Depressed partners walk out and leave behind a lot of emotional wreckage. Whether the ending is explosive, grieving or compassionate, its impact is life-changing.
As the abandoned partner, you have to put your life back together, and it can take years to do it. There are a lot of obstacles to get around, however, before you can start. One of the worst can happen if your partner makes you responsible for the decision to separate.
Intentionally or not, they can waffle along, flipping back and forth from a fierce resolve to get away from you to tender remorse at the very thought of going. Or they might blame everything on you, claiming they’re the victims, and you’re the one who’s driving them away.
Whether passive or aggressive, they avoid making the big decisions on their own. Eventually, they wear you down until you’re forced to consider ending the relationship in order to save yourself. Having to take the step you’ve never wanted only adds to the anguish – and possibly depression – you’re already living with.
From what I’ve been through and and have found in hundreds of online postings, the intense feelings of abandonment don’t hold still. They rocket all over – confusion, hurt, anger, resignation, depression. That inner storming makes it all the harder to know what to do. Most of the time, the first impulse is to undo what’s happening by trying something – anything – to bring your partner back.
When you realize that it’s not going to happen no matter what you try, it’s time to work on your own recovery. You’ve lost a lot.
By leaving, your partner has not only knocked out a big part of your life but also taken away the sense of predictability you used to have. Adding to the hurt, likely mixed with a lot of anger, is the fact that they are still with you.
They may be physically gone, but they’re everywhere in vivid memories. Some of those bring back the worst times, some the best – the ones you long to have back.
All the memories keep the relationship alive and make it harder to think clearly about who you are, what you can do to heal and how you can put your life back together. As I found out, that can take years.
Long before I married, I had an intense relationship that ended when my partner left to live with another man. I couldn’t handle the loss at all. She was not depressed or angry but compassionate and concerned, knowing full well, however, that getting myself back on track was up to me alone.
For years, I could not let go the intensity of the feeling I knew we had shared. I held onto one groundless hope after another. It was terrible, but falling apart forced me into treatment. Then I finally recognized that I had been deeply depressed for much of my life and that my behavior had contributed to the break-up. That was the way I began to heal. Treatment was the turning point, but the rest – I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
What can you do to begin to heal? It’s never easy, and there’s no straight path to get there. But there are a lot of helpful examples of how individuals have managed to get started. Many tell a similar story about finally shifting their attention away from what’s happening to their ex to what they need for themselves.
Here are a few of the ways people have handled the loss, and how they changed their attitudes about themselves. I’m adapting words from comments posted on Storied Mind and the Depression Fallout Forum. The Forum is an important resource that’s been on line for more than ten years.
Anne Sheffield started it and later wrote a a book of the same name
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I’ve changed my attitude about finalizing divorce. I stopped thinking of it as such a sad day where I was ending a beautiful, loving past. I thought about it as a beginning of an exciting future. I feel now that the best thing for me is to get this toxic person out of my life forever. This is all I can do for myself. Life is too painful otherwise.
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I love the person he was but the person who abused me for years did so much damage that it has changed my view of him forever. The divorce process is very painful, but the pain ends – life with a depressive who won’t seek help is a life sentence of pain and hurt. I decided not to let divorce make me feel like a victim.
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I’ve slowly come to realize that I can’t change her. After all this pain, I need to get away just as much as she does! It’s not easy, but does seem to be getting easier each day. Perhaps divorce will bring some closure.
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So, I’m in the final stages of divorce. Somehow, he believes that I deserve this. He said it’s my fault he left and I should have recognized his unhappiness from signs he gave me. I’ve accepted that he’ll never see anything from my perspective. So I’ve become business-like to handle the logistics of divorce. I understand that my marriage is over and can no longer find the person I married. To honor the love we did have, I want to show compassion, but I’ve given up hoping that anything I do can change what he’s become.
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I’ve gotten help from a professional. It wasn’t childhood problems. It was the shock of divorce I had to work through with the help of a therapist. This work has helped but I’ve had to find my own strategies for coping. I try to live with those strategies every day of ruminating about what I’ve lost. It’s not easy because I have my own depression to deal with, but it’s worth it.
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I’m trying as best I can to get on with my own life and do things for me. while still giving him his space, staying in light casual contact, and making sure he knows I’m there if he needs to talk. I hope this is the right thing to do. I just feel so bad for never noticing, until now, what a bad state he was in mentally.
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I’ve been helped so much by others who know what this is like. I still can’t bear to think that this relationship is over, but I’ve realized that I cannot help him if he does not want to help himself. As long as he fantasizes about his new life, he won’t do anything about his depression.
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I hope that once the divorce is final I’ll be able to heal and move on. I feel like it’s one big tragic mistake. All that love has been torn up and thrown away. But it’s not my choice and I can not change someone who doesn’t admit to depression or want to change.
The biggest change is within, when attitudes about their ex-partners and about themselves started to change. Sometimes the change happens entirely through an inner struggle. Sometimes it’s helped or triggered by taking an action of some kind, whether divorce, getting treatment, completing a ritual of mourning and letting go, or opening up to others who are going through the same thing.
If you’ve gone through a break-up, what helped you start to heal? Or are you in the midst of it now and not sure what to do? I hope it helps to hear what others have been through.
