Husband has CD and other disorders....don't know what to do.

Hi,

I'm a 38 year old mother of a special needs child (autism). I'm remarried to a man that I love very much. He had a psychiatric problem 16 years ago for which he was hospitalized for a week for suicidal thoughts and depression. When we met 5 years ago, he told me about it and said he was fine now, he just wanted me to know. He also told me that he had insomnia issues and took medication for it (he's completely dependent on this medication currently). He also has ADD, for which he takes Adderall.

During our 4 years of dating, I observed occasional mood swings but nothing alarming. He was a wonderful boyfriend and became a beautiful father figure to my son, whose father had cut off from us emotionally. We got engaged and moved in together and planned our wedding. We had some small "bumps in the road" as we adjusted to living together, but it was nothing major and we were committed to working through any obstacles that might come up in our life together. (this was important to me because my ex just gave up and didn't try)

After the wedding, my husband's behavior began to change. He started arguments with me regularly, usually situations where he'd have some feelings, bottle them up, then blow up at me out of the blue for no reason. These arguments were ugly and emotionally abusive toward me. And after every argument (between 3 and 8 hours following), he would apologize and say I was right, and he's so sorry. I'd forgive him, and about 2 weeks later there'd be another fight.

Fast forward to now. 9 months into the marriage. A few months ago, we agreed we needed to go to marriage counseling and began that. The problems still continued and I began to observe scarier mood swings. One day out of the blue he left my son and me. "I can't take it anymore, I'll have my stuff out before you get home." The next night he returned to the house groveling, apologizing, pleading for another chance and promised to do anything to regain my trust. I let him return a few days later, under the promise that he'd start seeing a therapist, which he did. They started him out on Prozac. I asked him to sleep in a separate room, which he agreed to, then a week later he started an argument with me saying it wasn't fair.

A month ago, he left again. I called his bluff and changed the locks. When he apologized the next day and asked to come home, I said no. A few days after, I said he should get reassessed because it didn't look like his current treatment was working.

Diagnosis: Clinical depression, ADD, Severe Anxiety, and Chronic suicidal thoughts. During marriage counseling one day, he admitted to having had suicidal thoughts the last 15 years and had never told me. In his own therapeutic regimen, he had switched to Cymbalta. He's been on it roughly 3 weeks now, though it's a different dose as of this week.

I've currently been focusing on taking care of my son and my health. I see a therapist myself, I exercise, do yoga, pray, eat well, lean on my friends, etc. My son is handling this beautifully, which I would not have expected. Because of the intensity of the arguments and the revelation about suicidal thoughts, I do not feel safe letting my husband come home yet.

My main problem now is that he changes his view, his position on his mental health and the marriage, constantly. One day, he'll do anything to regain my trust, and the next day I'm an unfair jerk that won't let him come home, and that my not letting him come home is the cause of his mental agitation. I have expressed to my husband, in and out of counseling sessions, that I want him to be healthy, or at least healthiER, and that I want an idea of how he truly feels, because it's a constant back and forth. It's torture for me. And I don't know how to deal. I don't know if I should act like he doesn't mean the bad stuff he's saying and just refuse to argue and wait for his stuff to see if it works, I don't know if he'll get mad and stick with that, I don't know if he'll get better.

My head and heart have been at constant battle for a long time over what to do about this. I don't know what to do, can anyone help?

Hi, Imtforlife! This must be really, really hard for you. It sounds to me like he's falling into a trap of taking out on you what his disorders make him feel. It's not fair to you and your kid. Have you tried to distance yourself from your husband a bit more, to give him space? Maybe if he can't get away with bullying you, he'll be forced to just deal with his problems.

Well, I've been arguing for a 3 month separation to start where he lives somewhere else and focuses on getting better. He's been adamantly against it, insisting that moving home will solve his mental issues. However, a couple days ago, I emailed him saying that his moods and behavior are not stable and I would not be doing my job as a parent to allow an unstable presence around my son, an autistic child who needs stability in order to function.

After that email, he agreed with me and agreed to get an apartment. He says he's moving into it this weekend-we will see if that happens or if he changes his mind again.

My therapist suggested I take 2 'weeks of calm' before making any big decisions. Once I've done that, I need to decide what I'm willing to put up with in these next 3 months. After all, mental illness is certainly not cured overnight and it is very possible that he will piCk another irrational fight with me. I need to decide whether I can handle that or not. I am very emotionally exhausted currently from all of those confrontations. But I will take these 2 weeks and try not to think about it.

Thank you so much for your input

It sounds like you're going about this right way, to me. I'm glad your therapist is helping you. Hopefully your husband will see that he needs to get his act together. Let me know how it goes

Well, here's an update...we had a setback yesterday.

