A
male
age
36-40,
*atrickBateman
writes:First of all I apologize for the length, I'm pretty much writing this as it comes out of my head. But if you get through all of it and have any advice/insight to offer I would be humbly grateful.I'm a 23yo male, my beautiful wife is 32. I am having doubts about my marriage of 16mos (24mos together) and looking for some insight into the situation as I seem to be unable to understand myself even. I love and respect my wife very much, and am extremely attached to her. She is the last person on the planet I want to hurt. When we fell in love I became convinced that I could never live without her. I thought no two people could have a stronger connection than what we had when we got married. We are both very "child-like" and silly in nature, but also on the same wave-length when it comes to being mature in treating each other lovingly and respectfully, and so we had an almost instant connection and understanding of each other. We still have a very tender relationship and only fight in short bursts, and the anger dissipates in minutes and we make-up. But in recent months I have become very unhappy, and am having doubts about our future, but not because of issues in our day to day interactions.In the past several months, with the weight of all the responsibilities of being married, and a recent spiritual upheaval in my life, I've started to feel very anxious, depressed, full of doubt about everything. I've started to doubt everything about myself, about life. I have symptoms of bipolar type 2. I feel depressed a majority of the time.At times it's really bad, feeling pretty much nihilistic from the crushing despair. Occasionally feeling hypo-manic, though, and so enthusiastic and excited about life that I think I will explode from the joy of simply being alive. It feels like I imagine a stimulant drug would, although I've never done any hard drugs. But, I don't believe these moods to be full-on episodes of mania as I never do anything extremely irrational like the way you always hear of people with bipolar behaving.. Except maybe staying up all night sometimes because my mind is racing. But I'm depressed much more often than not. On one hand I think I might just be really stressed out from the new responsibilities of marriage and just having trouble coming to terms with it all, and that in my heart I really truly DO want to be with my wife no matter what even, though I am anxious about a lot of things in our future right now.But on the other hand, I'm starting to be consumed with thoughts of doubt. That we rushed into marriage before we had spent enough time and energy completely leveling and coming to crystal clear, realistic terms with the situation, and with how we felt (me especially because of my inexperience with serious relationships).The basics of our situation: Met two years ago when I was 21, she 30. I'm back in college now, but when we met I was on an indefinite break from school because I didn't know where my life was going and was just working as a bartender and exploring the world a bit, having recently moved to a big city just shy of my 21 b-day (I'm from a small town). I'd never been in a long-term serious relationship, only dated casually.She has been married once before for a year before divorcing.Needless to say, with her being 9 years my senior it would seem an unlikely match.But we started dating for some reason and very rapidly developed what seemed to be such an incredible connection that it became very serious within a few months.And it was completely mutual, not just me "falling in love for the first time," but she felt it too, despite being at different levels of development, different stages of life seemingly. With me not being financially stable and still figuring out life, and her being in her early 30's and looking for someone to start a family with soon, it did seem highly unlikely from an external perspective. But still we continued to fall deeper in love, and after 7 months almost exactly we got married and moved in together.But in the past several months, I've started to become very confused.At times I feel excited about the prospect of being single and able to live spontaneous and impulsive, doing whatever feels right with no pressure or sense of urgency about making more money for the sake of stability for a family. I told her I wanted to speed up my productivity and get my stuff together for us, but I didn't know it would be this stressful.I honestly don't even know if I want children, at least not for awhile. I thought I did but now that I've experienced the full weight of marriage, of being responsible for another person, the thought adding anything else to the equation anytime soon scares me.And also I've recently realized that I don't feel a "connection" to the christian faith I was raised to believe in.I remain spiritually open and seeking, but I know this uncertain transitional state I'm in has caused a lot of issues in itself, issues I want desperately to seek some peace about, and am trying to. But in the meantime, I definitely know these issues are contributing to the doubts I'm having about my marriage, and about life in general. Part of the problem it seems though is that a major, fundamental issue of life like this doesn't seem to have a "quick-fix" for the sake of helping address the urgent concern of my marriage. Trying to "rush" to a peaceful spiritual place seems like a contradiction in terms, no? But then after going through all the thoughts I just described in my head over and over, I get depressed and sad and guilty at the idea of divorce from someone I care about so very much, and go back and forth about it, trying to understand how I really feel and what I really want. Not just what my depression may be making me think because of the stress.. Feeling completely out of touch, unsure of everything, but still hoping to find some clarity... Thanks ahead for any insight anyone can offer
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christian, crush, depressed, divorce, drugs, fell in love, money, moved in, shy, want children Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 September 2010): I would recommend speaking to a psychologist to help sort out a lot of the things going on within you. You may have gotten married too soon, but you are married now and you love each other. I would strongly encourage you not to end your marriage because divorce is emotionally difficult to go through and I really think this would just add to what you are already dealing with in your mind. Your wife isn't the problem; you just have a lot of conflicts within yourself. Try to be as open as possible with your wife through all of this. But, again, a psychologist can be quite helpful for you with all the things you are processing.
Also, are you on medication for your bipolar? If not, that might be something to consider as well.
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