How not to frighten away your partner

After a tragically arid year, I find myself coming up to a one month anniversary with my partner.  It's not an anniversary I would ever consider actively celebrating, but it is nonetheless nice to know that some sort of milestone has been reached, and that it will hopefully be the first of many.  Especially after a time so excruciatingly bereft of coitus that I was beginning to have visions of the monastery.

My partner, H, is a serving soldier and everything that I fail to be.  That is, calm, rational, comfortably sociable, and with a level of masculinity that I could only dream of.  It's at that sort of stage where we are happy enough in each others' company to, 1. go for a team wee, and 2. discuss matters that a few weeks ago would've made us run, screaming, in opposite directions with their seriousness.  I don't mean marriage or any such madness, but just a level of commitment that crops up after a certain amount of time.

What hasn't been brought up though, is the topic of MHI (I absolutely abhor using the term 'mental health issues' so I am abbreviating it thus).  I am unsure how to, or even if I should, drop it into the conversation.

'I have periods of black despair.'
'I must talk with you about my forthcoming malaise.'
'Like the Phantom of the Opera, I do on occasion find myself overcome by the melancholia.  I just want to warn you ahead of time because now we are together you are going to have to suffer my cranial torment.'

Now I don't especially want to say these things, because I don't want to send poor H backing away lest I whip out a carving knife or worse, treating me any differently because of it.  As it is, I have only cried once in our time together, but that was because I was extraordinarily drunk and somehow managed to deflect my vomit back into my own face.  So far it hasn't really been an issue.  But sooner or later there's going to come one of those days when, without warning, all that interminable palpitating starts and the twitchy hands come out and I refuse to travel further than the off licence for some much-needed but probably detrimental cigarettes.  And when that dark day does arrive, I want it to be understood that all I really need is a cup of tea and a bit of time, and not that I'm being standoffish, weird, and a shit.  Somehow, that needs to be understood.  And I'm not sure how.

For the time being, the pondering continues.

He probably doesn't cry as much as I do.