Update: soooo confused about what's happening

Advice Needed

I posted about my husband's situation almost a month ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/BipolarSOs/comments/1rcul2l/help_applying_leap_method/

I really need perspective from those who have been through this nightmare. I keep getting so confused about what I'm even dealing with here!

During the two weeks we spent apart, he began to taper off Zoloft and started backing off of a lot of the extreme things he was doing. He kept making a longer and longer discard timeline (ie, "I'll wait until April/May/June to decide if I want a divorce") until he finally said he wanted to take divorce off the table. He stopped demanding I apologize, stopped being mean, and we were coexisting for about two weeks. During this time, he was sleeping a lot more, seemed fairly lucid, and I was hopeful that he would return to baseline, though I was on the lookout for depression. I also was spending a lot of time thinking about whether or not the marriage as a whole was salvageable, given how tired I am of the ups & downs.

Even though he no longer seemed irritable or super euphoric, he still was talking about god a lot. Initially, it was more of a general focus on a deep spiritual connection, similar to the LSD feeling of being one with everything and full of endless love. However, this has morphed into a Christian-centric thing, which is very bizarre because he is a lifelong atheist/agonostic. When this all started, one of the pieces of "proof" he was using against people saying he was manic was that he didn't suddenly believe in Jesus. Well...now he suddenly believes in Jesus, is reading the bible every day, going around talking to everyone about it, preaching to me, etc. Since we live in the South, it's not that unusual for people to talk to strangers/casual acquaintances about god, so some of our neighbors are really feeding into his sudden "conversion".

About two weeks after we moved back in together, this hyper-focus on Christianity led to him suddenly confessing that he has been lying to me for 10 years and breaking the rules of our marriage behind my back. I was already at the end of my rope, but this really was the cherry on top of an absolutely horrible situation. To make matters worse, the preaching has continued as I've tried to process this betrayal. He's not blaming me for everything, but he IS acting extremely "holier than thou", talking about how this connection to God will heal my pain, basically saying that all the shitty stuff he's done over the years has been because he wasn't connected to God. But now that he is, I'm supposed to believe he's a magically changed man who will never lie to me again, blahblahblah. Oh, and he doesn't need meds, therapy, etc because God is all he needs. He wants to reduce his therapy sessions, but says he will continue if it makes me "feel better".

Any attempt at telling him that he is still manic is met with a pitying look, as if he just thinks it's so sad other people don't know the inner peace he has and that we are just so scared all the time for no reason. Or he will ask me if I might be the bipolar one, since my emotions are very up and down given the truth bomb he dropped on top of the insane behavior I have been living with for almost two months now.

While I've been grieving everything, he's been socializing like crazy, keeping super busy, doing home improvement projects as if nothing is happening. He went so far as to invite me out to dinner with friends, wanting to play the happy couple in public while I was literally unable to go more than an hour or so without bawling my eyes out! It's crazy though, because if I ask him to comfort me while I cry or let me rant at him about how he betrayed me, he will sit down and do it. Then when I'm done, it's like he will turn right back into his happy-go-lucky "new, uninhibited self". It's the most insane thing I've ever experienced.

I finally have asked him to leave the house again for another separation, but I can see the first inklings of him beginning to turn on me again. I guess I'm just wondering...does this still sound like bipolar or is something else going on? I thought he would crash out into depression after coming off Zoloft, but he hasn't. He's definitely still not "himself", though given the fact that he could so easily lie to me for 10 years, I'm not sure I even know who he is.

Posted Mar 23, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

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