Ken's situation - Live-in WAW

[steady]

Wow,

Thanks for all the feedback. This is such a great community. My sitch has already changed in the past few days.

My wife has asked me to leave the house to give her a break. I went into a major depressive episode (BiPolar) and was oozing desperation even though I was bascially leaving her alone. It was totally stressing her out. We worked it out with the MC and I'm now staying at my brother's house for two weeks. All contact is to be initiated by my wife.

I have my son's birthday party on Wed and we are going to a wedding together on Friday. The MC told us to set one night as a date night so the wedding was a good opportunity to do that.

My psychatrist put me on a stronger anti-depressent and a different bipolar medication. I wonder though, how much of this depression is being caused by the emotional stress of having a WAW who told me she was so emotionally unattached that she didn't care if I found another woman and how much is a brain chemistry issue.

It seems the stress of my sitch plus the mental issues are really making it difficult to work through these issues. I know from DB that detachment is the best remedy and I'm trying to work on that now that I am no longer physically inside the sitch. My focus is now on me and what I need to do to balance out and GAL. It's been very difficult.

One thing I want to add in my is that I've had my In-Laws living with us for the past 7 months and they are desperately looking for a house. The marriage counselor told my wife that her parents need to leave the house because it's causing alot of problems with our marriage. Her father is a full blown alcoholic who drinks all night long and her mother is a complete enabler. It's quite a mess. My wife agreed that they have to leave and even told her mother they need to move out.

Our MC is terrific. She even said we should view the seperation as a mental health break rather than a marriage break. It's a bit hard because there are no guarantees. My fear is it will turn into a permanent seperation. But it is giving me an opportunity to work on myself without outside distractions or the stress of seeing my wife every day.

The past week I was in a major depression and was becoming paralyzed in all areas of my life. I know this is completely unattractive to a woman and I'm glad the new meds seem to be totally reversing that.

I am a good, kind, gentle but strong man. This I know. I just haven't been grounded out in that for some time. It's time to get back to the person I trully am. The man she fell in love with.

One other note I want to add, I quit drinking when I was 24 and didn't drink at all for 17 years. My wife didn't drink during this time either. Then a few years ago I decided to start drinking so we did. I could see how alcohol has affected our relationship and alot of the major fights and problems started when we began drinking together.

I told her I was going to stop drinking again because I felt it has a negative impact on us. Besides the fact that I'm not supposed to drink at all on the meds. I walked into the kitchen on Sat. night and she was having a glass of wine. She looked up at me and said, "I'm sorry about the wine." I said, "Why are you sorry?" She replied, "Because I want to support you. When you come back home I won't be drinking." So I take this as a positive that she still wants to move forward and work on the relationship.

Sorry this post is so long. Alot has happened in the past few days.

Thanks again mrz99, MsMelancoly and Kenny for the feedback.

Ken