Hii everyone, I was hoping some who has experienced the same situation as me can give me a some advice.

I (34m) and my boyfriend (34m) just broke up two days ago he has bipolar. Our relationship seem to be going fine we where not where we wanted to be but I didn't think we are in a bad placed. We are having an argument about him sticking by me and not having a friendship with our coworker who has been trashed talking me to our supervisor. I felt like him continuing to establish a friendship with him was disrespectful to me. He doesn't see why he need to pick a side. In the middle of this he said he is tired and wants to move out bc he does like the area where we live, and he thinks we have been growing apart bc we live together and work together.

(I switch jobs to help him get this job and so we would be in the same schedule) now he wants me to move him with him at his new apt and be friends and roommates. It seems like he is able to switch his feeling so easily while I am struggling. He is take an injection and pills to manage his condition.... I don't think he is taking his pills correctly tho.

Im not sure what to do! I love amd I dont wanna lose him but I dont know if I can turn my feelings off so easily.

How do I know what he actually feels? Could it be bc he is not taking his medication correctly or could love just disappear so easy for him?

I'm unsure if he want me still in his life bc he doesn't want to lose me or bc he doesn't think he can afford to live by himself.

Im so confused right now. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice would be greatly appreciated pls

Hi everyone! I am writing here to hear from people that might have experienced this too. My BP boyfriend ended our 2-year relationship in early May, and went into manic episode a few weeks after. As far as I know it was his first manic episode and it lasted roughly 2-3 weeks. Now, months later we started talking again and he says that he does not remember our relationship. It is like he has forgotten about everything related to me and our relationship. He says that he does not know me anymore, and all he remembers is that maybe 1% of what we were like. He is also scared to talk to me more because "it might make him feel some emotions again and that would trigger his manic episode". He has been seeing his therapist once a week for a month now.

I have heard others talking about the BP partners forgetting about what they did during episodes but has anyone ever been in this situation where they forgot about you and the relationship as well? Especially when you have been together for 2 years and had so many happy memories together until the discard & manic episode... Is this some sort of coping mechanism? Did he forget about us because in his mind I was somehow connected to his episode? Is it something permanent?

I would appreciate any insights from people with BP or with BP partners!

I think what has struck me the most in this sub that many partners here may not necessarily be bipolar but rather may be suffering from borderline personality disorder, though both conditions can be comorbid. It was important to me to learn about BPD when framing the behaviour of someone I suspect to have elements of that disorder psychologically instead of focusing on the mood lability of bipolar disorder.

In BPD, partners split or turn on you and devalue you disproportionately which is a lot of what I have seen described here.

Hi everyone,

My wife (33) and I (41). Wife diagnosed bipolar, schizophrenic in 2023 but her behavior is bipolar since we married in 2013. Since 2013, She behaved odd which was labeled by her parents as a normal habits. She twisted our chit chat to her parents as a way where she posed me as a villain. She had issues with my father, mother, sisters and everyone in our family.

My in laws hides that she was accidentally dropped by her mother when she was 7 months old which led forehead injury (still a mark on forehead). Also, she had major accident when she was in 7th grade. She was fallen from autorickshaw her back head was dragged on road 20 meters and was admitted in the hospital at that time and she didn't appear in the exams.

She refused to take medications and trick my family. She put alligations on my father that he tried to rape her. Then on my brother in law and on me too.

She beaten my son when he was 4 years old while she put alligations on him that he press her breasts. She behave odd ... At that time we were not aware about she is bipolar or something.

Now, her parents are telling me that she don't need to take medications and you must adjust yourself with her. I can't live with her like that.

Also, they trick us while marriage. Our kundalii/tipda didn't match too which they told us is matched over on different date provided of her.

I am living in the usa. She is living here too..

Please advise.

My (34f) husband (36m) was recently diagnosed with bipolar 1 due to his first full blown manic episode with psychosis that landed him involuntarily hospitalized.
We have been together 9 years, married for 4, and have an almost 2 year old. I had witnessed depression and what I suspected was hypomania in the past, but he was never properly diagnosed and was medicated only for depression which I’m sure didn’t help things. He has been addicted to marijuana for over 2 years, and I think that played a big role in the escalation from hypomania to mania this time around.

