# Bipolar and getting married young



## siamese531 (Aug 15, 2017)

Hi everyone, this is my first post. To jump right into it, I am the one with bipolar disorder; my husband does not suffer from a mental illness. It has caused lots of stress over the years but I have found a combo of meds that works well for me and the mood swings have calmed down considerably. What I still struggle with is obsessive thinking. I'll get an idea in my head and it will be the only thing I can think about. They're always big life changes, like buying a house, getting a new job, or going back to school. The latest is that all of the sudden I am just DYING to become a veterinarian. I get angry with my husband when he tries to talk sense into me, that I have never expressed an interest in medicine, that I would have to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt to come out making about the same salary I do now, that part of the job would sometimes be euthanize for animals and realistically I could not handle that. Cognitively I agree with all of these points. However, it does not stop the irrational anger I have about him "controlling my life". I have been fantasizing about running away and starting over, going to school to study biology, and just live me and my cat. The monkey wrench in all of this is that we got married when I was 19 (he was 26), so sometimes I get so resentful of the things he "held me back from" in life (I have a masters degree in engineering, so don't start the pity party yet). We don't have any kids. I guess the feedback I'm seeking is, is the resentment tied to the bipolar, or is it an authentic feeling? I know no one can really answer that for me but I am wondering about people's experiences who also got married young. Thanks


----------



## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

Young marriage is relative. For most of human history and in most cultures, getting married at 19 would not be young at all. However, if you think you got married too young and missed out, your concerns about that could be driving your feelings at this time. Do you think you married too young? Do you regret marrying him? These are questions to ask yourself and work through.

As far as him not wanting you to go to vet school, it is perfectly reasonable for him to not want to go into debt over something that you had never expressed interest in before and that you acknowledge wouldn't be a good fit for you. Have you considered what it is about being a veterinarian that appeals to you and how you could meet that need by volunteering somewhere? You don't need a veterinary degree to work with animals.


----------



## spawn2031 (Jul 19, 2017)

So my wife is bi-polar with OCD and I am not. So pretty similar situation, all except for the getting married young thing. I'll tell ya, that can make for a very difficult marriage partner because the reasoning methods that your husband would use with himself and others dont necessarily apply to you since your compulsions are driven from your OCD. What makes it worse is that, it will be very difficult for your husband to know what desires of yours are surfacing because they are real desires or coming from your OCD. To further complicate things, since they all feel the same to you, you are going to feel like he's not supporting you and get angry which will then trigger a bi-polar episode and make you get 100x more mad than you should. Am I close to the mark? That's what happens with my wife some times. In order to get through something like this you are going to have to ask yourself one important question. Is your husband a good man and does he truly have your best interests in mind? If the answer to that is yes then you are going to have to practice telling yourself that when he disagrees with something, like the vet school, perhaps he's seeing something that you aren't capable of seeing at the moment. On the flip side of that, your hubby is also going to have to realize that not every OCD issue is in need of correction.

For instance, we have a latch on my basement door... the latch is broken. you could easily knock it right off and it wouldn't stop a fly. That latch is still there because it makes my wife feel better about the kids being able to open it. Even though she knows it's kind of messed up, I just let it go cuz it helps her. Now him stopping you from doing the vet school thing, that's a huge thing that would indebt you for quite a time to come so that's nothing to start on a whim. I would push back on that too, especially if it just came out of no where. I would assume it was an OCD thing too.

As far as the getting married young thing, remember that you chose this and also remember that your bi-polar is going to make you feel everything more intense and your OCD is going to keep you focused on it as well, adding fuel to the fire. I think there is a pretty decent chance that you are feeling the way you are partly because of your issues as well as you didn't get to experience single adult life for very long.


----------



## siamese531 (Aug 15, 2017)

Thanks for the replies. It helps to have a neutral party come in. You are right about feeling things 10x stronger because of the bipolar, and having a difficult time sorting through what is real and what is the illness. In some sense I'm glad to hear we're not the only ones struggling with this stuff. When I'm not clouded by bipolar emotions, I know he is a good man with my best interests in mind. As you know, though, it can be soooooo hard to see that sometimes.
I hope things are ok with you and your wife. Marriage with a mental illness is hard. Feel free to message me anytime if you'd like, I wouldn't mind getting to know each other better due to our similar situations.


----------



## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

It's not uncommon for those who married young to have regrets and wonder what they might have missed out on. It's also not uncommon for people who didn't marry young to have regrets and wonder what they missed out on. No matter what you choose, there are going to be things you regret not doing. That's life.


----------



## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Are you seeing a therapist every week? You should be. You don't seem to be in control of your thoughts or your emotions or even your actions. It's not fair to him to have to live with this.


----------



## Brandon Young (Oct 17, 2017)

I have BP disorder as well and also have similar issues with allowing one thing to dominate my every waking thought. As you stated it is normally the "big" decisions; home, having children, career and my latest is contemplation of divorce. I too feel this sort of resentment because we met at 15 and have been in the relationship now for a total of 23 years. I wonder constantly if I made the right decision at such a young age. Will I regret not going out on my own to find something more than what I feel is a mediocre marriage? Then on top of this, which I know many without BP experience, we also have to question is this "us" or is it the illness. And, if you're like me which I think you mentioned it above, you will have your SO question it as being the illness and even though you know it may be you just can't let it go, then you have some resentment toward them for "blaming" it on the illness. Sometimes I feel like I don't know what I feel, because I'm not sure where my emotions begin and end, versus where BP takes hold and skews everything. It's painful indeed.


----------

