Good day everyone.

*If you don't want to read the back story, please scroll to the bottom*

My names Alex, 25, and I'm with a beautiful young lass who I will keep nameless to keep her identity safe. She's 23 and is bipolar.

I've been out of a relationship for over 5 years and this is the first time in awhile I wanted to attempt to be with someone. This woman has taken me by storm and I'm typically walled up preventing myself from getting into a relationship with someone who I didn't like. I've known this woman for a few years through our work and I always found her personality and aura the most attractive thing about her. We both would make a point to dress up nicely to look good for each other when we passed on Tuesdays, it was very silly but instinctive for us to do. She told me she has been hypomanic during that whole time, but everytime I saw her, she carried this light with her as she was traveling down a dark path of drugs, and overall bad choices. Her and I are the same in this regard and we both have been working together to keep away from addictions. We knew we liked each other a lot, especially when we started actually talking.

It's been a short period since we've been talking and it all started on February 12th. It was an all day ordeal for weeks, from the moment we both had woken up to the moment we fell asleep we were constantly talking. There were a couple patches in between this stage but we overcame them and continously talked and confessed our beliefs and feelings. On March 2nd, we made it official and we were finally together after I gave her a kiss after having an amazing night seeing a show out of town together. It wasn't us who decided we were together, it was everyone around us making the assumption that we were and calling us, "the couple of the night." We accepted that was a great night to consider it the beginning!

Everything from then on for the most part was spectacular together. We were literally inseperable and she stayed at my house almost every night since then. She thanked me and God himself for putting me in her life, to bring her out of her long-term depression and said she hasnt felt a bit of hypomania since being with me. Her mother even thanked me a couple times for making her so happy, it really warmed my heart to know I had such an impact on this blissful girl I madly fell in love with. My whole family loved her too and everyone said we were perfect together. We never cared who was watching, we would always be holding each other and kissing out in public places. I've given her so much to look forward too this year and taught her how to keep her head high and to look forward and keep the past in the past and to not dwell on it. I even made her closer to God who she is truly devoted too. I fell SO HARD for her.. Don't get me wrong, there were still some trying times together over exes, my dumb drunk parents and drinking too much, Dumb things, but we preserved.

It all went wrong on March 28th. I know, I know. We made a terrible decision. I don't need anyone to tell me that. We took excasty together. The after effects of that high has been devastating. We could barely feel emotions for weeks,. She was at a point where she was just done trying with life. Done giving effort. Her symptoms of depression and hypomania started to reappear. And I became very depressed myself. I had cried and prayed to God for the first time in 15 years to bring my love back to me. I can still feel the sadness. Even though I was depressed, I did all I could to muster the strength to be there for her. I made her a warm bubble bath, cooked nutritious dinners, gave her a massage, wrote letters to her to remind her that these feelings are only temporary.

We managed to get by, but it was so rough let me tell you, and things haven't been the same since. There are days now where we are almost identical to what we were before, like Easter Sunday and other days where she is starting to show her signs of bipolarism. One instance was she started believing she still had feelings for her ex one morning last week after a bad dream she had. I personally thought we were done for and we were going to split up. She felt bad and stupid for thinking that way and we managed to resolve it. Just yesterday after our glorious day on Sunday, we hardly spoke all day. I was a bit upset with her because she says shes going to call me, promises and swears to me she will but doesnt and winds up falling asleep. She was out of town with her family for half of Friday and all of Saturday and she said and did the same thing. I was a bit resentful and I didn't reply to her when she first woke up. She mentioned it when she woke up again and was a bit upset. I called her and talked about it with her and such. She had to go to work the same time I got off, and I ended up falling asleep soon as I got home so we didn't say much for another few hours. She did try to say something but I didn't reply because I was asleep and a couple hours later she hit me with a list of problems she had with me. I was kinda in shock, like I know what I said but some of it is untrue and the rest of it I can compromise with her and work around it. The most affecting thing she said was, "I'm starting to think I'm not right for you." Basically what she means is that I want her to be perfect for me all the time and also if she doesn't want to have sex, she's afraid of telling me in fear I'm going to get annoyed. The moment I woke up, I went to work trying to reason with her and explain myself to her telling her it wasn't like that at all and that I believe we should talk about everything in person. She sent me very short responses and acted like she didn't want to talk to clear the air. I tried to be very stable about it with her, trying to reassure her that it's not like that and that I love her regardless how she looks or weighs and that I want to be a better boyfriend by learning her bipolarism.

After a flurry of long texts to her after her short ones, she told me that she was sorry for the short replays because she was busy doing her paper. I then tried to get her to come over after she got off work so we could talk about it. I knew everything she mentioned wasn't a large issue and that we could get through it easily by talking. She passed, and said she was too tired and nauseous because of her nerves and decided to go home. That she would text me when she got home.

I didn't recieve a text which has been typical of her recently. I still tried reassuring her that it was fine and to trust in everything I just wrote for her. I woke up this morning trying to be calm and collected for her and had texted her a good morning. Hope she felt better, that she is awesome and I pray to God that today will be a better day. Also said I love you of course. She replied, saying good morning, she feels a whole lot better, that she loves me too and hopes I have a good day. I told her it will be 100 times better when I see her today! (Today is Tuesday after all, we are suppose to see each other). I didn't hear anything. I texted again telling her how she can still talk to me, that I do want to talk about yesterday and to please not to shut me out if shes feeling upset or depressed.

I still haven't heard from her a couple hours later. I'm sorry for this long long story. There's more details I left out, but at this point I only want her to not give up on our new relationship. I dearly love this girl, we've talked about so much like children and marriage, our careers and our home. She states that I'm perfect and have made her so happy. I even gave her a promise ring to promise her a future with me and have stability in all aspects. That means MENTAL stability. I'm doing an awful job obviously and I just want to be there to support her if she's having an episode and to open her up to me when she's like this. It's extremely difficult to do that when I'm not able to get a response from her anymore. It's actually making me feel sick and insane, but typing this whole thing out has really taken a load off of my mind and chest.

For those of you who have a relationship with a bipolar significant other or a woman who does have bipolarism, can you please share with me any tips or relationship advice to help a man support a woman who has this disease? What can I do to prevent episodes like this other than avoiding drugs? Are there any websites, books or things I could use to help me? Actions or words of comfort I can give her? Should I be stern when she's ignoring me like this? I could ask so many questions here, all advice is extremely appreciated. I didn't give my beautiful girl a promise ring for nothing. I always try to live by my word.

Thank you all ever so kindly, I look forward to your replies.

-Alex