Bipolar 2 partner discarded me during episode (?)
My (ex) partner (34M) of 6 months broke up with me (28F) a couple of days ago, things seemed off for just over a week beforehand and his eyes looked very tired and strange during that time. Five days before breaking up with me I questioned if he was pulling away because I felt as though he was (I have CPTSD and abandonment anxiety), he reassured me that he was not going anywhere, that he would stay with me forever, that I was his person and that he wanted to be the one to provide me with emotional safety and stability in a relationship. He even told me that he was going to get me a key cut to his house so that I could spend more nights at his and feel secure in our connection. We saw each other a couple of times in the days following and he gave me massages, physical affection, called me his “beautiful and amazing girlfriend”, had lots of emotional and passionate sex. The morning of the break up he was saying he would build something for me for a trip we had planned to take in a few weeks time, then hours later in the evening he cancelled our weekend plans over text, and when I called him he said “I don’t know what to say to you” and sounded quite angry, then he broke up with me.
He said he feels “empty”, “a husk”, “drained”, “a shell of a man” that he can’t lose little bits of himself over the next 50 years, that “it needs to end”. The emotional whiplash for me was terrible, he then became cruel telling me that it was my “entitlement” to his “time and money”, that “we aren’t compatible” and that he’s “not getting anything out of the relationship” and that he’s “back on sleeping pills after not needing them for so long because of the relationship”.
We haven’t had any contact since. This is the second time he has done this to me, although the first time he broke up with me (6 weeks ago) I blamed it on myself as we had had a couple of arguments over the weeks leading up to it which I had caused, so I apologised and promised to let things from the past that had upset me go and do better and then he finally asked me to come to his house and we reconciled very quickly. When I got there his undereyes were dark, he is normally completely clean shaven but clearly hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. He told me that he has cycles of depression and that he had thought he was a poison that he needed to push me away from. He also told me, that time, that before breaking up with me he had been experiencing suicidal thoughts and hadn’t experienced them since his marriage ended (around a year ago).
What I’ve realised is that the things he said to me a couple of days ago during breakup number 2 are exactly the same as what he said to me during breakup number 1. These are also the same things he said when I asked him why he and his ex wife got divorced.
Though he has not declared a bipolar diagnosis to me, he has a mother diagnosed with bipolar who he does not talk to due to emotional and sexual abuse he suffered from her during childhood. He told me that he has cycles of depression, for which he has CBT therapy, but that he is currently unmedicated. I do not know if he has ever been medicated, beyond what he disclosed about sleeping pills. When we first met he showered me with constant texting, over the top flattery, wanting to see me all the time, comments about how perfect I was for him and how he’d been waiting his whole life to meet me, he was extremely energised and enthusiastic, and sent me long paragraphs of what seemed like poetry about me, and expensive dates and gifts - all before he really knew me and before we became official. A friend of mine was concerned that I was being ‘love bombed’, although looking back I think it might have been hypomania.
I feel in a state of shock and confusion about the breakup, I didn’t fight for him this time like I did the first time because I was too hurt and too stunned that this had come in stark contrast to his words and behaviour, and the man I had come to love. This has really hurt and I am so thrown, I’m hoping somebody can please help me make some sense of this