Image by Katie Tegtmeyer at Flickr
Hi everyone,
I’m going through a really tough time dealing with my break up with my wife (girlfriend), We started dating back in high school when she was only 16 and I was 17. We have been together for almost five years we are both 21 now. Our relationship has been a roller coaster as we have battle financial problems ever since we met. We were homeless together at the age of 17. My parents left me at 18 because they had problems and moved to Seattle, Washington. I didn’t have anybody here in California except for one uncle, I stayed with him for a while but I decided to move with my girlfriend because she was my everything. At the time she was battling depression because of the financial situation, she didn’t have any emotional support except for me I was with her every step of the way, I took care of her in every way possible even though I was not sure what was going on I was only 18 at the time. I grew frustrated because of her depression, I wanted to feel young and live life. She was seeking medical help and was under anti-depressant for a year which really helped her but she became pedant on them. After a while I had lost love for her, because she was depressed most of the time. I wanted to end things but I was just not able to. I was not able to see a love one suffer alone. I stood by her because I loved the person that she was. When she was trying to cut her anti-depressants she had suicidal tendencies that it got to the point where she was hospitalized and put on suicidal watch. Again i was really unhappy about the situation it had really taken a toll on me, I was working and going to school at the same time dealing with a depressed partner but I was not going to give up on her.
Two years had passed by and she was getting better, I committed the worst i cheated on her one drunk night with a stranger and I told her. She accepted it and told me she would always love me no matter what. I grew depressed and distant because I had never had a one night stand with a stranger I thought I had caught HIV I was depressed for months I was 19 at this time with no parents or family help me I was dealing with it on my own. Again we were having financial issues which led us to get evicted from the place, but we were never going to give up I had still a full-time job and I was going to school always supporting my dove (That was what we used to call each other). I was always supporting her in her school and job failures. Her mom did not cared about anything that she did, her sister even told her that she wasn’t meant for college. I was the only one that did not ever gave up on her. So after the eviction we decided to get our own apt, but I had lost so much love for her that I did not know what I was doing I was just going with the flow. During the time we got the apt she had quit her job because it was too stressful, she put us in a bad situation which I had to pay for all of our expenses. She helped by getting a student loan and buying little things for our place. I grew frustrated with money problems never having enough food to eat. It was really bad to make it even worst I was working graveyard shift which pushed us apart even more. In dec. 2015 we decided to get married but I had already told her that i was not ready to get married, I felt that i still needed to grow as man before taking this huge step, she wanted to get married and implied that if we didn’t get married she would never get married with me. So I decided to do because I loved her and I actually saw a future together. She bought her own ring and payed for the fee at the court. After marriage its when everything was falling apart, she had found a great job making more money than I was, and she was feeling a lot better this time around she was paying all her debts making more friends at work, and was being influenced by her new “friends”. I grew extremely depressed throughout this time because I was working so much, going to school full-time. I grew lonely due to my job, I because resentful and I neglected her. I became cold and distant which led her to one day to text me that she wanted time apart. I was extremely upset because we had just gotten married two months ago, and she no longer wanted to be with me I told her some things I should have never said which hurt her a lot. She broke it off with me.
I begged her to just give me one more chance I told her how i was feeling. I told her I would change for her. She was still hurt and one day I was using her laptop and I saw that she was texting other guys to come to the apt to have sex with her while we were still sleeping together every night. She told me she only did it to try to get over what I had told her, but it still hurt me so much that she would do that. My self-steam depleted dramatically, but I was still able to look past that. She told me did not do anything with the guy, and also that her “friends” and sisters had influenced her to do that… We got back together and we tried to worked things out, but i grew more depressed than ever I felt that I had given her so much of myself that I had completely lost myself in the process of giving her everything I could possibly had to offer. On july of 2016 I decided to quit my job and I found a better job making more money, I felt that things were changing for the better, but again one night she told that she wanted space to find herself.. I told her that I had just found a better job, that things were going to change for the better, but who was I kidding. I had nothing to offer her, i had lost myself and everything that I was. Honestly I did not loved her anymore, how could i loved someone when I did not loved myself. throughout this period she said it was over, she was going to keep the apt and I was to look for a place to stay. This was killing me little by little, I started to abuse drugs such as her anti anxiety pills, and started doing Ecstasy every now and then I grew suicidal tendencies. The relationship and everything around me was killing me slowly. I tried going out with a few friends and do drugs just to feel alive but it was not helping me because I wanted to experience things with her. I became somewhat emotionally dependent on her… One night we had a huge argument where I was depressed that I told her I was going to kill myself . I know this is a type of emotional abuse, I know it and I see it now. She stayed with me because she wanted to help me but I needed professional help. Two months had passed and one day I just lost myself completely due to a small argument we had I couldn’t take it anymore. I sought for professional help right away. Once I did I started to feel much better thinking things were going to the right track, but then she told me was not going to be able to come back from the situation. She broke it off with me telling me that she did not see a future together and that I depended too much on her emotionally. I do agree with her but at the same time I don’t. I did hurt her a lot. She was the sweetest girl I have ever met, most loving, and that cared more for people than herself. That day that we broke up I drove to Seattle with parents in the mean time she had literally blocked me from her life meaning, she blocked me from social media, my phone number, you name it. I tried to contact her through email telling her that I did not wanted to get back together that I would like to have her as my friend because she has meant so much to me she implied that she did not wanted to do anything with me because of what I have put her through and to never contact her ever again, and if i ever got close to her that she will put a restraining order on me. I was shocked at her reaction but how can i blame her. I came back to california right now to finish school so i can transfer to washington state, but I’m homeless here sleeping in my car for a few weeks now, I do feel much better being alone. I have met some cool people along the way and one of my good friends has showed me that he cares about me like a brother. I hope that one day my dove and I will be able to speak to each other once again but at the same time I don’t want to get my hopes up. I felt that I lost somebody so meaningful but I’m focusing on myself now, I feel that I truly show what I am capable of. This has been my story at just only 21 years old. I hope everyone makes it. Time is your best friend.
