Living with a Bipolar Husband

First, I want to start by saying that I truly love my husband. It is not his fault that he was born Bipolar. He had it his whole life but didn't find out until after we were married and had children. I thought he was so great when I first met him. I was married before him to an abusive man and had two children. Everything was really good for the two years we dated before we got married. It was after we were married that he started to slowly go down hill before he hit rock bottom. He did a good job hiding it up to this point. We think the extra stresses on him caused it to come out.

First, we had our son and soon after he had gotten laid off from his high paying job. It was very hard for him to find another one. He worked for temp agencies but they were never for long. He did finally get a job, which was horrible. He had to work in boiling heat every day. He would come home vomiting every so often even though he drank tons of water. One day while working there, a co-worker accidentally sliced his hand with a box cutter. He had to have Tendon Replacement Surgery. He almost lost a few of his fingers. When that happened, it gave him Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That is when he started to go down hill. He was having panic attacks at that job when he was able to go back so he had to quit. He struggled to keep jobs after that because he would have panic attacks at all of them.

Soon after that, our son was diagnosed with Autism. It was his first son so it was pretty hard on him. He started getting further and further away from us. It was a big roller coaster living with him. I tried to be very supportive with him. I didn't like seeing him slip away from us like that. He used to be so good with the kids and now hardly acknowledged them. It seemed like I was doing everything. I was married but it didn't seem like I was. It felt like I was a single parent. We started to fight about things because a lot of stress was being put on me. I didn't know where the man that I married went. I wanted him back.

He started trying to commit suicide. He said that me and the kids would be better without him. I told him that wasn't true. He said at least we would have more money. I told him that was not what I wanted. He ended up in the hospital, in the Mental Ward. They put him on medication. The meds were supposed to help but they made him worse. He tried to commit suicide again. He went back into the hospital. They put him on different meds. He came home and even though he was here, it seemed like he wasn't. He was approved for Social Security and that made the money problem better but I still wanted him back. I tried telling him how I felt everyday. It didn't work. He slept all of the time, he wouldn't touch me and he didn't pay any attention to the kids. I decided that if I was going to do everything on my own, I should be on my own. Even though I still loved him dearly, I told him he had to leave. He got an apartment but tried to kill himself. I decided to go check on him and found him. He couldn't even stand up and was hallucinating. I called 911. When they found out everything he took they said he should've died. He had to stay in ICU for a week. He was than transported to the hospital once again. That is when we found out he was Bipolar. He began taking new meds.

I told him to move back in with me. We are going to marriage counseling. I still love him a lot. Things have gotten a little better but he still is a roller coaster. It is very hard living like this. Especially since I didn't sign up for it. I have my own problems with Learning Disabilities so it makes it even harder on me. Things are slowly getting better but it is far from what it should be. I try to be supportive and understanding but some days I just want to run away. I just really don't want to give up on him. I'm the one that said that God brought us together in the first place.