hi janniebug

in your first post he said "let's not do that again" as if you had control. this last post he said he "hopes you don't have to do that again". is it possible he is trying to understand and is just ignorant? wanting to hide it is also a very bad thing, but could he be doing this out of ignorance rather than out of disrespect? the key is, if he is ignorant, is he willing to try and learn otherwise? you won't be able to change him (the mantra of the depressed and bipolar) but if he is willing to change then you can help him by talking to him and pointing him toward facts about the illness.

i want to stress again what others have said, it would be very very bad to be in a relationship with someone who won't understand and won't be supportive. if that is the case, and it may very well be, better you found out now than later. i'm not trying to have you hang on to false hope about this guy, but just evaluate if there is any real hope there for him "coming around". this may have just taken him so much by surprize that he doesn't know what to do or how to act and is acting on his knee-jerk reactions based on public ignorance and fear.

you will know better than anyone if he is a jerk or if he is just frightened by this but may have a chance to work past that and understand. if you are talking about it that is good, keep the lines of communication open and see if he responds to talking about it or just keeps trying to avoid it.

good luck

-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
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