He's been in an apartment for 2 weeks. Our communication has been pretty limited; he hasn't shared much information in regard to what he's doing to heal himself. So I've been trying to "be okay with the unknown" and all that. My therapist said that if I interrogate him all the time, that makes me a nagging momma, which is not the role I want to have with him. She recommends I hang back and let him open up to me on his time. So I have.

He is starting a new job later this week. He's been excited about it; more money, he gets to telecommute.

Well, yesterday, he texted me saying that upon closer scrutiny of his new insurance, outpatient mental health care is not covered (he mistakenly thought it was covered when he took the job). And he says that due to debt (past therapy, expenses for new apartment etc.), he cannot afford to pay out of pocket right now, that it'd be $650 a month. I responded calmly that I hoped he could figure something out. He said that he'd simply try his best to improve without therapy right now. Which I'm kind of assuming means, if he stays with the job, he may look for excuses to not do it then.

Yesterday, I felt conflicted. Half of me felt, "Well, he changes his mind constantly and will probably have a different view tomorrow anyway." The other half felt, "Well, rule number one of spouse of mental illness is, if they're not going to get treatment, it's a deal breaker, so see ya."

We emailed and texted more yesterday, where he admitted he didn't really want to do talk therapy because he didn't see it as helping. Later on, I could tell from the way he was communicating that he was low. He was saying the stuff he says when he's low. He even went further and said he wasn't sure how he felt about me anymore. I got upset and said that if he wasn't sure of that then I'd rather not talk to him the rest of the evening and goodnight.

So now I'm trying to figure out my next move. I'm seeing my therapist today, which is good timing. I'm just trying to decide if it's time to throw down and say "Look, if you don't want to get the help you need, then I can't enable you and we're done." Or if I should give it another week or two for him to come around. I admit I'm starting to become bothered about hanging back and waiting and seeing...

It does sound like he's trying to avoid the issue... Ask your therapist what to do about him after you explain everything in detail about his behavior, what you think he's thinking or doing or feeling. Maybe you can figure out what is going on with him together and come up with a good plan to get him into help. If he has some kind of personality disorder or some traits, he might just use counseling against you or try to avoid seeing a therapist forever unless you find the best way to handle him.

lmtforlife

I have suffered from depression, but I was also a carer for a brother with mental illness as well some years ago. I looked after him for 5 years before he died of a phsyical medical condition. When I was a carer, I got quite a bit of support from mental heath professionals dealing with my brother. They always stressed the need to make sure that my health and welfare was being looked after, even before that of my brothers. This may sound selfish, but it is totally unselfish because, if you are not in good shape yourself, how can you look after someone else?

You seem to be doing lots of things to keep yourself in good shape, with yoya and exercise etc. Also the therapy is for you. You would probably not need it if it was not for your husband's problems, but do not loose sight of the fact that it will work best if you look upon it as for you and keeping you in good shape to deal with the difficult times.

Thank you so much for saying that...I've been able to keep myself pretty healthy and I'm glad for that.

I may have to assert a bottom line here pretty soon...there is still little consistency to my communications with him. Last week, for the first time, he sent me a card profusely apologizing for everything. It's the first expression of emotion he's done in I don't know how long. And I met him for coffee and that went ok.

However, in my discussions with him, he honestly seems to believe that he can self-diagnose and self-treat the disorder without seeing a doctor, psychologist, etc. He says he's done research and thinks it's bipolar 2 (on top of the other stuff he has-clinical depression, severe anxiety, chronic suicidal thoughts). And that he can simply go to his primary doc and ask for meds. But he says that therapy is low on his priority list because he doesn't think it can help him (and he's using money as an excuse even though I know there are resources around here that he can use regardless of what he can pay-oh, and I found out he stopped taking his Cymbalta because his new insurance doesn't cover it or something). He honestly seems to think he can treat his disorder by working out and eating right.

And I just do not agree with that. OK, that's the nice way to put it. I'm shaking my head in disbelief. Heck, you can google 'treatment for bipolar disorder' and all the medical authority figures recommend some kind of combination of meds, therapy, lifestyle changes etc.

I know rule number one of being a spouse of someone with an illness like bipolar disorder or clinical depression is that they have to seek help. I don't believe that by going to the gym and trying to eat well, he is accomplishing that. And there's no way in hell I'm going to be an enabler.

I've tried everything I can think of to get myself healthier, and whatever I'm doing is working. I did research, asked everyone I know if they had ideas on stuff I could try, from therapy to prayer to whatever. And I've tried a ton of things.

He has not.

lmtforlife

He seems to have gone to a doctor and been diagnosed sufficientlly in order for the doctor to give him medication, so he has received some sort of professional help. That is at least something.

John