How the long term pain of fibromyalgia broke up a relationship

[My wife has schizotypal personality disorder]

Eric, 46, spent five years with Mia, 49, an artist whose mental illness became obvious to him only after they began living together. She also suffered from fibromyalgia, a disorder causing constant low-level pain, disturbed sleep and fatigue. 

I wasn't really interested in her work, but I liked the situation, the immediacy of it all, side-stepping all the normal obstacles to being together.

Question: Has this happened to you before, sex immediately after an encounter?

Eric: A few times, I don't think it's that unusual. It's a thrill, for sure. I know now it's not a reliable indicator that you should be with a person, but at the time you call it love at first sight. You imagine that immediate physical attraction will translate into a strong, lasting relationship. You mistake quick sex for something substantial.

Question: Which of course it isn't, not always. What happened next? 

Eric: For about a week, we emailed back and forth to each other, long, long messages about the joy of discovering the person we were meant to be with, our soulmate, that type of nonsense. One week after I'd met her, she left her husband of nine years. She told me she knew we were going to be together forever. I was flattered and pleased. I had to get myself out of a relationship to be with her, but I couldn't do it as quickly or ruthlessly as Mia did.

Question: Didn't it raise a red flag for you that she walked out on a husband so easily?

Eric: No, on the contrary. I thought it showed she was decisive rather than reckless. Doesn't everyone want to believe they can be so special to someone that nothing will stand in their way to be together? Mia was like me in so many ways. I can be spontaneous to the point of stupidity. I've walked out of high-paying jobs because I felt bored, just walked out, not bothering to pick up a final check, just got up from my desk and left. I've moved without work or money to foreign countries because it seemed an exciting thing to do. Mia appealed to that side of me. Writers can be a self-indulgent, self-absorbed lot, their egos are big and frail at the same time.

Question: Did you move in together right away?

Eric: No, I had a foreign work trip planned which meant being overseas three weeks after we met. It was difficult but the separation added spice to the love affair. The pain

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makes you feel special. You think to yourself, "Hardly anyone knows love like this. It's so strong, causing such incredible bliss and pain at the same time". I would search for internet cafes and spend a fortune instant messaging with Mia for five hours at a time. We started devising grandiose plans, stuff like starting a publishing company, writing books together, opening a book store, buying a cottage in Portugal. The grander the plan, the more excited she'd become. We saw our future in terms of being together every minute of every day. When I was apart from her, there wasn't a moment I wasn't thinking of her. When I called her, she'd sob, saying she missed me so much.

Question: And yet you hardly knew each other?

Eric: We didn't know each other at all. A lot of projecting was going on, placing all our dreams and desires on the other person, making the other person much more talented, beautiful, successful than they really are. Only years later did I learn some things I'd liked to have known from the beginning. Mia's mother and little brother had both committed suicide. The mother had hung herself in the kitchen of their tiny house, and the brother, only 19 at the time, shot himself because a girlfriend had dumped him. 

Question: Would that have made you more cautious? 

Eric: Probably not. Knowing me, it would have added to the thrill, but it would helped me understand some of her odd behavior, her depressions, mood swings, her fear of being abandoned. I guess I should have read her books too, all of which are incredibly dark, depressing, blaming others for the woes in her life. They're all about, "Oh, I'm suffering so much, people are so mean to me, life is so meaningless."

Question: As we know, people in love often disregard the danger signs.

Eric: I had troubles of my own that I kept quiet about. I was about $30,000 in debt on my credit cards with no means to pay it off. I was living hand to mouth, just keeping up with the interest payments. Mia was often puzzled why I had no money. It was simple. I'd done too much traveling and not enough work. Mia's work was going very well, she had plenty of money, so much so that she once put $14,000 in my bank account without telling me. I don't know how I spent that money but it disappeared pretty quickly on nothing in particular.

Question: When you got back from your work trip, you moved in with Mia?

Eric: I spent a lot of time at her place, but I liked to live in my own house. She had a surly, moody 17-year-old son that I couldn't stand. He would sit at the dinner table not speaking to anyone, occasionally grunting at his mother. She loved him of course, he could do no wrong, but he and I hated each other from the day we met. He and I ignored each other as best we could.

