I have been married for over 25 years. We have 2 grown sons and one teenaged daughter. For years we had a really good marriage and I considered my husband to be my best friend.
After we were married for about 5 years he started to show signs of anxiety and depression. He was great at home, but at work, he was under alot of stress. As the years went by, he started to have mood swings and he would "go off" on people. Then his behavior was carried on through our family life. About 12 years ago he started taking meds for depression and anxiety. Through the years the meds have changed and so has his symtoms. Now it looks as if he has a mild form of bi-polar. He is on heavy duty meds. If the mix isn't right, then he feels lower than low, or manic. Sometimes the lows makes him think about suicide.
We moved out of state one year ago. Through our move, we were able to sell our home and buy a new one with the profits and have no mortgage. He accepted a job that pays a considerable amount less than his job from our previous state, but we figured that it'd balance out since we didn't have a mortgage payment anymore.
Well, the job isn't satisfying and he isn't happy in it at all...but he is too afraid to make a job change. He spends most of his time on the computer when he is home. He avoids people. He has no new friends in our new state and he says that he likes it this way. His meds make him tired and so when he is home, he is either on the comptuer or sleeping on the couch. He has no drive, no motovation to do much on his days off. He likes me to make lists of things for him to do, but when I do, he doesn't do them anyway.
We've been seeing a marriage counselor for about 5 months. I don't think that it's helping much. I go back and forth in my mind wanting a divorce, but we both don't want to give up our new home, and I am not a "career" woman, so I dont' have my own income to speak of.
I know that I am not happy living with a person that has mood swings all of the time. It's like he is stunted in his emotional growth and even our 17 yr old daughter sees that.
What prompted me to write is that I found out yesterday that he's been lying to me for months. His favorite thing to do is to go on chats for depressed and bipolar people. He will have 4 chats open up at a time. My kids told me that he never stopped, they see him. (We have 3 computers, while they are on theirs, he is on his behind them.) They told me that they are tired of their dad lying to me. He minimizes the screens when I come in the room and pulls up his word game so it looks like he's been playing that all along. The chats had become an addiction/compulsion for him. It interfers with his interaction with me and our kids...I am having a hard time dealing with the fact that he's still been going in the chats and lying to me that he stopped months ago. I don't want to bring it up to him until we go to counseling next week, but I did say something small about it last night and again he said that he gave it up months ago. It doesn't sound like a big thing, but it is. It's like he gives the best of himself/moods to these chat people and I get the leftovers, if there is anything left over....
Don't know that to think anymore
