Understanding Bipolar Breakup Cycles: 7 Tips on How to Cope

What Is Bipolar Disorder?

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V-TR)¹ has three classifications of  Bipolar Disorder (I, II, and Cyclothymia). Bipolar Disorder is defined as a cycling mood disorder where the person experiences marked changes in mood ranging from depression to mania, which regularly cycles back and forth. Some people will experience different types of cycling moods with different severities and different regularities (rapid to slow).

Bipolar Disorder & Relationships

Dating someone who has bipolar disorder requires a level of knowledge of their disorder and comfort and skill adjusting to changing moods. Because moods are a state of mind, not simply an emotion, their thinking processes, behaviors, habits, etc. can change with these cycling moods, sometimes significantly.² The complexity of a rapid-cycling mood (mood changes more frequently than four times a year) can also lead to significant volatility in a relationship.

Manic symptoms with bipolar in particular can make someone more impulsive, prone to poor decision making and emotional reactivity. Volatile confrontations can erupt when in a relationship with someone experiencing a manic episode, leading to increased partner stress, while conversely depressive states typically leave the person with bipolar disorder feeling like the relationship is struggling.³

Signs of Unhealthy Bipolar Breakup Cycles in Relationships

The extreme mood changes of Bipolar Disorder can lead to dissatisfaction with the relationship, both for the one with bipolar and their partner. In manic episodes, bipolar symptoms like hypersexuality and impulsiveness can lead to distress, while in depressive episodes things like emotional distancing, guilt and shame, and low energy can lead to distress in the relationship.

In these states, the person with bipolar or their partner may be more prone to ending the relationship. When moods shift to a different state, sometimes the relationship may be rekindled. It is important to acknowledge that it is both parties that initiate breakups with changing mood states for various reasons. While breakups are not entirely uncommon in typical relationships, these breakup cycles associated with Bipolar Disorder can be damaging to a relationship overall.

Some signs a bipolar breakup cycle is damaging a relationship include:

You’re Unable to Keep a Relationship Going Due to Mood Changes

When you experience mania or depression, you have a tendency to seek an end to your current relationship. You may experience on and off again relationships, but the pattern is that you are only in a relationship when you are feeling “normal” or experiencing either depressed or manic episodes.

Relationships End Because of Infidelity or Sexual Issues

Hypersexuality is common with manic episodes and sometimes this puts unrealistic pressure on your partner, or leads to you seeking sexual encounters outside the relationship. Disinterest in sex when depressed can leave your partner’s sexual expectations unmet.

Relationships End Because of Unequal Distribution of Responsibilities

Sometimes the partner of someone with bipolar disorder seeks to exit a relationship because the person with bipolar is not able to fulfill role expectations due to depression or mania symptoms. Things like parenting responsibilities, financial responsibilities, or emotional support can be erratic and unequal when someone is dealing with frequent changes in mood.

Mood Extremes Lead to High-Risk Behaviors

Mania and depression come with their own risk of behaviors that impact negatively on your own physical health and the health of the relationship. If you struggle with suicidal thoughts or self-harm behaviors while depressed, or seek risky behavior when manic, along with the obvious personal mental and physical health impacts, the relationship can experience stress as a result and yourself or your partner may choose to end the relationship.

Rapid Cycling Moods Lead to Rapid Cycling Relationship Statuses

You may find that you are breaking up and getting back together with your partner very frequently. This can set a precedent for expectation that your partner or yourself are not accountable to each other during certain mood states, or lead to a relationship dynamic that is vulnerable to being used for control or manipulation by either party.

7 Tips for Coping with a Bipolar Break-Up Cycle

Understanding why extreme mood changes and Rapid-Cycling Bipolar Disorder lead to breakups and the types of disruptions they cause can enable couples to work together to maintain their relationship, avoid unhealthy breakups, and set clear expectations around how to handle mood changes.

Seven tips to help couples manage a relationship experiencing breakup cycles:

1. Improve Your Communication Skills

How you talk to each other about your problems is really important, and can ultimately make the difference in relationship satisfaction despite the problems.⁵ Being open and honest about your Bipolar Disorder and shifts in mood can help your partner understand why changes are happening and allow them the opportunity to respond in healthy and supportive ways rather than reactively. Healthy communication enhances romantic relationships and maintaining honesty and openness with your partner goes a long way.

2. Discuss Taking a Break/Pause Over Breaking Up

Instead of ending a relationship altogether, you might discuss taking a pause on the relationship as it stands. This requires good communication around expectations of the break; how long it will last, what off-limit behaviors will be, if you will maintain sexual fidelity, what is still expected from the other partner, etc. This may be an option for some couples who cannot remain in a relationship while one side is experiencing a certain mood.

Taking a break from a relationship may also be an option for people who struggle with emotional volatility, starting fights, disregarding responsibilities, or present safety issues for their partner or family. In a break, you are not ending a relationship, but ending an aspect of it, such as maintaining the same living space or time commitments or financial responsibilities. This is akin to a harm-reduction approach in dealing with Bipolar Disorder symptoms.

3. Take a Role in Your Partner’s Treatment Plan

Obtaining appropriate treatment is essential in managing Bipolar Disorder. Encouraging and supporting your partner in their treatment plan will likely lead to positive outcomes for your relationship and your partner’s health.⁴

There are various options for Bipolar Disorder treatments. As a partner, you can play a supportive role in most treatment approaches, build trust in a relationship, and sometimes including online couple’s therapy to support practical changes in relationship dynamics that need to be made is helpful.

4. Find an Outside Support Group

Support groups are sometimes excellent resources for people living with ongoing relationship difficulty. There are likely support groups either near your area or online support groups that you can join as a partner of someone with bipolar disorder to get support. There are also many similar choices in support groups for people living with bipolar disorder.

