well, my wife ain't a psycho, in fact I think she's one of the bravest, most intelligent people i've ever met. scratch that. IS the bravest, most intelligent person I've ever met.
doesn't mean that being with her isn't like cutting myself every day tho. we met in our early 20s. we were both party-hard types, only once we got married support from her parents dried up and suddenly i was expected to finance her extravagant lifestyle. I'd never really questioned where the money came from before that. I'd always wanted to be a writer (still do) and spent/spend a lot of time with notebook and pen in hand. that shit helps when i'm losing the plot. but it doesn't pay the bills, so I got pressed into a career that i didn't want (i'm a web developer), and even though I earn four times the average wage it's still not enough to keep her happy and also save for *anything*. we don't own a car. we don't own a stereo. we have a crappy television.
we own fantastic clothes, very flash cellphones. that's pretty much it.
she was only diagnosed 9 months ago (apparently she'd been given a diagnosis at age 18 by the family doctor which she refused to acknowledge and caused mass estrangement with her mum+dad). we've been married for nearly five years, together for six.
since her diagnosis, we've discovered that she has co-morbid borderline personality disorder. that one speaks to me more actually, as it's what i'm often on the receiving end of. i've done a lot of reading and i've started to realise "shit i really am losing control of my life here".
three weeks ago i caught her setting up a tryst with a 24yr old business acquaintance over email. it was all innuendo-type stuff like "why do you keep popping into my head? stay out of my mind!" then later emails "when do i get to come back into your head -- i like it there ;-P" then "i don't know what our situation is . . . but i'm looking forward to find out" and "playing hard to get eh".
that sorta thing. almost puked reading it.
broke up for about . . . hmm . . . three hours. then she hoovered me back in (see http://bpd411.org for description of "the hoover manouver").
but this time I've insisted that she tell her parents about her diagnosis, and see a psych every week for two months (psych has promptly put her on heavy downers, lithium for mania and lamictal for epilepsy which also co-occurs in her beautiful but fucked up brain).
when we first got together, it was always about partying together. now i'm nearly 30 years old, a reluctant career guy, friday's are the end of a long slog for me and by about 2am I'm ready for home and a bit of the old . . . well, she's pretty good looking ;-)
at first, we had agreements that the person who wanted to go home first trumped the other person, stuff like that. didn't work so well. for the last couple years, she'd just stay out in the clubs and bars without me, coming home at 5, 6, 7am totally blazed and ranting at me about being such a "pussy" (her words) for going home and worrying about her.