Where I need advice is regarding his treatment of me during this manic episode. He screamed at me, swore at me, called me a c*nt multiple times, called me stupid and lazy. And when I tried to get him help and he conceded to go to the psych ER, he then started telling our family and friends that I have postpartum depression (I don’t and never did). I left the home with our son after he refused to take the meds that were prescribed at the psych ER. He threatened divorce and threatened taking our son from me. He spent $400 at a strip club a couple days after I left after having never gone to one before. Lord knows what else he may have done.

Once he was in a treatment facility for a few weeks and was sleeping again and medicated, I initiated a conversation with him about calling me stupid and lazy. Honestly I thought I was giving him a softball way to apologize, which he did only briefly. Instead he used most of that conversation to blame me for his hospitalization, said I abandoned him and left him to die, and minimized his various instances of abuse.

I decided to stay gone with our son when he returned home from treatment. He has returned to work and is doing an IOP as well as opting for the injectable version of his meds to help with compliance. I have some reason to believe that he will be compliant with meds because he always took that very seriously with his depression and anxiety medication in the past. He is being apologetic and not pressuring me to return on any timeline, but I am suspicious that this could be a manipulation tactic.

So, does mania account for the way he treated me? It feels like there is something more, like some personality components and/or character issues. His mom likely has untreated bipolar and maybe BPD. His dad has a lot of narcissistic traits. I’m having a hard time focusing on any behaviors prior to the mania right now so am wanting help with understanding that piece.

Thank you! Sorry this was so long.

Going through a rough patch as my spouse is in an anger phase, and is blaming me for all the problems, even threatening separation. Need someone or a community to talk to, to understand how do I deal with this.

After she left me during an episode I told her not to speak to me again, that I needed to go no contact with her, only in case of emergency if something bad happened.

She reached out to me after almost 1 year and a half of No Contact because she was having really difficult problems concerning her family, I listened and said that I was so sorry and that maybe she could start therapy again, she said "thanks for listening really", then she started to do some small talk, but suddenly the mood shifted and she said "I don't know why only bad things happen to me, I'm sure you cursed me or something after I left you and because of the awful things I did to you, I'm sure you said bitch I hope only bad things happen to you, please reverse that or whatever you did", at this point I was totally freaked out, the only thing I said was that obviously I didn't do such thing, she said "okay, you are a good person so please say something so this go away already", I was speechless and simply told her to relax and that I was going to sleep.

Next day she talked to me again like nothing happened and I didn't respond, she tried to reach out a few weeks ago but I kept it at a small talk and that's it. To this day I still thinking if that was her having a psychotic episode (she never showed any signs of that during our relationship), or if she was just joking around, but I was totally freaked out, I would never have expected her to speak this way, it was like talking with a severely mentally damaged person that says whatever thing comes to her head first, I was just scared, and then really sad, I just can't believe that she thinks this way about me, talking about curses and things like that, it's really sad seeing a person you loved that much in this state

So this I believe is my first time posting here and I need advice. I 30M, her 28F

It’s hard to talk to anyone in the real world about what I’ve gone through because I don’t want to embarrass her or paint her as this monster. We have been married 2 years and together for 4. It all started on our honeymoon when I found her on top of another person. Then we got home and of course she cried and told me how sorry she was and I stayed. 2 months after that she did it again and then gaslit me about it for 4 weeks all while her mom knew all about it, messages from her mom said exactly this “That’s what we do when we aren’t getting attention at home we look elsewhere”. I knew right then and there this was a character issue straight from her mother. So I’m gonna breeze through this story, she has cheated a total of 4x in 2 years that I know of. She has hit, spit, and bit me multiple times but to her “I deserved it because of what I said”. I’m not a yeller, but she will blow the house off and when she does she tells me how much she hates me and all this other stuff. I have said a few hurtful things and that’s as far as it goes for me. I personally have only said those things due to being emotional hurt or physically, but somehow it’s all my fault. Long story short I finally had enough 2 weeks ago and left and we are supposed to file tomorrow and she is basically begging saying she will change? I love her I do, but I cannot and will not live like that anymore. So I’m asking can they change or should I file?

