Hi, everyone. I just stumbled upon here Googling “Suicide” last night, and thought this would be a good place to share.
I’m a 44 year-old male, and father of a seven year-old boy. I also have a Bipolar II and BPD diagnosis, just recently having returned from a 28-day DBT program which I voluntarily enrolled myself in. While I’ve learned a ton there, I also left the facility with the worst suicidality I’ve experienced in my life. I’ve spent the last two days inches away from doing it, via a pretty aggressive method, only to not go through with it each time.
I have been/was married for 13 years, and overall together for 19 years with the love of my life. I love her with every fiber of my being. I also made a colossal mistake about a year ago. During some pretty prolonged struggles, mostly related to parenting, I began an affair with a close friend, which continued, despite my wife and her husband finding out, for months, until it ended both our marriages (mine is not final until January.) We then began our own relationship, which just ended when she left me while I was in my DBT program because, in her eyes, I’d left her, or some crap. Even with this betrayal on my part, my wife and I remained close, even when she wanted to punch me in the head. I asked to reconcile several times. She said no.
While in treatment, something changed. My wife was asked if she wanted a new life partner. She hesitated to answer, then said yes. Everything changed for me, at that point. The guilt and shame I’d carried with me multiplied. I was already hating the co-parenting life, trading him back and forth, but not being able to see him wake up every morning. That’s when my suicidality went through the roof. I don’t want this life. I don’t want a third act. I don’t want to live in guilt and shame. I want my family.
I couldn’t say anything while in facility, but suicide has been the only thing on my mind since returning home. That, or having my family back. I’ve told my wife about my suicidality. She’s sort of resigned to doing nothing, as five hospitalizations in the past year haven’t done much. She feels as if she has to choose between getting back together, and my dying. The fact that she has to even think about this skeeves me out. She talks to me about my son, my parents, etc. Yes, I think of them all the time, but one person is never enough.
I’m filling out a will and figuring out some stuff about my debt. I have two of the famous suicide texts on order from Amazon, in order to do this in a gentler way. I don’t know if I can wait that long. The pain, even with my “Ride the Wave” DBT skills, is unbearable. It only subsides when I talk about how things could be if we were a family again. I really hope I get that. It’s not that I even want to die. I just want to live in misery less.
Thanks for listening
6 comments
Thank you for writing this. It is from the heart. The married people reading this precautionary story of indiscretion will benefit from it. Yes indeed the situation you are in with family is a pain I remember being excruciating. Years after the divorce was over I was resigned to it all and even found empathetic ears eventually. What you are going through is horrid. As a divorcee I finally found real relief in a divorce recovery workshop.
Thank you so much for replying so quickly. I hope and pray that my wife and I can reconcile, and that it’s not just out of her fear of my dying.
It’s also awful to lose two relationships in one year. My symptoms contributed to the girlfriend breakup. After all those difficult months, she decided she wanted something “easy.” I’m a lot of awesome things, but “easy” isn’t one of them. The hell with her, though. She doesn’t mean 1/100th to me as the woman I married.
I won’t try to add anything meaningful to the aspect of your relationships, because I have no business doing so, but I can relate to the frustration of therapy processes that seemingly backfire. Four months spent with a therapist recently, and the results were negative and disheartening – enough won’t hat were I to see her in public, I’d avoid her at all costs. Now, two weeks into a job search workshop designed to boost confidence, and it’s not working either. Strange how that works. It’s like our minds just can’t handle the possibility of positive change, no matter how appealing. Anyways. Best of luck with your situation.
The DBT program I did was wonderful, actually. I picked up some great skills. I tried to explain to them, though, that I had deeper issues which could potentially undermine me anyway (fear of abandonment, fear of being alone), but they sort of punted on those…..and here we are.
Therapists can definitely be a mixed bag. The one I’m going back to now knows me, but doesn’t have much to add to the conversation.
Thanks for reading, Once.
*enough so that were I to see her in public
That’s a heavy load, and it’s impressive that you’re carrying it and trying to resolve, even if it feels like the only resolution is death. I can relate, during my divorce 8 years ago my ex wife told me the only reason she was considering staying was that she thought I would kill myself. At the time that seemed like an emotionally manipulative statement from her. Yet knowing how bad my depression has been for the past 8 years since she left changes my view.
It’s hard living with a mentally ill spouse. I’ve lived with mentally ill people my entire adult life, by choice. It isn’t that I sought them out, this is just the people that understand me and that I understand well enough to live with. As I get further in my treatment I realize how hard it is to live with me and it threatens to pull me back to my darkest place.
The important thing to realize is the thought “There is no hope on the other side of this crisis” is deceptive. Living is the hope. Getting healthier is the goal and therefor a hope worth fighting for. You are worth fighting for.
I live with a close friend with BPD, and it is a tough diagnosis to work through. Even for therapists it is rarely treated (especially in men.) It is treatable though, and DBT seems to work.
The point for you in all this is that others have similar hurts, and you aren’t alone. It isn’t going to be a magic pill, it’s a small comfort. The depressive strategy that has worked in the situations around me is to gather small comforts until they are enough to cope. Then the depressed person gets out ahead of depressive thoughts.
So I hope you take comfort, or at least some hope from this feedback.