Wife suddenly ended our marriage and has left our home

I have not had a chance to reply, but a lot has happened, and for legal reasons I can not say everything. However, my wife reached out to me on the exact day I predicted, in a state of total psychosis. Family had already reached out to me saying that her social media had gone crazy and she appeared to be in a full episode. I was already heading to her when she decided to come to me and I met her on the way. We came to our home and she seemed calm and but I could tell she was on the verge of violence. She very quickly told me that she had taken out a Domestic Abuse Visa, on the basis of claims of me abusing her (the claims are absolutely bananas). I was waiting for a call back from her Community Mental Health Team when I she decided to go outside for a walk, and I went with her. She walked right out in front of fast moving traffic very slowly, and I had to run out and try and stop it, which was quite dangerous. At that point when I got her back I decided to call and ambulance and wait outside and I did not feel safe with her. The ambulance paramedics were very good. I told them she had been away for two months and I thought she would suddenly be violent. When we got to the hospital she was causing enough of a disturbance that we put in a separate room, but I made it clear that I did not want be alone with her. Eventually she was looking like she was not co-operating and was going to try to leave, so I told them they needed to get a nurse there now. They got the nurse in and she would not talk whilst I was there, so I left the room. I was sat outside for a couple of minutes and I suddenly heard a load of screaming. I looked over my shoulder wondering where it was coming from, and I suddenly realised it was my wife. I came back to the room to see the nurse and paramedics backing out of the room and my wife in a foetal positions, backside pointing up in the air, and still screaming. She had thrown tea and coffee all over the place and had tried to attack the paramedics and nurse. And thank goodness that she did because I think that confirmed that she would be admitted.

So she has been in a secure mental hospital since then. I have a picture of what happened before and after she left and there is a catalogue of incompetence. I have to be careful about what I say, but basically every time I called the community mental health team and said my wife was putting me in fear of harm, or was appearing to have problems, they were ignoring it and treating it as a attempt to control my wife. However, I now know that the reality is that for months she was frequently going in and out the first stage of an episode, going into the erotomania/hypersexual stage and developing crushes on lots of people and alienating from me. She was flat denying there was a problem to the doctor and he just believed it. My wife initially said she mad a mistake leaving me, but at present she massively resents me. It is a roller-coaster still. There is a lot more to this I can not discuss at present.

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I am very glad she is finally getting the acute care she needs. Often it takes a crisis. Hopefully she will be stabilized and able to gain some perspective. Good luck to you in managing this difficult period!

Good job you, you werenā€™t injured, your wife wasnā€™t injured and you have her in a secure mental hospital.

Our close friendā€™s wife is still mid crisis. She filed for divorce, this will be an expensive episode as he had to hire a lawyer to represent him in the divorce. Her rapid cycling continues, a couple of times a week she doesnā€™t want the divorce to continue, followed immediately by once again pursuing the divorce.

We all keep waiting for the episode to end. Itā€™s a big mess for the supporting family and its hell for the 8 year old.

Hi, @LowProfiler I am in similar situation like you.
My partner for 4 years left me suddenly, and he turned from being av loving and warm person into a cruel and cold person I donā€™t know anymore. Like you experienced with you wife.
When I read this tread I felt your pain too, because I know what youā€™re been going through emotionally and pscychologically. And I feel relieved on your behalf that you finally got your wife hospitalized.

My partner is still in his episode and he has been there since midth of January. Heā€™s been on a too low dosage since December 2020, and still is. He started to show symptoms a month later (January 2021) with anger outburst and irritation, but the doctor wouldnā€™t change the dosage back. The symptoms has been on and off since then (2021) with an increase from September 2023, in which he ended our relationship in January this year.

I didnā€™t knew much about SZ until the spring this year. I realized that I have to gain more insight, so I started to search for information, and I found this board. With more knowlegde about the SZ I see that my partner has poor insight into his disease, also when he was on his old dosage.
Iā€™ve also realized that my partners cold and indifferent behavior for 5 days in November 2023 was a warningsign of what was about to come. I did not understand that then, because I knew too little about the disease.

