Marriage to a Bi-polar patient

For those of you actually reading this blog, thank you for taking the time to pay me a visit.
I started this blog for various reasons, mostly just to write some of my memoirs, reflect on life as I see it or, at times, to blow off steam.  A journal, if you please.
     This particular entry is to blow off steam.  Not necessarily to express anger or frustration (well, maybe frustration), but to allow readers a glimpse of my life and the challenges I have to deal with on occasion.
     I am married to a bi-polar patient.  Bi-polar is a mood disorder often requiring some kind of therapy, whether pharmaceutical or homeopathic.    When I met my husband, Mike (name changed for privacy reasons), he was stable at the time, having to rely on a natural salt substitute called lithium.   I had never heard of bi-polar disorder until he and I got serious, and the concept of him being unstable was entirely meaningless to me.  I simply lived the here and now, enjoying our engagement, not fore-seeing the life I would share with him as being anything beyond the wedded bliss we experienced in the beginning.
     Before anyone starts jumping to conclusions about what I will share, I can say that I have been fortunate to have a husband who never raised a hand toward me in any violent way.  Mike's gentle spirit is what attracted me to him to begin with and I can say with confidence that if the urge ever took over during one of his episodes, he would more likely hurt himself first before ever striking out at anybody else.
    We had ten years of marital bliss, popping out first a girl and then a boy in the process, and then, in November, 2005, devastating news of Mike's brother's suicide changed everything.
    You've heard the expression, "Life will throw you a curve ball."  Or how about, "Life will kick you in the teeth" ?  I nod my head enthusiastically at these statements.
      Joseph (Mike's brother) also suffered from bi-polar disorder.  His illness cost him his job, his marriage, his sanity and, unfortunately, his life.
     News of Joseph's death sent Mike into a tailspin.  The Lithium no longer worked sufficiently.  Mike's job, already a stressful experience before the loss of his brother, became too much to bear.  Sick leave turned into sick leave without pay.  Time off for a few days stretched into weeks and eventually months.  After seven months of leave without pay,  several doctor and hospital visits, filling out paperwork/red tape, Mike was forced into disability retirement.   To add insult to injury, the stress of losing his job (he couldn't see it as retirement) sent him back to the hospital on suicide watch.
      I watched my strong, confident husband diminish down to a puddle of anxiety and misery.  Those first several months he lost 50 pounds because he was too depressed to eat.  And somehow I had to explain in simple terms to my then six year old and eight year old what was happening to their father.
     And the visits to the behavioral health clinic (former name:  psych ward).  Those are another story.
     Like I said, I had no knowledge or experience with mental illness before I met Mike.  I may have been one of those people that would say, "he just doesn't trust the Lord enough," or, "he isn't praying enough," or, how about, "he should stop taking the lithium and not have to rely on any pills and just trust the Lord to heal him."    May God forgive me if I ever said such a thing to any family members of mental illness patients in the past.  Nothing gets me more riled up when well meaning Christians say such things to my husband or me.  They have no clue.  No clue!
     I've seen Mike off the meds.  The doctors had to take Mike off his meds while in the hospital to reset the proper dosages.  Mike is an overconfident, rambling, irrational, arrogant jackass when he's off the meds.  When he's not at that end of the spectrum, he's at the other and is a miserable, sad sack who will sleep for several days after experiencing the mania and no sleep for several days.  If he ever followed the advice of going off meds those well-meaning Christians told him, I'd kill him if he didn't kill himself first.  That's really just a joke, but, my main point is, we would still not be married today if he wasn't as responsible as he is about taking his proper medication.
     In a perfect world, my husband would be healed and we can resume our lives as a married couple and live in marital bliss.  But this isn't a perfect world and I have to count my blessings.  Mike isn't healed, but he is responsible and knows he has to take his medication.  We don't have a lot of money to enjoy world traveling in our retirement like I wanted, but we have enough from the Social Security Disability Insurance to manage a half way decent lifestyle for us and our kids who are now old enough to understand this illness that has affected their father.  Despite all that has happened to threaten our marriage, Mike and I are still the best of friends.  And, by the grace of God, the challenges of mental illness and its ramifications has brought us (Mike, the kids and I) all closer as a family.  My kids aren't perfect, but they haven't done any of the rebellious, horrible stuff that I hear or read about on the internet.  Not so far, anyway.    Our merciful Heavenly Father knows I could not have handled another difficult burden.