Divorcing the Mentally Ill

His mental illness is unique to him and has its own set of unique challenges and considerations. Nevertheless, we all share the same common bond when mental illness is intertwined in our daily lives.

He has a personality disorder. He has bipolar disorder. He has anxiety. Depression and addictions are the conditions that define him. There is no way that anyone can change that but him. His chronic anxiety required him to seek the highest amount of emotional support from me. His personal stress levels were HIS created stress levels. Every day – he would consume us.

His lowest depression moments devoured his engagement in the house and he created this storm of hell for everyone. He was constantly irritable, hostile and angry. I resented him for causing my family life to be out of sync.

His mania devoured money like a vulture preying on the dead carcass of my soul and left behind bones, me, alone picking up the pieces of the confusion of why in bloody hell I felt so bare. His addiction, a lack of his personal responsibility, required me to be over-responsible. He is incapable of being intimate and his priority was only to fill those addictive desires. Sex, drugs, compulsion, and money; SO MUCH MONEY!

Then it came quickly to follow: BLAME! It’s the worlds problem (if Covid weren’t a thing, if porn weren’t a thing, if she didn’t show it off, if they didn’t pass the pipe), it’s his mother’s problem (for being an overbearing enabler who couldn’t have a healthy relationship and protect me), it’s his dad problem (for being a leech on society), it’s his sisters problem (I can’t even say the things he said about her and feel ok with myself), it’s my problem (because I can’t stick up for him), and it’s the multiple women before me (drugs, using him, fatsos, abusers and manipulators.) But, what it wasn’t….HIS problem. All he did everyday over and over is criticize me, he had contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalled me. I was so tired. I couldn’t breath. He chained the existence of my soul in a dungeon and I was told every day I was too much but not enough all at the same time.

Life as I knew it became a nightmare. True love and courage of the heart couldn’t overcome this. I watched him spin these tails of woah in true narcissistic nature and everyone around him continued to enable him to do so. I wanted to scream – STOP HELPING HIM REMAIN SICK!!!! Don’t let him lead you on that he is “getting help,” he isn’t telling doctors that he hears voices that tell him to do things. He isn’t telling doctors about his alter ego (there have been a few that I have met.) He isn’t telling doctors about any of it. I sat at these appointments in pure astonishment. As we would leave every appointment all I would hear is his reality of what was being said and it was so askew. I wanted to bang my head on the dashboard just to feel some relief of the pressure mounting in my mind of his irrationality of facts. Unfortunately it is one sided and soon that support group he thinks he has, they will become exhausted too, and as a close friend said “the one who cares the most is the one who hurts the most.”

I carry so much guilt moving into and out of my second divorce. Not guilt because I was a terrible wife. Not guilt because I have done or did something “wrong” either. I have guilt from being unable to help my husband overcome his afflictions. I feel guilty because I could no longer stay by his side for better or worse. I feel guilty because as he walked out the door I felt the first sense of relief I had felt in years. The circumstances are what they are, and I knew I was making the best possible decision for me.

Sure I feel a loss! I have said it before and I will say it a million times over, I had romanticized our memories to create a longing for what WAS LOST! There aren’t any what ifs. He isn’t going to miss me when he gets better (if he gets better). I wonder if I could ever truly love anyone the way I love him. But they aren’t facts. They are not the reality that we are facing. I can’t focus on what might happen, but on what is happening or what has happened. In some way I hope that this will ensure him to get the help and support he really needs, and ultimately the divorce will be in his best interest.

After nearly a year into a requested divorce I have one bit of advice: Don’t expect that your divorce will be any different than your marriage. They will fight for some crazy ass thing that doesn’t exist. Divorcing the mentally ill is going to feel like you’re pulling everyone of your teeth out and popping in your immediate dentures and suffering through the hell. You just want peace and they, well they think by doing all of what they are doing, it is giving them some magical form of power and control. Your trying to be kind and not vindictive like you were in your whole entire marriage. Just remember, they aren’t capable of seeing their inner workings to be rational human beings.

I let my husband go last weekend and as he sat here telling me the many stories I have heard before, I knew I was completely done. All I heard was: he was a lab rat for big pharma and he really was ok. People are trying to kill him. He wanted to hurt people. He was going to be ok. He was never going to let his mom bury her only son. That the world was out to get him, that his mother was crazy, that his sister would continue to be exactly what she has always been to him and her husband will never get it, that a woman he proclaimed pure disgust for was now his best friend and they would marry, that he was getting help and he was going to be “just fine.” Maybe he will smoke a couple of joints and it all be ok. He looked me straight in my eyes and told me, “your eyes have always shown me and I know when you look at me how it really feels to be truly loved, Rebecca. No person has ever made me feel this way.” (but what about your soon to be wife who is your best friend.) Broken tears that feel pushed out. Tales of confusion. Pacing. More Pacing. Shaking. Taping his head to shut the voices down. Up, down, up, down. I was exhausted and relieved. I didn’t want to do any of THAT anymore. I cried. A lot. I cried so hard I passed out. I knew. I knew it was goodbye forever. I didn’t want him to leave and I wanted to hold him one last time. I wanted to hug him till his pain washed away. Then I just wanted to puke.

I worry about him just like I did years before. When no one else was truly there for him and turned a blind eye, I was there. I cleaned up the puke, the sweats, I bathed him and showered him, I was called vile names as the drugs came out of his body and his mental illness was at an all time top of the morning form. I know he is still suffering from the same afflictions today, I didn’t turn my back on him then and I am not now. He isn’t capable of coping, he lies to himself, his support system and YEARS and YEARS upon YEARS of watching him lie to his mental health team about how severe it is. Yet here I am, again. I remind myself that worry just stems from running through the possibilities in my head of a person he is not.

He didn’t choose to be mentally ill and I still love the most healthy version of my husband. I am compassionately loving myself enough to say that today; it’s ok! I can love him and let him go and most importantly I am not a failure because I couldn’t help him fix himself. I had done enough. I had hugged the pain and kissed away a lot. I had done more than enough.