Girlfriend has possibly hereditary depression---education for me?
September 18, 2015 2:56 PM   Subscribe

I'm looking for resources, either literature or conversation, to help me think about getting into a serious relationship with someone who is mentally ill and has enormous family history of mental illness.

GF has a long history of bipolar disorder, including at least one involuntary commitment. With medication and therapy, she is mostly high-functioning, but it still affects her life every day in a thousand little ways. She struggles to maintain weight, can't tolerate background noises like music coming through the window or water running, can't stop herself from picking at things (scabs, wood veneers, pleather), is upset by what I consider commonplace and inconsequential setbacks, etc.

I have a number of concerns about getting into a more serious relationship with this person. I don't know how realistic my concerns are, and I don't know how precisely they can be addressed beforehand. Some of what I've read makes it sound like we just don't understand mental illness well enough (yet?) to predict when and how it will manifest.

Specific questions:

- If I were eventually to marry her, how likely am I to increase significantly my children's risk of suffering the same problems? It appears to run in her family. I've heard about both her parents and all their children being on antidepressants, and some of her phrasing (mother's and father's "side of the family") makes me think that's true of other close relatives too. This is probably my foremost concern. I cannot describe how guilty I would feel if it turned out I knowingly condemned all my children to a lifetime of mental illness just to save myself a few more years in the dating scene.

- Can people in the U.S. realistically expect to have uninterrupted access to subsidized medical supervision, drugs, and therapy over a time scale of decades to a century? She takes medication daily and speaks with a psychiatrist weekly. I don't know how fast she would degrade without these, but she says before they got all that dialed in, she would sometimes just lie in bed all day, so it would eventually be a serious problem.

- Assuming reliable access to modern first-world healthcare, how well do bipolar people cope with the stresses of parenthood? Postpartum depression is a thing. Early parenthood usually involves months to years of chronic sleep deprivation, which also worsens depression. Plus, one of the features of depression is apparently disproportionate reactions to minor setbacks, which children provide in abundance. Would I effectively be a single father?

If some of my concerns seem like I'm obsessing over tail risks, I should point out that I'm the first generation of my family that hasn't lived through a war, famine, "class struggle" or other unsettled time. Maybe some considerations that make sense for that environment are too pessimistic in the 21st century U.S. But also maybe we lack the sort of dynastic wealth, social connections, and cultural competency that make mental illness survivable for families that are more established in this country. I don't know.

Also, it may be worth mentioning that I'm generally uncomfortable with no-fault divorce and definitely do not approve of divorcing someone because her healthcare turned out to be too inconvenient. I mention this because I'm not sure to what degree MeFites would agree; I see "DMTFA" quite a bit here. But that's why I'm starting the due diligence perhaps a bit earlier than usual.

Resources I'm looking for:

- Technical literature, especially secondary (review articles) and tertiary (graduate-level textbooks). I probably lack the context to interpret primary publications. I'd be worried about unduly weighting a single study. But wider reviews or graduate-level textbooks would be fine. Freely accessible would be great, but I can probably get friends to take me around most paywalls.

- Anecdotal material, as long as they're relatively typical. Again, I lack the context to recognize outliers. Is this typical? How about Snowman's recollections of his mother, in Oryx and Crake?

- In-person or internet-based counselling. If there were something like AA family groups, but for potential partners of bipolar people, I might ask if she'd mind me attending and asking some anonymous questions. She has asked me to be discreet, which I think precludes talking with anybody who could identify her from my questions.
posted by anonymous to Science & Nature (33 answers total)
 
There are many resources on the MeFi Wiki ThereIsHelp page, including links to technical literature, past AskMe threads, and online resources.
posted by Little Dawn at 3:05 PM on September 18, 2015


