I believe the key -- and you know this -- is to be the rock, and therefore consistent in how you communicate with her. Always don your duck's back and remain true to yourself. Always remember to keep your changes going so they become cemented within, and always let your demeanor exude confidence and contentment.
Don't let her determine your emotions and behaviors -- YOU do that yourself.
Keep placing one foot in front of the other, my friend. I hope you're very proud of yourself and your accomplishments!
I am pretty stoked over it. One of the guys who really helped along for the first few weeks got his year today after working on it for 4 years. So it was a good celebration among friends and a group of us are going out tomorrow night for some dancing and fun. It's good to know that I have a new network of friends that I don't have to worry about impressing or drinking around.
I meet a great girl tonight. Hopefully I get to know her better. Just nice to talk to a female and realize there are some great women out there and if things don't work with W, I'll be just fine. Hard to go from being that college age boy to single as a career man and think I'm back out to dating again.
I've been thinking about the whole dating thing lately and I think I'm getting to that stage. I'm real tired of not going out having fun. I couldn't do anything physical at this point, but some female company is well deserved and craved.
Originally Posted By: Gone Dancin'
Quote:
Leaves me in a limbo of how to act towards her.
[quote=Gone Dancin'] I believe the key -- and you know this -- is to be the rock, and therefore consistent in how you communicate with her. Always don your duck's back and remain true to yourself. Always remember to keep your changes going so they become cemented within, and always let your demeanor exude confidence and contentment.
Well this is 3rd time this week I have heard this. So hopefully it sinks in. Here is the sitch, I have a good friend that I work out with who is a doc and we spend a lot of time together since we live pretty close and he is going through the same R type issues with his gf.
I told him about W's diagnosis of the bipolar. She still hasn't made it to the psychiatrist yet, says she has to file out some financial declaration for the sliding fee. But we talked about her behaviors and he thinks she is a classic type II and probably rapid cycling. Yesterday she couldn't wait to go to the meeting, then about half way through the day she quit talking to me. The plan was that she would come to the meeting, and after we would pick our S up at my parents since they would be watching him. She was supposed to call me today for directions.
Well you can guess what happened. She never called and I didn't reach out, left it to her. Went to the meeting, and it went great. After the meeting I turn my phone on and sure as can be, since W got off just before the meeting, she called about half way through. She was at the house all ticked off that I wasn't there with S. Acting like she had forgotten or maybe she did. Then I had a VM and she said she found him at my parents and that was all.
I called her and she was acting ticked off, so I just kept my cool and said oh you must have forgot tonight was the meeting, glad you picked up S, well see ya later, and hung up. Haven't heard anything since.
But my plan after hearing from my sponsor, the doc and everyone here is that I'm going to have to be the rock. I'm going to be nice and considerate, but that is all. I'm going to give her her space and leave it up to her to move in my direction. Doc thinks that once she starts taking meds, if she does, there will be a huge shift in behavior and he said she will probably come out of this and have some major guilt and wake up. So I'll just do what I can to be there, but its her choice to commit. I love her, and always have, but I can't deal with it constantly, so I won't. She needs to accept some responsibility here, and start making some steps in cleaning up her head.
Originally Posted By: Gone Dancin'
Don't let her determine your emotions and behaviors -- YOU do that yourself.
I love it! That is exactly it. I've been doing some reading up on this idea and it helps to realize that my happiness is within me and I'm finding everyday within me. I'm becoming stronger as I take greater pride in my life, working on my home, my financial sitch, especially my work and the work product I'm producing. Do I desire to share my time with a women? You betcha! Do I have to? Nope, I'm good alone, with the guys, at work or whatever I'm doing. I just have to realize her negative behaviors are not her normal reaction and let her work through it. I was pissed earlier today about her not contacting me, my sponsor asked what changed and what I did, and said nothing, and he said exactly, it isn't your problem. She is dealing with her own issue, if she blames you that is misdirected, but not your issue. So let it be, don't fight it and let her be alone on it until she comes back out of her funk.
Originally Posted By: Gone Dancin'
Keep placing one foot in front of the other, my friend. I hope you're very proud of yourself and your accomplishments!
GD
The only way you get anything done is one foot at a time in front of the other. Walk tall, watch my step and keep a smile on my face because each day is great. Postive thinking for me is important, so I just have to keep that going.
No contact today. I've made my decision to not contact or reach out, it doesn't help and it is up to her.
Funny, I feel pretty positive about life but at the same time I feel I have done everything and I'm feeling defeated. Sort of a mixed bag I guess. Really feel positive in my mind, but just physically I'm beat. I need some major rest I think to help out myself before it starts to bother my head. Might just be a good night to chill instead of going out.
Well so much for chillin for the night. Went out dancing and had a blast. Lots of great looking women and danced with my fair share. Nice to enjoy the company of others and not feel weird about still being M'ed.
I really feel like I'm detaching, I do well when I just avoid and stay away from W and her crazy drama. Funny how quickly I can get drawn back in if she does come around, but how long it takes to climb back up out of that when she is gone again.
Need to keep a lid on that, so when she comes around from now on, she isn't going to get the doormat. No more falling over myself to help her out. She will just have to help herself, I have enough on my plate to worry about what she is doing or how she feels.
I've also been thinking about the house. I'm really enjoying living alone, and do not want to have a roommate enter the picture. I have everything as I like it and I'm getting a little beyond my years for wanting that sitch. Especially with S around part time, I don't need the headache of trying to keep him out of others stuff. So I'm working on some ideas to bring in more work and cash to continue to cover all the expenses.
