Hi, I have been married to a wonderful, yet problematic woman for almost twenty years until last week when she filed for divorce. I've always known my wife had some sort of mental issues re depression and abandonment, due to never having known or met her father. I first met my wife through some mutual friends and had heard from them that she had slit herself up with razor blades when she was 17. I somehow fell in love with this young girl, I am 9 years her senior. We married when she was 21. She cheated on me with some guy she met from a college trip she went on on the night of our first anniversary. I forgave her and we continued to stay together. She has always had anger, depression, and fear of abandonment issues. Getting past the anger of her infidelity took quite some time, but we did it. We waited to have children, now 13 and 10, until she finished school, which I put her through. After we had our second child, when he was about two yrs old, she cheated again. Again, I forgave her and we eventually got past it. I chalked it up to her "illness" though I was not aware it was a bipolar condition. We've continued our marriage with many ups and downs, with her mood swings, depression, and anger stuff. We have been to counseling a couple of times and she was never really a fan but did it I guess for me. SHe began sleeping on the couch a couple of months ago supposedly due to my snoring. I noticed we were drifting further and further apart and I told her how uncomfortable I was with it, but there seemed to be no problem with it for her. I felt like I was nothing more than a roommate providing a paycheck, being a sitter, and taxi for the kids. We had a few brief discussions re the relationship and where it was headed. She began telling me that she didn't want to look in the mirror when she was 60 and realize all the things she would miss as a result of being married to me. Many other painful things were said to me that stung deeply. I suggested counseling, she refused and became totally shut off to me. She also told me she was tired of reading her G. D. Bible trying how to learn to be "the good wife" ON Memorial Day eve. I was laying in the hammock reading a book and she came out and laid her head on my chest and said not to worry that this will all just pass. My kids went away to camp out of state the week after memorial day. Our first night alone we had a tennis match together. When we got home home she showered and went directly to my sons room and began her writing, which she did a lot when she was feeling "stressed or troubled" Also she has been playing a lot on Facebook, everyday. I went to my sons room and asked why she couldn't spend just 5 minutes with me alone and she screamed that we had just played two hours of tennis! I told her I meant face to face time to see if we could talk about where we were in our marriage. She told me at that time that "it wasn't working for her anymore" and she spoke in her traditional "code words" to lead me to believe she has had another affair. I left the room without much of a word. I tossed and turned all night long thinking about getting the laptop from her to see if there as any proof of an affair. When she realized I had it she exploded and began to punch and slap me in a fit of rage. I tried again to talk to her for two hours after she calmed down but she refused. She called the police for them to come and get the laptop that was stashed in the house. She thought it was in my vehicle. When I attempted to leave the house she jumped in front of my moving van and was naturally bumped by it. She just screamed how I had just f-d up. She had me arrested for Criminal Domestic Violence, and now she has filed for divorce, has a protective order against me and bla. bla. I've been talking to a few counselors re this mess and they suggested she may be bipolar, so I started researching it yesterday. and sure enough, she fits the profile to a tee. How can I get my wife to seek treatment? All of her girlfriends are just being the man hating type cheer leaders for her and they don;t understand she needs help. They think I am a monster. But it is not the case, I've never raised a hand to my wife except to fend myself off from her attacks. I'm not allowed to have any contact with her or family members for that matter, which I should ad that there is a history of mental illness in her family and her mother is really messed up. Just crushed, not knowing how to handle any of this. I am totally overwhelmed wit trying to find a place to live, run my business, etc.... I know this was terribly long winded but that's my story that I am dealing with.
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