Reply to DC dating someone who has been in mental institution

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "DC dating someone who has been in mental institution"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My husband's ex is mentally ill. Legit, not just typical "my ex is crazy" stuff. She had a few stays in mental hospitals during their marriage.

Before being in this relationship, I think I would have thought it judgmental and unfair to say people should not date someone due to mental illness history. But now? I say judge away if you are considering someone for a life partner. I also think it's smart to factor in family mental health history.

My husband is not perfect, but he's mentally stable, everyone in his immediate birth family is mentally stable, they are generally happy people.

Because he married someone who is mentally ill, his marriage was blown up, he has less retirement savings, less college savings, and his kids have LOTS of mental health issues themselves, sadly. We have de facto full custody because she couldn't earn enough money or sustain a household for them once the divorce settlement ran out. She could have made the money stretch through till the kids were out of high school, but she spent money on stupid stuff like an expensive rental and a housekeeper (when she unemployed!), expensive hobbies, etc. She moved in with her sister five states a way, hardly ever sees the kids. She has good degrees and is smart but can't hold down a job for more than six to twelve months, if that.

The kids have some psychiatric issues themselves. It's just a mess.

My husband would have been better off marrying and having kids with someone with the same mental health profile as him - generally happy, basically mentally stable. He would have stuck it out with her and tried to make things work, but she's super self destructive and, while of course I know I don't know the full story of their marriage and that he is not perfect, I think one example of her self-destructedness is that she divorced the father of her kids even though her life would have been more stable and financially comfortable etc by staying with him. She really just..destroys her life.

And she encourages the kids to engage in self destructive behavior too. Like we are trying to raise them to have goals, work reasonably hard at school, etc, and she will scoff at all that with them. Well, ok, if you want to wind up broke and homeless like her, sure, take her advice, I want to say (but don't).

Anyway, I think mental health is an important consideration.[/quote]

There is a wide range of functioning for people with mental illness. People should be looked at individually, and I wouldn’t write off someone who attempted suicide once as a teenager. Lots of kids have terrible teenage years for biological and psychosocial reasons. Many with mental illnesses as teens do not have serious mental illnesses as adults. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics