u/GodNeedsHerTea

My husband has bipolar disorder and we’re separating. He actually initiated it, told me he only sees me as a friend now and that I should see other people. But when I tried to act on that and said we need to live apart, everything flipped. Suddenly I’m being unfair and being cruel. He wants the romantic relationship over but the living situation to stay the same indefinitely and I’m falling apart in the limbo. But of course I’m not allowed to talk about how that would change the dynamics in the house either.

I’ve come to understand that parts of this relationship have been abusive, controlling, and borderline dangerous. I get silenced when I speak up, it escalates if I don’t stop, and there was an incident with a pet that I can’t rationalize away amongst many other things.

But here’s what I’m struggling with that I think this community might understand better than most. He’s barely medicated and the mania destabilizes him. He’s also far from his home, and his mom passed not long ago. My brain runs constant loops about whether he’ll be ok without me. Whether he’s eating, sleeping, whether the stress of the separation will trigger an episode. Everyone in my life says his stability is not my responsibility. I know that’s true on paper. But I’ve spent years being the stabilizing force and I don’t know how to put that down. It feels like abandoning someone in a storm I can see coming.

I’m also scared of his reaction when the separation becomes fully real. I’ve seen how he gets when he feels cornered and I don’t know if the stress will make everything worse.

For those who separated from a BP spouse: how did you handle the guilt about their stability? Did you stay involved in their wellbeing at all or did you have to fully step back? Did the fear of triggering an episode keep you stuck, and how did you move through it? I love him and I hate that leaving feels like something I’m doing to him instead of something I’m doing for me.

My husband told me a while back that he only sees me as a friend and doesn’t love me like before. He even said I should see other people. But when I said that means we need to live apart, everything changed. Suddenly I was being unfair, putting him on a timeline, being rude. He wants to split romantically but keep living together indefinitely like nothing needs to change except the label.

It took me a long time to use the word abusive but I believe that’s what this is. Keeping it vague, but some of the patterns: I get silenced when I speak up. Told to shut up, stop talking, go away. If I don’t stop it escalates and it scares me. Getting in my face, slamming doors, that kind of thing. I’ve been yelled at for crying. Yelled at for being sick, like my symptoms were something I was doing to him. Blamed for stuff way outside my control. There was also an incident with one of my pets that crossed a line I can’t uncross. That’s the part I can’t rationalize away no matter how hard my brain tries, and it’s what finally got me documenting things and talking to an advocate. And through all of it there’s this whiplash where I’m perfect one day and can’t do anything right the next, until I stopped trusting my own read on reality.

The confusing part is he’s the one who brought up separating in the first place. But when I actually tried to act on it he told me to make up my mind, like the whole thing was my idea. I gave him a generous timeline to figure out living arrangements and he acted like I did something cruel to him. I’m physically sick from the limbo. Can’t eat, can’t sleep.

Here’s where I’m actually struggling and could use honest experiences. Everyone says go no contact and I can’t imagine it. I still love him. I’m scared of his reaction when the separation becomes real. The anger, or honestly worse, the warmth, because that’s what always pulls me back in. He also has some genuinely hard circumstances and my brain uses them against me constantly. Tells me I’m abandoning him, that I’m the villain. I know about trauma bonds. Knowing doesn’t touch the need to make sure he’s ok.

For those who left: did anyone else find no contact impossible at first? Is limited contact ever actually workable or does it just keep the wound open? And how did you handle the fear of their reaction? Was it as bad as you imagined?

My husband told me a while back that he only sees me as a friend and doesn’t love me like before. He even said I should see other people. But when I said that means we need to live apart, everything changed. Suddenly I was being unfair, putting him on a timeline, being rude. He wants to split romantically but keep living together indefinitely like nothing needs to change except the label.

