week later we give it another go...Well to cut a long story short...about ten days ago we both were invited to her cousins wedding so i drove the 300 mile trip and we went to this and had a lovely 4 day trip with her dads family up north and it was great!! on the journey home she was snapping with me over little things so this put her in a mood. She went home and the next day we planned to go to the beach so we did and it was lovely weather and she was snapping with me allday....but the day was good, went home and the next day she went out with her best friend, not during the day something happened she said I was being to needy and texting her a lot I wasnt texting her a lot! And she said that she had had enough and couldnt cope any more. She told me not to bother contacting her for a week no calls or texts....i continued to text her in the evening, with no reply and in the morning I called her and she flipped out sounding incredibly scary on the phone like out of a horror film. She said to respect her and not to contact her as I am pushing her away. Im obv thinking this is it its blatantly over she isnt going to come back from this.....so im just not going to text her now....or call her.....and wait for the phone call this isnt working you dont understand me....etc lets brake up....Now everyone who I work with have told me to get rid of her and also close friends have said the same that I deserve better etc.....now I love this girl and she loves me, but im wondering if this is ever going to work...when she flips out as well like when we went for the wedding and have a great 5 or 6 days together then on the last day something goes wrong she then says she has had enough that we have been in to much company for to long (6 days) I turn round and say if you cant deal with 6 days how do you expect to live with me? And when she was in down mood the other day she said she doesnt think she can live with me.....now I have portrayed this relationship as doom and gloom and that we shouldnt be together, but there are happy times and I wouldnt be in the relationship if didnt think it could work. Over the past yeah and half she has also been eating a lot and putting on lot of weight going from size 10 to 16uk so ow she dieting like hell eating little and this is a strain on the relationship to. I want it to work so much but I have being in this situation where I dont know where I stand cant contact her as she says if I do im pushing her away....I also read just now that 90% of bipolar marriages dont last....great fact to read there :(
I forgot to say my parents never see this side to her, her dad who lives away and step mum never see this side to her, her friends rarely see this side to her but she doesnt have great deal of friends. but her mum who she has been living with and sister fight like hell and she hates living in the house with her mother and sister and they barely talk.....so from what i can see right now the main people effected by her condition are myself and her mum and sister who live with her....
she said something very odd last week to, i hadnt seen her for three weeks as had been working on base for long period and returned and she said to me that she takes me for granted and she doesnt treat me right and that she is horrible to me and that she is going to change the way she treats me....this lasted all of 5 days....
I just dont know what to do? I love her so much....but think it has blown over so much now she cant cope or is going to say shes tried but just needs to be single.....if she says this should I just take it like a man and walk away?
Anyone with any experience on a female with bipolar and relationships and if any of this sounds familiar please reply.
Thank you kind people!!
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