This doesn't help with the resources you're looking for, but as someone with a mental illness, you should probably not plan a future with this woman. Mental illness isn't a predictable thing. You're looking at this very scientifically and that's just not going to help you live a life with a woman with a mental illness.
And if you do have children and they happen to have mental illnesses, you cannot know what caused that. My family has a history of mental illness and I'm glad my parents didn't try to figure out if having me was a good idea. I may have a mental illness but I'm glad I'm alive and I would be upset to think my parents felt guilt for having me. It makes me sound like a mistake.
posted by shesbenevolent at 3:06 PM on September 18, 2015 [20 favorites]


I also have a mental illness similar to your girlfriend's, and while I applaud you for thinking deeply about this, the fact that you're coming at it from a purely analytical perspective instead of one based in compassion, love, etc, makes me wonder if you're really the right partner for her. I say this because your wording makes you sound like you think her depression is inconvenient to you and your happiness and obviously that's not a productive tack to take when it comes to long term relationships. YMMV, just my two cents as someone who had a partner like you and still regrets it.
posted by Hermione Granger at 3:13 PM on September 18, 2015 [38 favorites]


Yeah, as someone with a mental illness, I'd be horrified if my significant other talked about me like this. You can't approach mental illness with logic, it just doesn't work that way. Ultimately, you'll both be frustrated.

But, as a woman with mental illness who has successfully grown a teenager, even with major postpartum depression and several major setbacks, I know I'm a great mom. My child is happy, kind, healthy, and smart. And I effectively did most of the parenting on my own. You're being wildly unfair by implying people with mental illness cannot efficiently parent or should not reproduce for fear of passing it along.
posted by Ruki at 3:20 PM on September 18, 2015 [17 favorites]


I cannot describe how guilty I would feel if it turned out I knowingly condemned all my children to a lifetime of mental illness just to save myself a few more years in the dating scene.

Do not marry this woman. If the only reason you want to is because you're sick of the dating scene, it's the wrong reason. The way you have phrased your question makes it seem like you're looking at her like a specimen under a microscope, not with the eyes of love.

If you had phrased the question in terms of "how can I be the most supportive husband possible to my bipolar wife" and seemed to have any understanding of how much of a struggle it may be for her to be so diligent about her mental health, my response would be different. But this is all about you. How inconvenient for you it might be, and how your kids would be "condemned" if they had a mental illness. You are stigmatizing the mentally ill.

I have depression and anxiety that have caused significant disruptions in my life. My SO has a history of psychotic episodes. We are both medically compliant, but leading the multi-tasking, socially successful, upwardly mobile American dream lifestyle is going to elude us. Stress is very taxing when you have a mental illness of any kind.

If you don't love your girlfriend enough to go all in with her, don't marry her, for her sake. But just remember, everyone has their challenges. Maybe someone with different challenges would be a better fit for you.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 3:21 PM on September 18, 2015 [31 favorites]


My initial reaction to your concerns is that you probably shouldn't deepen this relationship for her sake as much as for your own. You don't seem to reflect any particular empathy for your gf. On preview, much as Hermione Granger says.

Anecdote - I have been married for 18 years. I have had several mental breakdowns, the last one about three years ago. Before the marriage there was no indication that depression or anxiety would even be an issue for me. If I couldn't have expected to be ill, how can anyone assume someone else will be? Your gf is on the right treatment and presumably is committed to staying on it - why assume anything? She may never have another instance of anything serious going wrong. If she does, you will help her throughout it, like the loving partner you are, right?

Again on preview, please be honest with yourself about why you are seemingly so ambivalent about your gf - it doesn't sound from your question that you actually care enough to commit and she deserves someone willing to hold her up and be her advocate if she is struggling.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 3:30 PM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]


NAMI provides family groups that may help with in-person information.

As a therapist, however, I'm going to say that the information you're asking for is not possible to get. You could get population-level information about people with mental illness, or women with mental illness, or even women with Bipolar Disorder, but that tells you almost nothing about the course of your girlfriend's mental illness nor about her unique coping mechanisms and strengths. You can't use population-level information in that way.
posted by jaguar at 3:31 PM on September 18, 2015 [9 favorites]


My advice, having dealt with various bipolar people over the years, is that if this an early relationship and you are not madly in love with her and willing to suffer for it, get out of it now.

