Fresh separation - trying to play by the book

[Mozza]

Thanks all for your advice. You're amazing to take the time and be so thoughtful. You're making me think twice about my perspective. I have ambivalent feelings about whether Anna is a good role model for my daughters. She's very accomplished, but at the same time she has some personality traits with which I'm not comfortable. Perhaps a waiting period is in order. I expect this thing to blow up though because, by the sound of it, my W has adopted the advice and model of her friend Anna and this will feel like a personal rejection.

What's been on my mind since last night is the thought that my W might be having some low-grade psychosis. Medical friends have told me before that she has a "bipolar personality" but I never paid attention to it. Here are a few signs, for future reference. None of them are final proof and, even taken together, she's not a mental ward case: she's still functional as far as I know and I don't yet fear for the safety of the kids.

- She's very verbal when we meet and will barely let me put a word in. She's hyper, makes it sound like she's very excited. She constantly skips from one subject to the next.
- Other times (twice now) she's bellicose, looking for a fight while I'm obviously not. She sounds like she's in her own spin and doesn't want to be interrupted or contradicted.
- Her "need to call" at 9:30 pm last night was unusual as we barely communicate these days. The topic was not urgent by any means, especially as we were setting up a lunch appointment for next week in a parallel exchange, specifically to talk about the kids.
- She was on anti-depressant medication and I don't know if she still takes them. I know she had skipped them a few days last month.
- She is (was?) taking way more alcohol than usual. She barely drinks usually (3-4 times a year?) and now she seems to drink several times a week. At least, she was when she left.
- She's disorganized with the kids. She drops them off to school earlier than needed (it seems) and puts them to bed an hour earlier than we used to. I don't know when she even has the time to see them. She throws stuff in the suitcase without folding it, she forgets a lot of stuff (all the winter gear this week). As far as I know, she's been feeding them readymade meals every day. We used to cook.
- Anna was the opposite of a role model for her and now she wants her as the godmother of our eldest D. That's quite a change.
- She's bought all of appliances in one day, most of her furniture in a week-end, signed the lease on the first apartment she visited. Perhaps it was out of necessity, but I see here that people cohabit longer than 10 days before separating.
- She's planning on dressing like a sexy cop (I'm being polite) for Halloween and going around bars to get drunk. She's never worn anything overtly sexy, nor really dress up for Halloween. (bipolar disorder increases libido in manic stage)
- She treats her work and colleagues like a drug, as a said here before. She would get aggressive if I stood in the way and would have little regard for the kids, until I brought it up.

And, of course, she left me almost overnight. I just don't recognize her.

I know there's nothing I can make her do. It's not my intention. Also, she's already seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist, who prescribed her anti-depressants. I don't know what she tells them, but I'd hope they would notice something's wrong. But knowing that perhaps this is what she's going through can inform the way I see the whole situation and how I interact with her. I can be on the lookout for a worsening of the situation.

So this is very much on my mind as it would cast a new light on my separation or at least on the way forward.