Started this blog to talk about my family and dealing with (possible) bipolar disorder. I mean to offend noone with what i write, but some of the language and situations might not be for everyone. My current predicament will come out as a write, but my thoughts my be scattered as i try my best to get everything down right away. Im going to make mistakes in sentence structure, spelling and a whole host of other nono's of the english language. If any of my previous teachers happen to see this, i apologize in advance and hope to revist my posts one day and correct them. ;)
Some background. Im soon to be 39, my wife is 41 and my 3 kids are 18(prev relationship), just turned 5 and just about to turn 3. My wife and i have been together for 15 years, and everyone lives together in a 950 sq foot house. I would like to sya that they were all great years, but i would be lying. 8 years ago i sought help for alcohol abuse and with the help of AA, my friends and family and especially my wife. i was able to overcome it. 2 years after overcoming my issues, my wife experienced a breakdown, where she was diagnosed with depression, and an addiction that she worked on overcoming(marijuana). With my 2 years of sobriety, i did everything and anything i could to help her with this, and together we overcame it. As you can well imagine, both of us suffered from depression, but neither of us sought any professional help to talk abou tour feelings - except with each other. We were best friends and we shared everything together.
After my sobriety, i was fortunate enough to get government support to go back to school, so i took an accelerated program to validate my previous working experience and to hopefully land myself a great job. It seemed to work. After taking a "get by"' job until i found something meaningful, i landed in a brandnew call centre starting from the ground up. With no previous experience in that industry i was very proud of myself for both learning the system, environment and culture and suceeding. At teh beginning, my team was dead last in just about every measurable category. 1.5 years later, my team was either 1st or 2nd in those same categories. My wife and i got married during this time, bought a house and got pregnant. Then a bomb dropped...the crntre was closing in a few months. After the centre closed, and while not bouncing around, i tried a couple of different vocations to see what i liked. I worked as an agent for an American Bank with a call centre here in Canada, that lasted 4 months and i hated it even though i was doing very well. Then i did car sales at a Pontiac dealership. That lasted for 9 months and while really enjoying it, the American economic crash and the rapidly rising canadian dollar make sucess for a new car salesman extremely difficult. Then i went to a call centre again as a supervisory where i was for 3 months. That call centre started to lose contracts, so they had a large surplus of both agents and supes. So they started releasing people based on last in - first out. (My director had already told me i was a great asset, and preforming better than most of their supes who had been there for years). So from there i went to a major north american home renovations store (that uses Orange as their colour). I worked the special services/customer complaints desk for 3 months and hated every minute of it. After that i went back to basics for me - restaurants, and found a position with the one that i always enjoyed being a part of. Ive been there for 4 years and really have no plans on leaving again.
My wife also makes more than me(salary, im a server so most of my income isnt on paper), so based on that simple fact, i sought and found a job that allowed me the flexibility to take care of my family and become the primary care-giver of the house. We felt this was a natural step as i was already doing all the grocery shopping and cooking and most of the laundry and some of the household chores anyway.
My wife and i work in a very high paced industry (hospitality), we work for the same company (but different locations) where she is a manager and i am an employee. Basically with the exception of customer issues and scheduling concerns, i have pretty much a stress free job. My wife not so much. The parent company places (while not completely unrealistic demands) qiute a list of demands and expectations on their leadership group, has to deal with customer issues, staffing issues...well the list goes on and on, i might eventualy fill in the other blanks as i continue to write, but i might not.
Shes been experiencing some issue at work that are very...horrible is the b est way i can describe them. I wouldnt have to deal with them to say the least, but i do as its happening with my wife
Thursday September 6th 2012
I came home after working a split (shift work) today to be greated with a depressed and distraught wife. As she is weeping and trying to...keep herself composed, she tells me that she no longer wants to have sex with me or have any other type of physical contact. That i have no passion, drive, desire and that she doesnt love me, she also wants me to find something or SOMEONE to give me a "spark". i tell her that she fills all that for me, she says that i dont do it for her. (finding it really hard to relive or rethink all this right now)
Friday
My wife goes to her parents house to dog sit and decompress. With the news from last night, i feel that i need the night off for myself and my kids, plus having my wife leave early in the afternoon, i need to pick the kids up from school and daycare. Our oldest is going to her mothers house for the wekeend, so shes not available to watch the kids while i work that night.
The weekend
The 5 year old turns 5 on saturday, without mom there, i have to make do with what i can. we had already gicen him his present earlier in the week, plus lack of money so there are no new gifts from us. I arranged for my mother to come up on saturday and spend the day with us, which really worked out well ad we all had a great time together. Rained all day so we had to stay in.
Wife calls and talks to the boys, asks how i am doing. answer honestly that im not doing well. Im scared and have no idea whats going on.
Monday
My wife is coming home today, and i am only working at night today, I delay mydrive in as long as possible to see if i can catch a glimpse of her and maybe say hi, i love you, a hug kiss whatever. NO luck. now im thining that shes avoiding me. i later learn that she was
I get home and text my wife to meet me outside so we can go for a walk. I ask her straight out if what i understood is accurate - she no longer wants to have any type of physical relationship with me, that she feels i have no drive or ambition and wants me to find something or someone that will.