Hello,
First of all i want to say im so glad I found this page with everybody stories, i can relate to them so much!!
I have just recently just broke up with my girlfriend who i was with for almost a year. I am 22 years old and my ex is 19 years old. We met in college and instantly I fell in love. Early on in the relationship she kept telling me i would get bored of her and i would leave. She told me that she had secrets that i could never find out! Obviously i was very curious what the secret was because i really cared for her. After time of me questioning her she opened up slightly and told me she suffered from depression & anxiety but that was all i got. I didnt’t quite understand the extent of how bad it was until further into the relationship…
It was only until about 3 months into the relationship that i found out she had been self harming. Every time we got close to making love she would stop me from doing anything to her, any time i got close she would freak out and stop me. This caused a few arguments over time but i just accepted that she wasent ready for sex. One time i was rubbing her leg and i felt some scabs right in her inner thigh, she was so comfortable she didnt realise i was feeling them. Instantly it came into my mind that she had been self harming. I was shocked but not 100 per cent sure it was so i didnt say anything to her then. After she left it was constantly on my mind, wether i was overthinking or it was actually true. After a few days passed i couldn’t take it, i had to confront her and ask because it was eating me up. I confronted her and she admitted she had been cutting herself. I literally begged her to promise me she wouldn’t do it again but she wouldnt agree but she did agree if i asked in the future she would be honest if she had or not. I asked if her parents knew, she said that years ago it was alot worse and this was the first time she done it in months. Her parents were aware in the past and got her counciling but they thought as she got older that she stopped doing it. This left me in an awkward position because i was the only person who knew she been hurting herself, i felt so sad that she feels the need to do this instead of just opening up and talking with someone. In a way i sympthasized with her but i couldn’t quite understand it.
She blamed alot of her depression on her ex who she had been with for five years who had cheated on her and kept it hidden and it was only until the end of her relationship she found it all out. After meeting me she said that i saved her because before i came along she was in a deep, dark place. She thought that she would always be alone and nobody would stay with her because of her mental illness. I kept promising her that i would always be there for her no matter what.
Six months in we finally had sex for the first time and it was great. We were closer than ever, she let her barriers down and she told me stories in her past that she hasnt told anyone, not even her parents. It felt so good knowing that i was bringing happiness into her life and that she could trust me and that we could talk. She did have her bad days but i told her to tell me so i was aware to give her space. One day we went out on a day trip with a friend of mine and his girlfriend but she was having a bad day and it made it awkward. Whatever I said to try and cheer her up she would bite and shoot me down in flames. I tried multple times to try and lighten the mood by making jokes but there was nothing. We ended up arguing seriously for the first time but after a few hours when she came around we made up.
The summer term arrivied and a few weeks into it she got a job as a shop assistant and she passed her driving test. She started making new friends at work and she started pretty much working full time and most shifts were unsociable hours e’g 4pm until midnight! This started causing a strain on our relationship because communication started to distant, we used to talk every day but conversations started to get boring. It was the same questions almost every day, how was work? Was it busy? I fell very ill so we couldnt see each other for like a week because of her working and i didnt want her to catch it. Conversations started to become mininal and what we once had started to fade. I got better and started asking when is she free to come over and see me? She would tell me she was busy working and couldnt see me until monday (it was thursday we was having this conversation) Obviously i felt like she was distanting herself from me because she couldnt even make time to come see me during the day. Two weeks passed and it felt like i didnt even know her any more. It seemed like forced conversations and that i was begging for her time, her responses started to become blunter. I opened up and said it doesn’t even feel like were together any more and she kind of agreed. I suggested what should we do? And she said its only going to get worse. From that response I felt like she had given up on us after everything. So i said we have no choice but to be friends then. We promised we would stay friends forever. The first few days were suprisingly not too bad, I came to terms that she was busy and we agreed to meet up and talk when she was free to discuss where we was at.
