My wife has schizoaffective disorder. We have been married since 2021, and we had been living here in the UK since then.
We have been getting ready to apply for her visa extension. On Monday 17th June we had a meeting with the solicitor where we were preparing the final documents and my wife was pushing the solicitor to get it completed as soon as possible, and asking her to provide a letter assuring her new employer that it would be in place well in time before the expiry of her current visa in August. Having spoken to the solicitor afterwards she had no doubt in her mind that my wife was entirely minded to going ahead with the application.
That week she had got covid for the first time. She seemed to become increasingly morose as the week went on, and by Thursday and Friday she looked pretty emotionless and blank. On the Friday in nipped home from where I work over the road to be handed a note from my wife telling me that she was leaving me, that I had been a great help to our mental health, but now I was causing “turbulence and disturbance” and that she would be moving out of the house.
I was devastated, I left our home for about and hour, and when I came back she was gone. She would not let me know where she was in messages. When she came back six hours later, she said she “did not feel normal” and that she needed to call the crisis team. She also mentioned the subject of her erotomania. We spoke for some time, but she did seem in a strange mood. We were unable to get a response from them until the morning, by which time she had taken off again at 7.15am, returning and leave from 9.30am to 10.30pm. The crisis team arranged to meet her the next day to assess her, but my understanding was she left and they just kept in touch.
She was out until late again that day and did not come back until 10.30pm again. I left a note on the door asking if we could talk at some point, and we arranged to meet that evening, although she did not want to meet in our home. I had seen she had removed her tooth brush from the bathroom. When I spoke to her she was flat, very much “that other person” my wife becomes when she is unwell. She was struggling to understand my upset and flat refusing to consider marriage counselling or any other options. She was short and not engaged on anything. She left and has not slept at our home since then.
We arranged to speak again on the following Friday. First of all she kept me waiting, and then when she arrived, she was displaying signs of paranoia and illness. She was very short with me, would not engage me in the eye, and she did not seem to understand my upset. At one point when I said I was very upset she said “how can you be upset? Look, you’ve put your nice jeans on, and nice t-shirt, and you’ve shaved and got your nice hat on!” She also asked me why I bit my lip at one point. She really seemed to be showing signs of illness.
By the weekend she had removed nearly all of her possessions from our home, including pot plants. Although she won’t tell me where she is I have an idea of where she is staying, and it is with a couple we know. The male we have previously discussed as being very controlling and manipulative. Only just recently my wife mentioned she thought he was a hypocrite and “a bit too much”.
I am still not sure what has happened. She did have covid that week, and I am wondering if that triggered symptoms. It could be her genuine intention to leave, but on the Monday she was absolutely 100% trying to get the visa done. She did ask for the crisis team on Friday and she was displaying symptoms.
However, she still seems resolute a week down the line. Her reasons were so vague, but she finally cited an argument we had 10 days before she gave me the letter. It was not a great argument, but I would not have expected it to end a marriage. She has said I shout at her a lot, which is a perception she has when she is generally well, but does not match up with reality some of the time, and others have pointed out to her that I am sometimes not shouting when she is saying that I am. We had that meeting on the 17th that she seemed absolutely all for the visa.
I just don’t know what to thing. Did I mess this up? Is she unwell? Is she unwell but forming convictions that will last if she does get well? Why is she starting her new job today if she only had a visa that is valid until next month? Why won’t she engage with me at all? Yesterday she told me that we will never have casual conversations again. We had such a loving and close relationship. There were ups and downs, and as much as she did not want to put them down to the illness, they were often clearly linked to things such as her erotomania. I really struggled to get help with the mood aspects of her illness.
I just feel like, although there are a range of symptoms that match up with her illness and might have enabled this, she really has left and she really won’t be coming back, even if she gets better. I’ve tried to alert every service I can, including her hospital where she is an outpatient and the social services mental health care service, and I think I have just done everything I can now.
It has been such an unimaginable grief to carry, especially with the worry of not know where she is or if she is really safe. It feels like the person I was so close to has just switched off and now there is “that person” in her place. Yesterday she told me she thought we would never have a casual conversation again. She has not had a major episode for three years, and has never had one when on her current effective medication. I am wondering if the covid increased some inflammation or something and it is giving her an episode which is going under the radar with the professionals and being stopped from going full blown by the medication. I just can’t make sense of it. It is all so sudden. I am giving up hope that she will come back, it is just the not knowing whether it is real or the illness that makes it so difficult. We were so close and had been through so much together.
Has anybody been through this? The hospital tell me they see this happen sometimes, and usually the person comes back after a few months, but we don’t have a few months. I vowed to look after my wife in sickness and in health, so I feel like I have to try everything I can, but I am guessing now the best thing I can do is just wait. She has never had an episode that has not gone full blown psychosis before, so I just don’t know what to think about the prospects of her reaching a stage where clarity is coming back to me. Is it bad that I am almost hoping her symptoms get worse? I just want her well and back at home, but I have very little hope that will happen.
I have been so desperate I have needed crisis support myself, and I have a parade of appointments and calls from people checking in on me. It is all so sad. Am I just a jilted lover after all we have been through?
EDIT: I should just add that it seems like it is only me that she is displaying symptoms with. Everybody else says she seems to be acting normal. I know it is often the closest that get these things focused on them, or maybe I am more attuned to it, and so often people don’t know she has an illness until she is completely manic, but maybe it is just me.
