I have updated a couple of people who contacted me outside of this forum, but a lot happened through September up until last week. The short story is that she returned to the US and is living with her mother. The longer story is that after she was released from her initial hospital stay, she came to our home to collect her things (I had retrieved them from her previous lodgings as the lady did not want her to ever return). When she came to our home she was clearly not well, crying as soon as she came through the door, and also questioning why she was ever in hospital. She was not too nice to be around, and would not tell me where her new lodgings were. I guessed she might last a few days at least before something happened.
Four days later I got a call from her whilst I was at work. She was clearly delusional, telling me she had found a picture of my grandfather in a record store that was just around the corner. I went out of the office and I could see her in the street with some of her hippy dippy friends. I did not want to approach her, so I called over one of the friends and told her Vivian clearly needed to get help immediately, and that it was an emergency. This āfriendā looked a bit puzzled and then said āwell, she did throw some coffee earlierā¦ but I am not supposed to be talking to youā¦ā and then turned around, walked off, and then skipped away with my wife". I honestly can not understand how people can be so completely and utterly stupid. Even observing my wife from a distance it was plainly obvious that something was wrong with her. There was still a group of the friends remaining in the street, and as my wife had gone, I approached them and told them that the friend that had left with my wife should be careful as my wife could be dangerous, and that my wife urgently needed help. They all looked at each other a bit concerned, and then told me about this coffee incident. She hadnāt just thrown a pot of coffee, she had tasted a bit of a full pot of coffee, said it was bitter and threw the lot all over the place. And nobody challenged her on that. They all just shuffled in their seats because not one of those utter clowns have the fortitude to actually say āerrrā¦ that is not acceptable behaviourā. I am convinced it is that lack of basic brains and backbone that attracted my wife to these idiots, as it gave my wife an environment where she could act out without any pushback, until it got to the point it was completely outlandish, and then of course they all just dropped her.
So I called the local mental health team and tell them my wife is clearly in a major episode again. I tell them that I never thought she was better, that she is acting out again and that she is going to be a danger to herself and others. Then I called the police and told them my concerns and then they should expect something to happen. I discussed it with her cousin and we agreed there was nothing more I could do. As she had only just been released and I did not think she was very well when she was released, the baseline was clear set at a pretty unwell level. We had to gamble on something happening that would not be something where she came to harm, but enough to get attention of the services and get her put back in hospital.
The next day I got a call, and without giving details, something had happened where she did not come to physically harm, but it was definitely something that the police would be involved in. I was asked by the police to come to the location where the event took place, but in the end they got diverted before they could speak to me. They took my wife to an assessment center on a 24 hour police hold. My expectation was that I would not hear from her again, I would be cut off again. However I called the assessment center a few times to see how things were progressing and verify if she was going to be released or not. the last time I called they told me she was about to be assessed, and that she had smashed her phone and her glasses. I could not bear to think of her without her glasses as she is extremely short-sighted. She had left a spare pair of glasses in our home by accident, so I grabbed them and a few clothes I had collected from her new lodgings the day before, and bought her some socks and underwear, and headed up to the hospital. I was thinking she would probably not want to speak to me, but as I was getting near to the location, I got a phone call. It was a doctor asking me to confirm my name and some of my wifeās details. The doctor then told me that my wife has been placed on a 28 day section and that she had asked for me to be placed in charge of her care. I was somewhat surprised. She then told me my wife had smashed her phone and that she wanted to speak to me. My wife came on the line. She was crying and very apologetic. I was pretty surprised. We spoke for a bit and i just tried to reassure her we could work everything out, and I was just around the corner and would bring glasses and clothes for her.
When I got there, I do not think I had realised that she would actually want to see me, so I just brought the stuff for her to the door of the unit, and did not even ask to come in. Straight away they said they would check if she wanted to see me. I was even more surprised that she did. She was completely contrite and apologetic, and did not understand why she had done a lot of the things she had done over the last few months. She she expressed a few reservations about our marriage, but it seemed more like she had no confidence in her convictions in that regard, and she was saying things like āwhy couldnāt I see it?ā when talking about the delusions. She was very worried that her actions and rejecting the spousal visa and doing the bananas domestic abuse visa was going to cause her to have to go back to the US. She was crying saying she did not want to go back to the US, and that it horrible there. I could not understand how she could have such clarity, as she seemed completely out of it the day before. It turned out that they gave her a single tablet of lorazepam and it brought her out it. I stayed for a couple of hours and tried to comfort her. Eventually she was drifting off to sleep and the nurse said it was time to leave.