It took me a long time to use the word abusive but I believe that’s what this is. Keeping it vague, but some of the patterns: I get silenced when I speak up. Told to shut up, stop talking, go away. If I don’t stop it escalates and it scares me. Getting in my face, slamming doors, that kind of thing. I’ve been yelled at for crying. Yelled at for being sick, like my symptoms were something I was doing to him. Blamed for stuff way outside my control. There was also an incident with one of my pets that crossed a line I can’t uncross. That’s the part I can’t rationalize away no matter how hard my brain tries, and it’s what finally got me documenting things and talking to an advocate. And through all of it there’s this whiplash where I’m perfect one day and can’t do anything right the next, until I stopped trusting my own read on reality.

The confusing part is he’s the one who brought up separating in the first place. But when I actually tried to act on it he told me to make up my mind, like the whole thing was my idea. I gave him a generous timeline to figure out living arrangements and he acted like I did something cruel to him. I’m physically sick from the limbo. Can’t eat, can’t sleep.

Here’s where I’m actually struggling and could use honest experiences. Everyone says go no contact and I can’t imagine it. I still love him. I’m scared of his reaction when the separation becomes real. The anger, or honestly worse, the warmth, because that’s what always pulls me back in. He also has some genuinely hard circumstances and my brain uses them against me constantly. Tells me I’m abandoning him, that I’m the villain. I know about trauma bonds. Knowing doesn’t touch the need to make sure he’s ok.

For those who left: did anyone else find no contact impossible at first? Is limited contact ever actually workable or does it just keep the wound open? And how did you handle the fear of their reaction? Was it as bad as you imagined?

For weeks it’s been the same exhausting pattern. He’d threaten to leave me, almost daily, tell me he doesn’t see a future with us, that he’s done. And then, sometimes within the same hour, he’d be talking about the house we should buy together, where we’d live next, like none of it had been said. Up and down, every day. I never knew where I stood, and it was slowly breaking me.

Then we had what felt like an honest, gentle talk. For a moment I thought I’d finally reached him, that we could separate kindly and stay in each other’s lives. I felt relief. But the confusion came right back, the next day he was talking about buying a house again.

And the truth had already been showing itself. He’s admitted the romantic spark is gone, that he doesn’t see me that way and hasn’t in a long time. We haven’t been intimate in about two years. He’s even suggested I should see other people. After an explosive fight recently, he watched me drown in grief and offered no comfort at all. And yet he still wants us to live together and buy a house, mostly, I think, for what I bring financially and the company. When I asked if there was any reason he wanted me around besides splitting costs, he basically said no, and laughed.

Here’s what I’ve landed on, and what hurts the most: it is genuinely unkind to string someone along when you don’t romantically love them. To ask a person who still loves you to stay, share a home, plan a future, while you feel nothing for them that way, that isn’t friendship or practicality. It’s using someone’s love against them. And I can’t keep living inside that.

So I’m giving up the relationship now. Not because I stopped loving him, I haven’t, but because love isn’t enough when only one person is in it, and staying would mean letting my heart break a little more every day.

If you’ve been here, choosing to leave something you still love because staying was quietly destroying you, I’d really value hearing how you got through it. I’m grieving, but I think I’m finally seeing clearly.

I know I post here too often and I finally feel like I’m getting myself ready to go but things like this make it so much harder.
Also I know it sounds weird but places like this and a couple other subreddits are my only good reality check or grounding time.

For weeks it’s been the same exhausting pattern. He’d threaten to leave me, almost daily, tell me he doesn’t see a future with us, that he’s done. And then, sometimes within the same hour, he’d be talking about the house we should buy together, where we’d live next, like none of it had been said. Up and down, every day. I never knew where I stood, and it was slowly breaking me.

Then we had what felt like an honest, gentle talk. For a moment I thought I’d finally reached him, that we could separate kindly and stay in each other’s lives. I felt relief. But the confusion came right back, the next day he was talking about buying a house again.

And the truth had already been showing itself. He’s admitted the romantic spark is gone, that he doesn’t see me that way and hasn’t in a long time. We haven’t been intimate in about two years. He’s even suggested I should see other people. After an explosive fight recently, he watched me drown in grief and offered no comfort at all. And yet he still wants us to live together and buy a house, mostly, I think, for what I bring financially and the company. When I asked if there was any reason he wanted me around besides splitting costs, he basically said no, and laughed.

