I do think my behaviors need to change and they are. In fact, my thought process needs to change. Have you listed this out? Maybe not needed here. But Id advise setting some very clear goals and plans.
There are many things that would cause her to feel how she feels/felt - like I said, she suffers from mental illness and has a tendency to either overreact to situations or not react at all. She lost custody of her first child from her previous marriage due to her uncontrolled illness as well as alcohol abuse. I was more asking about you. Her issues are her issues. You cant fix those. All you can do is work on becoming the best you possible. So what actions of yours do you think led to this point? Are they things you want to change? How will you change them?
Right now we are being civil but really only talk about our son. She says she wants to work out some kind of appropriate time-sharing plan for him. Thats fine to only talk about him. What else would you talk about?
And YES. You should make a time-sharing plan. What would you propose?
The fact is, I want my wife back and I want my family back together. I understand. But it wont happen overnight. Step by step and see what happens. The first step is working on fixing you.
I started seeing a therapist once a week to work on anxiety problems. I've suffered from clinical depression and anxiety disorder since I was in my early 20's. The time-sharing plan as it is right now is I pick him up and take him to daycare every morning and take him back to her after daycare in the late afternoon. He also stays with me every other weekend. He lives mainly with her because she has a better job, more money and more support - she lives with her mom who is a doctor. I am going to be starting a new job soon but I'm not sure yet of my work schedule so we will have a more definite time-sharing arrangement after that. Everything is just up in the air right now. I picked him up from her this morning. We were very civil. I told her she looked nice and to have a good day at work. That's all I did and then I took him to daycare.
Yes I married her knowing she was bi-polar but she was medicated at the time. About three years ago she was still symptomatic and she thought maybe she had been misdiagnosed. So she stopped all of her medication and she actually seemed perfectly normal after that. For a couple years. I started studying bipolar disorder a lot after that and decided to pursue my B.S. in Psychology which I'm in the middle of. My wife is a psychiatric nurse...so she should be able to recognize her own symptoms for what they are. But, a lot of the time, someone who is having an episode doesn't recognize it while they are actually in it. Not until after. Her father is a psychiatrist and he is the one who initial diagnosed her. Which is one of the reasons we thought maybe she had been misdiagnosed.
My wife is a psychiatric nurse...so she should be able to recognize her own symptoms for what they are. But, a lot of the time, someone who is having an episode doesn't recognize it while they are actually in it. Not until after.
I agree with after the BUT.
If she has taken herself off of meds and is exhibiting signs of bipolar, I am not going to give your relationship much of a chance while she is in this state. My suggestion is to get clear boundaries and protect yourself.
Thanks Cadet. Of course, she will not admit that she is showing signs of bipolar. And it is something that she refused to talk about so I stopped bringing it up because it was just pushing her away. She always used to accuse me of trying to "use her illness against her".
So, every time I have seen her this week she has acted very...aloof, I guess. Just very distant and detached. Almost apathetic. Sometimes quick to anger. I'm wondering what course of action I should take at this juncture in the "trying to get her back" journey. Should I detach? And, if so, how do I go about doing that? I have to see her pretty much every morning to help get my son ready for school though she barely says two words to me during this time. In fact, if I linger too long she seems annoyed like she just wants me to leave. Suggestions and advice please.
i think responding something like "i understand that you are willing to try MC to see if that will help us, I think it may be best if we each start with IC first so that we both can identify what we want first" may be a good response, but I'm not a vet. I just don't think her text really shows a commitment to try, and going to MC may make things worse right now.
As for what you should do, I would recommend IC, GAL, detach and validate, and cut out the lingering, get your son, be cordial and leave. How do you detach, it's the toughest thing to do, I'm not there, but read the detaching link cadet gave you on page 1.
M - 9 1/2 years 5/5/16 - Bomb drop - 3 week EA 10/31/16 - We sold house 01/10/18 - D Finalized
I probably shouldn't have. I don't normally air my dirty laundry on facebook.
Yeah, man. I did this when I found out my W was having an A. I took it down after a few minutes. It really doesn't do any good. I'm going to assume you did it out of hurt, possibly?