Even though we was not together we were still talking every day and i thought we could rebuild our relationship. I kept asking what day can we meet up and she kept telling me she was busy with work and making excuses. I felt so hurt, I was thinking to myself why cant she come meet me face to face and talk it through to try and make it work again but she wouldnt. After a few times i got frustrated and asked how the hell can you be so cold with me after everything we have been through. All i would get is blunt answers, she told me the best option is to move on and that she doesnt need anyone to be there for her and she can deal with her problems alone. I started getting paranoid and asked if she met someone else but she sworn that she hasnt and im overthinking everything, she just said its wrong timing for us. She also said that she would end up fucking it up even more so its best for me to move on. After being so close and open she has now closed all her barriers with me and treats me like a nobody, i always feel myself trying to create conversation with her to show i still care. I told her i love her and im always here but she is replies with a sad face emoji or stop it because its making it harder:/ I asked if she still has feelings for me and she replied with im not that heartless. Its only now after almost two weeks of not being together ive decided to stop messaging her every day because the conversations seem so forced with her being in a depressive state. Days go by and we have a brief conversation asking about her day and what shes been up to but thats it. Ive gave up asking her when can we meet up and talk about everything. She keeps telling me that she will when shes not busy. All i can do is wait and hopefully one day soon she will message me and be ready to talk but i can’t see that happening as days go by without us talking. I really hope it can happen sooner rather than later so i can get some answers on why she has given up on us after we were so close. It feels like she is dragging it out until we meet so shes completley over me and i can give her stuff back without having the heart felt conversation. I might be overthinking everything, she did say i was overthinking the whole situation so who knows. I guess time will tell but for now im trying to stay strong! I really hope we can rebuild our relationship…
Wow Steve, I feel your pain. It’s been 4 months since my girl left me. She left me for nothing more than anxiety. A week after that she was hanging out with me at work 3 – 4 times per day and then all of a sudden she stopped. After 2 days I e-mailed her asking if everything was OK and she replied right away saying she has a boyfriend and is busy. That was honestly a knife to the chest. After that we would “run’ into each other occasionally smoking on break. Well she knows where I smoked 100% of the time so if she didn’t want to see me she would’ve avoided that area. When we would “run” into each other she would come up and talk to me like old times no problem. Smiling and laughing. Then one week one of her co workers saw me and I had a hickey. She told me she was going to tell my ex and I told her go ahead, I didn’t care anymore. Well the very next day she made an excuse to chat with me work related and then brought the hickey up. You could tell she was upset. Then the following weekend I sent her an e-mail because I didn’t want there to be any hard feelings between us. I told her congratulations on her new job and reminded her I’m there for her and only a phone call away. Well she replied “Thanks. I don’t think your girlfriend would appreciate this at all” I replied to her letting her know I don’t have a girlfriend and basically reminding her I have always been there for her and her son and just want her to be happy. Low and behold I “ran” into her outside smoking on break for the first time in over 2 weeks. We talked, smiled and laughed and just enjoyed hanging out with each other. Then the next day on the 31st of Aug was her last day working for the same company as me and we hung out 4 times that day really enjoying each others company. She even told her co worker she saw me 4 times that day and she would almost never bring me up. Her co worker told her “You will never find another guy that will treat you as well as he does” She replied “I know”. She didn’t defend her decision to not be with me like I know she has in the past. Since then I haven’t heard a peep from her. I’ve texted her asking how her first week was of her new job and I e-mailed her a week after that telling her I hope everything is going great with your new job. miss you. Still nothing. I honestly don’t know what’s going on in her head but I know she is struggling. A little more proof of that is she posted a slutty pic on facebook and that is so not her. My therapist thinks she seems manic right now. Only time will tell but I’m coming to the realization I’ll never hear from her again. It is so weird how we spent a good hour and half to two hours hanging out over her last 2 days at work after not seeing her in over 2 weeks to now her completely blowing me off. She has stated we are friends, so what’s the problem. I may never know. But I know she is sick right now. I do miss her. When they are healthy they are the kindest most sincere people to be with. But when they aren’t well it is a major roller coaster. Stay strong Steve. It is hard but we have to.
Hi Adam,
I feel your pain. I’m in the same position now as you. After 3 years we broke up 3 months ago his choice and now its been 2 months of him stonewalling me at work and cutting me out of his life. We still work together and he left me for someone else we work with (who has a partner and still does), in a cruel and unwarranted manor of a text and unfriending on Facebook. She had been texting him from after work up until midnight and then first thing in the morning just about every day for a year prior to this and he couldn’t see a problem in it. This lady is advising him to cut me out, ignore me at work and to seperate our children (both him and I have a child each from previous relationships), while she has been sleeping with him. He did something silly last Christmas and just about died, following this he wrote off part of his immediate family. I got him into psychiatric help (he’s a known diagnosised bipolar), he was doing well but throw that all aside for her advice instead. To this day he still doesn’t talk to the immediate family members he discarded in December so I can’t see any hope for me. I would be interested to know if she contacts you again and how it goes 🙂
Hi Rach,
Well it has been 5 weeks since I’ve seen or heard from her now and it is actually good in a way. It has made it to where I can finally start dating again. I still think about her everyday but its not as bad as it was. I learned she is dating someone new now. But what I do know is she will eventually push him away like she did me and everybody else she’s been with. (That’s if he doesn’t run first). The crazy thing is, is I know she broke up with me completely over anxiety. She has told me over and over she is afraid of her own feelings. And I honestly think the only reason she is dating somebody new is to get her mind off of me. If I ever hear from her again I will be completely surprised. Unfortunately Rach it seems as if it is time for us both to move on. I know it is hard to do so when you love somebody so much, but we have to remember we did everything in our power for them. We didn’t fail. I wish I could see into my ex’s mind and know exactly how she’s feeling and understand everything she is going through, but I know that will never happen. If I hear anything from her I’ll be sure to post. Take care Rach.
