I like the idea of being in love but my wife may be bipolar.

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I’m not sure. I’m doing my best to make her life easier. That’s all I know how to do. I care about her but sometimes it definitely feels like an emotionally abusive relationship. I feel disrespected a lot. I do whatever it takes to make myself happy a lot of the time, but it makes me sad to think that I can’t do anything to make the relationship work.

You said she may be bipolar. Has she been diagnosed with bipolar or anything else? & is she receiving any kind of psych treatment? I'm not sure what kind of abuse you've been experiencing but if it is related to her mental stuff her starting treatment or changing her treatment might majorly help. The results can vary a lot though & it can take a while to get things right. It's also very important to keep in mind that treatment should usually be the patient's choice. If she's very adamantly against treatment there may not be much you can do to persuade her in which case you should give up expecting her to change & ask yourself if you'd rather continue as is for the rest of your lives together or end the relationship & file for divorce.

It would probably be best to try having a discussion with her about this when she's calm & ask her for ideas on how you could help her & your relationship. Perhaps offering her more support that's tailored to her would make her feel a bit better & she'd be more receptive to your input & more willing to try working with you to make your relationship work. When she's in a bad mood & you seem to be making things worse, it might be good to take a step back & give her some space so you can both calm down. Fighting/arguing when your both in a bad mood tends to make things a lot worse.

It's also very important for you to try & take care of yourself as well. Maybe that's listening to music & playing video-games when your wife isn't in the room, doing a hobby, doing some exercising, going for walks or a drive. It's important for you to destress. It may also help to spend time with friends talking to them about things or just hanging out withe them. Maybe consider seeing seeing a therapist yourself for a bit for input & ideas on what you should do.

Your not alone with this. Me & my girlfriend both have our various mental stuff in addition to some physical issues & there's been times when Cass was very unstable & she'd seem to overreact & it triggered me into having BAD meltdowns with her which of coarse made things aLOT worse for the both of us & we'd both feel like total cr@p after. We both had to work on addressing our mental & other health individually & as a couple. I usually seem to be a lot better at this than she is due to me making horrible mistakes in my two previous relationships that I tried to learn from & me seeing a psychiatrist for 5 years after my first relationship ended. Cass sometimes has major problems asserting herself so I kind of have to figure out what if anything I should do to help & it feels like I'm playing a guessing game but I don't usually seem to f#ck-up too bad nowadays.

Thanks. I’ll reply again once I digest what you’ve written. I definitely appreciate the words.

Yes talking about stuff helps.

Some find it helpful to set relationship rules, since whatever you do often affects both of you.

There are books on bipolar. Maybe you could read one together and discuss?