Ideas on How to Live with Someone Who is Bi-Polar

Anyone who has ever known someone who is bi-polar, or manic-depressive, can only imagine what it is like living with someone with this mental illness. It is not an easy thing. I say this out of experience, not as one who has had to pattern my life around someone else's behavior, but as someone who has themselves been diagnosed.

As with most people, I have been in many relationships with many people. Some of those relationships were intimate, some were not. My experience has shown me, that most often, it's not the label people put on a relationship that matters, but the structure of the relationship itself. In short, it can be just as difficult maintaining friendships as it is a marriage.

If you have found yourself in a relationship with someone that is bi-polar, and you are choosing to live with them, in whatever capacity, it's best to recognize that people with a mental illness don't generally think the same was as you. It's just a fact you need to accept if you are to going to have any hope of peaceful coexistence. The reason this is crucial is because when conflicts arise, most people resort to reacting in emotional ways. This is also true of most people who are bi-polar. The problem is, the bi-polar person is almost always incapable of empathizing with the others point of view. And this one single problem is more than most people are willing to endure.