Oh, Lord, this is one of the most difficult topics for me — because my marriage quickly deteriorated into a “Sleeping With the Enemy” dynamic after my diagnosis (misdiagnosis, as you will see).
Or, not sleeping with the enemy, as the case may be.
In Emily’s defense, if neither of you know anything about this disease to start, and your caregiving is of poor quality, those are the cues the “carer” (who in my case, absolutely did not want to think of herself as a “carer”) is going to take.
Example: my therapist and psychiatrist both told Emily directly of some, and urged me to tell others, of some of the weirder behaviors I engaged in during what they called my depressive episode that caused my first hospitalization. (It was really a manic episode; and I still think I lost two-and-a-half years of my life, and possibly a marriage, as a result of their misdiagnosis/quasi-malpractice.)
Mind you, none of the weird behaviors were cheating; but they were weird (the kind of fetishes you can read about on the Internet, if you’re so inclined), and I think learning about them just freaked Emily out and caused her to lose all respect for me as a husband. (BTW, on medication, even the wrong medication as it turned out, the desire to engage in fetishes vanished.) She began to treat me as a child instead. (See “not sleeping with the enemy.”)
But Emily should have never have been told of those behaviors in the first place, since they ultimately didn’t affect her directly (again, no cheating/STD’s), either directly from my caregivers or indirectly from them encouraging me in a weak state to tell her. (Is there a statute of limitations on malpractice suits in Maryland? Ugh.)
Another problem was that she would not trust me if I said I was having medication side effects. Zoloft was pushing me toward hypomania if not mania (naturally, because I had no mood stabilizer; my doctor INSISTED I was not bipolar!), and though I didn’t know that in clinical terms, I knew I felt “too good” and it wasn’t right. Emily’s response: “Well, you’re too used to not being happy.” And since this was my professional caregivers’ response as well, I backed down.
Right before I became truly manic, I decided to leave Emily (a classically manic impulsive decision that was, ultimately, the right one) and ended up in the hospital with a second breakdown — where I had received, finally, an “official” bipolar diagnosis shortly thereafter. I called her desperately asking her to visit, explaining that I had gotten sicker because I was treated improperly. Her response: “You made your bed, you lie in it.”
There was also the fact that my first breakdown occurred the day before Emily was supposed to start a fancy new job and had to miss her first day — something she blamed me for for the rest of our marriage, even though it had absolutely no effect long-term (or even short-term) on her career.
Bottom line (and it was always the bottom line for Emily): She honestly believed this was a disease of causality, where I could control it in ways in order to hurt her. (I gave her books like James gave Anna books — she either wouldn’t read them or, when she did, wouldn’t believe them.)
So she structured her responses back to me, to hurt me (even more), accordingly.
One could not imagine a more dysfunctional basis for any marriage, let alone a marriage where one of the partners is ill.

As painful as it is/was, Larry, to lose Emily, from what I read of your comments, I don’t think there was a chance of her opening her heart and mind to the depths of the illness, and that you were not “doing” this to her. She does not sound “teachable” in this dimension of life. The losses that come along with our illnesses touch so many different aspects of our lives. However, I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom. There are those spouses who are committed to working through the good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer. My husband and I have had our vows “tested” in all of these areas. I have so many areas and posts I want to review and address this week; however, I’m at a fiscal year end for work, which just about affords me the time to read Therese’s blogs (which have been great!) and everyone’s comments. Ironically, I have to leave for the Doctor and get the renewals for Meds; you know the “check in to make sure I’ve got most of the marbles in place in my head”. So, need to go. I hope to review everything this weekend and respond to some posts. One in particular, Therese, was in reference to the “character assessment” in 4th grade by your so-called friends. I had exactly, and I mean exactly the same situation happen to me. I remember it as though it was yesterday. Not the words; but the pain. There are numerous other situations I identified with. Wishing all a peace-filled day and evening.

Nancy:
I agree wholeheartedly. Didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
If a marriage is going to fail, it’s almost certainly going to fail for reasons besides depression. Because if the couple love each other that much, they’ll fumble and struggle for a way through — but they’ll make the effort, and likely succeed, because the well partner loves the sick partner and believes he/she is worth it. (And the sick partner, if there is even the remotest of improvement, can start to see the well partner’s love and care.)
But if the well partner doesn’t love the sick partner enough to think they’re worth fighting for, a divorce becomes inevitable even without depression. Some other event would have happened to bring those feelings out in the open.
I’m not saying I probably wasn’t incredibly difficult to get along with at times toward the end of my marriage — especially being wrongly medicated. But ultimately it wasn’t the conflict per se, it was the ATTITUDE each party took toward the conflict.
And that can happen with any major dispute in a marriage.

I’m not sure how to approach this (perhaps it would be better for my wife to do this) It took me many years to accept and embrace what this world is and especially what I am (and What God am) I don’t have to like it, (and there is a Hell of a lot that I don’t) but it is all a learning experience of one thing rubbing against the other, and it appears to me that we just don’t rub each other the right way … And it is only God that rubs us the right Way, and for sure that is clearly debatable. Who and what is the enemy . . . is it the Christ or the anti-Christ ? Is it Love or the anti-Love . . . and what is Love anyWay ? Right there is a major problem, there is no clear definition of exactly what Love is ! And it is different for everybody from their own perspective (and perspective is everything !)
If you believe that “We are many parts, we are still One body” and that One body is God, then we are ALL part of God trying to clearly define Himself . . .for an eternity. Face it, what good is it to define yourself as Love, when there is nobody to Love or be Loved. Nothing but you all alone in the darkness . . . Some kind of Hell to be sure ! So much loneliness, despair and Hell that you are forced to scream out in the darkness “Let there be Light” . . . and there was Light, and the Light dispelled the Darkness, and delivered God out of the Darkness into the Light, and God found the Way to the Truth and the Truth was I AM … Love ! . . . and God said “It is good” And that Love was so great it allowed His Son to also cry out “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do !” while His enemies were nailing Him down to the cross ! . . . Enemies ? I ain’t got no estinkin enemies !
LUV 2 ALL
Wisdum

I hope this does not sound too harsh to anyone — but after 44 years of marriage to a ‘Family’ of people with a genetic quandry of issues; I still struggle with coming to an understanding. The ‘root’ of my struggle is that those who have the various and varying ‘Illness’ seem always to point outward for fault finding and resist any effort to look inward for cure; either personally within or corporately with others help — Again, I say that I am so sorry if this hurts or seems harmful but I am 63 years young; I am ready to tell it like it is and I just desire to ‘LIVE before I DIE’

shi:
Do your family members with mental illness take medication?

I too had to recognize the enemy and take control of my life by not letting anger resentment and whatever else have control over me!

I have a husband who is bi-polar- he is also a recovering addict. Let’s say that he blames me for his illness, stating that it is my fault he has it, my fault he is on meds…my fault he had a nervous breakdown…he doesn’t medicate as he should. if he gets a side effect, he quits taking the med, it’s awful…he get’s very angry, very verbally and emotionally abusive, but when he’s on the good end he is the most loving caring man you could meet. It’s difficult to live with him at times…I know that NAMI is supposed to be a supprt group for family memebers- but it really isn’t, not in my area anyway…I work with the mentally ill for a living- you would think I could be more understanding- but I can’t…I feel that he should take his meds responsibly, I feel he should go to his appointments- I feel he should go to his therepist- I don’t think doctors should medicate without these conditions- I just don’t know if i am the cause, if I am being unreasonable…I wish there was something in my area, or maybe I should start a blog- I just don’t know what to do…I write things down, I see the cycle the pattern…but what do we do to lessen the impact…