Divorce due to mental illness?
That question may never be answered to my satisfaction. This rather long, tragic story is why I hate mental illness. I'm bipolar with GAD, dysthymia and a touch of OCD. Years ago I was a staff member of a forum for bipolar support. During that time I met a lady there who was diagnosed bipolar with psychotic features and Borderline Personality. What started out as a friendly online relationship grew into an intimate one. We met and spent a week together here and things were very nice. A short time later she left her home in OK to be with me here in CO. After living together a year and a half we married. It was the happiest time of my life and she said the same.
She told me of her past episodes hearing voices and ECT treatments but for the first 3 yrs we were together she had no such episodes. She stopped drinking once we got together and her family said they hadn't seen her so healthy and happy before. Life was good. I was basically symptom free.
Then she began having episodes every 6 months or so but haldol would bring her out of them and hospitalization wasn't required. She wasn't receiving any therapy for her Borderline because she didn't want to accept the pdoc's diagnosis. She started telling me about her nightmares of me kicking her out and divorcing her. I tried my best to assure her that would never happen. I loved her with all my heart. The nightmares continued.
In Feb. of '09 she was having an episode and started the haldol with a high dose of seroquel but she was unusually quiet and withdrawn. She got up off the couch next to me and went into the kitchen and then headed into our bedroom. A few minutes later I heard her singing softly. I thought that was a good sign but when I walked into the bedroom I noticed she was sitting in the bathtub holding 2 large knives. When I asked what she was doing she looked at me with terror in her eyes, pointed the knives at me and told me to stay away, that I was "one of them."
I ended up having to call 911 after trying to convince her who I was. An awful story I know. It was several hours before she remembered who I was after being hospitalized. Once she came out of that state she didn't remember a thing. The hospital staff had told her what happened and once she was home I never brought the subject up again but it did shake me up pretty bad.
Things returned to normal, or so I thought. A few months later we planned a visit at her daughter's place in MO. She called and made reservations at a nearly hotel where her daughter lived. That night she showed signs of an impending episode but she said she was okay.
The next morning I left for the gym. She kissed me and said she loved me, like every other day. When I got home there was note saying she was leaving me and not to try and find her, that she had fallen out of love with me. I called her Mom in OK and she said Julie was on her way there. She thought Julie was having an episode.
Julie called me from the road and it didn't even sound like her. She said she wanted a divorce and was cold as ice. After that she refused to talk to me except for short emails. I couldn't get through to her so I filed for divorce. All I know about her since she left is that she started drinking again and stopped paying her credit card bills. I've had collection agencies calling looking for her but I'm not liable for any of that.
She was the love of my life and I still miss her. I thought that maybe she would come out of whatever it was that turned her against me but that didn't happen. All she ever said was that her feelings towards me changed a few months before she left, around the time of the bathtub incident.
Since her leaving me depression has been a battle. A myriad of feelings have come and gone in waves. I've wondered what I did to make her hate me. Replaying scenes in my head and coming up empty inside. I've wished her well and let her know I'll always love her, that she was the one for me.
AA saved me 20 yrs ago and when I saw that my marriage was ending it saved me again.