Both my husband and myself have bipolar disorder and we've been in a relationship for about 8 yrs now. Early on, when we met, I went from manic as hell on Prozac to attempting suicide. Needless to say, that had me away from psychiatrists for hmm, 6 yrs I guess.

It was fine for those years, as long as we're both not in a depressive or mixed state at the same time, good times to had and some patience to be learnt.

But it got to a point where I was in this real awful state, pretty much non-stop taking for several days, just spewing negative crap and he said to me basically I needed to stop it or he was leaving, now I know that sounds harsh but, we both have the disorder and while it explains somethings it is a poor excuse for anything and an even worse excuse for the other to just put up with it.

So, I went to a doctor, went crazy on zoloft, finally accepted the bipolar diagnosis I had gotten when I was 19 and started the proper meds. He's been on and off meds since then, he is off them now and I certainly haven't been entirely compliant and, cycling continues but, we deal. There was one incident where I told him to go on meds or go away and we dealt.

It sucks, bipolar is crap and my life would be so much better without it though as relationships go, bipolar only ruins it when you don't have a reasonable understanding of what it is, how it affects others and when to drag you're damn feet into the damned doctors office and swallow those pills, at least for a few weeks until the worst is over. I guess being married to someone else with bipolar gives me a lot more insight into the disorder than I would have otherwise.

And of course with relationships, personality, perspective on life and blah, blah, the stuff that isn't the stupid disorder, the stuff that makes you is a major factor, I'd say bigger than the bipolar because as much as bipolar can come in and destroy everything you care about, what you do next and when you're not in a really bad episode, is all you.