I recently moved states with my boyfriend to get away from my mom who also happens to have bipolar disorder because she’s been emotionally abusive towards me my whole life. Anyways, we’ve been in our new place for just over a month and I’m starting to feel our “spark” die out more and more. We keep getting into arguments and I keep looping through the same things: getting defensive, being hurtful then feeling guilty. 

Last night we had gotten into an argument about my depression. I’ve spiraled into a deep depression and couldn’t understand why. He asked me why and I said “I don’t know. Sometimes it happens out of no where.” He then told me “Stop being depressed, you have no reason to. We have it easy. I’m sick and tired of you answering ‘I don’t know’ every time I ask you why you’re depressed.” It is true that we have it easy but the point is he made me feel invalidated about being unable to control these depressive and manic episodes.

I feel like he constantly invalidates what I go through with struggling with the disorder. I take my meds, I keep a routine, I do everything I can to keep it from getting worse again but he makes it seem like I’m not trying at all. I told him that he doesn’t understand what I go through with dealing with the disorder. He didn’t know me two years ago when I was crying all night, sleeping all day, struggling with harmful thoughts and actions, jobless, always high on something, multiple hospital visits and stays. He knows about that but he still thinks I don’t try. I’m two years clean with a job and I have my moments but I push through them. He mentions my mental breakdowns at work (which have only happened twice when my uncle passed and when I had gotten into a massive argument with my mom). He essentially says I don’t try to make myself better. 

On top of that, when I’m in a hypomanic episode, he enables me to spend my money. He begs me to buy him things like two days ago he begged me to buy him a VR headset which I did and it left me with only $12 in my bank account and a maxed out credit card. He encouraged me buy him a PS5, a new pc case, a new cooling system, a lot of expensive things. He essentially guilts me into it majority of the time. I know my signs of hypomania and irresponsibility with money is definitely one of them. He takes advantage of that and makes me feel guilty for wanting to keep myself under control. We have rent to pay and bills to pay and I keep trying to tell him that but he just says “But your dad is paying all of it for us right now why can’t we get this.” I keep trying to tell him to be patient and save for it but he just says “You know I’m miserable here and this would make me happy. You have your family down here, I don’t. It would mean the world to me.” It sucks.

I’m losing the spark him and I once had and I’m coming to the realization that he takes advantage of my hypomania and invalidates my depressive episodes. I don’t know what to do. I love him to death and the thought of him leaving kills me inside but the spark is almost completely gone.