5. Set Realistic & Healthy Boundaries

Boundary setting in relationships, especially when one or both people have a behavioral health disorder, is a very important factor in dealing with dysfunction and other problems in healthy ways. Be clear where lines are and what constitutes crossing those lines, and come to an agreement on what is and is not acceptable in your relationship and how you talk to and treat each other.

Setting clear boundaries can help when someone wants to break up and how you both approach each other when someone feels this way. This is going to look different than how you approach each other when neither has a desire for a breakup.

6. Define & Agree on Expectations

While boundaries are about setting limits around what each other will not do, defining expectations are about deciding what each other will do. Part of this is communicating to your partner what you need and expect from them, and what you expect from yourself, and allowing your partner to communicate their own expectations for you and themselves back. From there, determine what it is you can agree to take on.

It may be that you agree that when experiencing a depressive episode the other partner is responsible for making sure the kids are taken care of or that they take on essential household responsibilities for that time. If you can agree on what expectations you and your partner will fulfill, then this will enable you to form a plan to adjust to shifts in mood together.

7. Plan for Safety & Support

In manic and depressive episodes, your safety can be a real concern for your partner, and sometimes the safety of your partner needs to be considered. If you become more reactive or even violent in manic episodes, having a plan in place for your partner to follow if they or other family in the home feel unsafe is important.

In depressive episodes, if you experience suicidal thoughts or have a tendency to self-harm, having a safety plan in place for you and your partner to follow can both keep you safe and ease some concern brought on by this. This can help avoid feelings of overwhelm you or your partner may feel during these times which could otherwise lead to a breakup.

Can Bipolar Relationships Last?

In the United States, separation and divorce were found to be two to three times more likely among individuals with bipolar than the general population.⁶ Relationship dynamics are varied in people living with Bipolar Disorder, likely largely depending on the type of bipolar and severity and type of symptoms. While not everyone with Bipolar Disorder experiences on and off again relationship cycles, it is not uncommon and not impossible to improve.

Apps and tools like the Lasting App can help with relationships. Some people have found success in using behavioral health tracking and support apps, like Daylio, Reflectly, and others to manage and track moods.⁷

How to Have a Healthy Break Up in a Bipolar Relationships

Healthy breakups are possible with Bipolar Disorder, and sometimes necessary. There are occasions when things like a fear of abandonment may prevent you from ending an unhealthy relationship, or seek to recover a previous one, but the decision to offer second chances needs to be taken seriously. There could be toxic traits and behaviors present in both the individual with Bipolar Disorder and/or their partner that really make the relationship unhealthy and moving on may be best.

Here are some tips on navigating a healthy breakup:

Set Boundaries for How to Interact Once Broken Up

If you are breaking up a relationship for good, not just taking a pause, be clear on this and how you are going to interact, or more importantly not interact with each other moving forward. Just as in the relationship, setting boundaries is important in the breakup for both people involved.

Pick the Right Time to Break Up

Knowing how to break up with someone with Bipolar Disorder is tricky, and timing is important. The partner of someone with Bipolar Disorder may do better waiting until an episode has passed or more severe symptoms have been brought under control before initiating a breakup if it is safe to do so. This can ensure that what must be communicated about the breakup, reason for it, and what to expect moving forward is understood and lower the chance of reactivity from the partner.

Be Honest About Why You Want To Break Up

Do yourself and your partner a favor and be honest about why you want to break up, but in a gentle way. It will help them in the future in case there are changes that really do need to be made in how they behave in relationships, or how they manage, or don’t manage, their Bipolar Disorder.

Take Time Before Jumping Into Another Relationship

Rebound relationships, while sometimes a relief, can be more of a distraction and avoidance tool. Take time to grieve the loss of the relationship before jumping into another one. You may find that there are some things you can identify that you could work on to make a future relationship have a better chance at success.

Make Sure You Have Support

A romantic relationship fulfills many types of needs, and if you’re ending one, make sure that you have someone or somewhere to turn to when you need emotional or friendly support. Having a source of support outside your current relationship can generally be a good thing, and help with managing struggles.

When & How Therapy or Couples Counseling Can Help

Couples counseling can be a great option to consider if you are looking to get help working out a relationship you both want to stay in. It does take both parties being on board with the work that needs to be done, but if you are both on board successful results are possible. Generally speaking, couples counseling is different from therapy to treat a mental health condition like Bipolar Disorder. If the Bipolar Disorder is not managed, it is likely best to seek treatment individually for this first.

Typically, a couples counselor/therapist will not also provide individual therapy to treat the Bipolar Disorder, as there could be some conflicts of interest created in that dynamic. If you are interested in seeking couples counseling and/or individual therapy, here’s a great resource on finding a therapist. If you know what you’re looking for, an online therapist directory is a great place to start looking.

Final Thoughts

Bipolar Disorder’s cycling mood episodes can negatively affect romantic relationships by creating dynamics of imbalance, unpredictability, safety concerns, and emotional distress. The way that the partner responds to Bipolar Disorder’s symptoms in their partner can also lead to dysfunction and negative outcomes in the relationship. Therapy is an good way to manage symptoms, along with medical treatment from a Psychiatrist or trained physician. Along with this, couples counseling can help to work through changing communication dynamics, setting healthy boundaries, and preparing for future mood changes.

Although it is not uncommon for those with Bipolar Disorder to experience on and off again relationships, there are practical and effective ways to lower the likelihood of this cycle continuing. Trying things like seeking treatment, maintaining a support system, tracking and managing your mood changes, and setting up healthy boundaries in the relationship can help.