Please help! Possible separation/ emotional affair?

[Stemxx]

Hello! I am 28 years old, my wife is 24. We have been married 3 years, together for 6. We were on and off for years before, we have known each other 10 years. My wife and I have been  diagnosed in with bipolar disorder. I manage mine with medication, I’m also a recovering IV heroin addict and learned coping skills. My wife takes medication but it doesn’t seem to help. I’ve just found out from a family member she was in fact diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She has mentioned the diagnosis before, but never seemed to believe it or put too much weight into it due to her being hospitalized when she was diagnosed and coming off of substances.

My wife and I moved out of state about a year and a half ago, I have a daughter from a relationship before we got together 6 years ago and I wanted to be close to her. She agreed to move with me. We’ve always been each other’s support system, and we have always come back to each other, even after having a child with another woman while we weren’t together we found each other again. I truly believe she is my soul mate. During this time of moving to a new state I pushed her to make new friends, and I pushed her to go to school. Daily she would change her mind on if she wanted to go to school and what for. She started a new job about 4-5 months ago, originally I was super excited for her and the new job.

About 6 months ago  started a new job that was much more stressful and I found myself in charge of people I’ve never been under that pressure. Our work schedule changed as well, instead of spending every Monday and Tuesday off with each other, I had every Sunday off and every other Saturday, and with my schedule with my daughter we started only getting one day off alone every two weeks. Our quality time together suffered. About a couple months ago she started going out with her coworkers and she invited me a few times, we worked separate schedules so most of the time I was tired and didn’t feel like going out. Eventually she started going out more and more and I expressed interest in meeting her coworkers a few times and she was hesitant. About 6 weeks ago we had a fight. I asked her to go to a kids bday party with me and my daughter and it seemed to upset her. Afterwards she told me she wanted space and thought about moving back to our home state. It crushed me and I overreacted, we had plans to go out with friends but I stayed home and paced. After that night she started sleeping in our spare bedroom. In desperation to repair our marriage I asked my job to change my schedule, I now have the same days off as her, however it doesn’t seem like she cares very much.

I tried over the next few weeks to show my wife grace, tell her I miss her but I am there for her when she is ready. She kept saying she loved me but needed space. Said “I’m her person, but I need time to find myself” “I want to die next to you, but I need a break right now” etc. I asked one day if I could meet her for a drink after work and she got upset, said she needed distance and space from me to figure her life out, said she’s always put the marriage ahead of herself, etc. She told me she still wanted to celebrate our anniversary, which confused me as she has been so cold and distant, but regardless I was happy to have an opportunity to spend with her. During this time I started to suspect her coworkers were whispering in her ear, they were all single, partying and staying out late. One instance she told me one of her coworkers said I look like “Joe dirt” and my feelings were very hurt. She laughed about it but before she would never allow someone to say something  like that about me. I began suspecting an individual was becoming too friendly with her, I’m ashamed to admit I looked through her phone a few times just for any explanation of this behavior.
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A few weeks ago we went out of town to celebrate our anniversary. It was amazing. We went swimming, we had sex which she initiated. We stayed at a beautifully romantic hotel. We got dinner and talked about our future together and what that looks like, and then went to a piano bar and laughed and giggled all night, we took a walk and held hands. I thought things were turning around.

The next day when she gets home she says she is going to nap, I asked to join her and she says no and sleeps in the other room. I was crushed. The next week a couple times in the morning I would lay with her before work, she came in my room and did that to me when we first started sleeping in separate rooms. By now almost every night she is staying out to 1:30-2 with her coworkers. Last weekend I asked her to go on a nature trail walk with me like we have been doing lately. Suddenly she tells me she wants a divorce, she plans to finish our 7 month lease then move back home. I tell her I understand but I want to reconcile and hope that happens. Suddenly she starts saying that I’ve treated her horribly for years and that I “groomed” her. We met when I was 18 and she was 15, didn’t have any romantic interest at all until I was 19 and she was 16. I felt like everything in our relationship has been weaponized against me. 

The next couple days I didn’t sleep or eat. I had this nagging feeling in my head. I knew something was wrong and she’s never treated me like this before. We’ve had our fights, she’s been cold before, but not like this. My coworkers followed her to a bar one night. I told them I needed some sort of idea what’s going on. They saw her briefly hold hands with one of her coworkers. I confronted her and she denied it completely. The next night another coworker helped me. He followed this guys truck to a party she went to at her coworkers. She stayed there till 3 am and then went home with him. He told me the address and I stayed by her car until 11am I confronted her when she ubered to her car. She claimed nothing happened, no affair, nothing physical. She said she stayed with him so she wouldn’t have to come home to me. I was absolutely destroyed. I begged her to go stay at her family’s house for a week or two and she wouldn’t. I held her in the spare bedroom and told her I love her and want to work things out. I told her I will always be here for her. I asked her if one day we would find our way back to each other again and she said “maybe” She stayed at a motel for 3 nights. Admittedly I checked to see if his car was there and it wasn’t. I was relieved however I realized this wasn’t healthy. My doctor had to prescribe me anxiety medication to sleep.

The next day she came home. I tried to talk to her she was very cold. She went to work and came home around 1:30am and wouldn’t talk to me. By this time I decided for my mental health I would be flying home and staying with my family for a week. I’ve currently been here a few days, have not talked to my wife. I talked with my father, he told me he went through this with my mother, my mother is borderline as well. They went through a horrible divorce due to my mother having an affair. My father is happily remarried. I talked to my mother in law, she confirmed my wife is diagnosed borderline personality disorder. She also suspects people at her work are influencing her, and that she is incredibly susceptible to it in the past. She told me my wife pushes away my sister in law and mother in law for months at a time then pulls them back in at some point. My mother in law suggested I give her space, says maybe she comes back, maybe she doesn’t. I’m struggling a lot right now, I come home in a few days. All I want is couples counseling and to work through these issues with her, I truly believe she is the love of my life. Does anyone have any suggestions. I recognize my wife could be having an affair due to this episode. Even so I think I could forgive her. I just need help. Thank you in advance

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[kells76]

Hi there Stemxx and

I just hear the intensity in your life right now. So much has happened over a relatively short time period, and at relatively young ages for both of you: the mental health challenge of bipolar, addiction recovery, marriage, coparenting, new jobs, trust issues... this is a heavy load to carry. I hear the struggles going on for both of you, and how maybe both of you are at the ends of your ropes -- running out of ideas but not wanting the marriage to be over.

There are a lot of moving parts here, and a lot of history, so while it's certainly possible for things to improve, just know it probably won't be overnight. It took time to get here and it'll take time to learn and apply some new tools, skills, and approaches, that could make your marriage more livable for both of you.

In order to get a better feel for what could be helpful, I'm curious about:

Given both of your histories, are either or both of you in counseling/therapy, or have you ever been?

It sounds like you feel pretty supported by your family -- I didn't get a sense of if she also feels supported by her family? Do both of you generally get along with each others' families?

When you've had conflicts in the past, what were they about?

What has she communicated about how stepparenting has been for her? How does she seem to interact with your daughter? And how old is your daughter?

...

These are not easy relationships, but people stay committed in them for all kinds of reasons, and we're here to support you as you seek to improve your marriage. So settle in, make yourself at home, and feel free to read some of our resources, like our articles on Empathetic Listening and Active Listening and Communication Skills - Don't Be Invalidating, for starters.

Looking forward to learning more;

kells76