Save yourself years of grief, misery, and probably an eventual breakup later when it is all much more complicated if marriage and children are involved. It is not your mission to rescue her. I do not know anyone who was happy long term with a bipolar person, especially one who sounds like she has a lot of symptoms even with medication and a psychiatrist. Yes, there are family groups for families of the mentally ill, but you are not in a family yet, although perhaps they could provide you with some good information.

Your concerns are realistic, but nobody can predict the future or the course of mental illness, nor the real risk to future children. There are hereditary tendencies, but like other illnesses such as diabetes, a family history makes the risk higher, not anywhere near 100% that you and she would have mentally ill children. Also, antidepressants are over-prescribed by some doctors for things much less serious than bipolar disorder, so the fact that many in her family are taking them is not an indication of serious mental illness in all of them. The fact that you are thinking about all this now before it gets more serious is probably a good thing. It may be hard to leave her, but it will only get harder as time passes. Only you can know and decide if your love for her outweighs the risks you perceive for a future family.
posted by mermayd at 3:33 PM on September 18, 2015 [7 favorites]


The fact that you sound more concerned about your hypothetical children's well-being than your present, real-life girlfriend's tells me this relationship is not the right one for you. There are many, many people with mental illness who make great parents, but a mentally ill spouse requires a level of unconditional emotional support I'm not seeing in your question.
posted by thetortoise at 3:34 PM on September 18, 2015 [11 favorites]


As I was reading your question, I found myself wondering whether you are prone to catastrophizing or spending a lot of time worrying about future concerns. It's not that any of these things are unreasonable issues to consider, but I can't tell if you are just the type of person who thinks a lot about this stuff (I have this tendency as well) or if you're just not that committed to this relationship.

One of the reasons I mention that is just that I have had similar thoughts, but I've come to realize that although my concerns are valid, they are also usually a sign of ambivalence on my part. I used to worry about postpartum depression, going off my meds, passing on my mental illness to future children. And then I realized that I really don't want to have kids. If I did, I would probably find ways to mitigate these risks, but I would do it anyway.

At the same time, I'm pursuing a career that poses plenty of risks (mostly just high stress, huge time commitments) for someone with my history. But the thing is, I realized that I want this so badly that I'm willing to accept the risks, and just do my best to cope with issues as they emerge.

It sounds like you don't really want to marry or have a family with this woman. It's not wrong to think about this stuff, but it sounds like if someone came along who didn't have all these issues, and you were compatible with them, you would happily jump ship. Whether or not someone has a mental illness, you shouldn't be with them just because you don't want to bother finding someone else.

But I see you're already getting lots of answers to this effect, so I'm going to try to more directly address your main questions. IANAD, but I do have a stepparent with bipolar disorder (so no blood relation, but my parents have been together since I was only a toddler, so I have a lot of first hand knowledge). I have also spent a lot of time in mental health treatment, and I've done a lot of reading and research of my own, so I have some laymen's knowledge.

If I were eventually to marry her, how likely am I to increase significantly my children's risk of suffering the same problems?

In terms of increasing the risk of your children inheriting this illness, there's no way to know for sure, and a medical professional would best be able to answer these questions, but the common wisdom is that yes, this would absolutely increase the risk. It seems like certain disorders (alcoholism, bipolar) do run in families. For example, in my parent's family, he has two siblings, one of whom also has bipolar, and his mother was orphaned at a very young age because her mother committed suicide. He also has a cousin who committed suicide. And that's only the beginning of the list. I've heard similar stories in various addiction circles that I've been a part of.

Can people in the U.S. realistically expect to have uninterrupted access to subsidized medical supervision, drugs, and therapy over a time scale of decades to a century?

I don't really think anyone can answer this for you to a satisfactory degree. Who knows what could happen after the next presidential election. However, things are better now than they were even a few years ago, but they're still not perfect, and there always is a potential for them to get worse.