So I am waiting to gain more contact with my partner. He responds immediately when I text him messages, and he wants to meet, but later in the autumn. This positive and gives me a little hope that I can reach him, and I will try to use LEAP to make him understand that he needs to do something about his medication. He behaves and speaks odd, and is unstable. It is not difficult for me to see that heā€™s not how he used to be. Itā€™s like heā€™s not in touch with his self, so I my goal is to get him help, and hopefully make him too see that he needs it too, by using LEAP.

I have had to just decide that I have to divorce my wife. She has done things that might be driven by illness or not, but she has done things that are just unacceptable. One of the biggest things is that she has put in an application for a Domestic Abuse visa. She was rattling through some of the things they put in the application whilst she was in heavily in the psychosis. At best it was utterly bananas and at worst cynical and a terrible betrayal. One of the claims of abuse was that I did not allow her to drink coffee on a Saturday night. I absolutely did not do that, I might have suggested it affected her sleep, but there was no way I could of disallowed her from drinking coffee. But is that grounds to award domestic abuse visa? She claimed financial abuse. This is in spite of her walking away with all of our money (about Ā£25,000) which was going to be the deposit on our house. So on what basis could she claim this? Because I prevented her from getting her teeth straightened at a cost of Ā£2000. I freely admit that I was quite firmly opposed to this, but one key piece of information that she left out of the document was that she got her teeth straightened three years ago. Even the salespeople were telling her there was no point doing it because the change would be so small it would be within the margin of error.

The main thrust of the application is based on the idea that I had been making false reports about concerns about my wifeā€™s health to try and maintain control over her. It turns out they were asking if my wife was ok, she said ā€œyesā€ and that was it, I was a bad guy. The funny thing is, within two months of being out of my care she had the biggest episode she had in three years. Also, my wife admitted that she had basically been sliding in and out of the early phases of episodes since at least last June and she was just not reporting it to the doctor. The doctor actually wrote a letter in support of the visa application saying that I was making false reports to maintain control of her in spite of her being perfectly well. It all looks a bit shakey now given the state she has been in. The idea that I ever had control of my wife is ludicrous anyway. There is another twist in this, but for legal reasons I can not talk about it yet.

Lastly, and this really is disgusting, my wife had a recording of me from some time ago, at my wits end and broken down in a mess, where I am sounding suicidal and saying I donā€™t know what is going to happen and that I need help. They used that as evidence of my trying to emotionally blackmail her. The truth is I have been drifting into a suicidal state whilst trying to support my wife over the course of a year. At a moment where I was clearly asking for help, she thought ā€œahh, I might be able to use this for my own endsā€ and not for a moment did she think ā€œmy husband needs helpā€. It is just disgusting and whether my wife was sick or not, it shows a mercenary aspect of her that does not value me in the slightest.

When she got sick I was there to get her to help. I stuck with her for 9 hours in the General Hospital. I went to visit her in the mental hospital when she was too dangerous for anybody else to see. I was the one that got the call to go back when she picked a fight with three women, got put in the de-escalation room and then started stripping off. I was the one that got her headphones without wires, who brought her guitar, new tweezers etc. I was the one who traveled a round trip of three hours each day after work to maybe have her throw me out in a temper after 15 minutes. I was the one that stood by her every single point she needed me for the last 5 years. And what did she do? She drove me to the lowest point of my life and thought ā€œahh, thatā€™s handy, Iā€™ll use this recording so I can claim this man that loves me is an abuserā€. And a load of people around her endorsed that.

No, that is enough for me. One day my wife could well be famous, and it will be a disaster for her. In a tiny group of people, when she has a little bit of local fame, she has already been hopelessly manipulated and exploited. She was sick when she left and she has lost her ability to make her own decisions. But I can not take anymore. When she is well she is the person I married, but she is vile now, and she has betrayed me in a callous and selfish way. I hope she can come out and be stable, but if she is about to enter an extended cycle of illness with short spells of remission, then she will be a dangerous person when at large.

I had her father staying with me last week and I watched her utterly destroy him over the course of a week. She has been doing that to me. I am now actually getting support from a domestic abuse team for things she has done to me. She is always going to be attracted to exciting things like a moth to a flame, resist regulation and then likely get sick. She has thrown away an incredible husband. I just do not want to be involved with her anymore. She did not just reject me, she appears to have rejected an entire stable way of thinking.

