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This mental illness suddenly showed up when she decided to cheat. Did she show these signs before she was caught?

This mental illness suddenly showed up when she decided to cheat. Did she show these signs before she was caught?

Yes I’m confident that she is mentally ill. She had a manic episode and a severe mental break. Even now that she is on anti psychotic meds and mood stabilizers she is struggling with mania and not sleeping after taking them at night.

She was down a lot and distant for about two years. We had lots of happy times, but the peaks and valleys were getting deeper and wider. We had a lot of bad arguments that seemed to be getting worse. Usually they were caused by me trying to reel her back in from her depression and her being defensive and self deprecating and pessimistic.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of my own depression from money and career problems. I’m sure I wasn’t the more fun guy to be around for quite some time. I’ve been really upset because I basically came to the realization that I will never be able to buy a house. Student loans have been looming over me. My job causes me a lot of stress. Having a depressed and distant wife that refuses to talk to make eye contact unless it’s a fund out argument or a conversation about the weather or a cartoon is hard to deal with also. I had talked about divorce and started to think I might want to find someone else to spend the rest of my life with.

My wife also hasn’t been very ambitious in terms of education, career or other interests so when she stopped paying attention to the kids, the house, and her personal hygiene, I was really just starting to feel like “what’s the point?” I

When I would talk about being distant and things being tense and weird between us she would deflect blame and dig up lots of stuff to throw at me. She would gaslight me and try to convince me that I was mentally ill and needed to fix my self because I was being paranoid for no reason. She just kept getting meaner and meaner. I probably brought up the “threat” of divorce more and more.

This went on for a long time and we did talk about divorce. The house was constantly trashed and she was like a hurricane in the house. She’d buzz around doing things and not finishing them and leaving everything out and open and unorganized. She has always been a bit of a hoarder, but the trash piles started to merge with the stuff piles. I would spend a work from home day cleaning an entire area spotless and find it piled up again two days later. When I would mention the messes, she would just turn it around into some kind of depressive woe is me thing… "You’re right I’m screwed up, I should just leave" and many variations of what essentially amount to "I’m a bad person"

She’s always done the "I’m a bad person" argument but it was getting worse. She would and does always then use that later to accuse me of calling her a bad person and then she tells me she is a good person and that everyone likes her. It’s like the ultimate cheap hypocrite judo move. If you criticize her you are a calling her a bad person and she baits you into denying she is a bad person and you spend a bunch of time telling her she’s not a bad person even though she insists over and over she is a bad person if what you are saying is true…. Then if you agree with her out of anger, she gets mad at you for calling her a bad person or then later she tells you she is a good person and you are a bad husband because you called her a bad person and do it all the time. I’ve been tired of that shit for a long time.

Anyway, towards the end before I caught her in the middle of the affair red handed… She started playing a video game and stopped sleeping. She started sneaking around to play it and avoiding all family interaction except what was absolutely necessary. My attempts to stage interventions with her were met with hostility and anger. It was really different and more intense than usual.

She was acting like a defiant teenage girl who was grounded and fighting against her dad or something. She would respect over and over "I’m allowed to do theis" I’m allowed to do that" you’re telling me that I’m not allowed to do this" "how man hours can I play?" "What days and times can I play exactly?" I’m allowed allowed allowed.

I’ll admit that she has gotten like that about things I have tried ti stop her from doing like wearing too much gawdy makeup or tight clothes to conservative functions. But it’s never been like it was regarding this game.

I would find out later that she was sneaking around talking to the guy during all hours of the day and night and also pretending to sleep so that she could get up to play the game and sext him. I have a hard time falling asleep so I think she was texting him from under the blanket while laying right next to me while waiting for me to snore.

When I found her she went berserk though and I’ve never seen her like that. She was lying, and sneaking before that but after that she was just plain acting crazy.

When I checked chat logs and stuff I realized that she was probably getting 0 hours of sleep at least 415 days per week for weeks. That’s the same time her messages got hypersexual.

When she went to jail, I expected her to come home remorseful and embarrassed and she wasn’t. She was amped up and ready to fight. She wanted me to feel sorry for her for going to jail. She did not intend to show any remorse or regret for what she did. It was like my wife died and a demon was born.

