Partnerships

[Frame]

I'm editing this post to try to get people to respond. Is it that no one cares about having someone else living beside them. Has everyone given up on the idea. Mathew seems to have found a way.

Do two bipolar people make a better partnership? Do they inherently understand each other better? Or is it Chaos times two?

An earlier post (MatthewSullivan) talked about success in finding a life partner. I don't think I got married in order to have a life partner. I realize I should have considered it a partnership from the start. Of course I new it came with the deal, but I think I was more acting to fulfill life expectations. And from day one we were very separate people.

Accept for a short stint as husband and father I've lived alone for 28 years. On reflection, the stint wasn't so very short. I was married for 12 years; and lived with my daughter for 18. Now, come to think of it I've always felt alone even with someone sleeping next to me. I think that had more to do with the broken expectations both my wife and I experienced very early on in our marriage. I often lament that the marriage couldn't out last those broken expectations.

And as a child, I believe I trained to be alone. It was the family dynamic; No ones fault. I learned to be comfortable with it. Loneliness, however, is not the same as being alone. I like my solitude, but not my loneliness. I'm not sure I'm cut out to be someone's partner. But Mathew's post gives me hope; maybe I can learn.

So here's the gist. What do think? What's your experience? Do two bipolar people make a better partnership (I'm bipolar type II : Chronic Depression)? Do they inherently understand each other better?

Are there compatibilities between necessarily different type of people? Should depressed people seek partners like them, unlike them? What?

[Frame]

I like what Robert De Niro does. It helps that he's Italian; so many of his mannerisms are familiar from family gatherings. In the Good Shepard his character says to Mat Damen (A CIA agent), "In the end there's really no one you can trust." And that's the tough part of being alone. I like like my solitude. And while I can't say it's completely by choice, I'm the one that got me here.

But when life's major decisions have to be made and I say to myself, this shouldn't be so stressful; Why is this so terribly stressful? Sometimes I have the presence of mind to think,; well most people (not all) have someone they can trust, someone they can bounce ideas off of. That's the beauty of a solid marriage, a healthy extended family. I guess that's one good reason not to stay in a marriage which isn't working out. That person, who your supposed to rely on, they may not have your interests in mind, their advice not easy to trust.

So I guess this is better; better to make any decision alone than to make bad decision together. But I sure wish I had someone who knew me, someone I could trust. Plenty of people like me. But why should they trust me if I can't trust them? How can I trust them if I can't trust myself? I guess this is the point where someone say's I need to trust in God. But I've seen plenty of strong marriages with weak faith in higher powers. How do we trust?