Being in a Relationship with Someone Who Is Bipolar
Those with bipolar disorder may also engage in risky behaviors such as unprotected sex or extramarital affairs while manic. During episodes of depression, your partner may avoid sexual contact altogether.
Is it possible to have a good relationship with a bipolar person?
You can absolutely have a healthy, happy relationship with a partner who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The condition may bring both positive and challenging aspects to the relationship, but you can take steps to support your partner and to help them manage their symptoms.
Bipolar disorder is a complex mental health condition that involves moods that shift between mania and depression. This serious mental health disorder poses significant challenges to the individual living with it, including difficulty in maintaining employment and meaningful relationships.
Bipolar disorder can cause your mood to swing from an extreme high to an extreme low. Manic symptoms can include increased energy, excitement, impulsive behaviour, and agitation. Depressive symptoms can include lack of energy, feeling worthless, low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts.
In the United States and Canada, at least 40 percent of all marriages fail. But the statistics for marriages involving a person who has bipolar disorder are especially sobering—an estimated 90 percent of these end in divorce, according to the article “Managing Bipolar Disorder” in Psychology Today.
If you spouse fully accepts the diagnosis and resolves to get treatment, you could begin working together and make the marriage stronger than ever. Many people with bipolar disorder have happy, successful marriages.
When should you walk away from someone with mental illness?
When Is It Time to Walk Away? In some cases, the decision to leave is obvious. If physical abuse is present to any degree, and especially if the individual fears for their own life or well-being or that of their children, it's important to leave as soon as possible. Safety is the number one priority.
Bipolar disorder can also affect your sexuality and sexual activity. During a manic episode, you may experience hypersexuality, or an increase in sexual activity. It may place you at an increased risk for actions that may have negative effects, such as contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI).
Bipolar disorder and marriage can be toxic to a relationship. That's when a relationship fails or is failing. It can trigger negative reactions that could lead to self-harm, self-loathing or worse. Relationship issues need to be watched and positively regulated from our youth onward.
A bipolar person may avoid relationships because they don't feel good enough for other people. Sometimes these feelings come on quickly and cause those with mental health conditions to push away others in existing relationships. This can lead to social isolation.
A stressful circumstance or situation often triggers the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Examples of stressful triggers include: the breakdown of a relationship. physical, sexual or emotional abuse. the death of a close family member or loved one.
Sleep, negative life events, drug and alcohol use, seasonal changes, the reproductive cycle, as well as goal attainment and positive events can all have a deleterious impact on your stability, triggering a destructive cycle of mood switching.
With professional treatment, coping mechanisms, medication, and other strategies, you can learn to control anger and your reactions to it, even in the depths of a bipolar episode.
Bipolar disorder features extreme shifts in mood that are unpredictable and often disruptive to daily functioning. Changes in sleep patterns, eating habits, emotions, and behaviors accompany the mood swings.