This is weird, I still have my old phone since the contract runs out in like another month or so and cancellation fee is a lot more. Well I don't use it all, and it is turned off. Every few weeks I check it for VM's and such.
Well I just turned it on and W is calling it all the time. Now she does call my new phone as well. She knows I don't use the other one, but she calls it asking where the meeting was the other night that she didn't show for. There were 7 VM's from her. Asking me to go do things. All kinds of stuff. But she called me just the other day about not being at the house on my new (over a month now) phone. So obviously when its dire she calls the one she knows I use. Why would she be calling the other one.
This just looks like a game to me or part of her new bipolar thing I guess. Maybe so she can say "I called you sorry you didn't get it. Maybe you should carry them both around." WTF???
I don't think I'm going to respond to it at all. I figure one of two things is going on. One she is playing a game, which if she is, I've already decided I'm not contacting her right now, so I might as well stick to that plan and not play back. Second, W can get confused on things like this easily, for instance she gets lost in our own town all the time. But if that is the case it still falls into one that I'm not going to respond anyway.
WOW! The rabbit hole just gets deeper and wackier the farther we go down it. I really hope she isn't losing it or something and I need to really be there for her. I guess I'll know if she does something drastic at which point I can step in. How odd.
Hey Atlas, sounds like an excuse to me. I kinda had the feeling she was covering her tracks by using the, "oops, I did call. I must have called the wrong phone" thing. But, you know her better. If she does get confused, maybe it was legit. But, you're right, there really is no reason to respond either way.
M 5yrs 1st baby-girl born 6/18/08 Bomb: 10/13/07 OW - I was 6wks Prego H Moved in w/OW: 11/2/07 D Final 07/10 OW had his baby 3/17/09-so her Me, now - happier than I ever was with him
So something I have been thinking about lately and not really sure if or how I want to handle it. If anyone has any experiance or resources they recommend I would be appreciative.
Well wife may or may not be bipolar II. She defiently seems to fit the bill, but I'm not a doc, and my doc friend was never her doc. She says the diagnosis is from her MD, and she is going to still go see the psychiatrist.
Everything I read says it is controllable through meds. People can be normal if they take there meds. However, my experiance is that many fight this. Most of what I read says that people get worse over age as well.
A good friend who has fully supported my DB efforts has now said he would get out and not try and save it. Basically saying I dodged a bullet, but since we have a child together I did get some shrapnel and should be grateful I found out now.
My dilemia is do I give up if it is the case? How could I do that when I have my own "disease" of alcholism, I don't see much difference between the two. Doesn't that make me a hypocrite? Should I forsake being a hypocrite in my own mind to be happy or should I try and deal with her disorder for a lifetime. Who knows maybe she is asking the same questions. Haha!
I really don't know much about the disorder and what kind of available treatments or possible "fixes" there are. Any help or suggestion from experianced individuals would be appreciated.
That is a tough answer that you will have to come to terms of on your own. I can see how you could feel like you did not give your W a chance because she has has a mental disorder. However, you need to put your own (and your childs) happiness first.
I now believe that my W has some kind of mental problem too. I have insisted various times that she needs to see a counselor, but it was only in the last week that she indicated that she just may do that.
It all depends upon how dedicated your W is to fighting her problem with medication. Who is to say that she stops taking the meds some day to only return to the way she has been.
You know in your own mind that you will never sip the sauce again in your life, but can you say the same about your W dedicating herself to treatment for life?
Hi Atlas- I have been trying to stay updated with you. As it relates to Bipolar/Manic-Depressive disorder, I surely can't claim to be an expert but I am getting very recent experiential credits in dealing with a roomate who has a rather severe form of this. It is for sure treatable and can be pretty well effectively managed that way but not without an awful lot of difficulties. The difficulties I think lie in the fact that it may take a while to arrive at a proper medicinal formulation and then the most troubling and extremely common situation is that sufferers of this routinely go off there meds during the manic cycle. During the manic cycle of the illness, you feel so exceptionally good about yourself that taking meds seems so passe and unneeded and interfering I guess.
As I have mentioned on my own thread, I am as patient a person as they come. I have fairly minimal exposure to this young guy with the Bi-polar (and he has ADHD as well compounding matters)and it has been a helter-skelter experience in being around him the little bit that I am. The moods of these people can turn on a dime. It is a battle that I do not envy either the person with it or the loved ones deeply affected. That's as much light as I can shed on it.
You make some interesting points regarding the potential hypocrisy of the matter.
So I get out of a couple of meeting and W has called a few hours ago. Check the VM, of course she says that she needs me to call and it is urgent, but she never says what for.
I call and she needs me to watch S for an hour and half tonight since she has to go into work. To which I reply I am business tonight and I can't, which I am. She sounds all huffy and promptly says "fine, goodbye."
I just can't believe that I make the smallest requests, such as needing S's SSN, and she can't help in any way shape or form, but she needs something larger and I don't do it, then she is snappy. Actually I can't believe she has the gal to call and ask period.
Oh well, her problem not mine. I don't need her help with anything else, my life is squared away and I'm not bothering with her anymore.
This actually made for an amazing weekend. I went dancing and had a blast. Sober friends are so much more fun then drunk friends. We had a ball. After this weekend, I'm just realizing how bad W has always treated me, and how it's just more of the same.
