Reply to s/o How do we screen potential spouses for mental illness?

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[quote=Anonymous]It seems like there are two sides to this debate...

1) Those who think there were always red flags and if you miss them you're either in denial or just immature
2) Those who have actually either witnessed someone change - like mental illness only expressing itself in midlife, or something like maybe undiagnosed ADHD that was either never really a problem when life was not that stressful before kids

I'm in the second camp.  DHs was great when we first met in our early 30s, but slowly unravelled starting in his late 40s.  It's like we got through the early baby years, but something changed in his biology around midlife. Now, in hindsight, some things do make sense about his family patterns, but only in hindsight.

For example, growing up, DH's family basically only went on ski and beach vacations (and they actually owned a beach house), while my family's vacations were a little more adventurous.  This makes sense... they are rigid, and needed routine, familiarity, control over meals.  However, would "owned a beach house and went there every summer, and went skiing ever winter" be a red flag for you?

Also, one of his brothers was a little "off," kinda quirky I guess.  And really just a little off, not a lot.  I didn't really think much about it.  He was married, had a normal job, and had a one year old baby, and his wife actually seemed nice, so no big red flags.  His other brother had a not so great marriage, but his parent's marriage was (and still is) strong.  It happens.

Also, at one point early in our marriage on a long car ride, his father mentioned his first cousin (the father's first cousin) had been institutionalized for bipolar in the 50s or 60s.  That did kinda raise my eyebrows, but I don't think even DH knew about it at the time, and the father had since lost touch with the cousin.  It's not like they were hiding it when we were dating.

I guess my point is, if you look backwards, there were probably signs, but there's no way to realize they were signs at the time.  Also, I've known plenty of lovely people with a mentally ill family member, or parents that were abusive, alcoholics, divorced, the list goes on.... who are lovely people themselves and have made lovely DHs/DWs.  It would be a shame to block all of those people off your dating pool.  Marriage is a leap of faith.  There is no way you can always have complete control over your future (and if you feel like you cannot cope with the feeling of uncertainty/not being completely in control, maybe you are the one who is the problem because this itself is a symptom of ASD/mental illness).  [/quote]

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