Hi! My girlfriend of 10 years told me 3 weeks ago she needed “space”. We own a home together so she hasnt left. She has GAD, doesn’t take meds, and is completely consumed by her job. We were in a great place and loving relationship until about a month and a half ago. Then her job started to get more and more demanding. She was pushing me away and snapping at me for little things. She stayed blaming me for things i hadn’t done. She was and is constantly preoccupied thinking of stuff she may have forgotten to do. She also cannot sleep. Now she says she wants to be alone. There is no one else and while i have been talking to a counselor for things i can work on to support her, she refuses counseling. Is it her pride or cloudy view of life? Not sure. She doesnt or cant see that we are great, even now. A great team, get along, and she says she still loves me but wants to be alone.
I don’t know how to deal with this. It got me out of nowhere and the things she has said to me hurt. Calling me names and telling me im ugly but then apologizes. She said she has considered that she is making a mistake but thinks this is best bc she just wants to be alone. Although she still wants me around and not lose her best friend, i just can’t put myself through that. It hurts so deeply because we are so good together and could be but she isn’t the same. Im afraid that she will realize it too late. And i dont know if its healthy for me to wait around for something like that.
My husband has severe PTSD and anxiety social phobia from severe childhood abuse when I met him I was his Queen he adored me I was awesome I did everything for him but it got to be exhausting he was addicted to pot, cigarettes and obsessed unnaturally with his children every two weeks for 9 years he had to go out of town to see them could never be reasonable about spending time with me putting me first so out of the blue after arguments he could never handle arguments are anger and everybody gets angry people argue he left me broke up with me through text messaging would not answer the phone or see me in person so it’s been a horrific year and a half for me I’m still crying I’m so hurt and felt so abandoned I’m 56 years old and I don’t need to go through this at this age I don’t know who I am anymore I feel lost I don’t know where to start don’t let these people f*** you up run while you can love doesn’t hurt it makes you feel good so look for that and as soon as you start having s*** run and I don’t mean normal everyday ups and downs of relationships I mean what you’re talking about and what I’m talking about and what they what they start putting you through the ins and out to me leave you and they come back and they never apologized they start all the fights at cetera they’re immature childish ways
My boyfriend, who has intense depression and anxiety was recently put on medication and a higher dosage of it. He broke up with me out of no where and wouldn’t even let me see him in person. I did everything for him and he always reminded me how important I was and how much he loved me. We are returning to the same school in August and have very similar lives there. I have not contacted him but I’m going crazy trying to figure out what to do. I have way too many emotions inside of my head. Any suggestions would be helpful please.
Emma I’m in the same situation as you. My girlfriend broke up with me 3 weeks ago. She has been struggling with her depression for several years but at Christmas she got real bad. We have been off and on since. The last time we were together she really opened up to me stating She doesn’t want me to leave and that she is afraid of her own feelings and it gets worse every day. She has also told people in front of me that I’m always there for her and her son 24/7 and guys like me almost never come along. She wanted to get a house with me and we made an offer on a house that got accepted. She was really happy for a week then all of the sudden she pushed me away. Besides her being bi polar I’m pretty sure she has a fear of commitment to top it off. The signs are as we get close she pushes me away. I know her past with her ex husband was bad and I think to this day it scares her to death to get hurt again. Even though I know she wants a relationship. We work for the same company and I hear from her most days for work related when there are other people that can help her, but she still comes to me. I think us working in the same place helps keep me on her mind and the fact I still help her, shows I still care. Sunday, out of the blue she texted me something cool about her son. I think she was just trying to let me know she was thinking about me and how quickly I’d respond. Honestly, I don’t know what you should do. I think find little ways to communicate with him so he knows you haven’t given up on him (it has worked for me in the past). 2nd, give him space. I usually don’t contact her till she contacts me. I think it makes them think about what they are doing when all of the sudden you just aren’t there anymore. I did send her a little e-mail today asking about her son and telling her what I have going on with my kids and let her know I found a house to buy. Then ended it with something simple “Anyway just wanted to say hi” From all the support I’ve been getting and all the educating myself I’m hearing and reading, that you don’t want to give up on them. They just have a hard time dealing with their depression. So adding the supposed stress of a relationship, it’s just too much for them to handle. I know this hurts (I’m hurting myself) but you have to continue to live as hard as it is. Hope this helps. I know it isn’t easy. Here’s a quote from Bob Marley that keeps me going “If she’s amazing, she won’t be easy. If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing. If she’s worth it, you won’t give up. If you give up, you’re not worthy. Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”
My husband has severe PTSD and anxiety social phobia from severe childhood abuse when I met him I was his Queen he adored me I was awesome I did everything for him but it got to be exhausting he was addicted to pot, cigarettes and obsessed unnaturally with his children every two weeks for 9 years he had to go out of town to see them could never be reasonable about spending time with me putting me first so out of the blue after arguments he could never handle arguments are anger and everybody gets angry people argue he left me broke up with me through text messaging would not answer the phone or see me in person so it’s been a horrific year and a half for me I’m still crying I’m so hurt and felt so abandoned I’m 56 years old and I don’t need to go through this at this age I don’t know who I am anymore I feel lost I don’t know where to start don’t let these people f*** you up run while you can love doesn’t hurt it makes you feel good so look for that and as soon as you start having s*** run and I don’t mean normal everyday ups and downs of relationships I mean what you’re talking about and what I’m talking about and what they what they start putting you through the ins and out to me leave you and they come back and they never apologized they start all the fights at cetera they’re immature childish ways
I would also like to add that I am a very strong personality I’ve been a manager almost my entire life I’ve worked in Property Management I have never been a depressed personality the last two years of our relationship I realize I was depressed he was making I was becoming depressed and it was never about me it was always everything was about him him him him I don’t think I ever once had him come in and want to talk about me in 9 years selfish f****** idiot so yeah there’s a lot of anger I treated him like a king and he boots me to the side with no home no car no money nothing he wouldn’t have cared if I was going to be homeless it’s been a horrific year and a half I only thank God he is taking care of me very well he knows what my husband did was wrong and then my husband will have to face him Sunday for abandoning a good wife
I also have fibromyalgia / chronic fatigue I could never keep a job when I was with him he kept me so tore up mentally and emotionally and in flare-ups so I haven’t worked because of him I wish I had had the strength to not to walk away from him when I realized how needy he was 9 years ago we can’t fix people we want to try boy have I learned that lesson now and for those of you that think you want them back why do you want to be with someone who doesn’t want you don’t learn the hard way like I had to listen to your head and not your heart
One day this year this group chat will say 1 week ago, then it will say 11 weeks ago, then a year will go by and all the memories of us will be thrown away and we will forget about all the hours, days and minutes we spent together so i just want to say i love you guys, you made my life great and i just want to say thank you, you will always be in my heart.