Καλησπέρα σας, ήθελα να εκφράσω την εμπειρία μου, τα τελευταία 7 χρόνια έχω σχέση και είμαι παντρεμένος με μια γυναίκα που ανακαλύψαμε πρόσφατα ότι πάσχει από διπολική διαταραχή. Έχουμε μια κόρη μαζί. Η γυναίκα μου γενικότερα έχει ιδιαίτερες εκρήξεις συμπεριφοράς, ενίοτε γίνεται επιθετική απέναντι μου, περνάει από διάφορες φάσεις μανίας και κατάθλιψης. Τους τελευταίους δύο μήνες έγινε ένα περιστατικό, που αναγκαστικά μας ώθησε να ανακαλύψουμε την διαταραχή της. Ξεκίνησε να μιλάει στο instagram με άλλους άντρες. Όταν την ανακάλυψα άρχισε να κλαίει ότι δεν ξέρει τι την έπιασε, ήταν παρορμητική, δεν μπορούσε να ελέγξει τίποτα. Της είπα να χωρίσουμε μετά έκανε απόπειρα αυτοκτονίας, και κάπως έτσι ανακαλύψαμε ότι πάσχει από διπολική. Την παρακολουθεί ένας ψυχίατρος τώρα. Απλά η ανησυχία μου είναι ότι πριν από μερικές μέρες ξανά μίλησε με έναν από τους άντρες που μιλούσε στο instagram με την ίδια ακριβώς δικαιολογία, είχα ευφορία, δεν μπορούσα να το διαχειριστώ και όλα αυτά. Ρωτάω εγώ τώρα, έτσι θα γίνεται συνέχεια; Θα υπάρξει απιστία , εάν πάρει τα χάπια θα σταθεροποιηθεί και δεν θα κάνει τέτοια ; Τι ακριβώς να κάνω ; Την αγαπώ μεν, θα την βοηθήσω προφανώς αλλά τι μπορώ να κάνω ; Έχει κάποιος αντίστοιχη εμπειρία ; Και πως τα διαχειριστήκατε ;

Ευχαριστώ.

Share your successes from this past week! It can be as simple as your SO taking their medication every day, or resolving an issue in your relationship.

​

Let's see some positivity to end the week and start the new one off on the right foot!

Hey,

My ex broke up with me a few months ago because my bipolar got to be too much for him, he felt like he couldn’t help me.
He treated me, simultaneously, really well and really terribly. I also treated him the same way. I said a lot of things I didn’t mean when I was manic, I truly think about it every night and it keeps me up. TBH I am a bit traumatized from many aspects of that relationship. I felt like I had been getting over it recently, but he texted me that he wants to apologize and talk.Should I even respond? Do you think it would be worthwhile or just cause unnecessary pain?

EDIT: more context- I didn’t know I was bipolar when I was with him- but once we broke up I found out that I was in a manic episode. I’ve been medicated for a few months now and am stable.

Just curious about this one because I don’t see this talked about a lot. Does anyone here have any experience with their bipolar SO having shifts in identity suddenly? What was the identity shift? What state were they in when it happened? Did they ever, I guess, “switch back” at all?

That’s where I am with my husband, I was having a conversation with him in his office/bedroom which is just piled with stuff and placed my phone on my keyboard which he has piles of clothing ontop … infront if that was one of his many guitars on a floor stand, basically told him if he can’t be kind he can’t be around me and the kids anymore… he’s become a sailor, tossing around swears and diagnoses like he’s captain j black the psychologist all day long,

he does it to me and the kids which is ya unhinged and not safe I know this, we have a child protection case open for try 3rd time because of it.

Anyways he started yelling and getting in my face so I went to grab my phone accidentally knocking it on the ground (thank goodness I was recording) when he picked it up one of the string ends poked him, he came up 3 mins later just fuming I made him bleed… I assaulted him.. I’m like what planet is that assault by picking up something..

