Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers wife left, wants divorce, possibly bipolar

Your posts seem a little more upbeat. Are you starting to feel a little better?

until tonight, having a little backslide, panicking. so many things i don't know. does she think of herself as single, for example? that would really bother me. why isn't she calling me? what is she trying to accomplish? does she really want me ouut of her life forever? this is so hard.

overall i'm doing better, but i feel like i've been so patient and my patience isn't getting rewarded, and i'm making all these decisions on absolutely no information. all i know is how she felt about me, not how she feels about me now. no clue.

there are love notes scattered all over the house, evverything's half packed, i'm trying to stay in a narrow little space of it.

i don't know if i'm fooling myself. i'm going to suuch great lengths to save our marriage, and she's not doing anything, she's not even in therapy for herself although she's clearly screwed up. i just want to swoop in and save her. i know i can't.

i am so in love. . . i don't know if i'm happily married or an idiot.

Start thinking of yourself as single. Changing this mindset helps you to release from the grips of your marriage, which we need to do right now. Some would suggest dating, I wouldn't. I am going to live within my convictions, but am not going to torment myself for the sake of my W.



Read "No more Mr. Nice Guy". Don't be patient because you want to be rewarded. Be patient because you have compassion for your W who may be sick right now. And you understand that she may not be herself. However, you are being patient because you love her; not because you need to be rewarded for it. You will have a limit on your patience. When that patience runs out, you should be able to move on with your life without resentment toward her. If you look to be rewarded, then the resentment will set in if it doesn't work out the way you expect.



I hear ya.

well, i'm not going to start thinking of myself as single, maybe it's semantics but i feel like it defeats the purpose of what i'm trying to do right now. i feel like you were closer to the mark when you said think of it like she's on a long trip.

i see what you mean about patience and reward. i just need to find deeper streams of patience. the reward would be respect for my patience. i know i'm looking for crumbs here, it just feels so pathetic sometimes. if she weren't sick, i should be angry as hell, so it's confusing. i just hope she realizes. . .

i'm doing ok again today. i've decided that i need to accept that i have an anxiety disorder, specifically a panic disorder, and my wife has a mood disorder, and there's been a bad feedback cycle for a while. i'm getting myself together, i hope she's working on doing the same.

What I am saying is to think of yourself as single. Dress up, look good, think of yourself as a good catch for someone. It's the way you view yourself that is important, your attitude. It does not defeat the purpose, because this attitude is required for you to attract your W back to you. Read Coach's, Puppy's, or Robx's posts.

If you only look to your W's approval to make you feel better of yourself, you are going to feel bad and it will show. This will be unattractive to your W. And the cycle continues.

This does not mean to be unfaithful. It just means that you need to look good for everyone, so you feel good about yourself.



rypatch, you being patient for her is a good and honorable thing that you are doing for her. Don't wait for her to "realize" it to feel good about what you are doing. Take pride in it right now, it is anything but "pathetic". Yes, you could be angry as hell; but your not, you are showing compassion and patience.



I think anxiety comes with being a LBS. I had to take sleeping pills the first couple weeks after W told me she was leaving. Did you have anxiety problems before your marital ones?

yeah, i did, i've always had some anxiety, just thought it was justified by the stresses in my life. for three and a half months the anxiety's been out of control because of the situation, but i've realized it's a real problem and i've always had panic attacks, which are real and the symptoms are real even if it's caused by stuff in your brain, your brain directs your heart to start pounding, etc., plus you get a weird feeling of dissociation from yourself.

i've realized that my anxiety has been seriously affected by her moods, and that's what caused me to crack down on her, put pressure on her to figure out RIGHT THIS MINUTE what her problem is, which doesn't work if you have a mood disorder. so she'd come up with explanations under pressure, and we'd come up with solutions which would never get to the root of the problem, and she'd get even more frustrated and her moods would swing even lower after each attempt and she started believing in the "explanations." so my anxiety would get even worse because it seemed like no matter what we did, she would crash and not be happy with the results.

i've always had trouble falling asleep at night, too. . .

i'm on antidepressants which have taken the edge off the anxiety most of the time in the last couple weeks, and i think just figuring this out will help.

Have you asked your psychiatrist for something to help with the anxiety? I know that when I have it bad, I can be completely paralyzed by it.

the ADs are taking care of that pretty well. yesterday i had too much caffeine and it pushed me over the edge into a panic attack, but i'm ok today.

i actually don't have a psych., but my regular doctor is pretty mental-health focused.

the antidepressants haven't really made much less depressed, just less anxious. kind of funny. i guess they have both effects. but i can almost forget about my problems for a few minutes here and there, which is good. i can focus on eating food and enjoying it, or watch some TV without thinking about my wife too much.


progress. . . it's slow, but it's happening.

Hi Ryepatch,

If you can find a psych, you may want to visit him. These meds can be tricky. Check out what the ADs did to my W. Plus, he/she could probably give you something to take specifically when the panic attacks strike. When your W does make contact it will be a very emotional time; you will need to be at your absolute best.

How is the job search going?

Tristan

Hi Ryepatch, I just saw this from Coach and it reminded me of the conversation we had about timetables.


Quote:
In a business book by James C. Collins called Good to Great, Collins writes about a conversation he had with Stockdale regarding his coping strategy during his period in the Vietnamese POW camp.[3]

"I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade."[4]

When Collins asked who didn't make it out, Stockdale replied:

"Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."[4]

Stockdale then added:

"This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”[4]

Witnessing this philosophy of duality, Collins went on to describe it as the Stockdale Paradox.