She was transferred to the hospital she was in previously. I visited her the next day with a temporary basic phone so she could call me, but not do any social media stuff. I could not get there under a bit later in the day and she was waiting at the door crying when I got there. She was saying she had wrote my number down wrong and did not know if I was going to come. We had about three days where it was like my wife was back, and she was in love with me, and wanting to be my wife again. Then a bit a doubt crept in. I think it was almost like she was trying to find and assert her grip on reality, and to do that, some of the delusional feelings she had about me had to be re-established. All the same we were working towards rebuilding out marriage. The doctor she had in the hospital this time for the first recognised the mood disorder/mania aspect of my wifeās illness. As we approached my wifeās release, the doctor told my wife that it appeared she had been on a cycle of illness for a very long time and she should stay with me for at least 2 months without making any big decisions. She wanted her to go onto lithium to try and stabilise her moods and control the mania, but my wife rejected this due to fears over side effect and long term damage to vital organs. Right before her release the doctor had a quick chat with me alone and said my wife was so excitied to be coming home and trying to get out marriage repaired, but that she really should be on lithium at least to get back to a normal routine.
I tried to be optimistic, but we lasted three days and one date before we had some very mild crossed words (my wife was behaviour a bit suspiciously and took offence to me asking what she was doing) and she announced she was leaving to live by herself. The little was little reasoning with her, and within a few days she was about to sign a six month lease, when they was another gear change. This time she decided to resign from her job, because it was not the perfect job after all, and they had not shown her enough respect or understanding when she returned. Everything of course was them and she had no part in this. Unfortunately, I know from experience my wife can portray things very convincingly when they are not quite that way, so I donāt know exactly what happened with work, but she resigned. Then she said she was going back to America, which would void her ongoing bananas Domestic Abuse visa (which cost just under Ā£5000 to apply for) and before we could really have a proper conversation, or she spoke to any professional, she had already booked the ticket. Everything in the UK was now terrible, and she just wanted to be back in the US which was brilliant. She wanted to live with her mother, who has not been her favourite person for some time, due to their complicated relationship. I tried to reason with her that if she hung on until February, the visa might go through and she could have the right to live in the UK forever, with NHS treatment and disability benefits and everything that going with it. But no, she had to go as soon as possible.
She flew out last week. In the intervening period she ran hot and cold on me. At one point she was looking at how I could get a visa, but by the time she left, I was a villain again. My emotional upset at her leaving was āhorribleā and āa living nightmareā. We got to the point where we did not even really say a proper goodbye at the airport. I felt like she contrived a confrontation to try avoid the emotion of it herself. For a little after she made the decision she kept saying āI am sorry just to leave you hereā, and I thought if we kept the boat steady, when she got to the US she might ask for me to join her. But by the end, in her eyes abusing her again. She was was just drifting back towards that delusional persecuted state of mind. Although she has been in contact with me, she has arbitrarily cut me off as her partner again.
It was very strange because with certain people in certain circles she was still acting like I was her husband, but then with others (that she had probably told tall tales to) she was trying to cut me out. At one point early in the second hospitalization she was talking about doing a social media post to try and explain why she was returning to me when she has been telling everyone I was abusing her. I probably should have just left it, but she said she was going to post that I āknow her best, and know what is best for herā. I didnāt like the idea of people thinking she was returning to an abuser, motivated by need. With that in mind, I asked her flat out if she was going to say that people did not need to worry that I was an abuser. We would not do that, and I was not happy as I felt I was putting myself in a vulnerable position.
When she did come home with me, we had plans penciled in up to Christmas, and I do think she was thinking that far. However, she clearly was not ready for work and the outside world and she very quickly fell into old habits, and was making emotional demands on me that I have come to realize are not right or fair. The worst point of this is when my wife was upset about something to do with work, and in a conversation which was fairly calm up until this point, she suddenly started screaming like she was being murdered. I was surprised that nobody reported it to the police, but I got out fairly quickly. This was one of the very few times she took ownership of her behaviour as she messaged me saying she knew she needed to work on those behaviours, but that she wanted me to come back so she could talk to me. The problem is, by the next day she blamed me for that behaviour. That is the fundamental problem and why I am the focus of everything. She just can not face her issues and had to assign blame to someone or something. It is all me at present. It has destroyed our marriage. Now the mental health teams in the UK have seen first hand her behaviour they are taking it seriously, but it is too late. She had two final appointments with the local mental health team after I wrote to them and said that they needed to see her before she left and decide if they needed to intervene with her plan to leave. Indeed, my wife came home from the first appointment angry with me, saying that they were asking so many questions she thought they were going to hospitalize. I am not sure if she was aware that they had been provided with evidence of her recent behaviour.
So, she had left now. In the last few months she has destroyed our marriage, destroyed our savings, made outrageous false allegations of abuse against me whilst taking absolutely no lasting responsibility or accountability for her own abusive behaviour. There are a few more things that I will probably write about at a later time, but there was further evidence that her thought process was warped making her her impossible to deal with, and that she felt justified to abuse me. It is a very sad situation.