You need to protect yourself. The infernal unpredictability of this disorder is often the thing that keeps us hanging on, hoping something will change. If she continues to behave like this even after the acute care (and meds?) she received, I doubt she will improve enough to be a real partner to you again. I hope you can summon the courage to cut yourself loose from her this time.

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What can I say, I am out of words! Iā€™m so sorry for you and for her, and that youā€™ve come to the conclusion to divorce your wife. But I understand you and how you may feel. Itā€™s demanding for the relationship and devastating for your self-esteem and your own mental wellbeing in the long run to be with someone with SZ, if you donā€™t take care of your self.

What you write gives cruelty a different meaning for me. And I think maybe itā€™s more correct to call my partner emotionless and cold, than cruel, when I read what youā€™ve experienced with your wife.

Itā€™s horrible that she have treatened you like this. Her psychosis is surely turned against you. And itā€™s not helpful that people around her, like friends and the doctor believes/taken part in her psychosis, without questioning her behavior when they know about her diagnosis. As I have understood itā€™s normal that this can happen. Itā€™s lonely when other people donā€™t understand what youā€™re going through and donā€™t see that she is sick.

No, itā€™s not. I can relate to this. My partner is angry with me for a similar thing, but that happened after he left me. He is angry because he could not stay up all night when we were together. Like you I suggested something similar, that itā€™s nicer for us that we have the same sleep routine the weeks weā€™re living together, and he agreed. He changed his routines and from that moment he has only talked about how cozy it is when we can eat breakfast together. But after he ende our relasionship he have changed his thoughts and thinks that I did not allowed him to be up at night. This is odd and not how it really was, because he has Ā«come to this conclusionĀ» long after he broke up, not when we were a couple.

Itā€™s quite shocking how the SZ can trick their doctor! I think my partner is doing the same, but then I wonder how competent the doctor is. They should know about how their patients could fake being well and still manage to ask them the right questions and see that theyā€™re psychotic and/or delusional. Your wife seems to have lost a part of her insight or maybe hiding that she wasnā€™t well to avoid more medication or hospitalization.

I really know your frustration you feel about everything you have done for her, and that she not sees it. Iā€™ve done alot for my partner too, but heā€™s not capable of see it because of his SZ.

Remember that how she behaves towards you is all about the disease.
Several people have told me that I have to remember that my partnerā€™s behavior has notting to do with me, his feelings for me or about the relationship. Itā€™s all about the disease.

I am sending you warm thoughts!

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I agree you must protect yourself at this point
It takes strength to leave and start your oen healing journey

I donā€™t totally agree that is all about the disease, I think there is a part that is disease and a part that is rational but comes out only now

This seems like my situation, my husband of 21 years was smoking a lot the last two years and took a turn for the worst I didnā€™t know it could cause this type of illness maybe paranoia but not this! We were the closest couple ever! You mentioned erotic mania thatā€™s what happened to my husband out of nowhere said he was In love with a women who was dead and been dead 6 years told me heā€™s been In love for 12 years which isnā€™t true it came from nowhere, he then found photos of the woman from Facebook and posted them all over his instagram over and over and over, also like you said your wife was different with you to others my husband also the same only everyone knew something was wrong because they knew how close we were then all that happenedā€¦ he was also talking religious but very religious which he wasnā€™t before, saying he heard voices from the dead and was seeing dead people. He literally wiped me out of his life and he didnā€™t care about his children either, nothing mattered to him but him! He was trying to seduce women and it was like any woman would do but good job he didnā€™t succeed cause I would have drew the line thereā€¦ it was heart breaking for me but I understand how your feeling itā€™s a shock and hard to take in but just like you I also married through sickness and health. Everyone was saying leave him heā€™s evil I said I can I love him and he needs me. I wish you all the luck

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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 ā€œfriendā€ looked a bit puzzled and then said ā€œwell, 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 hadnā€™t 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 ā€œerrrā€¦ 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 wifeā€™s 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 ā€œwhy couldnā€™t 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 wifeā€™s illness. As we approached my wifeā€™s 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 donā€™t 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 ā€œhorribleā€ and ā€œa 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 ā€œI 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 ā€œknow her best, and know what is best for herā€. I didnā€™t 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.

