How to quit a script and continue loading page

lex0429

I have a form to allow a user to change their password. Pretty standard form with 3 text boxes, old password, new password and retype new password. I have some pretty standard checking, like comparing the old password typed with the actual old password, comparing both the new passwords, etc.
Anyhow, if a condition isnt met, i want the script to exit and then to notify the user what happened. If I use the exit() function any HTML that comes afterwards wont load. How can i just exit out of the php script but continue to load everything below it.

etully

<html>
Display top portion of the page
<?php
if (conditions are met, passwords same, etc) {
update database with new password ;
print "Your password has been change";
}
else {
print "there was a problem.  Your password has not been changed";
}
?>
display the rest of the page
</html>