I have just come across this thread & an sitting here reading Crystals story with an open mouth.
I am 54 & going through the exact same shit she has.
i was totally dependant on my partner of two and a half years having spent the whole of that time looking after him & conforting & guiding him through a very traumatic divorce and the death of his
parent.
He has been my best friend for years, I thought I knew the man. I left the father of my 3children for him for a promised life of fun, laughter & companionship.
Ended up a verbal punch bag as his manic depression deepened.
I ain’t no quitter & have stuck it out tthen he messaged me on Christmas eve from the other side of the world to tell me its over & that he wanted to be around happy people.
He dragged me down to his level then has the cheek to say that.
What a knob.
He is loaded but tells me to go back home & get athe job back that I gave up on his request.
No home. No car. No job. No money….but I still have my self respect & sanity.
My girlfriend left me 🙁 I still love her day and night!
hello,
I know this is a very old post, but I just felt like it suits me, since I am in the same boat,
My story goes like this, and I hope by writing down I can ease some pain I am carrying,
I feel in love with a girl I never met, met her on yahoo chat, talked, chatted with her for almost three years, was supposed to meet her a year before we broke up, but my visa dint workout, and I couldn’t go, then one day finally, she forgets my bday, I feel bad I confront her, and then she wants a break up, and want to be just friends , I say k if that what you want then its k, she tells me I have been Monetarily talking care of her all this while and she need to start figuring out her finances before she can get back, I say ok, then suddenly a week later I see her pics with her new bf, and ones when they were dating almost 6 months back before we broke up, I ask her why she did it, she says just sorry, and that she waited, and couldn’t anymore.
The things that really messed me up was
I really cared for her, and she entered some mlm scam thing which I didn’t support, and is now earning big, so she finally broke up.
also she could have told me she was dating someone, or starting dating someone, and maybe we could still be friends.
Now yes I do feel bad, but I am not dying out of it, she blamed for not coming to meet her.
but truthfully she was already going out with this guy and she kept lying ,and that feels bad too.
I accept I cannot change things, just getting myself back together.
To me it seems we are all I’m the same predicament.. N everyone’s seemed to b moving on fine….. I can’t say the same.. it…… to fresh…. it all started on my birthday Aug 17. I went to use the bathroom N a phone I’ve never seen before was there. I turned it over… text said bae y U not answering….. I asked him about it he broke down said the girl just walked up to him gave him her #. He was sorry he love me he’ll never do it again…… one month later I’m sitting in the car the whole car light up I’m like wtf… it’s yet ANOTHER phone I’ve never seen so I decided I was going to go thru the shit turns out he’s not cheating with one female but 9. I confront him…. AND of course it’s my fault I smother him he says. We both work 40+ hours a week we see eachother getting dressed for work N coming home after work….. he goes strait to sleep I take a shower N at least try to cuddle while he sleep he pushes me away… tells me stop smothering him……. I’m so hurt N confused I’ve been crying for 3 days haven’t eaten N 2 passed out twice…. N he tells me I’m not his problem like where the fuck did this come from this is the same man. That followed me everywhere when we started dating….. this is the same person who cried on the phone with me every night when I was hospitalized…. told him I feel like I’m dying told me that wasn’t his problem….. I made him like this I’m like how!!! I have carried this relationship more than half the time we we’re together. We got a car together N both our name but I was the one paying it he lost his job week after we got it. 3 days ago he blew the mortor.. he pulled up at my house with a new car to get his stuff….. like wtf! All my $ gone. I have nothing to my name right now. He refuses to give me all my stuff out the other car (2)led 12’s.25000 Watt amp N radio…… I’m like what have I done to deserve this I just wanna crawl under the covers N die. Spent a hour talking to my therapist ….. she told me he’s using me to not take responsibility for his actions…. that don’t make me feel better if anything I’m hurting more…. contemplating just eating all these pills. I’ve never been so hurt before in my life… -d3mi
20 year marriage. She diagnosed bi polar 1. I diagnosed MDD. Toxic defined. I wasn’t always depressed. It was gradual. She a pathological liar, thief, pill head, drunk, negligent mother, occasionally violent, and forever blaming me for the things she did, including suicide attempts. I, angry, yelling, demeaning, distrustful, eventually sick. A horrid collapse at the end. She screwing all kinds of guys, deserts kids and home. I, run for hills in shame, humiliatin and severe depression. Kids scattered.