Assuming reliable access to modern first-world healthcare, how well do bipolar people cope with the stresses of parenthood?

Again, this is not really something we can answer for you. In the abstract, yes, it will always be harder for someone who has bipolar disorder to cope with these issues. Bipolar typically is something that requires long term management, just like any other chronic health concern, although obviously mental illness poses it's own particular problems.

For example, my parent (who also had an active addiction) was a really destructive influence on my life. I had a chaotic, traumatic, miserable time growing up. I spent years in therapy to try to come to terms with all of that, and in a lot of ways, I have managed to grow and heal, but I also know that I'll never fully get over those experiences. It's just something I have to accept, and I make the best of what I have. Still, I wouldn't wish my experiences on my worst enemy.

At the same time, plenty of people with bipolar disorder or a whole host of other mental illnesses manage their disorder and go on to become good parents. But none of this really matters. What matters is whether your girlfriend can handle these things, and whether it's worth it to you to be there for her when she does.

In-person or internet-based counselling.

I wasn't going to tell you to look into NAMI, but on preview, I see jaguar has already linked to them, so I'll just second the recommendation.
posted by litera scripta manet at 3:34 PM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]


One thing that I find mental health professionals often overlook is co-dependence. You can't be drugged out of that and the side effects can be depression and/or anxiety.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:38 PM on September 18, 2015


Mental illness of varying degrees runs in my family.

So do cancer, diabetes, bad vision, bad teeth, heart problems, and stroke.

If you have a big enough family, you end up with everything.

Regarding uninterrupted care? Wow, that's hard. Moving, insurance changes, job changes, providers moving, even just body chemistry requiring a change in meds. It can be HARD. And I would not count on it ever being "easy". And even modern, first world healthcare cannot guarantee that managing this illness can happen without a LOT of work.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 3:39 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


I cannot describe how guilty I would feel if it turned out I knowingly condemned all my children to a lifetime of mental illness just to save myself a few more years in the dating scene.

Wow. If the only reason that you're considering starting a family with her is because you want to do it soon and she's already there, then I think you need to reconsider. That's not a healthy basis for a relationship or for having children.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 3:39 PM on September 18, 2015 [9 favorites]


Can people in the U.S. realistically expect to have uninterrupted access to subsidized medical supervision, drugs, and therapy over a time scale of decades to a century?

To even take a stab at answering this question, one would need expert and complete knowledge of contemporary general economics (world and US), US politics & health care economics, pharmacology, psychotherapy, and the regulatory environment for professions related to the provision of psychological care. To answer it would require psychic powers. The level of reassurance you seem to need for this question alone (not to mention the others) isn't compatible with the attitude required to live with someone like your girlfriend.

No one is a perfect genetic specimen, and whoever you throw your lot with could become the victim of any number of fates (illness, injury, death - that one's certain). If this isn't one you think you can handle, back out now, for both your sakes.
posted by cotton dress sock at 4:03 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


I just read the article you linked, and I want to add an addendum to my already very long answer.

Obviously no one wants to have a mental illness or see a loved one suffer through a mental illness. Still, I think there are plenty of couples who go through this kind of thing because they would rather be with their significant other even under such difficult circumstances if their only other alternative is not to be with that person at all.

Do you love your girlfriend enough to go through something similar? Is this relationship important enough to you that you're willing to risk it?

It's hard not to read into the fact that you don't mention any reasons for wanting to stay in this relationship aside from wanting to save yourself a few years in the dating scene, and that is pretty much the worst reason to stay in a relationship, whether or not mental illness is a factor.
posted by litera scripta manet at 4:07 PM on September 18, 2015 [6 favorites]


Your question is riddled with assumptions. You assume that she would want to marry you. You assume that marriage automatically means children. You assume that she wants children too. You assume that deciding a relationship with her is an acceptable risk is enough to make it happen. And all those assumptions happen before you even get to your stated questions (which can be simply answered: there's no way of knowing; unless you are psychic, no; and some do and some don't).