Here’s what I’ve landed on, and what hurts the most: it is genuinely unkind to string someone along when you don’t romantically love them. To ask a person who still loves you to stay, share a home, plan a future, while you feel nothing for them that way, that isn’t friendship or practicality. It’s using someone’s love against them. And I can’t keep living inside that.

So I’m giving up the relationship now. Not because I stopped loving him, I haven’t, but because love isn’t enough when only one person is in it, and staying would mean letting my heart break a little more every day.

If you’ve been here, choosing to leave something you still love because staying was quietly destroying you, I’d really value hearing how you got through it. I’m grieving, but I think I’m finally seeing clearly.

I know I post here too often and I finally feel like I’m getting myself ready to go but things like this make it so much harder.
Also I know it sounds weird but places like this and a couple other subreddits are my only good reality check or grounding time.

For weeks it’s been the same exhausting pattern. He’d threaten to leave me, almost daily, tell me he doesn’t see a future with us, that he’s done. And then, sometimes within the same hour, he’d be talking about the house we should buy together, where we’d live next, like none of it had been said. Up and down, every day. I never knew where I stood, and it was slowly breaking me.

Then we had what felt like an honest, gentle talk. For a moment I thought I’d finally reached him, that we could separate kindly and stay in each other’s lives. I felt relief. But the confusion came right back, the next day he was talking about buying a house again.

And the truth had already been showing itself. He’s admitted the romantic spark is gone, that he doesn’t see me that way and hasn’t in a long time. We haven’t been intimate in about two years. He’s even suggested I should see other people. After an explosive fight recently, he watched me drown in grief and offered no comfort at all. And yet he still wants us to live together and buy a house, mostly, I think, for what I bring financially and the company. When I asked if there was any reason he wanted me around besides splitting costs, he basically said no, and laughed.

Here’s what I’ve landed on, and what hurts the most: it is genuinely unkind to string someone along when you don’t romantically love them. To ask a person who still loves you to stay, share a home, plan a future, while you feel nothing for them that way, that isn’t friendship or practicality. It’s using someone’s love against them. And I can’t keep living inside that.

So I’m giving up the relationship now. Not because I stopped loving him, I haven’t, but because love isn’t enough when only one person is in it, and staying would mean letting my heart break a little more every day.

If you’ve been here, choosing to leave something you still love because staying was quietly destroying you, I’d really value hearing how you got through it. I’m grieving, but I think I’m finally seeing clearly.

I know I post here too often and I finally feel like I’m getting myself ready to go but things like this make it so much harder.
Also I know it sounds weird but places like this and a couple other subreddits are my only good reality check or grounding time.

I (30sF) need an outside gut-check because my head is spinning.

In the span of about a day, my husband told me: the romantic spark is gone, that I should maybe see other people, that we’re “best friends,” and then later, casually, referred to us as a couple and talked about us buying a house together to save money.

And this isn’t the first time. Two weeks ago, after an explosive fight, he said we were done. The next day he said he was going to pack and leave, and didn’t. The day after that we had a talk where he confirmed it was best to part, and then two hours later he was asking where we’d buy a house.

When I asked if there’s any reason he wants me around besides splitting a mortgage, he laughed and basically said no, and made a joke about it. He keeps wanting to take me to expensive dinners, which I don’t even want. But he also gets a little sad/quiet when I bring up living separately.

I told him I think we should live apart after our lease, stay friendly, maybe live nearby. He seemed to agree in the moment and then circled back to “but we should still live together to save money.”

I’m exhausted from the back-and-forth and I genuinely can’t tell what’s going on or where I stand. AIO for being confused and wanting to live apart, or is this as contradictory as it feels?

I’m posting because I’ve been untangling something painful and I think some of you will understand it better than most.