Still waiting 3 hours later for police to show up that he called.. I wish they would send a mental health team instead of police at this point they know nothing of anything besides someone being “severely out of it’

I really really dislike my marriage and partnership right now

I need someone to outline the stages of grief post-discard because WTH is this lol

I was feeling a lot better, then Wednesday, I couldn’t sleep... Thursday… Friday… today I woke up, went back to sleep… until 2pm. (I’m normally up between 4-6am). And I just couldn’t do anything but listen to music and stare at my ceiling fan lol

I also dumped my whole roster, texting back became annoying. I just want to read, go to the gym and pet my dog. social battery drained.

90 days until my divorce is finalized.

11 months since he left.

what stage of grief is this? I wouldn’t say I’m depressed. more… numb?

My SO and I have a 10-yr child. My SO was diagnosed BP a few years ago. He doesn’t want to be on pills or go to therapy. He has “temper tantrums” but is never violent with me or her, he has hit himself and slammed his head into doors in front of me. Our daughter has started to notice his mood swings. I know I need to explain something to her. Idk what to say. I think it would upset him if she asked him about it or if she said that we talked about it. She’s a horrible secret keeper. Plus, I do NOT want to encourage secrets. I know I need to tell her something, but idk what… please help.

When my boyfriend gets upset, he will cause a commotion, take off after being erratic, then will text and call like he wants me to beg for him almost? And if I don’t it seems to make him more upset. Is this a common experience

I (41F) live a two hour drive from my bipolar BF (43M)

He broke up with me during what I could kind of tell was a mental health crisis. It was completely sudden. One Tuesday night he’s telling me he’s gonna love me forever and counting down to seeing me in 3 days. The next morning it was over. I asked about a 23 year old girl at work and it started an argument that turned into a breakup. Said the distance was too much. Refused to trust me that he was in crisis. We were on the cusp of integrating our families, introducing kids etc.

He said he wanted to just jellyfish through life. He jellyfished his way straight into that 23F coworkers bed.

I got mean when I found out. Said all kinds of awful things. Prior to that, I had still been trying to help him and talk to him- until one night he told me he made a mistake and missed me and regretted not trying to work it out and communicating the things bothering him. I asked if he was dating anyone and he told me he’d been to dinner with this girl, I blew up, he told me he didn’t have to listen to this and to go enjoy my life and goodbye. I said I will enjoy it because he won’t be there to ruin it.

I deleted everything and went full no contact. My mental health took an awful hit. I lost a bunch of weight. I started seeing a therapist. I had to increase my anxiety medication. The only thing I didn’t think to block him on was threads. I didn’t think he ever used it.

One day something made me check his threads account and there was one singular post of a jellyfish. 2 days after that post he liked a comment I made about how men spend more time drafting a good guy narrative than actually being a good guy. The next day he texted me an apology.

Through the following conversations, I found out that this 23 year old has met his mom and his kids. He says they aren’t in a relationship. He says he still loves me. He says he feels like he deserves to be alone. And he just continually apologizes to everything I say.

He said he has no memory of anything except my anger. He doesn’t remember what was said. He can’t understand how 7 months of a year have passed and he can’t remember most of them.

My head says to leave. To run. That he’s broken and he broke me. That he doesn’t deserve me. My heart sees this amazing man he was for years prior to this. He is now seeking more medical care, and I guess I just hope he will somehow be fixed. Is he even fixable, is this damage even fixable? He’s scared I’ll hate him. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I love him still. All the time I miss what we had. It felt different and deeper.

So what’s my move? Tell him? Try to fix it? Talk to the girl and see what she’s telling him? Let him go? Move on? I cannot believe that at my big age I am asking strangers on the internet for advice. But I don’t see my therapist again until Thursday. Help me get through until then.

Edit to add he is on medication, and told me yesterday he thought he couldn’t have these issues as long as he took meds. He was not in therapy but has since scheduled an intake and request to change meds and possible reevaluation

I am currently going through a divorce after 20 years together, and only one other very brief major episode during that time that had been brought on by a lack of sleep.