I’ve known her and we’ve been very close for more than 10 years. All these behaviors are abnormal.

[This message edited by MilahsRealHusband at 6:11 PM, Friday, October 27th]

If you divorce her and win primary custody (you absolutely would, you have a lot in your favor vs her), you might actually be able to afford more because you won't be responsible for paying for anything for her. When she's gone for good, you'll realize how much of your money was being wasted by her.

I totally agree in not lying to children but do bare in mind now what ever you say you cannot take back.

Their mum will have a lot of fixing to do if and when she is well but now you are the constant for them. I found it very difficult not to bad mouth my husband in front of our child when he was pushing me to breaking point so I say this from a place of empathy. I would encourage you to apologise to them not because you have done anything wrong but because they have been exposed to what is happening right now. It might be worth contacting a mental health organisation to see if they can advise on how best to navigate this for the children and see what support can be put in place for them. Maybe inform their school that there are marital difficulties and mental health issues going on and see how they can best support your children. As hard as it is they need to not be pulled in the middle. They already have a tarnished view of their mum but they need to know that its still OK for them to love and like her and it is also OK to be scared or uncertain. You have done a great job in saying that she can be forgiven. You are showing them resilience in such an awful situation.

Please don't forget yourself in all this too. On a plane you put your own oxygen mask on first and it's the same for surviving this. Get any help you need and lean on your support network. An affair tears families apart and mental health makes it 1000% harder. When my husband got better he really struggled with how much his world had changed as reality set in and I struggled as I had got used to life without him and then I was faced with the man I married and not the monster he had been. I hope your wife gets better but you don't have to stay even if she does. Her mental health issues do not trump how your life has been flipped upside down. It is ok to leave and it is ok to stay just don't make any decisions until you are in a good place from which you can.

You may wish to reach out to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). They are a resource for families who are dealing with family members with mental illness. They may have some support for the handling of mental illness but not sure what they have regarding infidelity.

A lot of what you are describing, are the actions of a ws in an affair.

Picking fights. Being mean for no reason. Trying to convince the BS that they're the problem. Not getting things done around the house, because they spend the day messaging,or calling their AP. When called on it, they become dramatic,talking about how awful they are( because that will cause an empathetic spouse to feel sorry for them,and back off). Suddenly playing a video game,and not sleeping? Many ws and their AP play the same game,so they can communicate with each other and not get caught.

I'm not saying she's faking. What I am saying is much of what you describe is typical for many WS while they're cheating. She made suicidal threats when caught,and at the hospital she was told her behavior wasn't her fault, she was mentally ill. She latched onto that. Now she has a ready made excuse for the next time she's caught.

Just something to consider.

Recent Incident cluster # 2: The phone smashing event and the library trip that never happened.

Although this incident was more recent than the last one I shared, I seem to have a blurrier memory of most of it for some reason. It’s important to talk about it though because I’m pretty sure it triggered or unveiled a resurgence of her mania.

For the record, she seems better tonight; mostly because I didn’t engage with her much, but she is clearly still not well. I feel like info sat down and tried to have a real conversation with her, she would snap on me.

I don’t know what day it was, but a few days back she was being moody after a few days of us getting along and growing closer. I’m pretty sure she became moody when I told her we need to log into the game she had been playing and delete the account. She didn’t want to delete it. Moreover she stated that if she had to delete it, she would like to transfer all her in game loot and gold to other players. That was a hard no from me because I have no idea who she was interacting with on there aside from her AP. When I was reading their Discord chat, it was clear that she was buying lots of gear and letting him use it. They were sharing an account so they could swap gear easily. I have evidence of her catfishing others on the same game and I am just never going to be cool with her "gifting" over $1000 of in game items to some person she may have been cheating on me with . Yea, it’s not happening and I want the account deleted for good. The real money is gone, there no real value there unless she’s trying to be friends with someone.

Long story short, she changed the topic but remained very mad at me.

The next day I remembered the Android phone that I found that I was unable to unlock. I had called several cell phone repair places and nobody was willing or able to bypass the lock on the phone so I was confident I couldn’t get into it.

