My Intro to *69 Went Something Like This

 

The Process of Realizing My Spouse Was Mentally Ill

by author

“You want me to loooove you, daddy?”

I broke into a cold prickly sweat. I could hear her sticky lipstick peel as her lips formed the words. I imagined wrinkles, dangly sock cuffs, and a cigarette hanging from her lips and hoped her stagnant apartment was all neglected houseplants and cats to cool my shame.

Everyday, I came home to check the landline before starting my evening shift at one of my other jobs. He was calling these sex lines daily & then going out with our roommate, a childhood best friend, along with two younger females to the state lakes. Yes, I still remember you, Stormy.

He swiped our debit card so often for porn, cigs, and junk food, I couldn’t keep up with my 3 jobs. Eventually, this would come to a climax. The end result being my taking his card to our joint account due to over $1k in overdraft fees. His part time construction job wasn’t cutting the mustard.

And today, I knew this was it. I was drawing a line. I hate absolutes and coming from a physically abusive home growing up, I avoided confrontation at all costs. My new marriage was growing me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. You can parent a partner for so long, but at some point, it’s enablement. The lines are a little blurry when you are living this reality and trying to keep both your heads above water while one of you is unaware that the ship is indeed sinking. I wish I could state hard and fast lines to someone presently living this hell. Explicit actions that turned everything around were all I wanted.

What I have learned from staying with a partner through infidelity is that handling humans is more like playing improv in a band live than following clear and concise directions for a recipe.

My husband & I have lived many lives together in our short 20+ years of knowing one another. We’ve been musicians, urban farmers, an Army family, abortion protestors, and even religious cultists. If you boil down the essence of our life decisions, three things surface that have gotten us through tough times: self reliance, ingenuity, and being more fucking stubborn than the next guy.

I was always more stubborn. I wasn’t going anywhere.

During the years of extra marital relationships, porn, and sex calls leading up to my husband’s bipolar break, I made space for him to put himself on display. I didn’t apologize for his behavior anymore. I let him own all of his actions as I should have from the beginning. Many times, it felt like he left me stranded on stage for a gig prepared for a duet and having to improvise solo on the fly with everyone watching . . .

As a musician, you learn to be prepared at the drop of a hat like a magician that has a staple pack of cards on him or something in their back pocket they can turn into a 15 minute surprise show. I never anticipated behaving this way as a means of social survival. Having to explain your spouse’s unexpected and strange behaviors is hard, especially when you yourself don’t understand what is going on.

I prefer quiet & succinct planning. Calm uninterrupted space frees my ability to imagine, think, and create. He left me alone with the worry so often that it robbed me of my time. Trauma tends to stunt emotional maturity. My mind would be gridlocked, stuck in the anxiety space of “what could he be doing?”

Learning the nature of a partner’s bipolar is like stalking a ghost. I was one step behind time and again. Without fail, I would find his bunny trails. I became a student of Tim. This was important. I read his body language, his tones of voice when he said particular things, receipts, half heard conversations, dirt on his shoes, etc. Yes, it could easily turn into obsession. From someone who lived with years of lying parents and a slew of adults holding their tongues around me, affirming reality was essential. Decades later, I still don’t regret my amateur sleuth habits.

I will tell you this though, I will never forget.

And with Tim, when he was revving in manic mode, riding on little sleep, the possibilities were inconceivable. I learned how to save us time and time again.

He was thrown in jail. I came up with bail. He was stuck on the side of the road. I picked him up. He lost his job. I worked overtime. Round and round and round we went, each turn pulling us a little deeper.

The complication of infidelity with mental illness is a drama I don’t wish on many. Some couples could use some waking up, but that’s another article. Infidelity, after agreeing to live a committed monogamous relationship is nothing short of betrayal. It’s more than that, though. There’s you. There’s him. There’s the other party(ies). AND, there is the social network the two of you reside that you have possibly been isolated from. With so many playing parts, it’s not as simple as scapegoating one party for everything going wrong with life.

I had come from a dysfunctional home like most do with what one therapist would refer to as “emotional incest.” I was codependent with an inability to feel my own emotions and relied on other people’s emotional responses to understand what was happening & how I should perceive the scenario. I was conditioned to be emotionally aloof. Thank goodness I was empathetic.

As a result, steadfast truths are important to me now. Adultery can’t thrive without lies. My reality felt like I had gone from traumatized to crazy. Did my feelings line up with the present or was I the mentally unstable one? After all, I fought with depression on the regular, had several suicide attempts under my belt, and had trouble perceiving the world around me. Maybe, this was real life?

After years of my husband receiving treatment, he gave me tons of space to talk things through. I still haven’t inhabited that loving space.

The counseling sessions weren’t sustainable. I was perpetually angry and unable to come down from a peak emotional state.

Church was a distraction. Many people avoided me much like how someone who has lost a loved one now feels out while in a crowd. No one wants to be touched by death or disloyalty. Disgust and avoidance weren’t far away.

Death was real. My idea of a “good” relationship, my hopes of a future this or that, and the tainting of what I hoped would stay pure . . . Things I thought were special and that only we shared, I discovered weren’t unique. Sometimes, I find a moment years later, time bombs left ticking waiting for me to find them. Now, I have six children that require me to be emotionally secure. I refuse to lick old wounds.

My husband suffers unofficially from bipolar disorder. Unofficial because he refused to go on lithium after his psychiatrist went through the trouble of working through the 15 years of manic highs and lows that are required to substantiate such a diagnosis. After Iraq, we can thank traumatic brain injury and PTSD for much of my husband’s additional instability.

But, if there is one thing I know to be true is that no one can tell me that giving up my dreams for a mentally unstable irresponsible person will come to no good end. If my husband were to digress, if all we have worked toward were lost today, no measurement exists of how thankful I am that I have been privileged to love someone and to be loved in return even if it were a brief amount of time. I have never seen love flourish when we handle it in a miserly way. Conversely, monogamy is not miserly in its lack of openness but a conduit for trust to develop over time.

After infidelity, I found a way to feel loved again and to believe when someone shows me love. You can to, if you want. I know it feels impossible. No one can force it on you. And, that heaping stinking pile of past shit (or maybe present?), it will never go away. You learn to compost it. You find ways to put it to good use. It gives you a depth in your relationship you may not want but will rely on. Maybe, talking it through is just what you need. Maybe, letting dead dogs lie and enjoying the confirmation of their carcasses is more your style. I know it’s mine.

I enjoy mine a la flambe.