So how did I bounce back? Well, it took time. In fact, I still work at it. But the first thing was to just get up. I tried all kinds of mind games. Transendental Meditation the most effective. Exercise. A walk. Anything. Gratitude. Forced smiles. It seems that the pain will never end but you keep doing something, anything, other than laying on your ass. Slowly, the pain begins to ebb. Your mind starts to open again. You start to experience pleasure, actually desiring pleasure.
Six months after I ran for the hills, literally, sleeping on couches, in pick up trucks, motels and campgrounds, unemployed, homeless and routinely suicidal, the progress I have made is marked, if not profound.
Today, I’m in the best shape in fifteen years, I have a great gal, I returned to my home and took it back, my children are with me and focused and happy, I got a wonderful job, and the rumination of pain has ebbed to a murmur. Yes, it is still there. However, and after the six months of hell, we’ll add in several years, I just endured I can only imagine where I’ll be in another six months. I am looking forward to things. I will never take for granted the gifts that I have and the people I love. I have been vindicated.
For those of you who are in a deep and dark hole, just don’t give up. You can’t see it right now. You are consumed in darkness. Here me when I say there is light. Move towards it one step at a time. Crawl If you must. But move. Good things will come in time but you must work for it. In the end you’ll be a stronger, healthier and happier person. This is your reward for not giving up!
Thank you for that wonderful perspective for all of us. You are right I just wish I could jump forward 6 months ahead to stop having those dreams every morning. It became an obsession but I know one day they will stop and be less vivid. I’m actually reading Unlimited power written by Anthony Robbins ; it has some wonderful technics to learn how to control your brain and not let you control yourself. I recommend it to anyone.
Good luck to all and take care of yourselves
Not let him control…
Hi,
Few weeks ago I found out that my partner is depressed and I’m so scared that I may not be able to cope. We met 2 years ago, fall in love so deeply and truly that I thought that this is it I found the man of my dreams. After 6 months of being together I started to notice that he’s more and more selfish often saying that he needed more time for himself, that he needed to be left alone, he stooped noticing me, stopped seeing any of my issues and problems. It was always about him. When I was trying to help he would isolate himself and kept me hanging and waiting for weeks till he would decide to come and tell me why he is acting that way always blaming his work and that he’s just very tired. We started to argue more and more in terrible way, we said so many awful things. Started drifting away more and I felt that it’s only because of my effort that we still going on and trying. I started to feel worthless and very lonely. I didn’t know anything about depression back then but I’ve asked him if he would go and speak to someone it ended up with another massive argument. He asked me to give him some time again. I agreed and decided after many sleepless and full of tears nights that this is it and I can’t go that way any longer, feeling so miserable and unhappy all the time. When we met and I was ready to tell him, that this is it, before I said anything, he said that went to see his gp and Admited to having an issuue, that it’s depression and that he’s on antidepressants. It left me stunned, speechless. And obviously changed my outlook and perspective. But still didn’t changd the way I feel. its so hard to understand ..is it him or is it depression who hurt me so much and left my heart broken? Who is the man I fall in love with? I’m so unsure to what to do. I booked the counselling session to help me understand. My partner refuses to see a counsellor. I feel so hopeless, helpless. Trying to be there for him. Sowmtimes he’s there, want to talk to me, few hours later he asks me to leave. I feel so weak but I just can’t see the light now and I’m not sure what am I waiting for? I thought that maybe if somewhere there is someone who is going through somethiing similar.. Then maybe you will be able to tell me something that will help me understand..
Thank you.
Nat
Hey Nat, this is Diego
I’m in a similar situation like the one you are, I broke up with my girl in June and I’m in hell.
If you want to talk, let me know and I’ll leave you my email.
Best wishes
Seems that ur guy has what I have… … http://introvertdear.com/what-is-an-infj/
Thank You. Explained me..lol.
And I’m a Reiki Master/Healer and also recently decided to return to College at 37 for my Bachelors then Masters in Psychology, therefore, able to assist others with all situations, as I’ve sadly experienced great past challenges. I know exactly the deep layers of why people act,or behave, yet they don’t grasp, which heavily contributes to my help when resolving situations, yet draining me. Thank you.
Hi all, Gosh, I am shocked by how close to home this all feels. I have been with my man for 6 years, yes met him just before my first divorce to a drunk abusive man. We moved on, got engaged 2 years ago. Our life has not been all a bag of joy. I moved from my small complex to be with him, gosh I was so in love. When I moved in I decided it is time to take this man and sort out all the skeletons in his closet. His mom was ill and cause I loved him so much would do any thing to help his family.So sorted out all his and his families concerns. The drinking bringing on depression was starting to surface more and more. His daughter moved out and the excuse was because of me, she went to live with his predominent , over powering sister who couldn’t care if he was alive or dead. Eventually my kids moved in and out as per his here say depending on how much guilt and alcohol was in him. His daughter and sister never cared less and only ever called every pay day for money. She treated me like shit cause it was only the 2 of them for along time. His sister was the biggest downfall in our relatinship. I mean together for 6 years and my partner and I have no control of his bank account. Hello, how grown up.
