I've been diagnosed for twenty years.
The best advice I can offer include these items:
1. Be brutally honest with your pdoc and therapist (they may not be the same person).
2. Take your meds religiously.
3. While taking your meds religiously, research their side effects and communicate any you have to your pdoc to keep yourself safe.
4. Include your significant other in your therapy from time to time, and in critical times - even if you don't allow them access to your records.
5. Understand that "normals" will never really get what it is to be bipolar. Keep explaining anyway, when they ask.
6. Keep loving.
5. Take the disease a day at a time. Keep it separate, as much as you can, from your fundamental self.