Question: That's not an encouraging start. A mother usually needs her lover or new husband to get along with her kids.

Eric: I understand that. But, really, I wasn't that interested in her kid, nor her life or work. I was clinging to that first feeling we had: being immediately pulled toward a person. I thought if I got too bogged down in mundane stuff, the desire would go away. I loved the way she turned my life upside down, being with a successful woman who didn't care about the routine stuff of life. Her son was the final reason we split up. I criticized him to her face. I think my exact words were, "He's an anti-social asshole." She threw me out about two minutes after I uttered the words, and I went willingly. 

Question: Before that happened, there was a lot more that told you the relationship was in trouble.

Eric: It was constantly in trouble. We hit rocks every time we tried to connect with real life. None of our joint projects amounted to anything, not one. We planned to write a book about the wines of Portugal, goodness knows why. We flew down there, had a lot of sex, some good, some bad, drank too much wine, fought a lot, made up, had more sex, fought again. That's when I noticed fibromyalgia was a big issue in her life. She was exhausted by six in the evening even if we'd done little during the day. She ached all over all the time. Sometimes we'd had to leave the beach early so she could nap for a few hours. Or she'd sob because I used harsh words in a discussion with her. She'd weep if she felt I wasn't paying her enough attention to her needs. 

She was incredibly vulnerable, desperate to be looked after, which was not really the job I wanted. It was a complete pain being with a physically weak woman who couldn't even go for a stroll without being exhausted. Also, as I look back, I can't say that the sex was ever truly satisfying. It was always promising to go somewhere good, but it never arrived. There was a desperation to it. It wasn't loving, certainly not romantic. It was frenzied, always needing weirder places and games to keep it going.

Question: Did she get depressed on this trip to Portugal?

Eric: I thought of her as more or less constantly depressed. She didn't have light or manic periods; she was a straight-up depressive, heavily medicated, which she didn't like to talk about. Perhaps she had some unfocused anxiety thrown in, too. To me, she seemed to live in a fog of anxiety. She was unsettled about us, her son, her work. It was a constant state of unhappiness, tears never far away. Sometimes it was mild unhappiness, other times it was half a day of weeping, sleeping, a refusal or unwillingness to go out. The sex was often good, but her company was dreadful, joyless most of the time. And she had weird interests. She called herself a witch, she was into drums and pagan ritual, chanting, getting together with other witches. She was into fortune telling, tarot cards, reading people's futures, plus she was attracted to Hinduism. She was always going on about Devi, Shakti, that kind of thing. I thought it was all superstition and nonsense, and I told her so, which upset her.

Question: Wasn't that harsh and uncaring of you?

Eric: Yes, I guess it was but if she hurt me with a tantrum or a day of tears and wild accusations, I fought back by picking holes in her silly beliefs. Mia hated my sense of humor, calling me cruel and sarcastic. A single comment could make her cry. Depressed people carry this black cloud around with them and they force you to live under it. 

Question: It sounds as though your relationship had disaster written all over it.

Eric: Some relationships bring out the worst in each person, the destructive and self-destructive sides flourish and yet you stay with the person. Our love affair was always teetering on disaster, a step or two from falling apart at any moment. After a year or so together, we'd have fights where we wouldn't speak to each other for days. I'd storm off, she'd tell me never to contact her again. Three or four days later, she'd call at my house, we'd have sex and promise never to leave each other again. It was during one of these episodes that I dreamed up a plan to save us. I'd noticed, probably because of her witchcraft, that Mia had this deep love of ritual. It might be things like exchanging rings or getting tattoos or repeating vows to each other, anything that smacked of rites and ritual. I came up with the idea that we should try to live as a dominant-submissive couple. I'd be the dominant one giving her the rules to live by. I called our detailed list of rules the Serri Pact, named after a lake near my home. I thought that touch might appeal to her.

Question: Did she like that idea, the pact?

Eric: She loved it. The Serri Pact was like a religious ritual to her, liturgy for two. She really got into it. I'd decide exactly what clothes she'd wear before we had sex. I chose every item. If she didn't have it, I'd make her go out and buy it. She followed my instructions to the letter. One day she missed a detail, which color shoes to wear, and she was incredibly apologetic, saying she'd do anything to make it up to me. "OK," I said, "I want you to have my name tattooed on your back in big letters." A couple of days letter she turns up with this 9 inch tattoo on her lower back with my name in big black letters. It was so ugly, I was shocked.