I took a shower and decided I was going to tell her to unlock the phone so I could inspect it. She told me that she wanted to delete Discord of of it without letting me read the messages. She was willing to let me quickly scroll back through the chat log with the main AP to confirm that the new account was started on the day she got out of jail.

I had sort of agreed to that before when we were getting along, but that whole fiasco about that Barry guy and how she lied to me about him and then quickly never talked about him again… I was suspicious and had lost trust all over again. I told her I wanted to read the chats.

She was pissed off but she agreed to let me read them and said she’d leave the room and never talk to me again if I forced her to do that.

I asked her to unlock the phone and she did. She didn’t leave the room and instead she demanded I give her the phone back and got really hostile. I had flashbacks to when she assaulted me trying to get her phone the first night I caught her.

To her credit the Discord app that was on there had only one contact and one chat, and it was the main AP. The chat only went back to the date she got out of jail.

I wasn’t able to read all of the messages because she was freaking out and demanding to delete the account and the app.

From what I did see, it was a chat where she was trying to salvage the fantasy that she had going on before. She created some crazy backstory about a crazy ex boyfriend/baby daddy who I guess was also the husband in her child bride fantasy?

She was clearly modeling the character after me but everything was exaggerated and she was making up all kinds of lies. The saddest and most humiliating thing is how she repeats over and over about how I was some abusive and amount of control asshole who was hellbent on controlling her.

The fact is, all of this was able to happen because I was not controlling at all. I never checked her phone or monitored her communications. I never restricted her from doing anything or having any kinds of friends. I let her bring her mom to live with us. She had so much freedom to do whatever she wanted while she was with me.

All I ever did was encourage her to be her best self and so never lied to her about what I thought about some things, including some of her interests that I didn’t like.

I’ll emphasize one more time that I never stopped he from doing anything or controlled anything about her. I always viewed us as equal partners in a relationship. We may have had different roles, but I always viewed us as equal.

It was painful to see my wife of ten years blatantly luring about me like that. I would never have been able to do that to her.

At some point she freaked out and snatched the phone and frantically deleted the app. I got the phone back but I didn’t really know how to navigate it since it was android and she kept getting impatient with me and wanting it back and telling me nothing was on it.

I found old text messages from old friends years ago and there wasn’t much on the app I could find.

I’m sure if I had gone into the pictures and the notes app, I would have found more, but I honestly couldn’t find them under pressure.

At some point she walked to the other side of the room and kept bitching about me being in her phone. For whatever reason, I decided that I was done with the phone and I crumpled it into a ball and smashed it on a corner of the wall, shattering it into a million glass shards. My hands got glass splinters in them everywhere.

She let out a shriek from the depths of hell. She ran over to get the phone and I started to hand it to her… but by the time I had a second to realize what I had done, it was obvious that there was no saving it.

She screamed that there were irreplaceable photos of the family on the phone and ALL her PASSWORDS.

I was sad about the photos of our kids, but honestly we have plenty. If she cared about them so
Much she would have organized them and backed them up on the family hard drive or the cloud somewhere. She could have printed a huge stack of them for archiving.

I was kinda relieved about the passwords and secretly hope she lost all the passwords to the dummy email accounts she had been using to log into Discord and other apps that I probably don’t know about(yet).

Since the phone incident, she’s been really bloody and vindictive. Basically an incoherent and hostile mess.

We’ve had two major arguments that ended up with her sitting in her car for hours after doing everything possible to bait me into conflict and then grind me down into nothing.

I planned to take the kids (and her) to the public library immediately after work on Wednesday. I asked her to please leave work on time and come straight home so we could all go before the night got too long. She agreed. The kids were so excited to go to the library.

That afternoon, she just doesn’t come home on time. It usually takes 15 minutes to get home from work so if she leaves in time I can almost always expect her home around 5:15. I wait till around 5:45 and give her a call. She screams that’s she’s on her way and hangs up.

A few minutes later she comes blasting through the doors ready to bite MY head off. I ask her why she’s late. To be honest I’m not thinking about cheating or anything… I’m just upset that I promised the kids a library trip and now I’m gonna be out way later than I like in order to honor that.. she tells me about traffic and police cars and some huge square hole in the road or something. It was super defensive and seemed kind of over the top. She starts trying to Google the traffic on her phone but by that time I was already over the details and didn’t care.

