I think sometimes we expect too much. Our spouses/significant others etc. do not live in our heads. They can NEVER understand totally what we go through......but then, they couldn't anyway, even if we didn't have this confounding disorder. Who can slip inside another's mind and find out what that person is thinking? One can make an intelligent guess if you know your loved one well, but no one can ever know all of what someone else is thinking.

I get impatient with my husband once in awhile because he really does NOT get it. He can't read well, so it doesn't do any good to give him reading material about bipolar, and he simply doesn't have much curiosity about anything that's not easy to understand. In a way, I don't blame him---if I don't understand it, he's not going to understand it. But he's good to me, and he pays attention to my moods so he knows when I'm not doing well. He's also a pair of loving arms that hold me tight when I need it, and a protector when the world threatens to overwhelm me. I don't need him to be my psychiatrist---I've got one of those---but I do need him to be my friend and partner. So I can forgive him for being a little dense sometimes.