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My wife has left me many times and wound up committed every time. She has announced she is leaving again. This will be 6 times I think. Iā€™m struggling to keep going. I have worked myself to death and been extremely careful with the money so that I can take care of her in the future. For this she acts as if she hates me. She on the other hand cannot/will not control her spending. I love her so much unconditionally but she repeatedly does this. The result is Iā€™ve developed major depression and intestinal problems that have landed me in the hospital for days. I have isolated myself and have no one for support. None of my friends will listen. The doctors, the friends, etc. just all say ā€œdivorce herā€. Her family cuts me off completely and will not communicate with me when she leaves like this. I feel like they blame me for all of this. Once she returns, I am just supposed to pretend like it never happened even though she cheated with a former friend of mine and another guy. I am doing my best but it is never good enough. I admit Iā€™m not cheerful, and am stressed almost constantly. High pressure job, never enough time off. Can someone please help me? I dont know where to turn anymore.

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You have my utmost sympathy, @TkT7188. Do you have access to other mental health support groups or a therapist? Support groups can sometimes be found through your local health department or psychiatric facility, and NAMI usually has family support groups, too. Iā€™ve found it comforting and helpful at times to attend support groups and know that Iā€™m not the only one trying to keep it together for a loved one with serious mental illness. Iā€™ve also found therapy helpful and have maxed out my health benefits a few times with therapy. Please try to take care of yourself.

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Thanks so much. Appreciate your kind words and support.

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Your situation is very draining and horrible. My complete empathy for you, it is so frustrating to be with someone who acts so awful. Nami support groups have helped me and you can always call the Nami crisis line and vent to them and they may know some resources in your area. We have a Nami warm line that I have vented to. My prayers for you.

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Our friendā€™s wifeā€™s family does the same thing during her bipolar episodes. They just fade off and leave him to handle it. They will answer her calls which adds to his feeling of alienation. His is wife calling them at all hours of the day, telling them all of the reasons she is divorcing him this time. She used to demand that he be excluded from her familyā€™s holiday activities during those ā€œIā€™m divorcing youā€ times. For him, that is the one thing that has changed. One of the brother inlaws is an old friend of his and he finally had enough of the regular drama invading the family events and made it clear that our friend was always welcome.

Their family habit since her teens has been to just wait out her episodes. Her bipolar has gotten much worse over the years. During the last ā€œdivorceā€ period, he about lost his job to his depression. Luckily he pulled himself up after a severe warning from his boss.

She is a tricky diagnosis, a severe bipolar with rapid cycling.

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Hello everybody. I canā€™t make a comment on my thread with any value at present, but hold on everyone. We are going to try and find a way to make the world listen to us.

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I have been going through the same thing for about three months now, this was the first time my husband actually left me. Weā€™ve only been married for a year, he returned on January 26 and spent the last four days in the pawn shops selling his stuff turning around and buying new stuff, it got so bad that I had to take him into the hospital and now he is calling me around the clock, telling me heā€™s being discharged, but of course he isnā€™t and threatening with divorce. The situation is extremely hard, but I know what youā€™re going through, as his family also shut me away, but it was because of the things he told them about me that weā€™re not true, we are talking constantly now, of course. Please reach out to me if you need some support. Iā€™ll be happy to speak with you or just let you vent, because everybody in my circle said the same thing just leave him heā€™s not worth it etc. so I know how that can be especially when you love the person and youā€™ve been with them for so long.

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I am currently in Florida at my wifeā€™s home. A family member contacted me a couple of weeks ago saying that they believed my wife was unwell. As I felt it was unlikely that an appropriate response was going to happen, I took an executive decision to contact the local police and tell them I had a concern that my wife was sick and needed to be hospitalized. The police were very understanding, and I even got put through to the specialist officer that was going to be visiting my wife to check on her so I could explain in more detail her history and to confirm expectations about how she might behave. My wife had a strong reaction when the police arrived and she was hospitalized immediately.