I sit down.

She throws her phone at me and demands I check it. So I do. Immediately she acts like she regrets her choice.

I go into instagram randomly after not finding anything new elsewhere. I find that she spent the day at work following new account with half naked influencers with all kinds of raunchy photos. I asked her why she was following stuff like that and she flipped out.

She goes ballistic on me and tells me I’m not allowed in her Instagram. She repeatedly told me "I’m allowed to have Instagram" "I’m allowed to like whatever I want" "this is the real me!" Etc etc etc.

The fight lasts for the rest of the evening and at some point she storms off and says she sleepin in he car.

The first night I walked up to her car and asked her if she took her medicines and she hadn’t. She didn’t take her medicine until I told her I wanted to take he rbacknto the hospital.

The second night was more of the same craziness but no pill drama.

She woke up the next day (this morning) acting fine and very tolerant:

It’s a lot to put up with.

What was the treatment plan after her discharge? She should have an appointment scheduled within 2 weeks of her discharge to meet The Joint Commission standards. Incorporating family in treatment goals is common. If she's non-compliant with her medication regimen, you should contact authorities to let them know, as it's possible get condition may deteriorate and she may need to be hospitalized again.

For you, I suggest contacting your local NAMI organization for support regarding mental health issues. They will have resources you and your children can use.

This is an extremely toxic environment for you, and those poor kids.

You keep wanting to fix it,but there's nothing you can do. Really. I mean, you can allow her to cheat, but that's about it.

What would you do if she left you and the kids,for another man. You would figure it out. You would have no choice. That's what you need to do now. You have no choice.

Lots of people have mental illness. They don't turn into an abusive shit. She is choosing this.

A lot of what you are describing, are the actions of a ws in an affair.

Picking fights. Being mean for no reason. Trying to convince the BS that they're the problem. Not getting things done around the house, because they spend the day messaging,or calling their AP. When called on it, they become dramatic,talking about how awful they are( because that will cause an empathetic spouse to feel sorry for them,and back off). Suddenly playing a video game,and not sleeping? Many ws and their AP play the same game,so they can communicate with each other and not get caught.

I'm not saying she's faking. What I am saying is much of what you describe is typical for many WS while they're cheating. She made suicidal threats when caught,and at the hospital she was told her behavior wasn't her fault, she was mentally ill. She latched onto that. Now she has a ready made excuse for the next time she's caught.

Just something to consider.

You are not wrong.

She did cheat and her behavior reflects that. It is complicated by her mental illness, but her behaviors are definitely that of a cheater. Because she is one.

If a bipolar person plans and executes a murder, we still call them a murderer and note them doing the same things. They choose their target, plan their attack, gather supplies, execute the victim, hide the body, destroy evidence, etc… the only difference is that we might punish them differently than someone who was in their right mind.

My wife was sneaking around me, lying about what she was doing which consisted of lying, sneaking, planning her actions, doing the bad deeds, and hiding evidence. After being caught, she displayed and sometimes (particularly when manic) continues to display the behaviors of a caught cheater.

I can’t deny it at all.

Was she able to maintain her mental health while at work? Around friends,and family?

This is an extremely toxic environment for you, and those poor kids.

You keep wanting to fix it,but there's nothing you can do. Really. I mean, you can allow her to cheat, but that's about it.

What would you do if she left you and the kids,for another man. You would figure it out. You would have no choice. That's what you need to do now. You have no choice.

Lots of people have mental illness. They don't turn into an abusive shit. She is choosing this

She thinks she can take care of herself but she really has no ability to do so.

She’s treating me like I’m her backup plan, but the reality is she doesn’t have anywhere to go if she leaves.

I’ve talked to her about it and of course it got heated so she thinks I was just trying to wear her down or destroy her self-confidence… But really my only option would be to dump her in a homeless shelter or something. Sadly most of the women’s shelters are only set up for women who are the victims of domestic abuse so she’d probably just fucking lie to them and say that I beat her in order to get into one of it came down to it.

