7 Years now Cold Turkey..hoping

In 2017, my husband went to his primary care physician for a routine checkup. He’d always struggled with being underweight despite years of effort, and at the time, he was also feeling depressed and experiencing chronic joint pain. He was working two jobs with no days off, constantly exhausted and hurting. The solution offered? Paxil—for depression, weight gain, and pain. We now know, after finally seeing a rheumatologist, that he has an autoimmune disease. Paxil was never going to fix that.

A few months later, his doctor increased the Paxil dosage after he reported feeling less depressed—proof, she said, that it was working.

In January 2019, I became pregnant with our first and only child. A few weeks into my pregnancy, I discovered he was active on Ashley Madison, spending hundreds of dollars and chatting with multiple women. I later found out women from his workplace had been spending time in his car, and he was also on Tinder. These revelations eventually surfaced during counseling, but he showed little remorse. Instead, he rationalized everything and began blaming me. Suddenly, our relationship was “never going to work anyway,” and I learned he had already spoken to a divorce attorney.

I was devastated—pregnant, unemployed after being let go due to my pregnancy, and emotionally stranded. I couldn’t understand how the man I knew could act this way. It felt like I was living with a stranger.

We’ve both had individual counselors and marriage counselors throughout these past seven years. None of them—not the therapists, the psychiatrist, or any of the doctors—ever suggested that the medications could be contributing to these drastic changes. They all accepted the bipolar diagnosis without question. Neither of us had even heard of emotional blunting until recently. It was this group that finally brought that to light.

After I confronted a woman he’d been messaging at work, based on phone records I reviewed while caring for our newborn, he finally broke down and showed genuine remorse. He even posted about it publicly on Reddit.

But at the time, we didn’t know the medications were playing a role. No bipolar diagnosis yet.

I begged him to stop receiving psychiatric medications from his PCP and see a psychiatrist instead. Reluctantly, he agreed. That’s when the real rollercoaster began. He was diagnosed with Bipolar II, and over the next several years, he was prescribed a long list of medications: Lithium, Latuda, Cymbalta, Zoloft, Lamictal, Prozac, Ativan, Dexidrine, Zyprexa and more, each with its own set of side effects. Some were unbearable. I had to rush him to the ER for severe stomach pain caused by one drug. Another time, he became so suicidal he had a detailed plan. Living in that environment with a toddler was terrifying.

During the time he was on Lithium and Lamictal, things got especially dark. He became extremely angry, volatile and unpredictable. Our daughter was only two years old, and he would get so angry with her over the smallest things. I was scared to leave her alone with him. She was confused and heartbroken, constantly asking why Daddy was so mean to her. It shattered me. Because this isn’t who he is. He’s actually a wonderful, loving father. That behavior was medication-induced, just like all the other horrible changes we’d seen.

During his first manic episode, he began sleeping separately from me. His excuse was that he needed uninterrupted sleep for work and couldn’t be woken up by our newborn during the night. At the time, I tried to understand. But now I know, he was distancing himself from our relationship and our marriage. He even said, out loud, that he had “removed himself from the relationship.” Hearing that was soul-crushing. It sounded so surreal, so disconnected from the man I knew.

In 2024, his psychiatrist put him back on Paxil, the same drug that triggered his first manic episode. And just like before, the behavior spiraled: speeding at 140 MPH, got his first tattoo, inappropriate relationships, constant flirting, no sleep, endless energy. Our marriage counselor called it “normal” and something that I just couldn’t understand about him and his needs.

Then in April 2025, he sat beside me on the couch and calmly asked, “What would you think about getting a separation?” I was stunned. Again? He told me he wanted every other woman but me, that our life wasn’t enough, and that he dreamed of a big family with someone else. He said he didn’t enjoy being around me and hadn’t for years. I was crushed. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t stop crying. He repeated that he loved me, but wasn’t in love with me.

A few weeks later, overwhelmed and manic, he abruptly stopped all his psychiatric medications—three of them, including Paxil. His psychiatrist called me, warning that this was extremely dangerous and that I should call 911 if things escalated. He eventually agreed to keep a few medications but quit the others cold turkey.

Just a few days after stopping the meds, something shifted. He told me he didn’t want the separation anymore. He said, “I can’t survive without you.” It was the first time in months that I saw a glimpse of the man I married.

But the damage was done. Not long after, he claimed he never asked for a separation and accused me of twisting his words. He couldn’t understand why everything felt so complicated with me, despite having rehearsed the separation conversation with his therapist and even telling his sister he wanted out.

Now, three and a half months after stopping his medications, he still says he has no emotional feelings for me. He wishes he did, but they’re just not there. He seems lost, sad, and disconnected from himself. He’s unmotivated, withdrawn, and unsure of who he is. Yet he still says he wants the marriage to work. He refuses to look at any information I try to share about the impact of psychiatric drugs on behavior. It makes him angry.

So here I am, still loving him the best way I know how, still hoping, still hurting. The professionals we’ve turned to have offered little help. Their advice has often felt dismissive or even cruel. I feel like I’m drowning, every single day.

I wrote all this out a couple weeks ago. Update to today, we are in a window. He is loving, caring, showering me with affection and showing some remorse for his past behavior. He is really trying and says he wants our family to work. This is a huge difference from April of this year when he was saying he wanted a separation and was having a relationship with another woman (or several women) This is extremely obvious that the meds have CAUSED all of this and not some underlying mental health condition as the doctors say it is. Unfortunately he still explains that his feelings for me aren’t really there, but that’s not stopping him from trying right now. His goal through therapy is to take things one day at a time without his psych meds