I've lurked on this sub from time to time over the years. This topic isn't something you can really discuss with friends and family out of respect to your SO, so you fine people have been my outlet without knowing it. I get the rants about your frustrations, stress, the walking on eggshells and wanting to end the relationship. I understand the people who want to work it out and hopes things will improve. I've been through both ends of the spectrum, my wife and I dated for 2 years, broke up and got back together numerous before we decided to get married.
My wife was diagnosed a few months after we got engaged and I did what a lot of people do in this situation, I would capitulate to her mood. I thought "it's not her fault, it's an illness". Without knowing it, I had allowed her to start scattering the eggshells all over the floor. I allowed her to use bipolar as an excuse for erratic behavior that I had to get used to navigating through. And I got good at avoid stressful situations with her, I was always looking down the road at how something could effect her. Did I manage to avoid a lot of arguments? Yes. But I also silenced myself, the relationship became one sided where only her feelings mattered. I couldn't share my own problems, things that were stressing me out because she would have to go bigger and turn it around to how it affected her. We were heading down the same path a lot people go through while dealing with bipolar.
I love her more than I can describe, in fact I told my best friend the day after I met her I was going to marry her. I wanted to be there each step of they way, I'd go to her doctors appointments with her. I took note of how medication changes would affect her, she wouldn't always notice. She was putting in the effort to manage the illness so I had to put in the effort to manage everything else. I also learned not to view every emotion through the bipolar lens, not every mood change is caused by it. But by far the most helpful thing for me was re-establishing my voice in the relationship. I stopped allowing her to control the narrative and I'd put my foot down when I needed to be heard. I didn't allow her to rewrite past events and I would call her out on her bullshit. I learned how to argue with a bipolar person. Often times whenever she realized she was wrong she would switch to another topic to fight about and I just refused to let her go off-topic. We've had some impressive screaming matches in the past, and a lot of the time she would shutdown and lock herself away in the bedroom. Sometimes she would say something extremely hurtful to me just to lash out, I'm sure a lot of you understand that. I learned to stop cold when she would do that and just walk away.
I get that a lot of what I've written sounds like a pretty volatile relationship. This was early on in our marriage, it wasn't all the time but the eggshell phase lasted a while and became the norm. It took a little while to break through that. Over time we both became better equipped to handle life's ups and downs head on, we became a cohesive team. I know when to be there to pick her up when she needs it and she does the same for me.
We've been married 17 years now, we have 2 kids and a very stable and happy life. I'm to the point now where I can sense the change with her before she even realizes it. I'm like the old guy who can tell a storm is coming because his joints start to ache. Bipolar is old news now, I've been there done that. She still keeps up with her doctors visits and tells me when they are changing medication so I can help monitor it. Usually, it's just a change to help her sleep, she does battle insomnia from time to time.
I guess my whole point for this long winded post is that if you're with someone with bipolar, which I'm assuming is most people here, there isn't always heartache and break ups. There is a way through, there is a way to have a normal life with that person.
Just don't sacrifice your own voice and happiness to make it happen.