My partner has bipolar disorder. I’ve loved him through years of it, the cycling, the lows, the times he couldn’t function. I always wanted to be understanding, to hold space for the illness, to not be the person who blames someone for something they didn’t choose. And I still believe that compassion matters. Mental illness is real and it deserves care, not judgment.

But here’s the thing I’ve had to face: somewhere along the way, my compassion stopped being something I gave freely and started being something that was used against me. Every time he was cruel, the illness became the explanation. Every time he snapped, or shut me down, or did something that hurt, I told myself “it’s the bipolar, it’s not really him.” And he let me believe that. He leaned on it. The diagnosis became a shield that nothing could get past, including accountability.

What I’ve slowly realized is that there’s a difference between symptoms and treatment of me as a person. The illness might explain a mood. It doesn’t explain contempt, or the silent treatment, or refusing to ever apologize, or making me feel like everything is my fault. Or violence, threats, and violence towards animals. Those are choices about how to treat someone. And when I asked him to get help, real, consistent help, therapy, a prescriber, anger management, he wouldn’t. He’d promise in a crisis and then never follow through, because as long as I kept excusing it, he didn’t have to change anything.

The hardest part is that wanting to be a good, understanding partner is exactly what kept me stuck. My empathy was the lever. The more I tried to understand him, the more I let slide.

I’ve also seen where this road leads if you don’t get off it. My dad spent 35 years married to an abusive woman, and I think a huge part of why he stayed was this same fear, the fear of hurting or abandoning someone with a real illness. He let compassion become a life sentence. Watching that taught me that “but they’re struggling” can keep you trapped for decades if you let it. I don’t want to lose 35 years to the same trap he did.

I want to be clear this isn’t “bipolar people are abusers”, that’s not it at all, and it’s not true. It’s more that I needed to say out loud: having an illness and being accountable for how you treat people are two separate things. One deserves endless compassion. The other still has to be earned and shown, no matter what diagnosis is in the picture.

If you’ve been on either side of this, I’d really value hearing from you. How did you tell the difference between the illness and the behavior? How do you hold compassion without letting it become an excuse?

I don’t even know how to start this. We’ve been together about a decade, married for most of it, and he was my first relationship. For a long time I thought what we had was just normal, hard sometimes, but normal. Lately the fog has been lifting and I can’t put it back. I’ve posted here before about last week and my mind has been swinging around like it’s on a roller coaster since then.

One of the things I’m most ashamed of is how little I do anymore. I don’t cook because I’m scared I’ll do it wrong, put the pot away wrong, wash it wrong. I shrank my hobbies because what if I make a mess and he gets upset. I ask permission to use the bathroom or get something from the car. I’ve gotten so small. I didn’t even realize how frozen I’d become until I started saying it out loud, and now I can’t unsee it. It’s not that he’s told me to do all this. It’s that I’ve learned, over years, that having needs or taking up space gets met with anger or contempt, so I just stopped.

The hardest part is that I keep fighting myself. He’s not cruel all the time, maybe 75-80% of the time he’s calm or even sweet, and that’s exactly what keeps me doubting. My brain keeps reaching for “it’s not really that bad” or “this isn’t really who he is.” I have a video of him hurting one of our pets and even then part of me tries to explain it away. I look at violent stories online and think mine doesn’t count.

Tonight we talked about buying a house, which he wants badly. I finally said, calmly, that I’d want to see some things change first, the anger, the threats, the criticism, before we tie ourselves together financially. I said I sometimes feel my thoughts and feelings don’t matter to him and I’d like to feel valued. He laughed at me. Called me selfish, said I do the bare minimum, said it’s been five years and it’s “not working” and that I’m always miserable and he’s just set in his ways. When I named the harm, he told me I was the problem for minding it. I stayed calm and basically said I’m glad we found this out before buying a house. But inside I’m wrecked.

And underneath all of it is this emptiness. I love him, or I love who he was, or who I thought he was, and I keep wishing I could wake up and this was all a bad dream and we were still dating and he was perfect. Now we’re “talking normally” again and I’m split in two, one part hoping he’ll be kind, one part knowing it’s probably just the cycle resetting.