It doesn't sound to me like you love her. As someone with a mental illness (unipolar depression) who is and has previously been involved with other people who have serious mental illnesses, I can tell you that without love, the relationship Will. Not. Work. Your girlfriend deserves so much more. If you really do love her, you need to be having a conversation with her not about your stated questions, but about the underlying assumptions you have made. You may be in for a rude awakening.
posted by Athanassiel at 4:10 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


....to help me think about getting into a serious relationship with someone who is mentally ill and has enormous family history of mental illness.

I'm curious to know if there's anything good about your relationship, i.e. why you are considering this. Because brother, it sounds like a serious fucking slog you're pondering about undertaking.

I hate to sound cliche, but DTMFA. Trust me.
posted by kilohertz at 4:18 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think people are being pretty harsh on you here, probably because you've had the misfortune to poke at an issue that's very sensitive to many Metafilter denizens. I would say it's generally desirable to take a good hard look at your relationship before making a firm commitment (isn't that the point of premarital counseling?). I am sure that you love your girlfriend and that there are many wonderful things about her that you omitted from this question just because they're irrelevant to the topic at hand.

That said, it's probably true that a woman with bipolar disorder needs a partner who offers "unconditional emotional support," and you don't sound like you can offer it to her. I mean, I couldn't either. Life is hard and stressful, and you will need to support your partner and be supported in return enough already without adding this extra burden.

If it helps you at all, I once broke up with a woman with whom I was in a serious two-year relationship, essentially for the same reasons as you're considering here. She had good times and bad times, and selfishly I couldn't face a lifetime of those ups and downs. It was hard and I felt like (was?) the bad guy, but in retrospect I don't regret that decision.
posted by crazy with stars at 4:20 PM on September 18, 2015 [12 favorites]


With medication and therapy, she is mostly high-functioning, but it still affects her life every day in a thousand little ways. She struggles to maintain weight, can't tolerate background noises like music coming through the window or water running, can't stop herself from picking at things (scabs, wood veneers, pleather), is upset by what I consider commonplace and inconsequential setbacks, etc.

Ouch. You seem so disappointed in her.

It would feel irresponsible to give any advice except to please refrain from escalating a relationship with a woman you're already so deeply disappointed in, especially when the reason you're disappointed in her is that she has a medical condition, one even you admit she manages very well but whose breakthrough symptoms seem to annoy the hell out of you. If you think studying a graduate-level textbook about mental illness would be more enlightening or informative than talking to your girlfriend about how she thinks she would manage these issues, go ahead, but a lot of people with mental illness would feel totally dehumanized if a loved one started reading the DSM like it was any kind of blueprint for their own future. Treating her diagnosis like it's a puzzle you're going to solve or a problem you've been tasked with mitigating probably isn't going to make her feel very good at all.

The lives and functioning levels of people with bipolar disorder vary as widely as people with any other medical condition. There are mentally ill people who have lives indistinguishable from anyone else's, with illnesses largely managed through medication or talk therapy or meditation or whatever. There are mentally ill people who fuck over everyone who cares for them and leave paths of utter destruction in their wake. (There are also many people without mental illness who do this.) And there are mentally ill people everywhere in between. Mentally ill people are not irretrievably damaged or damned as a class -- yes, even if they've been involuntarily hospitalized, and even if they have a familial history of mental illness.

So no matter how much you want to get definitive, hard and fast answers about her diagnosis or come up with a reliable prediction of how it might affect her future, you aren't going to be successful approaching it so bloodlessly. You just have to talk to her. Your girlfriend isn't a textbook case of bipolar disorder, she's a person you (I guess?) love.
posted by divined by radio at 6:06 PM on September 18, 2015 [23 favorites]


She struggles to maintain weight, can't tolerate background noises like music coming through the window or water running, can't stop herself from picking at things (scabs, wood veneers, pleather), is upset by what I consider commonplace and inconsequential setbacks, etc.

This sounds like... most people.

