"Friends"

Having no emotional support at home has lead me to look elsewhere for emotional companionship. I have a friend that I've know since I was about twelve and I still speak to him often. When I married the husband, I wondered if this friend and I would still have the relationship we'd always had. Open, 100% honest, and above all kind. Having a bipolar husband has been a lonely road at times. Knowing that I can't share my honest opinions, hopes, and fears is a sad reality. I'm always guarded with the husband, I have to always be sure to keep my opinions even and my outward behavior calm. Inside, I'm usually screaming or crying. Throughout the past 20 years of dating/marriage with the husband, my friend has been the rock that I cry on, the voice of reason in my cluttered head. He's the person to comfort me when the crushing weight of yet another episode has ruined my world. He picks me up, brushes me off, and listens to my endless and repetitive cries and worries. Lately I've not been talking to my friend very often, I've tried to not rely on him so much. He's recently gotten engaged, and while I'm happy for him, I fear my rock will be leaving. I'm not sure how things between us will evolve once he's been married. His future wife doesn't know I exist (it's VERY complicated), so the little time we spend together will be even more restricted.

I can't help but wish I were married to him. While I love the husband with my entire heart, I want someone to be 100% myself with. The only person in my world that has given this to me is my friend. I love him too, but in a very different, unguarded way. He's never hurt me, never lied to me, never given me a reason to be "fake". The choices made at times seem so simple, but after years of reflection, were very poor decisions indeed!

Daily whatever

Not sure what to write about, so much beating around in my brain. Life with the husband has been relatively quiet. Thank You God! I think I'm slowly learning to deal with his condition better. Finally realizing that it's not me he's angry or aggravated at has helped. Learning to not take his silence or moodiness personally has helped too. I'm a very serious person by nature, so learning to be lighter and let things slid off my back has been hard.

Life has been crazy, having two school age children and a bipolar husband is challenging at times. My son has has a hard time concentraiting and getting homework done in a timely manner often creates problems. The husband doesn't always deal with this nightly ritual well. He sometimes get very aggravated and short tempered or will just add to the problem by playing video games and messing with the Internet while my son and I are trying to get the work done. This distracts my son and makes it harder on me to get him to pay attention. Then the husband gets angry when I ask him to turn the games off or the computer. UGH, I feel like I'm at constant odds with one of them. My poor sweet daughter is usually left to play with her toys and has learned it's better to stay out of the kitchen entirely during all of this.

MONEY, how I hate you!!

Money seems to be the source of so much stress and upset in our household. The husband is a spender, and I'm more of a saver (although, not a good one). We make a decent living, but we live paycheck to paycheck. While we do not have a large amount of debt, we do not have anything left to save or help pay down the debt we have.

The husband likes to spend on "little things". A new shirt, cigarettes, stops at convenience stores, but, these things add up quickly. The husband has been off his medicine for a few months now, and it has gone pretty well more or less. We need to have a serious discussion about his/our spending, but I'm afraid it may trigger an episode. Trying to find the "right" time to bring this up is difficult, trying to find the "right" words is also hard. I can never refer to anything in an accusatory tone or he instantly goes on the defensive. Not that this is all him, but it is about 80%. It's strange to me how intertwined money and his mental health are. If our money situation is okay, he's okay, if it's bad, he's really bad.

Lord, give me the strength and the words to make it through this. I have to find a way to have more control or everything will go to hell.

Back to the Deep end of the pool

Lately things have been slipping back to the not-so-good-side. The husband's mood changes are getting more and more frequent and now he's invited his "friend" to hang out at our house. (Short background of "the friend": he's been the husband's best friend for the last ten years of so, he's younger then my husband by about five years, he does not have a job, no car, and still lives at home with his parents. While he does have a good heart, he's not the best "friend" a bipolar person could have) The husband will go through phases with this "friend", he'll talk to him for a while, not talk to him for a while, downright dislike him, and then defend him if I say something negative about him. The husband always calls his friend right before a major manic episode starts, not sure why, but it seems to be a pattern. The two of them will watch weird movies and play video games and just quietly hang out, nothing dramatic, nothing eventful. I would just love to know the connection between this friend and the husband's approaching episodes. It makes me wonder if it's the husband's way of trying to fight off the episode, trying to calm down, relax even. I hate the thought of another episode, the fights it brings, all the tears and resentment that will follow. But, as usual, the change in seasons are approaching, which always guarantees an episode. I wish I could step inside his mind and read the book that makes him tick, maybe then I could figure out how to help him.

Little Things

I've always been a person to appreciate/notice little things, little gestures of kindness, little differences between two similar things. This past weekend my family was invited to the beach by some friends. I jumped at the change, grateful for good friends and the good times that would be had. The husband, not so much. He didn't want to deal with the traffic, the people, the kids nagging; everything that goes along with taking small children to the beach. Since he's been in an 80% normal mood, I thought we'd be fine and talked him into going. On the way a two hour drive turned into three and a half, the next evening we sat in an hours worth of traffic to get to the amusements, another half hour to find a restaurant and be seated, and another half hour of traffic back to the place we were staying. The husband could only focus on the little things, all the things that were going wrong or weren't perfect. As I looked around the table at dinner, four adults and five children total, all of us were laughing and smiling through the aggravation it took to get there, all of us but him. He sat with his head in his hands mad at the world. On the drive home, while I was thinking about my sons beaming face on a jet ski, my daughter giggling as she watched little bunnies running around, or my children playing with friends while I sat and talked to my own friends, he was rambling about all the things that drove him crazy about the weekend. It hurts my heart that he can't see the beautiful things, the good things, and understand that things are never perfect. I often wonder if my children can feel my heartbreak when he complains about such meaningless things. I pray that my children will learn to love the little things the way I do, and not succumb to the weight of all the none perfect little things.

If only the husband would take his meds, he loves the little things when he's medicated. He usually loves himself and all of us when he's medicated. I try so hard to understand how his mind works, but it never gets me anywhere.

To be complicated...

is so easy, to be normal, ugh, how I wish I knew how to do it. Being married to a man for so long that has the issues he has, has turned me into someone I don't recognize. I'm not even completely sure I feel things the way others do, the way "normals" do. After years of lies, affairs, complete mental breakdown, mental and physical fights, many highs and more lows than I can count, I AM EXHAUSTED! My daily thoughts consist of mapping out plans to escape, and dreading a future that looks the same as my past. My thoughts are twisted around loyalty, self preservation, the endless search for happiness, and most of all being a good mother. All of these things in my world can't be mixed together, like oil and water, I can't have them all. I'm left trying to figure it all out and still look and act "normal" from the outside.

None of this probably makes any sense, but I'm hoping by getting it out of my head and into words, my head will become clearer.

Hi...

Hello out there! I'm not really sure why I've chosen to start this blog. I've been a blog lurker for a long time and I'm hoping to find the support that I've seen on other blogs.

I'm thirty-something, been married to a Bipolar man for thirteen years, whom I've known for close to twenty years. We have two small children. My husband was diagnosed a little over three years ago, but has displayed symptoms since I've known him. Our life looks calm and "classic" from the outside, but on the inside, we are a MESS! Starting this blog is my way of tracking my own feelings, the ones that get lost in the effort to try to maintain the calm normality.

I'm not sure what I'll write about, or how often I'll write, but I am hoping this will offer some relief to my tired brain.