Honestly, I think what I’m really looking for is some community and support. I feel pretty alone in this, and I’ve become so isolated. If you’ve been where I am, I’d love to hear from you, how you got through it, how you stopped fighting what you already knew, or just that you understand. Did the doubt ever ease? Thank you so much for reading. It helps just to write it down somewhere people might get it.

I don’t even know how to start this. We’ve been together about a decade, married for most of it, and he was my first relationship. For a long time I thought what we had was just normal, hard sometimes, but normal. Lately the fog has been lifting and I can’t put it back.

One of the things I’m most ashamed of is how little I do anymore. I don’t cook because I’m scared I’ll do it wrong, put the pot away wrong, wash it wrong. I shrank my hobbies because what if I make a mess and he gets upset. I ask permission to use the bathroom or get something from the car. I’ve gotten so small. I didn’t even realize how frozen I’d become until I started saying it out loud, and now I can’t unsee it. It’s not that he’s told me to do all this. It’s that I’ve learned, over years, that having needs or taking up space gets met with anger or contempt, so I just stopped.

The hardest part is that I keep fighting myself. He’s not cruel all the time, maybe 75-80% of the time he’s calm or even sweet, and that’s exactly what keeps me doubting. My brain keeps reaching for “it’s not really that bad” or “this isn’t really who he is.” I have a video of him hurting one of our pets and even then part of me tries to explain it away. I look at violent stories online and think mine doesn’t count.

Tonight we talked about buying a house, which he wants badly. I finally said, calmly, that I’d want to see some things change first, the anger, the threats, the criticism, before we tie ourselves together financially. I said I sometimes feel my thoughts and feelings don’t matter to him and I’d like to feel valued. He laughed at me. Called me selfish, said I do the bare minimum, said it’s been five years and it’s “not working” and that I’m always miserable and he’s just set in his ways. When I named the harm, he told me I was the problem for minding it. I stayed calm and basically said I’m glad we found this out before buying a house. But inside I’m wrecked.

And underneath all of it is this emptiness. I love him, or I love who he was, or who I thought he was, and I keep wishing I could wake up and this was all a bad dream and we were still dating and he was perfect. Now we’re “talking normally” again and I’m split in two, one part hoping he’ll be kind, one part knowing it’s probably just the cycle resetting.

Honestly, I think what I’m really looking for is some community and support. I feel pretty alone in this, and I’ve become so isolated. If you’ve been where I am, I’d love to hear from you, how you got through it, how you stopped fighting what you already knew, or just that you understand. Did the doubt ever ease? Thank you so much for reading. It helps just to write it down somewhere people might get it.

Hi everyone.
In my last post, I shared that my partner was violent with our cats once before and had been again or tried to earlier this week.
I also spoke about his bipolar.

Anyways, yesterday evening we talked. I said he had essentially been ignoring me and I wanted to know what he wanted. I said we are in a bad cycle and I just want him to be happy. He said he thinks it’d be best for both of us if we separate.

I was strong at first but I’ve been breaking down all night and all day. My brain is desperately reaching for anything I can do to keep him with me.

This is crazy but I feel like I’ll die if I lose him.
I was thinking about how everyone said he’s dangerous and could harm me and my brain literally has been telling me I would rather one day he finishes me than me being without him.

How do I get my brain to stop this? Leaving is his choice. I’m just breaking inside and I feel like I’m losing my mind.

My husband has bipolar and was diagnosed a long time ago. Medicated on and off. I told him he needed to get on medication when he threw a box at me. Well, not at me. But it was pointed at me long enough for me to run away. He then blamed me for it and still does.

Anyways. I post often on the bipolarso’s subreddit often - but I’m still confused.
Idk if it’s his bipolar or if it’s just straight up abuse.