I asked her if she lied to the police the first time they came and she replied: “It doesn't matter, they didn’t believe me anyway” and then I asked her again the other day and she just sort of looked guilty and embarrassed and turned it around on me asking me if I told them that I pushed her. I told her that I did tell them the truth, and for the record, I absolutely did.

At the end of the day, the hospital, the police, the social workers, and everyone else seems to think she has to be home with me. Neither of us have family members or good friends with resources who can help us.

Apparently we are just forced to live with each other until there’s either a resolution or some kind of catastrophic blow out that would force it to be something else. I am afraid of that happening, but I don’t have any way to calculate it or know what would be the most likely thing to trigger that or make it happen. I feel like I’m simply forced to deal with her in-spite of whether or not she decides to deal with her shit or treat me with respect.

We had an argument today and she is now referring to the last few incidents as “alleged manic events.” It is now obvious that she has no ability to understand how she is acting. She definitely thinks that she was completely in the right during all of those recent incidents and that all of her manipulative arguments and vindictive and hurtful comments and actions were completely justified.

She thinks that I am trying to make her out to be a bad person and trying to screw her over and hurt her. She twists my words and throws them back at me and then argues on points constructed from the fallacy of those twisted arguments being true. Every thing I say gets taken out of context and thrown back at me.

She gets mad when I tell her the truth about things like not being able to afford her own apartment and not being able to afford her own car and not being able to take care of the kids even part-time…. But it’s not meant to hurt her feelings or wear away her self confidence. I’m just telling her the truth.

I don’t think I’m ready to make the decision to throw her onto the street. I’m definitely being abused and tortured by her and her illness, but I don’t have the heart to hurt her that way just yet. Weber been together for ten years and I’ve lived her very much. My kids also love her very much and she loves them.

Whether or not she still loves me is apparently the big question mark that I am at the mercy of. I feel like I’m being played.

[This message edited by MilahsRealHusband at 10:52 PM, Saturday, October 28th]

Was she able to maintain her mental health while at work? Around friends,and family?

Yes, for the most part she has been able to since getting out.

Even the doctor in the mental hospital was saying "she isn’t exhibiting any signs of mania, and that they only saw signs of depression." And this was in response to me telling the doctor that she was acting very strange and argumentative and not remorseful over the phone when I was able to call.

It seems like her only real problem is with me. Sadly.

What was the treatment plan after her discharge? She should have an appointment scheduled within 2 weeks of her discharge to meet The Joint Commission standards. Incorporating family in treatment goals is common. If she's non-compliant with her medication regimen, you should contact authorities to let them know, as it's possible get condition may deteriorate and she may need to be hospitalized again.

For you, I suggest contacting your local NAMI organization for support regarding mental health issues. They will have resources you and your children can use.

She has not freely shared her "treatment plan" with me. I tried to go with her to their first psychiatrist appointment but she made me sit in the car while when I talked to him.

She has not sought out a therapist yet that I know of.

We have not engaged in couples counseling yet. I felt it was too soon to force that on her but now I’m starting to think we need it ASAP.

We keep getting into fights and she keeps twisting my words and using the twisted words to tell me I said things I didn’t mean to say. She makes no effort to see my intentions and every conversation is just a redoes of "gotchas"

I can’t stand it.

The doctors at the hospital saw no signs of mania.

She hasn't sought therapy. She isn't taking meds.

She shows every sign of an unremorseful WS, who is angry she was caught,and is lashing out at you,because you told the OM who she was,and they didn't want anything more to do with her.

I strongly suggest you speak to her doctors. Get a professional opinion,and make sure she's not lying. Because it really sounds like she is lying.

The fact that she has already lied to the police that you've physically assaulted her, is your giant waving red flag that she is dangerous to you. Ok, those cops didn't believe her. What about the next time? Or she tells one of her online men about how you're abusive,and they show up at your house to protect her?

Unless you have cameras on you,at all times, you are in danger of going to jail. She won't bail you out. She will be happy to let you sit there while she's cheating,and your kids are suffering.

Have you spoken to an attorney?

There is another relevant thing about a mental illness like bipolar.

There is a chance that the worst of it will remit and that relapse can identified early and be managed.

