Question about lack of sex drive and medications..

[Jayce]

As long as you're on line anyway, Google the exact names of your wife's script meds. Google 'bipolar' also and read everything you can find. Get a complete understanding of what that is, what it means, and how a bipolar person feels. Look at all the ways the meds work, how they interact and what their side effects are. Become an expert in this condition and its treatment. Even go to askapatient.com and read ratings and experiences written by people who are taking those meds.

Once you have a firm grasp of all the factual information you can get, make plans to go with her to her next psychiatric appointment. She has to go in order to get her scripts written whether she gets counseling or not. Her 'shrink' should know all about what you two are experiencing. If not, find one who does.

Even anti depressants have side effects Dr's may not think to mention when prescribing. I found out the hard way that Lexapro inhibits ability to orgasm. Just what I needed to have happen when we needed that intimacy the most.

One of my fave books is Sex on the Brain by Dr. Amen. It explains, among other things, how the brain responds to 'new' sex and how it changes over time with long term partners. It is possible the effects of new passion overrode her meds for awhile.

We all understand your feeling unnatractive, lonely, rejected, like dirt. Unable to think of anything else, being frustrated angry, feeling cheated. We are empathetic, we've been/are there, but before you get mired into taking it so personally, being hurt, find out more about what's driving her loss of libido. Drugs for treating bipolars are notorious for causing that. Learn all you can about her condition and treatment. Whatever else you decide to do later, counseling, talking, start there first, then inform her psychiatrist who needs to know this is happening in order to respond appropriately.

You are in a different position than most of us. We aren't dealing with a specific, organic brain condition. Dealing with that may be more difficult than what we face, but you have a concrete reason where the rest of us are still trying to figure out the reasons, asking our partners who don't know or won't tell, and in some cases won't even think about it.

Make your own luck, do the research and hang tough. We're with you.
Jayce