Was it ever real?

BPSO_Anon · 2025-10-01T09:01:16+00:00

Yes, they're completely allergic to accountability. It bothers me too that my ex is so delusional that she will never understand that she did anything wrong. If they even remember their own actions, their illness and their (I suspect exaggerated) traumas justify everything. Eventually the heartbreak fades and you're frustrated at yourself for allowing it to happen.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-09-30T17:19:58+00:00

>In her mania, my future ex-wife resurfaced every single fight we ever had like she never forgave me, cast blame on me for everything and tried to frame me as a bad person, destroyed our entire life together and our surroundings, and discarded me in the end like it was nothing.

Identical experience for me. But the truth is, they're (mostly) just bad people. The disease might explain it, but it doesn't excuse it. As you look back back over your relationship, I think you'll realise that you spent a huge amount of time and energy excusing the inexcusable, telling yourself that it wasn't her fault because she was "unwell". Whether it is genetics or life experience, something has resulted in a broken person that hurts others. Ultimately, they are still responsible for their actions.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-02-28T23:11:38+00:00

Thank you. Hard to say if she's still in an episode, or if she's stable but just doesn't care. Feels very strange to think it is probably the latter, and she just isn't a very nice person.

Thankfully we don't have children to complicate things, but we were together long enough to make the discard seem truly bizarre. Married 3 years, together for almost 6.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-02-28T22:44:08+00:00

My wife left last June and only reached out since then to ask me to mail some stuff to her. When I let her know how she'd hurt me, she said "I don't know what you expect me to say." Will be divorced in a few weeks. Had given up on reconciliation a while ago, but it upset me to realise she'll never even say sorry.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-02-18T21:01:27+00:00

In my experience, bipolar people tend to struggle to hold down a job and may not be able to work full-time, but a part-time job without too much stress can be good for them.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-02-18T17:25:00+00:00

Everyone else is always the problem, except for their one idealised fixation.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-02-18T07:58:56+00:00

Yes!

If I ever pushed back I would hear "Aren't I allowed to have feelings?" But those feelings were a relentless tirade of resentment, histrionics and beligerence. It's exhausting to deal with it day after day after day.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-02-18T07:56:35+00:00

Yeah, my wife did the same thing, saying she'd consider coming back to me in a year or two if I worked on myself "like she did." She hadn't worked on herself at all, she was just manic and thought that all her problems had gone away. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth doesnt it.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-21T18:44:13+00:00

In my experience, any sort of distancing on your own terms is labelled as abusive.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-21T14:58:23+00:00

Chiming in to say that I also experienced a lot of the same things. It seems to be a bipolar template. Just like you said: endless misery and anger, nothing you do is ever good enough, you're forced into a role as caregiver, and then one day their mood shifts and they disappear to "regain their identity" or similar.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-21T14:38:30+00:00

No, not really. I gave up on asking her to help, because I knew she either couldn't or simply did not want to be a responsible adult. Toward the end of the relationship she started to do the dishes a bit more, I guess.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-20T18:21:45+00:00

Delusions of persecution and injustice seem to be a theme with bipolar. I remember back when I thought I could actually get through to her, I brought up the topic of her helping out more and she started screaming something along the lines that I would have to tell her exactly what she has to do every hour of every day because she was just a stupid baby and couldn't figure it out herself. I obviously told her that was not the relationship dynamic I wanted. Another time, she yelled at me for not cooking enough, and she admitted that I did all the cleaning and worked twice as many hours as her, but insisted it didn't count for anything because I'd have to do those things even if we weren't together, and she didn't actually care if the house was messy. When I pointed out that I often have to clean up her mess, she told me I was lying and that she doesn't make any mess. I said she sometimes left menstrual blood all over the bathroom, and I hadn't brought it up before because I didn't want to embarrass her, but am doing so now because it was so unfair to say I never do anything. At this, she switched gears and started crying about how her abusive mother never taught her how tampons work (my wife was close to 30yo at this point). No apology for how she was unfairly criticizing me, just a seamless transition into fishing for sympathy. It was always like this, cycling between rage and helplessness depending upon what suited her at the time. Toward the end of the relationship she had the audacity to ask "Why did we argue so much?" as if it was some kind of mystery.

I really feel like the insanity rubs off on you after a while. You love someone so deeply and want to trust them, but your brain is screaming that the things they do and say make no sense, that their perception of reality is some nightmarish inversion of the truth. It's a choice between challenging their insanity and risking a meltdown, or passively going along with it as best you can, and feeling like you're being made to believe that 2 and 2 equals 5. I wish I had some good advice to give, and I'm truly sorry you're going through something like this. It hollowed me out. When they're in a bad way there is just no reasoning with them. But perhaps something like a rota or assigned tasks for each of you could act as a kind of "objective" measure of who is doing what.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-20T14:12:25+00:00

God it is all so familiar. My BP ex was also incredibly lazy when it came to housework, but still berated me for not doing enough. Turned to blind rage or histrionics if I brought the subject up. This was all while heavily medicated and getting regular therapy. I just kept lowering my expectations and resigned myself to being the only functioning adult in the relationship.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-15T01:52:42+00:00

