Living with and supporting my Bipolar partner
Hi,
I'm posting this and reaching out because I've gotten to the point where I don't really know what I can do to help my bipolar partner. We've been together for 3 years and it's been an emotional rollercoaster but we managed to weather many hardships together and genuinely love one another.
My partner is very bad with his finances, though. To the extent where he would go and shopping sprees online purchasing things he did not have the money for. There were also times where money would go missing from my wallet. Not huge amounts but enough that I began to become suspicious. I never wanted to confront him about this in fear of him taking it the wrong way. I also didn't want to add to his stress. I told him if he ever needed anything he could just ask me and I'd try my best. However, due to this I became slightly paranoid and started to hide my wallet and credit cards when we were together. Last week he found out about this and was understandably hurt. I do feel guilty about doing this, but he has a history of this kind of thing so to me, I was trying to protect myself.
Anyway, last week he suddenly sent me a message saying he found out I was doing this and that he didn't want to talk to me for the next 2 weeks. Since then he has been up and down. One day he apologised and said he loved me, didn't want to leave me and that we should grab coffee and talk things over, which I thought was a good idea. The next night saying how much he missed me when I wasn't there, to then being as cold as ice. Then yesterday sending cryptic messages hinting at suicide. However everytime I ask him to talk about his feelings I'm pushed away and told I'm being suffocating. I'm trying to give him space, but it's hard when he is so obviously in pain right now. I worry about him so much.
This is also sending my mental health in a spiral and is in turn triggering my anxiety and depression big time.
Any advice would be appreciated!
First off if you have a real concern about his safety you should contact someone immediately. I have found the Suicide Hotline to be very helpful to me in times of crisis. I don't know if therapy is an option for you or if you and your partner are open to it, but if so I would suggest individual therapy for both of you and couples therapy as well. I know therapy is expensive. I believe everyone with Bipolar should be covered by insurance for therapy. I am sorry you two are struggling. Try not to take his behavior personally. As you know being Bi-polar is like having emotional exposed nerves. Sometimes when I get really angry or sad it can take me a few days to feel better. He still loves you. He just needs some time to heal. And so do you. 💚 I hope that this helps. You most likely already know this. Sometimes we just need to remind each other. Maybe you will do that for me someday. 🤷♂️