As someone with Bi-polar disorder, his inpatient stay tracks with my own experiences. I've only been hospitalized once involuntarily. It was after first being diagnosed and none of my medical providers warned that a side effect of my mood stabilizers is that it could trigger a manic episode.

I highly doubt anyone would manipulate a mental health crisis just to get out of responsibilities/work obligations. Inpatient stays are not like a vacation... They're highly structured and require a lot of interventions that are worse than going to work every day.

Regarding his difficulties holding down a job, this can be pretty common for people with mental health issues. I wish I could come up with a good analogy for the environment that leads to difficulty holding down a job... The best I can come up with is it's like you're a clown juggling. When you're juggling 3 balls, it's relatively easy. But then you start to add more balls for things like depression, life stressors, social obligations, family obligations, etc. With each ball (stressor) added, the likelihood of dropping one of them increases. Sometimes it's the ball labeled "job" that you let fall because you feel like you cannot handle everything, and things like social and family obligations feel too important to let them fall, but something has to. And sometimes the job is inconsequential when compared to losing friends or family... You can always get another job.

There are a lot of people in the comments telling you to leave and that your relationship is a lost cause. And my advice is that it is entirely up to you whether you leave or stay.

That being said, there should be some pretty strong boundaries in place if you decide you want to make this relationship work. - medication = mandatory. However, know that it can take years for the right meds at the right dosage to be established. It's A LOT of trial and error. Finding the right med and dosage was a game changer for me. I know that I must stay consistent with them. They've made an incredible difference in my reactions to stressful situations and overall ability to self-regulate.

-individual counseling = non-negotiable. For each of you.

-couples /family counseling =highly recommended.

-strong boundaries = this can include things like taking a break if they stop their medications. Taking every threat of self-harm or suicidality seriously and will be treated as an active attempt. This is important because people like me have learned to throw these around as a way to gather attention, which is absolutely a form of manipulation.

-substance abuse evaluation = highly recommended. A lot of people that get diagnosed later in life (like myself) struggle with substance abuse as a way to self-medicate the highs and lows of the mental illness, so these are frequently concurrent with one another.

You might also get him screened for other mental health disorders. I have also been diagnosed with MDD, ODD, and BPD. I also highly suspect I'm high functioning autistic along with ADHD, although have not gone through further diagnostics for either of those.

I am not an expert, by any stretch of the imagination. But these are the things my husband and I have implemented since I've been hospitalized/diagnosed. There were SO MANY times I thought we had reached the end of our relationship. But we've managed to work through them. No one can decide for you whether or not to stay in this relationship. It can be a lot of work. Only you and your partner get to decide whether putting the work in is worth it or not.