Most recently, in January he kicked our kitten and I had to bring them to my parents.
He has ripped things out of my hands. He will get in my face to yell. He tells me I ruin everything. I can’t do anything right. Also under his breath that I’m an idiot. He won’t talk to me for days unless I tell him it’s not ok. I thought we were getting better because I can get him to calm down after a few hours now instead of a few days.
He used to give me hope by saying he would get the therapy and psychiatric help he needs. Somehow that’s dwindled down to an appointment with a GP.

He goes for so well and then boom a bomb goes off.
This last weekend he said he was going to beat the shit out of our other cat. I had to physically stop him. When I asked if he got her, he said no but next time he will.
Two days later I confronted him about it and said it’s unfair that I don’t get to feel safe. He yelled that he’s never hit anyone and no hit has landed. I reminded him of when he hurt one of our cats months back. He said when did that happen I don’t remember that. I admitted to him I have the security video and he went silent. He said he wants me to get rid of one of the cats. I said no because he rages and then loves them. Says he doesn’t remember life before them.
He said he would leave. I said that’s his choice to make. He said I was choosing the cats over him. I said I’m not he’s being violent.
He ignored me for the rest of the day.

When do I know if this is abuse or if it’s his condition?
Do I push more for a care team or do I have to sneak away? I hate the idea of sneak away because I feel like he deserves more than that but everything I read says I’ll be in danger.

Thoughts?

Update, same day, hours later:
Things have stayed intense and I’m more convinced this is mania, not just him being difficult. A few things piled on since I posted.
There was a serious safety event in our building tonight, a dispute between neighbors that escalated to someone waving a gun in our shared backyard. After it happened, while police were actively searching the neighborhood for the suspect, a cop came to our door. He said our basement door was unlocked and that someone was on the loose. I was scared and offered to let them check our basement. I know you’re normally not supposed to let police in without a warrant, but in that moment, with an armed suspect loose nearby and being told our door was open, I was frightened and not thinking clearly. My husband talked over me, said no, and afterward snapped at me to never let police in without a warrant.
Then later he told me I could have gotten him shot by offering to let them in, because he’s an owner and if I said yes and he said no, they might have shot him. That isn’t how any of this works, and what really got me is that he was all for calling the cops on our neighbors not long ago. So police are a deadly threat when I’m scared and want help, but a tool he can use when he’s in conflict. It doesn’t hold together. He keeps rewriting things so that my scared, reasonable reactions become the thing that endangered him, and I end up feeling stupid and at fault.
This is the pattern all day. I have an instinct, it’s reasonable, and he flips it so I’m the problem. The cats, the housework, now the police. The contradictions are what make me think this is an episode and not just a bad mood, because the logic shifts constantly to whatever makes him right and me wrong.
I feel stupid, foolish, angry, and honestly I want out. I also know that’s the exhaustion and fear talking and I’m not making any decisions tonight. But the swing between the sweet man from a few days ago and this is wrecking me.
For those who’ve lived through a partner’s manic episode, does this kind of shifting, blaming, contradicting logic sound familiar? How did you keep your own sense of reality intact when they kept rewriting events to make you the problem? Thank you to anyone who’s read this far.

My husband has bipolar. He was first medicated years ago after his anger got physical with me during an episode, and that scared us both enough that he got on something.
The problem is he’s never had a real psychiatrist. His current meds were prescribed by his brother in law, who is a neurologist, not a psychiatrist, and there’s no one actually monitoring him or adjusting anything. Most I’ve read call this an introductory dosage
It’s late spring/early summer, which has always been his worst time, and I think he’s cycling. He’s been fixated on a noise dispute with our neighbors. He tracks every sound they make, calls it “a case,” and keeps talking about a restraining order that isn’t realistic.
He’s pressuring me to be as invested in it as he is and gets cold and angry when I’m not. I’m supportive of the action he had taken when it got to be too much but this continuation is difficult.

Last night it boiled over. One of our cats was jumping at the window like she always does, and he threatened to beat her, then threw a hard toy at her with enough force to break it. He missed her, thank god. When I asked if he got her he said no, then said “but next time I will.” I ended up hiding in the basement with both cats. I stood up to him thought which I’ve never done before. I told him not okay multiple times to his face and he couldn’t really say anything in response except tell me to get rid of them. I caught myself bracing to be hit, which I think is muscle memory from before. I’ve never been hit, he’s raised something to throw it at me and change direction, he’s stormed to like body check me when he’s yelling, and ripped something out of my hand but never a hit.