I understand where you're coming from; marriage and parenting are huge commitments, and you need to be certain. But they're also relationships between people, and there's an element of unpredictability to them. You seem to be asking "would this female be an adequate mate" and hoping to plug yourself and your girlfriend into a Punnett square to see whether your offspring get any lower case d's. What you should be asking are questions like "do I believe she will continue to make efforts to be mentally healthy?" and "can I handle it if she needs another hospitalization?" and "can she emotionally support me if something happens to my mental state?" and, well, "how strong is our relationship?" The answers to those questions will give you an idea of what she (and you) will be like as parents.

I have a history of mental illness. The family joke is "Depression runs in some families; in ours, it gallops." When I'm at my illest, it can make me difficult to like or live with. But my depression has been in remission for years, and every day that I'm well gives me the experience, strength, and desire to more effectively fight it if it ever returns. And if my children happen to have depression or anxiety, I'll be a great parent for them to have, because I'll know what to look for and how to help.

It's understandable if you don't feel comfortable committing to someone with a chronic mental illness. I'm not entirely sure I could be in a relationship with someone like me. But base your decision on how you feel about being with her. Most of what you're asking is stuff you can't predict.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:12 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


My suggestion is to take all of your questions and replace "mental illness" terms with "cancer." How do you feel then?

In my experience, people/society has a negative stigma associated with mental illness that makes it seem icky and something to avoid. But the same doesn't apply to cancer. Why is that? In many respects, it's the same as cancer. You're predisposed to it given certain genetic and/or environmental factors. You really can't control it yourself. It's expensive to treat and destructive to not treat.

I am a person with lifelong mental illness, coming from a family with lifelong mental illness on both sides of my family, many generations deep. Maybe it's genetic. A test doesn't really exist to determine that, though.

In any case, I am of course very concerned about perceptions of mental illness. When people who don't suffer from this illness talk about it and wonder about it, I liken it to cancer. I think that shift provides a less-biased way to think about your true concerns and to think about your fears. I suggest you try it.
posted by joan_holloway at 9:19 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh wow, I'm surprised by the responses you're getting here. I think people are misjudging you.

The way I read your question, I assume you love your girlfriend (why else would you even be considering marrying her), but want to think hard before making a long-term commitment, precisely *because* you take your commitments seriously. You are anxious because you don't have a good understanding of her condition, don't believe the medical establishment necessarily has a good understanding of it, and are not sure you personally have the resources that would be necessary to be a good husband and father in that situation.

I empathise, and I applaud you. I think you're being thoughtful and careful, which is great.

I've been in a similar situation, and all I can tell you is that it is demanding. If you feel like you can afford to be generous with your time and care and attention and love, then you might be able to do this. But if you feel constrained (like your resources, including emotional ones, are scarce) then a different choice might be better for you both. That wouldn't make you a bad person, it would just be a realistic appraisal of where you're at.

It also matters where she is at. If she's self-aware and thoughtful about her health and is pretty good at managing it, that's a very different situation from a person who isn't. Good luck.
posted by Susan PG at 9:35 PM on September 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm withSusan P on this one. You love her but should you marry her? Marrying someone with a severe Illness whether it is cancer or alcoholism or bipolar is an extra challenge that not everyone should do. I applaud you for trying to learn more about bipolar disorder. Can you and her attend couples counseling now with the goal of exploring how to handle and talk about her health issues? Or is it too early in the relationship?
Having a sick spouse in the U.S. Means financial stress, so how financially stable are you? Do you have a strong support network and good coping skills? Are you willing to stay in a job that's not ideal because it provides good mental health coverage? Lots of things to think about. So yes do some reading and talk with her about how she would handle health problems and how involved she would want a partner to be.
When I get home I will post some links for you.
posted by SyraCarol at 4:34 AM on September 19, 2015


As someone who tends toward depression and has kids, I can say that no one should marry me or ESPECIALLY have kids with me unless they are so hopelessly in love with me that living without me would make their life suck. I get the impression that you care about your girlfriend and are willing to work hard to get through hard things, but that breaking up won't leave you devastated for years, spending the rest of your life wondering "what if," etc. Given that, taking a less hard road would be a wise choice.
posted by metasarah at 4:44 AM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


The wording of this post screams a total lack of warmth. For example you call her "this person". Like she's a business contact or something. You are concerned for the future of your potential children but not for her. You haven't asked about the things you could do to support her when she is ill. And your primary motivation for settling down with her is to save yourself a few more years in the dating scene? Not because you love her and can't imagine a life without her?

