My boyfriend and I have a nontraditional relationship. For one thing, he is 43 years older than me. We are also long distance.

I know that that sounds like a romance that is doomed to fail, but we really love each other. He had a crush on me for 3 years before we got together. I noticed I was attracted to him about 2 years before we started dating. It took us so long to make the leap because we were weary about the age difference, but eventually decided to go for it.

Our relationship followed an evolutionary path. It truly is a beautiful love story. I was a student in his research lab when I was an undergraduate. When I graduated, he hired me to be a lab assistant, and we became friends, and then best friends. I moved away, completed a masters, moved back to my college town, and within six months, we were finally dating. Now I'm out of the country going to med school.

Distance is hard. A few nights ago, I casually mentioned that I had been suicidal a year ago, something I honestly thought he already knew. He does know that I have bipolar. Regardless, when I told him he got really quiet. He told me later that he would have to leave the relationship if I relapse on the suicidal thoughts, as that would be "difficult for him to deal with". He told me that if we couldn't be together romantically, that he would still always love me. He also reminded me that his physical health isn't the greatest (he is diabetic and has been recently diagnosed with kidney disease). I think he may be thinking that a dissolution of our relationship may be best for both of us.

But that is not what I want. I want to hold his hand as he takes his dying breath and be his devoted partner during all the time between then and now. If I have a mental breakdown, I want him to hold me and love me, not abandon me. We have already built a kind of paradise in each other, a shelter of love and safety that I thought could weather any storm. Maybe not...

I feel like maybe we should end the relationship, as it seems we have different views of its end goal. I want an everlasting kind of love, an eventual marriage, being by his side for the rest of his life, then take a short break as I complete the course of my life alone, and then join him in the afterlife for a union of everlasting love after my time to leave the earth comes. He wants to be my boyfriend until it gets inconvenient for one or both of us. :/

I think the distance is harder for him than it is for me. He has told me as much. He also is traumatized by a former bad marriage, and he has also told me that he is afraid that if I relapse in my bipolar illness that I will be just like his ex-wife. Also, neither his daughter nor either of my parents approve of our relationship. I think all of this may be causing him to lose sight of the truth-that we are in love and should stay together through all the trials and tribulations of life.

I really don't know what to do. I want him to share my view of where our relationship should go, but I can't make him want something he doesn't want.

Any advice?