Marriage is hard. Throw a couple of mental illnesses into the mix, and it gets ten times harder. It is possible, though. I have three mental illnesses and have been married to the love of my life for over six years. But, she and I will both tell you that it's a lot harder when one of the partners has a mental illness.
When Stace and I first started dating, I was having a terrible time coming to terms with the fact that I was gay. I had known since I was 19, but hadn't really come out of the closet until I met her at age 27. That's a long time to have anxiety about being gay. And, not only was I having anxiety about it, but I was engaging in Borderline behaviors, and having massive mood swings as well.
Somehow, Stace stayed with me and helped me through all of that, and we are doing better every single day. But, it wasn't easy at all.
She proposed to me after only eight and a half months of dating because we knew, from basically Day One that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. We fell in love within a month, moved in together after four months, got engaged after eight and a half months, and got married on our two-year anniversary of our first date. It was a whirlwind of excitement and anxiety all at once, at least for me.
I was so happy to be marrying the love of my life, but I had a couple of mental illnesses to contend with. I lump our dating and marriage relationship into one because it was a struggle from the very start, for both of us. We fought pretty much all the time, mostly because I just didn't know how to be with someone. That might sound weird, but it's true. I just didn't know how to handle being around and living with a person that I loved with all my heart, but still did things that I didn't like.
I remember that during the early days until just a couple of years ago, when I got mad, I would often slam doors, or if I didn't even want to look at her, I would get in my car and drive around. And, please know that I used to have major anger problems, and my wife is about as happy-go-lucky and loving of life as anyone I've ever met. So, it was mainly me that was having the issues.
But, like Stace always says when I ask her why she stayed with me, that she always "saw the good in me" and when she saw a certain smile on my face, she knew that we'd be okay eventually. She loved me enough to stay while I changed into a better person, and I loved her enough to do the changing. And, I know that everyone says that "don't expect him/ her to change once you get married. That won't happen." But, for us, I WANTED to change. I WANTED to get rid of my anger and do better with my illnesses, and I knew that if I worked hard at those two things, I would be a better person and we would be together forever like we both wanted.
I had been in therapy with a wonderful therapist since August of 2007, and then Stace and I met in December of 2007. So, I was actively working on myself, and Stace knew that. When we would have a major blow-up, she would go to therapy with me the next week and we would work it out. Being unhappy with my psychiatrist of a few years, in July of 2010, I decided to switch to the doctor I am currently seeing, and Stace was fully supportive of that. I finally got on a good cocktail of meds, and have been stable on them for about 5 years now.
A major point of contention between us was that I literally could not work. I had been working part-time and going to school when we met, and then when I finished school, I worked full-time for a few months. I had to quit that job because it was too overwhelming, and was hospitalized about a month after that. That was when we decided that I would just do house-wifey things like take care of the boys, clean, do laundry, take care of the house, dishes, etc. I'm so glad that I do that now! It is a lot less stressful than working and thankfully my honey can provide for us all. (I do get Disability every month).
So, now that we've been through so much in our early years together, we figure anything is better than that. We have a very strong love for each other, and our pups, and we are committed to making this marriage work. We don't fight hardly ever now. It is much more peaceful in our home, and we tell each other that we love each other all the time. We know each other's quirks (and, yes, Stace has some, too).
We are honest with each other and we each know everything about the other. We are stable now and have been for a few years now. We are mindful of my limitations and we work within them. We make everything work, and isn't that what marriage is all about?
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