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Distressed thanks for the feedback. You're right about me not looking for anything from my wife. I've gone through a big mental shift of how I view myself, my situation, what happened in my marriage, and my wife. I am in a much better place this past week than I have been in the past few weeks. Crap, it was only two weeks ago that I was crying every day, couldn't enjoy anything in my life, and was compulsively obsessing over my situation with a whole bunch of negative projection thrown in for good measure.

Reading other people's situations helped me alot. The feedback people got helped me alot. And of course, the direct feedback I've gotten from so many people here has been so valuable to my changes.

I have to thank Distressed and M from Tennessee. You both have given me such good advice and you keep me in check. Also, reading the input you've given others has really made a difference. It's amazing what I've learned by reading other situations.

Wifey - You're a rare gem. Thanks for the support.

Somberbrow - Thanks for reading my sitch and your feedback. The support that's here at this board is unbelievable. I know the corrections are considered a backslide, but I think the thing that made the difference is I had no emotion behind it. No anger or authoritative POV. I was just stating a fact and she didn't put up any resistance. I haven't seen any backlash from it. But I think I will steer clear of correcting it in the future. MfT wrote that as one of his tips in the thread where he recently wrote out the map. I can totally relate to you talking about them re-writing the past. It's amazing really - and they actually believe it! But it's not worth getting into an argument about.

One of the problems is that as we improve it throws a wrench into their pre-conceived notions of how we behave. When we don't behave the way they expect us to (the old fighting way) they can't justify their own behavior so they need to make stuff up to reinforce the stand they are taking. At that point they are standing on shifting sand because you are no longer in the same spot as they expect you to be. Just a theory.

Update on today:

All postives. No negatives that I can see. I went over to the house at around 7:30 and we kissed and hugged hello. I helped get the kids dressed as my wife got ready to go to work. She is an occupational therapist for the local schools and she has the summers off. But she took on some extra work doing evaluations over the summer to make some extra money. She hasn't been able to get to doing it because of what's been going on with our sitch.

So I told her that I would take the kids out to breakfast and then take them somewhere so she could go to work and then to her IC session at 11:00. She left for work and I took the kids to their favorite place - McDonalds. They ate breakfast and played in the play area for 2 hours. They didn't want to leave..lol.

I then took the kids to my brothers house (where I am currently staying) and they played for a while. My wife called me to check and see how everything was going. She then started to tell me what she talked about in her counseling session.

As most of you know, if you've read my sitch, I was diagnosed as bipolar. My psychatrist has been trying to get the med combination right and the bipolar had put alot of stress on our marriage over the years. The new meds I am on for the past 2 weeks now have been working wonders and have really helped level me out.

Anyway, with that in mind - here are a few of the points my wife talked to me about from her IC.

- She said the C was explaining to her what was typical behavior for someone with bipolar. She said it put alot of things into perspective because she didn't know what was typical for someone with this disorder.

- Her C also talked about communication and how my wife and I need to use soft starts - using words like I and we instead of you, you, you.

- She talked to her C about how we transition me back into the house and he talked to her about doing it in steps rather than jumping right back in and run the risk of having the same stress pop up.

- She said the C was helping her with her anger also. He told her to be angry at the 'disease' rather than the person.(me )

There were some other points but the underlying current was her trying to understand how she can better relate and communicate with me and her trying to understand the nature of bipolar and what it does to a relationship.

After we talked for a while about her session and how it relates to us, I told her that I would keep the kids with me so she can have a few hours to do for herself. She doesn't get any time to be by herself because with me out of the house she is having to take care of our two kids by herself. I told her to take as much time as she wanted and the kids and I are fine.

So she went out and I took the kids back to our house. She came back a few hours later and said she had a very nice time. She went out to lunch by herself and ran a few errands. She also went to Barnes and Noble and picked up a book that she showed me - "Bipolar Disorder for Dummies". Now that was a big positive.

I stayed for dinner and we cooked live lobsters and I put my daughter to bed. My wife went to put my son to bed and told me to wait a minute. She came out of his room and give me a nice kiss and hug and said goodnight.

So overall it was a very good day. I was balanced and detached and wasn't expecting anything from her. Her talking to the C about how bipolar has affected us and what she can do to understand it better and the communication stuff are all positives.

One other thing I thought was important was when we were talking about me gradually coming back into the house she said, "I don't know how you feel about that. I know you're probably anxious to get right backin in." Then she stopped herself and said, "Well, I'm not sure how you feel and I don't want to assume." This is big because in the past she would have just assumed how I felt and left it at that. I told her, "Of course I want to be with my family, but I'd rather do this the right way." "I'm in a totally different position than I was a few weeks ago and I understand it's going to take time. I don't feel that same compulsion to rush right in and get it all fixed yesterday." She then remarked how her C told her that the compulsion to fix it now is also typical of bipolar.

Long post but it was another good day.

Ken

OK another nice positive.

I just got done reading over at someone else's sitch where they were saying they wished their wife would call them at work to just say hi. I identified with that in a big way - my wife hasn't called me just to say hi in a long time. So I decided I would make that one of my new goals - my wife calls me to just say hi.

I then go downstairs to unplug my phone from the charger and there's a voicemail. It was my wife. She called around 9:30.

"Hi. I was just reading the book and I think you're gonna really like it - it's really good. I wanted to ask if you needed any help with your resume or re-writing it for that job you are trying to get. I had alot of fun today. I'm glad you came over, I had a really good time. The kids enjoyed the lobsters. It was something special for them that they never did before. Anyway have a good night, I love you, and get some sleep. I'll talk to you later. Bye"

So I can cross that goal off before I even wrote it down.