I think you should break up with her, not because her depression is an insurmountable problem, but because you just don't love her. Being in a relationship with someone who doesn't return your love is pretty devastating for anyone, for someone who suffers from depression it could actually tip her over the edge. Let her find someone who loves her, depression and all.
posted by intensitymultiply at 5:05 AM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


I do not think it fair to compare the effects of mental illness to cancer and to imply that the OP is heartless for questioning. At the stage the relationship appears to be now, any serious chronic illness could be a dealbreaker and staying in the relationship would not be fair to either party.

If he were asking these questions about someone he was already married to or otherwise seriously committed for years and now changing his mind, that would be different. There are no "for better or worse, in sickness and health" vows taken yet, and he is at a crossroads questioning whether he could live with and honor such vows. If not, he is better out of it now, and should not have to feel guilt for not sticking it out.
posted by mermayd at 7:10 AM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


I don't think that thinking about these things makes anyone a bad person. But assuming that there are objective answers to these things indicates a very unrealistic expectation for how people, relationships, and life work. I think it would be helpful to think about why you need or expect some sort of guarantee that your spouse and children won't be too much to handle. Even with a totally healthy-at-marriage spouse, you could have a child with major medical or mental-health issues that requires lifelong parental care. Your healthy-at-marriage spouse could be diagnosed with a major chronic illness or develop or acquire some other disability. Ditto for you.

There are certain risks that everyone has to take when forming relationships and families. If you decide this risk is too much, that's fine, but it may be helpful to come to terms with the reality that you don't have nearly as much control over the people around you as you may think you have. In my experience, that degree of needing to control everything is often a reaction to trauma, generational or personal, and I'm not saying you're a bad person for feeling it, but it may be something that's holding you back from living your life fully. Bad things happen, no matter how careful anyone's planning. Increasing your own ability to cope with that fact may help you develop the social connections and cultural competency you mention lacking.
posted by jaguar at 9:13 AM on September 19, 2015 [4 favorites]


just to save myself a few more years in the dating scene.

Do not marry ANYBODY for this reason.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:52 AM on September 19, 2015 [6 favorites]


From your lack of loving description of your girlfriend, it doesn't sound like she's the right one for you. Your approach to this is very analytical and it sounds very either/or. I'm not getting the sense that there is enough of a love connection for you to sustain any future crises, let alone those related to mental health.

That being said, I think it makes sense to look at what is before you. I have two chronic illnesses. I thought my former partners understood this and what it meant. One left me on the day of my (final) confirmed diagnosis, disappearing forever, having previously walked out on me when I was in the ER, because he "hadn't signed up to stay up all night in the ER". The other could not cope when I was in an accident and physically injured - and then completely melted down and became abusive to me to punish me for my physical injury, while also becoming resentful that I had the other chronic illness, which would sometimes require him to leave work early to care for our children so I could seek medical attention. Both those people knew these things going in and weren't able to cope. Their reactions were traumatic for me. Through therapy, I have come to see that both of them had very limited empathy for anyone, not just me, and that they tended to be abusive and self-centred in many other ways. I just couldn't see it because I tend to see the good in most people and want to build strong relationships.

I'm not saying that you're anti-social or anything like that. But I don't hear a lot of love for your partner in this question. Maybe you just wanted to keep it factual. A relationship is more complicated than that. If you do not love this woman so much that you feel you will have the compassion to get through cancer, a car accident, post-partum physical complications, a child with special needs that cannot be detected till they are older, a miscarriage, a difficult pregnancy, the death of a parent, the illness of a parent, loss of a job and more...it's about more than just the mental illness.