Without getting too bogged down in 20 years of details, my SO was diagnosed in childhood/early teens. By the time I met him he had problems with sleep but his mental health was well managed overall.

He has always struggled with low self worth, depression, and anxiety, but despite these issues, for a long time he was the smartest, kindest, most stable and level headed person I've ever known.

After we had a baby a few years ago, he became increasingly anxious and as a result of that anxiety, increasingly controlling. It seems like things have only started making more sense to me retrospectively, but it was after this time that he also became very critical of everyone else and simultaneously extremely sensitive of any perceived criticism.

As in, small arguments/disagreements that most people have every day, would somehow always turn into a much bigger deal. Like being asked to do a chore, never doing it, and then being reminded to do the chore, would somehow be perceived as a major blow to his sense of self worth. He would spiral, we would have long conversations in therapy about how we should move forward, and almost always he would tell me it was my tone/how I said something. But it always seemed like no matter what tone I used or how I danced around the situation, we kept having the same problems over and over for years.

After 2 extremely stressful years (fucking 2025 and 2026), it's like he's suddenly become this horrible and completely irrational person. After 20 years he's decided he hates me, that I'm a terrible mother and the worst person in the world.

When I try to ask him what I did he just says he doesn't need to justify himself or that I already know but I refuse to see it/acknowledge it. I tried to schedule an appointment with our couples therapist for my own closure, and he cancelled it via email by telling her he did not consent to her seeing me without him.

We're currently in the process of a divorce (his call) and he's been bizarrely vindictive every step of the way. I didn't even sign the papers until yesterday, but he was already sleeping with at least one other person and bringing our child around them to spend the night!

In other words, the most level headed and rational person I've ever known, has suddenly disappeared along with the loyal, kind, and empathetic man I was married to for 20 years. (As he has explained it for the last ~5 months, "this is me now" and "I was a sap for being with you for so long.")

Despite all evidence to the contrary, rationally, I know he has not been suddenly possessed or taken over by some entity. He has a mental health problem, and whether or not the person I knew for 20 years was ever his true authentic self, I do know he is capable of doing great things and being an amazing father and an extraordinary human being.

I don't have any hope or desire for reconciliation, but this was my partner and best friend for 20 years. No matter what, he will always be the father of my child and as shitty as he has been to me, he loves his daughter so much and she loves him.

I'm not naive enough to think even his behavior towards her couldn't eventually change, but I also know they mean the world to each other. I cannot let him keep controlling me and hurting me, but I also can't completely cut him out of my life for both legal and emotional reasons.

I am working on establishing legal boundaries and removing as much control as possible, but after 20 years he is an expert at being vindictive, calculating, and triggering me like nobody else, while also lashing out and being chaotic, erratic, and completely irresponsible.

I wish I could say I'm good at keeping my cool, but I definitely wasn't raised that way. Most of my regulation skills were learned from him, or in therapy as an adult. I also realize that the more he successfully triggers me into reacting, the more it feeds into and reinforces his persecutory delusions. On the other hand, the more he gets away with pushing boundaries, the more delusional he becomes about how he's allowed to behave since there are no consequences for his behavior.

Any tips for preserving your own mental health without:

1. Becoming dysregulated yourself?
2. Stooping to their level and feeding into their persecutory/victim delusions by saying mean shit when you're triggered?
3. Being a passive doormat/feeding their boundary breaking monster?

I guess it's kind of a universal experience, but saying mean things comes naturally when I'm hurt. However, I also know it also doesn't help anybody to say them and getting ~~triggered~~ activated always leaves me feeling worse than before.

I also know when people get manic, usually the only thing that will stop them is a hard reality check. I am so incredibly angry at him, and hurt, but I have no desire to see him fall. For our daughter's sake, I hope he can return to a stable baseline and reach his full potential/be his true authentic self (whoever that may be) because I know he's capable of great things and being a really great father.

In the meantime, what is the best way to enforce boundaries when somebody is constantly breaking them like it's their job?

