Mood : Stressed and Melancoly
I know I talk about my husband a lot. I know I am very fortunate to have someone who supports me. I am not a support group kind of person because I am very passionate about people not generalizing and therapy just doesn’t work for me. I tend to get over things that happened in the past. Do they affect who I am? Well probably but talking about them is not going to change the way I feel.
This morning my husband was reading this article.
http://www.healthcentral.com/bipolar/cf/slideshows/5-rules-for-bipolar-relationships/?ap=825#slide=1
Which I thought was wonderful. He tries very hard to understand everything he can about my illness. I wish that he had an outlet but when he went to the spousal support boards he found them to be more negative then positive. I went to check it out because I thought maybe he was exaggerating because he didn’t want to use it, but it really was a bit of a downer. It seemed every other post was about someone leaving their bipolar partner or having to deal with their infidelity.
For those people that kind of support may work, however for someone like my husband he needs a place where he can rant but not be told how much better his life would be without me. So if anyone has any suggestions I would love to pass them on to him. I know dealing with me is very hard on him as he is a fixer. I may have mentioned that before I think. He always wants to be able to make me feel better, when I am depressed it is really hard on him as well as me because there is really little he can do but occasionally make me laugh or smile. Which honestly is something wondrous in of itself.
I wish he could talk to me about me, but since I have such a fragile ego I don’t think it would be helpful to either of us. As it is my self esteem is pretty much non-existent no matter how many times he tells me how beautiful or smart or wonderful he finds me. Which also drives him bonkers and gets him frustrated.
Couples therapy obviously won’t work cause our relationship is strong but he already hears everything I think and feeling and I think he needs his own private time to deal with stuff. Which honestly also scares the hell out of me. What if he sees someone who suggests he leaves me, what if he meets someone at an online support group and they fall madly in love and he leaves me.. ugh.. You see a theme here? Ya and he even knows that I am writing that and says.. that’s your bipolar brain talking.. Which he is right he knows how it works.
So I need to think about this less selfishly and hopefully find him some kind of support..
A Bipolars Reality 
I completely empathise with this. Lots of support groups are just so negative, talking about the challenges and the stresses. It may work for some, and give them an outlet to get things off their chest, but it’s not for me. I have depression rather than bipolar, but when I am good I can completely see the funny side of what I was like, and my close friends share this. It also makes it much easier to talk about really personal experiences if you can inject a bit of humour. You aren’t belittling your experience, just finding the best way to discuss. And if you can’t laugh about it, what can you do.
If your husband is a fixer, as you say, he could start his own online support group, or use the MeetUp site, to set up a social network. I’m sure he’ll get a positive response.
I hope you both find something.
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Thank you for the reply, I’ll make those suggestions to him. He might even go for one hehe
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I’ll keep my fingers crossed 🙂
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Sounds pretty good now but I can see where he needs support too. My husband vents to his close friends and having other interests helps too I think. I think I need so much attention in the relationship it drains him. I’m working on being better for US as well. I want to be more loving and meet his needs too but its a struggle daily….
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My husband sadly really has no friends. I think he does that because he knows that my paranoia gets very bad sometimes. I don’t even know where it comes from which is the bad thing.
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I don’t have any advice on resources but it is great to hear that being bipolar does not mean you can not have a good relationship. I like to tell people my marriage is perfectly imperfect. 😀
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That is a wonderful way to phrase it. I think that in most relationships there is always an anchor anyhow ours are just made from Tungsten which is the strongest metal ( I learned this today ) lol
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