I spoke to her the following day and she was clearly completely delusional. In that call she told me that she had previously decided to divorce me, and was going to ā€œpay a lawyer to stalk me down and serve me papersā€ (somewhat unnecessary as she knows both where I live and work), but then had decided to not divorce me because ā€œwhy end it when it is working?ā€

I spoke to her the next day and she had been given medication that brought her out of the psychosis. Whenever she comes out of the psychosis she immediately seems to be in love with me again, speaks enthusiastically about me and seems to desperately want me in her life. She can appreciate my loyalty and devotion and it is like all of the barriers of her illness are gone. She was regretting messing up her visa in the UK, and was talking about leaving me as a big mistake. I offered to fly over and she told me that she would like that. I asked her what she would like me to bring of hers that was still in our home in the UK and she suggested there was no point bringing anything as she might end up coming back to the UK anyway. I stopped her there and reminded her that she has been unwell and making a lot of big decisions very quickly, and that maybe this is the time to just pause before doing any more big decisions. She agreed. I told her I was just coming to support her and there was no pressure on her within our relationship.

I flew over a couple of days later. She was released the day following my arrival. The moment I looked at her when she stepped out of the hospital door I saw the flat expression and I knew she was not well again. She barely spoken to me, and we had a bit of fuss with the paperwork for the discharge that enraged her. I managed to grab a few words with her social worker, and got a better plan in place for any future episodes that might come up. When we got to her home, the first moment we had alone she told me that she felt I took advantage of her my coming. I just stayed calm and said ā€œOk, no problem. Letā€™s get your stuff unpacked from my luggage and then I will goā€. By the time we had got her stuff unpacked she was saying I was being ridiculous going and I just made it clear that I was going to do whatever she wanted me to do, so if she told me I was not welcome I would not argue, I would just go. By the end of the day she wanted me to stay and sleep in her bed with her, and by the end of the week I was due to stay she wanted me to stay on another week. We had a very nice weekend, and I could see glimmers of affection from her, but I was very careful not to express any romantic feelings for her.

Over the days it has become apparent that there is at least one episode of trauma in the distant past that I was not aware of, that I believe my wife may have blocked out. The timing of this event predates her first episode. On a couple of occasions I have tentatively tried to bring up the subject. She has a new therapist in place that specializes in her condition and who seems to be giving her constructive and informed advice. They are going over her thought processes and trying to develop strategies to counter oncoming episodes. I decided yesterday to try and make a slightly firmer suggestion that there might things that my wife has blocked out that are contributing to her condition, and we had a fairly constructive conversation about it. She did acknowledge that one event (that I know is a fact because I was on the scene when it happened) had actually happened even though she can not recall it. She did say that it could be it is a possibility that she is blocking things out. I hope I have done enough there that she might bring it up with the therapist.

It is also apparent that whilst my wifeā€™s position on me clearly constantly changes and is often contradictory, in her own mind she is consistent. She described to me that she believes that she has never been attracted to me. She says that she has never had romantic feelings for me. However, what she describes seems to have some aspects of illness. She explains that she had very strong feelings for someone when she was still a teenager (her first proper relationship), but this person just suddenly cut off from her, and this lead to her first episode. She then had these feelings transfer to a public figure about 6 years ago. I suspect that actually she was sick throughout that first relationship. It sounds like it was an all consuming infatuation that was not healthy. She recognizes that when she is with me she avoids psychosis, and she does not understand why that is. She did say that she knows her relationship with these two prior figures are not ā€œrealā€ and that what she has with me is ā€œrealā€ but that she is just not attracted to me, and she has never had romantic feelings for me. I have told her I can not believe that is true (and I think I have cards and photos and letters etc. to support that). It is crazy how you start to doubt yourself, but even for her immigration we had to provide reams of personal Whatapp conversations that clearly demonstrate her affection, and I have others that go further than that.