Her psychiatrists have given her a mood stabilizer as well as an antidepressant, I think you said. I’m thinking they must at least have a working diagnosis that it is not simple depression.

I had one friend with bipolar commit suicide when he stabilized after a swing, because he did not want to go through that again and again or put his family through it. It was so sad. He was a lovely young man, kind, smart (he had a PhD), a born leader (he was the president of a Uni club I was in), a sympathetic and helpful fried. I wish he had made a different choice.

I had another friend who had 2 big episodes after his parents divorced, but found balance again. The world is a better place with him in it. When that friend was manic, my father (a psychiatrist) said the fact he was under a lot of pressure when he had his first episode was a positive prognostic sign, simply because it might mean that he would not be sent into a spin by lesser life stressors. At the time parents were divorcing and he had been forced to endure his mother’s dimwit boyfriend whilst finishing final exams in law, mathematics and computer science. His brother who he was close to was also depressed. He was in that early 20’s age when some mental illness propensities first manifest, and he was in unstable housing and smoking too much pot. He is a good news story, but was off his tree for a few months and had to be hospitalized. I visited him in hospital, surrounded by some very crazy people, and you could see him realize that if he didn’t treat this seriously, things could go south very fast. He stopped expressing overtly paranoid and delusional thoughts and cut down pot. It still took him a couple of years before he was ‘back to his old self’. The lithium blunted his affect for a while.

So you have the very hard task of deciding on what the future holds for your wife and her condition. I think the best advice is, you can’t know yet.

For now you need to focus on your kids and yourself. You need to survive.

Your wife has her own battle to fight, and her ability to do that will determine if reconcilation and a full parenting role is possible. You do not have complete control over that.

It seems to me there is at least a chance that over a two year period she might resemble the version of her you knew 2 years ago, more than the version right now.

I don’t think this issue can been looked at wholly through an infidelity lens. That is not trivialize your pain, which is just the same as mine and others, maybe worse, because you feel trapped by economic and other pressures. I would definitely follow some of the self care advice which is generally offered on this site.

I don’t think this issue can been looked at wholly through an infidelity lens. That is not trivialize your pain, which is just the same as mine and others, maybe worse, because you feel trapped by economic and other pressures. I would definitely follow some of the self care advice which is generally offered on this site.

Thank you for sharing those personal stories. And your kind words and advice. I agree with you on all points.

MRH, the only thing you can do is stop asking questions, making plans etc. She is going to do what she is going to do. Just let go of the outcome. You have no control over it or her. If she is somewhat stable in her job then her behavior at home is a type of gaslighting. If she is erratic at work you will eventually know it.

The best thing you can do is look after yourself and the kids. Leave her alone since that seems to be what she wants.

MRH, the only thing you can do is stop asking questions, making plans etc. She is going to do what she is going to do. Just let go of the outcome. You have no control over it or her. If she is somewhat stable in her job then her behavior at home is a type of gaslighting. If she is erratic at work you will eventually know it.

The best thing you can do is look after yourself and the kids. Leave her alone since that seems to be what she wants

It’s hard to admit, but you are absolutely right.

I have to take care of myself and my kids and live my life. I have to focus on improving my health and making sure my girls are healthy and happy.

My wife is sick and that’s not her fault…. Sadly she made some serious mistakes and continues to abuse me with her DARVO’ing. I’m done being a lost puppy dog looking for resolution and closure. I want her approval and her affection, but I’m not going to find it if I keep chasing her illness around through the thorn bushes. I’m not going to find it unless she decides to come back and make it right from her end.

She has to decide whether or not she wants to be sick with us or without us.

If she wants to abuse and manipulate someone who will forgive her for anything and everything, she should go live with her father. It doesn’t work that way with husbands.

Sadly fathers tend to die before their children in most cases. If my father was alive, my girls and I would have already taken refuge with him. We would have been welcomed penniless and I would have had a much better vantage point to deal with this from.

Moving forward, the bigger and more important question is: What kind of father will I be for my girls? I need to focus on being there for them 100% and that means I need to focus on taking care of myself.

I don’t think I am going to use this forum anymore. I might chime in to help some newcomers though if I have time.

Thank you all for your time.

-MilahsRealHusband