My husband has been in a great mood. Very productive, easy going, good sense of humor, happy… No, no, it’s not mania – at least not yet. Hopefully, we’ll skip that this year.

Last year, my husband did well all the way through winter. It was his first winter in eons that he wasn’t struggling with bone-chilling depression. I thought we had caught a lucky break.

Then, on April fool’s day, I went into the hospital with a blocked kidney from a stone. It was enough to shake my husband’s stability, looking back at it in hindsight.

I must have some sort of amnesia. For years, I had myself convinced that all the miscommunication between me and my husband (due to the attention deficit disorder), and the up-and-down nature of his moods (due to the bipolar disorder), didn’t begin until sometime after we tied the knot.

Last night, I realized – or remembered? – that wasn’t so. This relationship we have, with all its joys and triumphs, trials and tribulations – we’ve actually been doing it the same way from the beginning.

I have been reorganizing my bedroom. Since having my third child, I’ve come to terms that I will likely never again be a clothing size 4, as I was pre-baby, and so am ready to pare down on my clothes, many that I haven’t worn since college.

I have a lot of clothes to sort through, so to take a break from the monotony, I also went through my jewelry box and my other bedroom items. Among the belongings on top of my dresser is a memory box where I keep special photos, cards, and notes from friends and family – much of which is from way back when, before I was married. I hadn’t looked through it for years and had forgotten all the love notes in there from my husband when we were dating, before we were even engaged.

There’s a new book available for couples that I’m excited to read. Attached explores attachment style as a relational dynamic.

Attachment, or bond, or connection, is based on Attachment Theory, which stems from research exploring how parents and their children relate to one another, and how this affects the child later in his life. I know a little about this: I work for Attachment Parenting International, which promotes an approach to childrearing that encourages a secure parent-child attachment.

Given my line of work, Attached is exciting in that it illustrates the effects of attachment style beyond childhood.

In the original research, there were three attachment styles identified: secure, anxious, and avoidant. Secure defines a healthy respect and love between two people in a relationship. People with anxious attachment styles crave emotional intimacy but fear rejection at the same time. Those with avoidant tendencies appear to be emotionally distant, seeming not to care about intimacy or rejection.

As you can guess, a relationship between two securely attached people is very stable. Adding anxious or avoidant into the equation complicates matters.

On the Attached website, there is a quiz where you can figure out your attachment style and learn how the book can help you and your current or future relationships. In trying to help their situation, someone with an anxious attachment style will try to change their way of thinking and acting – which is a good start – and try to do the opposite of what they usually do, so someone who tends to avoid conflict will then try to confront during conflict.

The problem is, rather than address the underlying insecurities, they’re still avoiding them; while the behavior has changed, it’s no healthier than it was to begin with.

Marriage would be so much easier if only one person was needed to make the union work. Then, when your spouse was having a hard day or week or month or year, you could just carry the relationship until they got better.

But, of course, marriage doesn’t work that way. It’s designed to be a single entity made up of two separate beings – you and him, or you and her. And if one person is having a difficult time, it can sometimes make for a very long day.

My husband’s moods are tied to mine. Maybe a better way of putting this is, his self esteem depends directly on however I feel toward him. There is nothing healthy about this. I’m no therapist, and he doesn’t go to a therapist despite much encouragement from me and his doctor, so I’m only stabbing in the dark to try to help him find another way to boost his self esteem.

In the past, I thought that doing a hobby or a job that he did really well would help, and while I think it has helped his self image, his sense of self worth is still related to whether I’m happy with him or not.

The problem is, as we all know, conflict is a normal part of relationships. It’s how relationships grow, and if resolved in a healthy manner, conflict can lead to both spouses becoming more emotionally close to one another.

A friend of mine had a baby recently, so we made some supper for her tonight. Actually, my husband made it, since I asked him to use up some of the wheat noodles as we phase into our gluten-free kitchen. He made spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce and venison meatballs and home-grown sweet corn.

He then delivered the meal to the new parents. Apparently while he was there, so was my friend’s husband, who commented to my husband that he looked happier lately than he’s looked in a long time. So, my husband came home to ask me if I thought he seemed happier lately. Why yes, yes, I do. And so I asked him if he felt happier, and yes, he said, he does.

Of course, the next question is, why? Because we certainly want him to feel happier – perhaps not too happy, as that can get us into trouble, but it’s a nice change from what winter usually brings in his mood…you know, depression.

I feel warm.

It’s rather a funny thing to say, but it’s the best way I can describe this feeling: warmth. It’s like a warm tingling sensation that I feel most profoundly in my hands. Not a pins-and-needles sensation but rather something pleasant. Extremely pleasant. Like warm blood coursing through my veins.

I’ve been on treatment for my apparently chronic, probably lifelong, anemia for 10 days and took the plunge into the world of gluten-free four days ago, and each day brings a new discovery of what it means to feel healthy.

At first, I woke up sane – no more psychosis and a stable mood. My house was no longer dark and gloomy and dirty. My husband and mother were no longer telepathically telling me how lazy I was. My kids no longer frustrated me to no end at how much they needed my attention.

Vitamin B12, B6, B2, folic acid, calcium, Vitamin C, D, and A, zinc – I’m sure there are others my doctor mentioned as she read the test results, but the list was so long, I was in such disbelief, and at the time, I barely had the capacity to remember what happened a few minutes earlier. Like the urine sample…I have no recollection.

All these nutrients…I’m deficient in. Of course, I’m anemic. And I have a urinary tract infection, gastritis, and a nagging cough. My hair is coming out in handfuls, my gums bleed, my bones ache, and my breast milk supply is falling despite how much I’m eating, drinking, or pumping to keep the supply up.

The baby still looks good, but his weight gain has slowed the last couple weeks. The only good point has been my weight loss – I dropped four pounds in the past week alone, which appears deceptively great for someone only a few months postpartum. But as my husband likes to point out: Sickly is not sexy.

When I started writing about supporting a spouse with bipolar, I decided to focus on the here and now – rather than dredging up all the stuff that went on before my husband was diagnosed or on the right meds. I think we all know just how bad life can get with a person struggling with unmedicated, or poorly medicated, bipolar disorder.

And if you’re looking to compare notes with some of the wild and crazy behaviors your spouse does when manic or depressed, you can find a lot of that kind of talk in Internet chat rooms.

No, I want to keep the focus on the caregiver, because while we’re not the “sick” ones, that doesn’t mean we don’t need help ourselves. I’m no expert by any means, but I’ve learned a lot while in the trenches and both my husband and I hope that our lessons can help someone else.

Since this latest med change, my husband has been stable for a record six weeks! In all of the seven years since he started on meds for a mood disorder, he has never been stable for longer than two weeks at a time. It’s been a long seven years.