This morning he’s just silent and cold and ignoring me. A few days ago he was giddy and sweet, excited about the cats, sad he couldn’t come to a vet visit. The swing between the two versions is what’s wrecking my head.

A few things I’m hoping people here can speak to:
Does this read like mania to those of you who’ve been through it, or am I reaching?

How do you get a partner who won’t go to a real psychiatrist into actual care? I can’t be the one managing his meds and I know that, but I don’t know how to move him toward help.

How do you keep yourself, and in my case the pets, safe during an episode without it turning into a war?
How do you cope with the back and forth between the person you love and the person who scares you?
I’m exhausted and a little lost and just want to hear from people who get it. Thanks for reading

Update:

Things have stayed intense and I’m more convinced this is mania, not just him being difficult. A few things piled on since I posted.
There was a serious safety event in our building tonight, a dispute between neighbors that escalated to someone waving a gun in our shared backyard. After it happened, while police were actively searching the neighborhood for the suspect, a cop came to our door. He said our basement door was unlocked and that someone was on the loose. I was scared and offered to let them check our basement. I know you’re normally not supposed to let police in without a warrant, but in that moment, with an armed suspect loose nearby and being told our door was open, I was frightened and not thinking clearly. My husband talked over me, said no, and afterward snapped at me to never let police in without a warrant.
Then later he told me I could have gotten him shot by offering to let them in, because he’s an owner and if I said yes and he said no, they might have shot him. That isn’t how any of this works, and what really got me is that he was all for calling the cops on our neighbors not long ago. So police are a deadly threat when I’m scared and want help, but a tool he can use when he’s in conflict. It doesn’t hold together. He keeps rewriting things so that my scared, reasonable reactions become the thing that endangered him, and I end up feeling stupid and at fault.
This is the pattern all day. I have an instinct, it’s reasonable, and he flips it so I’m the problem. The cats, the housework, now the police. The contradictions are what make me think this is an episode and not just a bad mood, because the logic shifts constantly to whatever makes him right and me wrong.
I feel stupid, foolish, angry, and honestly I want out. I also know that’s the exhaustion and fear talking and I’m not making any decisions tonight. But the swing between the sweet man from a few days ago and this is wrecking me.
For those who’ve lived through a partner’s manic episode, does this kind of shifting, blaming, contradicting logic sound familiar? How did you keep your own sense of reality intact when they kept rewriting events to make you the problem? Thank you to anyone who’s read this far.
I also feel crazy because he’s calm one moment after. I feel like I’m in a tornado

I’ve been with my husband for years and I love him. He has bipolar, and I’ve spent a long time learning about it, accommodating it, making excuses for the hard moments. But lately something shifted. He used to eventually acknowledge when he’d hurt me. Now he either says he doesn’t remember, or he justifies it, or he laughs at me when I try to talk about my feelings. This week he gave me the silent treatment for hours, told me I’m lazy and that he feels stuck because of me, and told me to go away when I cried.

To be clear, this isn’t only words. There have been moments that genuinely scared me. things thrown, a moment one of my pets wasn’t safe, being told to leave my own home while I cried. I’ve even found myself documenting things, which I think tells me something. I keep wanting to downplay it, and I’m trying really hard not to do that anymore.

I grew up with a mother who was the same way, and I was taught my whole life to absorb other people’s pain and never make it about my own needs. So I’m having a really hard time trusting my own perception. Part of me keeps asking if I’m the crazy one, if I’m making too much of it.

I’m not asking how to support him better right now. I’m asking the ones who’ve been here: how did you start trusting your own reality again? How did you deal with the guilt. Especially when he’s sacrificed things to be with you? And for those who found a way to take care of yourselves, what did that first step look like?

Thanks again