It's hard to read your question and I don't want to suggest you have no empathy. You may be a very loving partner and you're just looking this at this point-blank and wondering what you are getting into. This is better than ignoring things. But I am not hearing the love. For me, I would have been far better off with someone who loved me, even if it meant our relationship wouldn't have continued.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 10:18 AM on September 19, 2015


You're asking a lot of questions that you are going to be facing no matter who you marry. What if you marry someone who's perfect on paper but then is overtaken by crippling postpartum depression? What if you marry someone with no medical history of anything who then is suddenly diagnosed Stage IV cancer and BAM! has a 10-month life expectancy? What if you marry someone who has a pretty low-key job but finally secures that sweet promotion that requires 70 hours of work and a smartphone glued to her face and now you're effectively a single father? (And by the way, if your concern is that you might wind up doing most of the child-rearing, cooking, and cleaning while balancing a million other things, I urge you to have a conversation with the bazillions of women who have to do this every day because that's what's expected of them.) Hey, how are YOU going to react to the stress and chronic sleep deprivation of having a kid? Should YOU not marry because you might have a car accident and render your wife a single mother?

You're facing the luxury of knowing your partner has an illness, but "how does a bipolar person respond to stress?" is not that different from "how does a brown-haired person respond to stress?" My mother is your worst-case scenario. Mental illness to the point where, in a lot of ways, my father basically has an extra kid. My father has a decent grasp of mental illness generally but has spent years learning the challenges that she faces and the things that she needs. Read up on mental illness, that will probably help, but you're going to be marrying a person, not a book.

What you should be asking yourself is how you will handle any of the pitfalls that you will encounter by inviting another person to share your life.

(Final note: worrying about "condemning" your children to mental illness? I don't consider myself condemned at all. It sucks, to be sure, but honestly I'd rather have what I deal with than be lactose intolerant. Everyone is different, but that's exactly why you shouldn't speak of this as condemnation. Presumptuous as hell.)
posted by good lorneing at 11:05 AM on September 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


It is reasonable for you to be concerned. Bipolar disorder can be hard to live with and hard to treat, and, yes, it is heritable. A good book for you at this stage would be The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide by David J. Miklowitz.

I have had the unhappy experience of dealing with a serious depressive episode while married to someone lacking in empathy and kindness. Depression was difficult enough and then to face constant anger and criticism? I wouldn't wish that on anyone. If that's likely to be your response, you would both be better off apart.
posted by islandeady at 11:52 AM on September 19, 2015


A Blog about Bipolar and Bipolar Beat
Book: Loving Someone with Bipolar
Shrink Rap gives you an overview on the mental health landscape
The Atlantic's article on decisions about loving someone with a chronic illness
posted by SyraCarol at 3:00 PM on September 19, 2015


just to save myself a few more years in the dating scene.

You are not that into her. I am not going to chastise you for thinking about your future children's mental health. I am going to tell you that right now you shouldn't even think about this, however.

A debate on whether it's ethical to bring children to the world considering genetics and having a SO with a managed mental illness is definitely something to think about and can be a heart breaking issue if your alternative is to not share your life with the person you love.

That said, any long term relationship will face money issues, relationship issues, parenting issues, and at some point life-threatening illnesses. A managed mental illness is not even close to the worst difficulties you will face in a relationship, but a very important factor is that in a healthy (non-abusive), loving relationship, just having your SO in your life makes up for all the bullshit your will face together.

What I am trying to say is that in a healthy, loving relationship, your alternative is not "a few more years in the dating scene" - rather, the alternative is "a lifetime without the person I love." Just by the way you are asking this question, we can tell that your feelings towards her are not strong enough to consider long term plans including children, at least for now.
posted by Tarumba at 10:17 AM on September 21, 2015


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