Bipolar Husband Addicted To Porn – Sun, Venus, Chiron in Pisces

Dear Elsa,

My husband and I have been having some problems. He was diagnosed with bipolar and narcolepsy. He had a history of using ephedrine to compensate but has been drug free for almost 3 years.

Within the past few weeks though, his behavior has changed. His bipolar hasn’t stabilized since his dad passed in July. I found out that he was snorting his Ritalin and watching a lot of porn. This isn’t typical behavior for him, but it’s happened with the porn in the past.. back when he used ephedrine. I’m hurting and scared.

I have gone to his therapist and other professionals for help in this but right now my self esteem is pretty low. I feel like if I were a better wife, he would be coming to me. I don’t know what to do from here. He knows how I feel; I have confronted him about the porn in the past and got rid of it. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you
Wife in Pain
United States

Dear Wife,

Bipolar is a serious mental illness and what and how your husband is doing on a day to day basis has very little to do with you at all. He has a brain chemistry thing that is going to eclipse anything you might do to try to have an impact.

My best advice is to get as educated as your can about his condition. The more you understand about what is going on with him, the easier it will be for you to detach your emotion and not be so negatively impacted by what he is doing. Because it is very likely he is suffering some kind of compulsion with the porn, rather than being motivated by dissatisfaction with you! This would be akin to feeling a hemophiliac is bleeding because you are a bad person! It’s just not correct.

So I say, get him to a doctor… or keep him under a doctor’s care if you’ve already got him there and then do everything you can to learn about bipolar. Read books, join a support group, read some of the blogs out there. Do what you can to understand this so you can begin to draw a line between you and his illness but essentially, this is a boundary problem.

You’re a Pisces you know, with Venus in Pisces, Chiron in Pisces so it’s going to be very hard for you to separate out from him. But I am sure you can do it and in fact transcend his illness but not without copious amounts of information and people to support and ground you. So get out there and look for them and I am sure the universe will oblige.

Much love and good luck.