Tag: parents

When you think it’s all going so well… a global pandemic throws a spanner in the works

soppymagsLeave a comment

So firstly I feel like I need to apologise for the misleading title of my blog, it’s called bipolar & my wife but we are not actually married yet.

We got engaged on 24th June 2018 on the sea front which was honestly the best day of my life.

If you’ve read my other posts you will already know the rocky road it has taken to get to this point. If you haven’t read my previous posts (shame on you!) let me break it down into bullet points and get you up to speed.

Age 17 – thought I might be gay.

Age 17 to 23 – took lots of drugs and drank a lot of alcohol to ignore the fact that I might be gay

Age 23 – planned my suicide and wrote my note, put on medication and tried to get better

Age 25 – Accepted I was a massive gay

Age 25 and a half – Downloaded an app called project toe to speak with people that might understand or be able to give some advice. Met a girl on there that lived just 15 miles away. Met, fell in love and moved in.

Age 26 and a half – asked her parent for the blessing to marry her, they told me no and accused my partner of being ill

Age 27 – got secretly engaged, told her family after 2 months and they didn’t speak to us for a year.

Ok, you are all caught up… I did warn you that our road was rocky! So we planned our wedding, count down was on 591 days and counting! We counted down the years, then the months and then the weeks.

5 weeks before our wedding: our family business floods from the crazy weather we had in February, worked non stop to try and get back up and running. Finally got to a good place and we could look forward to our wedding again.

3 weeks before our wedding: 26 people have dropped out

11 days before our wedding: the country is put on lockdown meaning all of that waiting and excitement was gone. Our wedding has been cancelled. This was the hardest and most heartbreaking thing to happen after the fight we had been through just to be together, it was all for nothing.

Except it wasn’t, we had to look for a silver lining in all of this happening, we had been so wrapped up in the wedding day being perfect, where the flowers were going, how many candles on the table, whether the hair and make up person was going to have enough time, making sure the menu was right. None of it mattered. In the few days before the lockdown we had a feeling that it was going to happen and all I could think was ‘I don’t care if I have to walk down the aisle in tracksuit bottoms, my hair a mess, no guests, no food. Just please let me marry her’

We evaluated what mattered in life, and for us it was that we were together.

Life is going to get unbelievably shit sometimes, trust me I know this more than most, but you have to find the good in it. If you don’t learn from it then it really will be for nothing.

One day I will marry my soulmate, I just have to wait a little bit longer than I expected.

Everyone needs to look at what’s important in these crazy times, look after yourselves and your families and just stay safe.

You may not have always been there, but you’re there now

soppymagsLeave a comment

When I started a relationship with my partner, we had to keep it quiet for a while, as my partner was so conscious of people, particularly her family thinking she was unwell. She was worried about people thinking she was rushing into things and making rash decisions (which is admittedly a sign – see my blog post – starting a relationship with someone with Bipolar).

This and other stresses put strain on our relationship, which caused a break up three months in (worst 4 days of my life I might add!).

The main reason for our break up was because both of us were still not 100% well, we were actually obsessed with each other which really wasn’t healthy. But, the other reason for our break up, at least on my part was that I felt hidden, I felt like she was ashamed to be with me and I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to tell her family about us.

When we got back together, everything changed. We took time to make ourselves better, which in turn made our relationship better.

We faced many challenges in our relationship, and most of them were because other people made my partner feel like she was unwell and that she couldn’t trust her own decisions.

That all came to a head when we got engaged and she finally was able to stick up for herself, she fought to prove she was more than capable of running her own life.

In that time, I had conversations with her family which made me feel that I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t handle her illness. Well how could I? I was told many times that I hadn’t experienced my partner when she was ill, I was told that I don’t know anything and that I couldn’t comprehend what the family went through. I was told that perhaps I wasn’t stable enough myself. I felt like I had to apologise for not witnessing her in a manic state, I had to defend myself just for loving her.

I’m here to say, even though you might not have experienced your partner’s past episodes, that doesn’t mean you will not be there, carrying your fucking relationship and everything that matters to you on your back for every episode after.

You matter too, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.