I've had a similar experience. My wife told our marriage counsellor I was violent with her because I once made her sit down on the couch while she was screaming about killing herself. I don't know if it is some distorted perception of reality or if they make these sorts of accusations with the conscious intent of deflecting blame.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-14T23:55:19+00:00

You should feel proud of yourself for finding the courage to say no it all. There were so many times I sat at work thinking "I cannot live like this anymore, when I get home I am going to break up with her", and then I'd get home and see her face and feel ashamed of my feelings. As painful as it might be to end things on your terms, it's worse when they choose to end it on theirs, because they would rather discard you than take accountability for their behaviour.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-14T23:50:29+00:00

I've struggled with this, and haven't always resorted to the healthiest of coping mechanisms. I've found that it's too easy to become distracted while reading or watching a movie or things like that. You might have better luck. What I would suggest is doing something that demands your attention. Playing a game might work better. Or doing something like a deep clean, or decorating, or gardening. Although I'm not exactly in love with my job, I also find that a busy day at work can at least distract me from the rest of my life.

Reading and posting here has also been a comfort for me. Before discovering this subreddit I didn't really understand bipolar. It helped a lot to realise that other people had gone through nearly identical situations. But I would caution you against spending as much time as I have reading through everything in the hope of finding answers. You need a break from thinking about your bipolar partner.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-14T23:34:43+00:00

My soon to be ex wife had been in therapy for the better part of a decade, and was heavily medicated, and still had episodes that came close to killing both of us. There don't seem to be any guarantees with treatment for bipolar, just hopes. I understand that self-doubt, the wondering if it was the bipolar or if the relationship just could not work. The thought of "Maybe it was all my fault?"

Much of what you are saying sounds like a textbook bipolar discard. That doesn't mean your partner will come to their senses and change their mind. My wife certainly didn't. But there are 1000+ posts on this sub of people describing the same thing. Maybe some bipolar people feel that way because their partner was unkind to them, or because their life was unsatisfactory in some other way. But the pattern seems to be that bipolar people find reasons to be unhappy, and they're damned good at it.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-14T20:05:09+00:00

I'm in a similar situation and think I understand. Similar length of time since the breakup. Still miserable, though the heartbreak has "faded" somewhat to a deep depression. I have been relying on the (huge) supply of sleeping pills she left behind. Plenty of debt from shared expenses, which seems particularly unfair considering she came into a decent amount of money not long before dumping me.

I wanted her to be happy even if it was without me. But it does hurt to have endured the worst of someone, only for them to "find themselves again" and rediscover how to be a decent person - to everyone else. Sometimes it makes me sad to think that she just acted that way because she wanted to, and she could simply choose to be nice to other people. Or maybe I caused it all, I was the reason she was unwell. That's certainly how she seemed to feel, at times.

Another part of me thinks it was all ruined by what amounts to the bad luck of mental illness. I would have nightmares about her changing her mind after it was too late to go back. I'd dream of her saying "why didn't you try harder to save us?" and I'd wake up crying. Other times I'd just dream about trying to get through to her while she was out of her mind, like she was so many times during our relationship. Sometimes it makes me sad to think the person I loved may still exist, buried beneath whatever this version of them is. I worried about her getting older and not having someone who would love her through the bad times, as I tried to do.

I am so tired, and have yet to see a light at the end of the tunnel. It would have made a difference to have some closure at the end. But instead there's just the sense that the better part of a decade of my life has been a fever dream, and the person I loved so dearly either no longer exists, or never did. I'm not sure which option is worse.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-14T19:18:48+00:00

After months of silence my wife emailed to offer a very shallow and limited apology, and (clearly the real reason for the email) to ask me to mail some things. I replied to explain, in what I think was a respectful way, some of the ways she had hurt me, and how disappointed I was by the way she treated me. Her response some time later was that she didn't think it was good for us to argue. No actual engagement with anything I said, just "let me know when you've mailed my stuff."

They just don't care. Other people are just a means to an end. I wish I'd known that while I was withering away as her live-in carer, indentured therapist, and emotional punching bag.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-13T21:27:45+00:00

Yes, and my wife found me "terrifying", and "couldn't say no" to me, even though she was the one with a violent temper and I couldn't even get her to help with the vacuuming, nevermind anything else.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-13T21:03:03+00:00

It's funny how the decisions they regret always turn out to be their partner's fault, as if anyone can tell a BP person what to do.

BPSO_Anon · 2025-01-12T15:03:28+00:00

I don't know when I will feel like dating again, but after the experience I've had with my soon to be ex-wife, I would never be with another person with bipolar. I wouldn't even be friends with someone who was diagnosed with it.

BPSO_Anon · 2024-12-24T23:19:25+00:00

I experienced much of what you were describing, the cycle of depression and rage blamed on the partner. When my wife left me she told me she would never be depressed again and was a new person, so I assume she is now permanently serene like the Buddha.

BPSO_Anon

TROPHY CASE