Question: How long did the dominant-submissive period last?

Eric: Only a few months. I didn't take it seriously enough. It was just a game to me to improve the sex, make it a bit kinkier, but Mia seemed to love the detailed ritual of someone deciding her life. When she saw I wasn't taking care of my dominant responsibilities, the whole thing ended in anger and tears. She said she'd given herself completely to me and I was too nonchalant about her feelings.

Question: The behavior and personality traits you describe, an interest in cults and odd ideas, belief in ghosts, witchcraft, and communicating with the dead, a love of ritual, seeing personal meaning in signs, shapes, and patters, belief in special powers that others around you don't have, being uncomfortable in social settings, indicates schizotypal behavior. Are you familiar with that?

Eric: Of course. When you are confronted with odd behavior from a spouse, you attempt to join the dots, see some sort of pattern. I have done a lot of reading about this, but none of that helps the affected person unless they seek help. I am not convinced that schizotypal people can be helped very much. There was also the fibromayalgia as part of the mix.

Question: Were you ever adversely affected by her fibromyalgia?

Eric: Oh yes, I had some weird episodes. I got into a mild and short depression because the relationship was so infuriating. I disappeared to Ireland for a few weeks, pretending to be treated for a serious illness -- I needed time away. I fired off long daily emails to Mia about how she was messing up my health, my life. She didn't reply. She let me stew there on Ireland. It's very funny when I look back, but at the time it was horrible torture. I have to shoulder a lot of the blame for our misery because I liked her dependency on me.

Question: Did you ever consider that you, too, might have serious mental issues.

Eric: I thought about it. I was certainly unhappy for long periods. It was a stressful time. I was often on survival mode just trying to get through the day. I began to wonder why I am so often drawn to extreme situations and oddball characters. I guess I have a problem with boredom and the mundane. But the Mia episode was a little too much concentrated madness. I felt I was someone in one of her wacko poems. I don't feel entirely comfortable with what we did to each other.

Question: Did you at any time have a calm, normal relationship?

Eric: Not really. Mia wasn't who I thought she was, and vice versa. I thought she was this exciting, creative person who liked living on the edge, but it turned out she was very conventional, looking for stability, marriage, someone to help her with her mental stuff. She had a weird internal life -- ghosts, spirits, etc -- but externally she was pretty dull. Her lack of energy was draining for everyone around her. I don't think we liked each other very much. I didn't like her work; she didn't take mine seriously. We should have stopped being together after the initial fireworks and fun.

Question: How did your relationship end?

Eric: I was at her house helping her repair the veranda. She was trying to get her son to join us, he refused, I called him an asshole, she threw me out. That was it. I haven't spoken to her since then. Using harsh words about her son was the last straw.

Question: During this entire time which lasted five years, were you faithful to Mia?

Eric: I wanted to be but I wasn't. Just after we got back from Portugal, in the first year of our relationship, I met a woman, Katie, who was in the corporate world, a director of human resources at a big company. She wore smart suits, expensive shoes, earned a lot of money, was unhappily married but incredibly together and organized. We met when we could, which wasn't often enough, but she'd be totally cool about being together for a weekend, then apart for a month. I enjoyed the calm of being with her, the disciplined sex, the time-tabled meetings that started and ended at fixed times. It was soothing. I told her about Mia right at the start. She knew it wouldn't last. 

Question: Are you and Katie still together?

Eric: Yes, we are getting married after Christmas. It's great to be with someone who's moored and rooted. I am happy and productive, no extremes this time. Mia was the biggest mistake of my life, but the madness was entertaining for a while.

Marcia Thompson, the interviewer, is an avid distance runner. She helps couples get in shape together, guiding them through the many obstacles that can occur in physically and psychologically mismatched relationships.

[If you are in a joyless, sexless, or loveless marriage or relationship, we would like to hear from you. There are millions like you; you are not alone! How do you cope? Please help others by sharing your experiences so that we can publish your thoughts, advice, or even cries for help.]

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