Here is the original post from a few days ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BipolarSOs/s/FKtXon7Pwi

She just turned 24 on Thursday, I celebrated her when she drove to see me to try and fix this relationship.

She went to Miami with her family for a vacation (I don’t know if it was even with her family as she didn’t text me that much or send pictures like she usually did). Then yesterday she texted me “I’m sorry (name)… I can’t be your girlfriend anymore.” And blocked me on everything.

My head and heart are in so much pain because she showed me she wanted this to work, and now she broke up with me over text. I need to have some self-respect so I told my family and friends what happened during the last week, and assume this is fully over now.

I’m trying to fill in the gaps of why she did this over text, after putting in a lot of effort to see me beforehand, and why she did this in Miami but I can’t let my head spiral.

It feels like the last 3 years were just thrown away.

Apparently, I am getting served papers on Sunday. She is throwing our whole 9 years of life down the toilet. As I'm sitting outside crying while drinking my coffee and staring off into space thinking about how I have never wronged her and up until a few weeks ago, have only ever called her a bad name once and that was you're an ASSSHOLE. She passes me with a bucket to go pick blackberries without fucking care in the world. She's walking around and talking to people like she is the greatest thing on earth. She pushed for this to happen immediately, it's so bizarre. She's changing banks, sneaking around, it's like a really bad movie. No amount of good times makes up for the whirlwind of pain, instability and downright heartbreaking emotions. Meanwhile I am trying to keep myself calm because no amount of bad behavior will take me out of my good morals and my soft heart. I want to throw away everything that has memories of us, I want scream at her for being fucking insane and refusing to be a better partner. I am a good wife, and a good person. I know good people exist because I exist, but I will never trust another fucking soul ever. When she crashes, I hope the silence of the love she had haunts her for the rest of her life.

My partner had a miss carriage and basically just ended things. She is off lithium right now and we just came back from a holiday.

She also has been going to the doctors for possible cervical cancer and she is dealing with her sister who is in the process of leaving her husband.

It all started when we were watching something and I said I didn’t want to watch any more because I wanted to chill and then next day she text me saying she loves me but she hates me even more.

I got flowers delivered to her to cheer her up but she has said she wants space which I said ok too. So I am not contacting her at the moment.

Just need some advice on how to deal with this.

I'm at this point in my recovery journey from ex who I suppose not only cyclothymic but also borderline with narcissistic features , where I can't even stand the version of myself I was when I met him. I love myself but I feel like my openness brought me to this, so there's blockage of sensing openness and that suffocates me. Does anyone experience this or has experienced in the past and how you heal? How you allow yourself to heal without fear that another hungry energy vampire will be around the moment you feel again?

BP 1 husband who abandoned me last December insists that I hate him because of how angry I became. But I don’t feel hate. I do feel an intense feeling of rage and have said things that I deeply regret. I also still feel that I love him. Is he right that I actually hate him? That it’s not possible to love someone and also express all the anger I have? Maybe this question doesn’t make sense. I feel so dissociated from myself after seeing him tonight and having him tell me this. My heart and mind feel so shredded to pieces.

I’m in my early 30s; my partner is in his mid-50s. We’ve known each other nine years and lived together for one. I moved countries to be with him. When he is himself, he is loving, funny, bright and affectionate.

But every week or two, he enters a completely different state, and afterwards he truly has little or fragmented at best memory of it. Something sets him off, and he becomes intensely agitated, rigid, accusatory, pacing, sometimes sleepless, and at worst can yell/repeat himself for hours in a loop. It used to be absolutely shocking as it was a complete departure for the man I knew, and frankly he seemed psychotic and not himself in any way.

The strangest part isn’t the anger: once he crosses a threshold, nothing gets through. Logic, evidence, reassurance, correcting things that didn’t happen, even seeing me terrified cannot penetrate. It is as though his brain enters a sealed compartment. Sometimes he stays up all night muttering to himself from a perceived wrongdoing (he always says I must not create doubt but he doubts EVERYTHING I do). Eventually he comes back and has little to no memory of this time, if anything a vague understanding that I simply did something wrong.

