Family & Friends of Bipolar Support Group

Just as people that have an illness, disorder, and other medical afflictions cannot explain, sometimes neither can we.

If you're going back into an abusive relationship, no matter what the situation is, you need to be honest with yourself. Also, if there's no improvement from his side, you may need to both seek counseling in order to 'better' both of your standin with each other.

My family seldom does understand some things either, but it's not their place to. Their hearts are in the right place. They care for you and your well being. It takes a strong willed person to deal with the emotional swings. I can't say there's a magic word to make them understand, but I can say that joining a group like this one has definitely helped.

Angeldove, your commitment to him is admirable but it is important that you evaluate what your reasons are for doing it. His disorder aside, I think it is important to understand yourself and your relationship together then determine if that relationship is strong enough to endure a life of unpredictability.

You risk loosing friends and family because they do care for you but will grow weary of trying to understand. I think it is very important for you to get into therapy and evaluate what motivates you in the relationship and what you can do to be supportive of him. To continue your life moving in and out of the relationship, is not healthy.

There are many reasons you may desire to return to the relationship. One of which could be co-dependency. You may have been raised in a way that you feel you can "fix" everything. That by smoothing things over, you can make the person better. It is important to understand yourself and why you do things that you do.

Once you understand yourself, you can take on the painstaking journey of understanding your partner and what he suffers with. The most important thing for him is that he is medicated and in therapy himself. Your relationship is doomed if he is not willing to take responsibility for his own disorder and strive to be the best he can be.

I will briefly share this story with you. When I was younger, I was engaged to a man that for most of our relationship treated me very well. He slowly began to take control of my life and eventually started to get physically violent with me to the point of almost killing me. Even after the last incident that violence, I went back to him. I learned two very important things about myself. I was co-dependent and felt the need to please everyone but I also had very low self esteem and felt that I did not deserve anything other than what he was offering. Therapy and working through my own issues brought alot of light into my life and made me a much better person.

I wish you the best because I know how difficult your decision can be. Please make sure that you are strong enough to handle this relationship risking loosing all your support of family and friends.

xo

Fearing what you're going through, I stopped talking to anyone about what I was going through with my husband. "Why don't you just leave him?" they'd glibly reply...& what: abandon my step-daughter who is really bonded with me? It is seldom that simple. Sometimes a person repeatedly crying wolf, really IS seeing a wolf! I know: I see one every 3 weeks. On the other hand, there's something to be said for possible co-dependancy issues. I wondered about this myself & took a hard look seeking any patterns from my past. Had I discovered co-dependancy as a relationship theme, it would've been a red flag. In my case, it hasn't. the thing nobody 'gets' is that when our partners are in their 'regular' phase, they can be wonderful people & THAT is the person we got involved with & want to be with. The 'other guy', however, is the wolf. I'm going to be working on all this confusing mess with a therapist. This forum is also a great place to come & share your experiences.

All good advice above and i undertand, I get the same thing a lot and have just gotten to the point if people are not receptive I juat leave them out of the loop, ultimatly we must decide what is to be done although input and gathering information is good, if I were to end this (and I consider it often) what would happen to Harry (partner) he would be dead on the streets and besides after almost 15 years we are so bound together in so many ways and I also am terrified of losing everything and breaking up the family, personally if he does not stick on meds this time I may change my mind............................................................

Thanks for all the reply's,Kuup yes I agree with you joining a group like this one has definitely helped for me too, now I just wish that my bf would do the same but I know that I have no control over his decisions. I can only change myself and work on setting my own boundaries.

Shelly, I am sure that I am codependent I can totally identify with what you said about feeling the need to please everyone and having low self esteem. I have already been looking into getting a therapist and I just went to the library and took out the book: " Codependents' guide to the twelve steps" by Melody Beattie.
I know I have a lot of inner work to do with myself thank you for your wisdom I am very humbled to know you.

CielLune & Grant, Hugs to you both it is true they can be such wonderful people and that's who we fell in love with and want to be with,now if that wolf would just learn to manage his temper things would be nicer.

If the wolf is a symptom, the manifestation of an illness, expecting someone to just 'manage' it is somewhat unrealistic. I've had plenty of time to observe how this occurs in my husband's case. This is something that happens to him moreso than something he 'does'. Much of what emerges from him mouth when he gets raving cannot even be repeated by a coherent person because it makes no logical sense. I don't mean the insults or paranoid accusations. As false as those are, they are sentences one can follow. Some of the other stuff is like vocabulary soup!

Those who keep telling us to focus on & work on ourselves are correct. People here, esp the ones with BP or BPD know that WE cannot control these conditions from where we're standing or reason them away or make them into easily understood logical conditions. Pdocs are often frustrated in trying to treat them.

My guy won't go to a pdoc. Even getting him to a 'regular' one for normal check-ups is tough. He does go willingly for regular dental care, though. Lately, I HAVE been working more & more on myself & I feel so much better in doing so. It is almost like a 'consciousness-raising' in which I'm realizing just how much this has affected me & how I've spent years folk dancing around it.