She told me that I never take her rejecting me at face value. I told her that her welfare is my first concern. I told her that there was not way I could act on what she says at face value because it was so changeable. I told her that I understood that she wanted to know she could be well without me, and wanted to support her with that, which is why I had kept my distance even though from my point of view I felt something was wrong and I would eventually need to take steps to get her help, and that I would need to fly over on short notice. I told her that I understood that she feels that she is consistent in what she says to me, but I do not agree. I told her that looking down on this whole situation from above, I felt that if I chose to take her at her word when she rejects me, and one day she called for me and I was just not there, she might realise that what we had was special and she had lost it, and I did not want that to happen, and this is why I continued to keep the door open and watch over her from a distance. I told her that part of my duty as a husband had been to keep her feet on the ground, and that is going to be be hard to appreciate, and probably make me look very mundane, but that is all part of loving her and keeping her well. I told her I can not compete with fantastical and unhealthy concepts of love, I could not walk away as whatever happens I felt she needed me.

I think I do have quite a good idea of what is going on with my wife. There are traumatic past events that mean she struggles in having an intimate relationship that is real with me. She has had unhealthy relationships that cause intense feelings associated with sickness, probably propelled by locked away past trauma. I can not fix everything in her life, I can just support her and try and help her be in a position to deal with the fundamental issues in her life. When she is really doing well she appreciates my qualities, and I know she feels love for me. But this shadow looming over her brings doubt, and she starts thinking this that what is this fantastical unhealthy all consuming feeling that is not really love, and proof that she does not love me. But when the illness is taken away from her through medication, and she is unable to have those strong out of control feelings, and without that barrier she always seems to call for me and connect with her romantic feelings for me for a time, before the doubt creeps back in and the roller coaster starts again.

I do think this is a pattern that has happened with others in this thread and on this forum. Us schizophrenia widows really do need proper help and for this kind of behaviour to be formerly recognised and treated. Where I go from here I am not sure, but I am just going to try and have a nice weekend with my wife before I leave, and see where the weeks and days take us. It has been very difficult to not be able to hug or kiss my wife and show very limited affection whilst I have been here, but I know she is going to need me to show my care through non-physical means to give her a chance to get grounded and to be able to accept me in her life. It may be that things may never be repaired, but I do hope that this proves to be the ultimate test, and she can find consistent clarity so that we can build a life together again. It was positive that she asked me to stay. One of the biggest challenges with this are that just when she really seems to feel deep feelings for me, it seems to be when she pulls away so arbitrarily. You have to have great patience, love and care for someone to stand by them, but I am really do believe it is the cruelty of the illness.

I hope we can all be with the people we love in good time.

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@Lovemyhusband @TkT7188

I am in a similar situation as yours. My partner for four years left me, stopped loving me from one day to the next a year ago, because of psychosis and delusions. This is the second time he has left me, and I am hoping that the cycle/phase he is in will end soon.

@TkT7188 How long did your wifeā€™s phases last when she left you? It must be so hard to experience it so many times. Do you have a support group you can lean on?

My partner is on meds, but on a too low dosage and has been unstable since 2021. The cycle of his SZ turned in a negative direction in September 2023 and since then there has been many emotional ups and downs for me. He was angry with me for 7 months last year, yelled at me a lot, even when I answered in a normal voice to something he had said, like in a normal conversation. He was angry at almost everything I said, no matter what I said. After these months the cycle of SZ started to turn slowly the positive way. This year he is in a better state than he has been the entire 2024, but he is not back with me yet. He is reaching out to me again, calls me, texts me and he is excited about visit me in my new appartment. Last year has been the hardest and most painful year Iā€™ve experienced.

Now I can see the love in his eyes again, his feelings for me is kind of back, but they comes and goes with flat affect and delusions. I am focusing on all the smallest, positive moments of changes that happens with him, and hope that the cycle continues in this positive direction.

I have the same experience which you both have with your in-laws. My partnerā€™s family just said goodbye to me, he will come back later, and good luck with your life. I think thatā€™s because they donā€™t want me to carry the burden with my partners SZ. Instead they left me to handle my partner alone since he got sick in January 2024. Weā€™re not living together, since he got unwell and suddently wanted me out of his life. Other people in my life tells me to leave him, move on with my life. They donā€™t understand, when you love someone so much you want to be there for them.

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