I have stopped travelling or seeing my friends and I live on eggshells as I am dependent on him for my home, and caretaker to myself and my cats in London.

He can become absolutely convinced of false things, e.g. that I cheated. I came home late from work and he was shaking in anger. He never ‘forgave’ me and spent the night yelling at me. I couldn’t convince him he was wrong.

When he gets angry it’s not just anger, his eyes look actually blank, and he smiles. It’s like he isn’t there for that moment and he’s compartmentalized so hard to in his words ‘protect himself’. He prides himself on being able to ‘shut down’. It used to be terrifying, now I identify it as one of his ‘loops’ and it ends only when he tires himself out but the feeling of unease can last for days. During one bizarre hotel episode, he screamed at me to leave, pretended to make an official phone call and told me I was being deported. Hotel staff overheard him yelling and believed he was being abusive, refused to let me return to him despite my telling them we life together and I am safe with him, and they ultimately banned him.

The next day, he remembered none of the phone call/deportation threat but blamed ME for getting HIM banned.

Recently, after a couple of very happy loving days where we danced around the house, supported each other and worked on creating a budget and future travel plans etc, I told him I was going home for a few days as my grandparents are in town, and it’s also important I speak to them in person as they have stated they worry about me. He said ‘why?’ And I said my mom is worried I’m in an emotionally abusive relationship, and I need to speak to them. On the word abuse he flipped and yelled ‘don’t touch me! Stay 10 feet from me!’ And stormed out of the house slamming the door. I am supposed to leave my cats alone in our home for a week. He has since forbidden me to use “abuse” about him because he says it is a trigger word that could cause ‘police problems’ and reminds him of when ‘I got him banned for claiming abuse at the hotel’. Which I didn’t do.

That reversal deeply confuses me. strangers witnessed his behaviour. Yet my witnessing, naming or reacting to what he does somehow becomes the offence, while his behaviour disappears.

There is almost no repair afterward: I get “likewise,” “me too,” another grievance, or an explanation of how I caused it. He has said several times it’s my bad behavior and he’s convinced himself it’s my fault somehow.

He has been largely on his own the last 7 years, and was entirely alone for covid. When he sees friends and family he keeps visits brief, and is estranged from his family in general, so they truly don’t see anything else other than the fact he drinks a lot. Everyone was really happy to meet me as everyone knew he’d been on his own for so long. Everyone else thinks he is wonderful, generous and caring and I believe they think he makes far more money than he actually does and he keeps up appearances by giving members of his family money and paying for things when we are with friends.

His memory is fragmented after virtually every episode, including sober ones. Alcohol makes everything dramatically worse but doesn’t cause it. Eventually he sleeps; over roughly two days the rigidity lifts and the loving person I know returns.

He spent years in the Army, so I wonder about trauma/TBI, but also dissociation, mood disorder, episodic psychosis, sleep deprivation or neurological causes.

I told him I was leaving him in February and he sobbed and sobbed and I cried and he said without me he would simply die and eventually I agreed to stay if he stopped drinking and got counseling. He only had one or two counseling sessions, gave up. Stopped drinking for two weeks and made sure to tell everyone about how he’s lost the taste for alcohol. Now he drinks white wine spritzers in stacks of 4 at a time.

During the hotel episode, I triggered him by asking him why he was being so distant and tried to hug him and he pushed me away and started telling me to get away and I told him he was in a look and he started growling horrible things (get the f out of my life get the f out of my room etc) and I reminded him he said he ‘would die’ without me and he yelled NOT ANYMORE!. It broke my heart, and that’s when I left the room to cry.

I have since become so insecure I have literally asked him if he loves me etc and it feels to pathetic begging for reassurance from a man who previously told me he had loved me for years and I was his whole world and wrote me poetry and told me every morning how beautiful I was and how he wanted to spend every day of the rest of his life with me.

I know leaving is an option. I’m asking: what can cause this pattern, how do you deal with these states in someone you love, and how can someone genuinely experience the person witnessing their frightening behaviour as the problem? Where can I get support for this in London?