Anyway, 2 weeks ago we had a serious argument, he is moaning about money and I found the proof, needless to say wrong time , wrong place. Not a blood sister won the case and kicked me out the house. once again thrown on the streets with nothingafter all I did for them.
He is now in Rehab for 21 days, things were ok, I was talking to him on the phone everyday and due to visit last Sunday. All of a sudden just before the visit he tells me I am not on the list to visit and I musn’t phone him at all any more. Ummm, why suddenly. He wants to sort his life out, what about me ? Homeless cause sissy says so. i was his intimate partner for 6 years and I get the boot. I am sure all my fault as per the non caring sister. I am now homeless again, money is an issue and I can do nothing about it.
She has ruled his life again. What angers me most is the rejection, he was depressed and turned to alcohol, It wasn’t all my fault. The rehab now is being ugly and pushy and wont allow us to attend councilling because they are focusing on him. We all know how rehab changes your life, they say for the best, but what about the sufferes out there that had to cope with all this for 6 years ??? you get blamed cause being engaged means nothing, you never get your side across. I am now lost, miss him so much and just wish I had , had a say in our relationship, not his sister that after 2 weeks is already planning to match him up. God, i pray every night that I may have closure from his mouth alone and an explanation as to suddenly how he could throw 6 years down the toilet. This clinic is no help, i think they brain wash you into something so that you can see they are good.
I have a sister in rehab, depression caused by husband and a brother than just came out with same thing.
Dont you thin it’s unfair that a non blood relative, only a relative on paper that never cared should decide our mission in life ? I miss him so bad, even when people keep trying to drum it in to my head, he wont change his mind, his sister has done that for him. 50 years old and he can’t be a man to stand up.
I will keep trying cause I love him dearly and miss his arms, touch, kiss and sympathy, its not fair….I am hanging on and just cry all day. Cant eat, cant do anythin, work, work and try find a place to live, I cant do this again. i love the man….anyone out there wanna help me
Hello,
I was in relationship for almost 8 and a half years. But the start of our relationship was itself weird. It was a rebound relationship for my girlfriend. Her x had dumped her and she was all depressed when I came in her life. So when she got my support she was attached to me. But also she still loved her x. So she never committed to our relationship. It took almost 3 years for her to realise she loved me. But dhe to this kind of a start she could never give me what I wanted from my girlfriend so had frequent quarrals. We had many breakups in these 8 years. But every time she or either me would take efforts to patch up the things. Every time we would patch up the relation improved. But one thing was always there. Due to constant fights she could not get intimate with me. We never had sex in these 8 years. Over that too we had many fights. But gradually I gave her own space and told her when she is ready then only I would get physical with her. So for almost last 1 year I was never physically involved with her. We are from India and almost 27 years old now. So obvi our parents were worried about out marriage. So her dad gave her a deadline to take that decision. She took one whole year and finally agreed to marry me. All things were fixed even the marriage date. But one day she told her dad she wanted to take some time to mould her self into this marriage thing. That day she had a big argument with her dad and from that day we stopped talking. Now yesterday I called her and she told me that she does not want to marry me. She is taking all blame on herself. Said she can’t take any more…also she told that she is not physically compatible with me and has no such feelings about me…so that would be a big risk. I pleaded so much literally begged…asked her for one more chance but she kept on refusing. My life is so devastated. When almost the marriage was fixed she backed out. I have been crying day and night but all in vain. I just don’t understand the person who has supported you for 8 long years been always there for you suddenly becomes so cold hearted. She is gonna register her name on marriage bureau and is even ready to marry a stranger in couple of months. God what have I done to suffer all this. I truly loved her. Now tell me which relationship does not have fights. I had a bad childhood too. My parent separated when I was young. I dint even see my mom and my liitle sis for 7 years. When I met them after 7 years all the attachment was lost. Now I have lost the only love of my life. Why is life so cruel…I have just lost all hope.
Hi, i need some help please! My fiance of 3& abit years walked out on myself and our 2yr old son 2 weeks ago.
About a month before, between myself and a “friend” i had convinced myself that he was having an affair with a girl from work. I believed him when he told me there was nothing going on , the tears, an how much he did actually love me, need me and want to be with me! Things then got really good! ( we had met and fallen pregnant within 3months but were both determined that this was what we wanted. He proposed to me declaring his undying love for me on my first mothers day in 2012 and i can honestly say i loved him with all my heart! We had had our fair share of ups and downs and other peoples influences on our relationship but we never let it get to us if anything it made us stronger! He had no family, no real friends and it was literally the 3 of us and my family. We were living in a grotty 1 bed flat the 3 of us and eventually in April this year we moved into our first family home and everything was as it should be we were happy! He then started this new job in the June, got promoted within a month and everything was brilliant! The first major argument was when i accused him of cheating)
Since the “accusing him of cheating” he then went on to tell me how much he loved me, but he was depressed – majorly! He told me about how he felt he didnt deserve to be loved, how he didnt know how to feel, show any kind of emotion all he felt was anger and hatred how he didnt find himself attractive etc etc how he felt like he was trapped in a big black hole! I knew that he needed to go and see a doctor but he was having none of it – i thought it was best to not push and just carry on as normal. Days before he left we had been xmas shopping alone (we dont have time to ourselves at any point in our relationship as we have our son and no babysitters available – it was hard but we had evenings and we got used to it i guess!) we had had a laugh things were good! We had planned to take our son with a friend of mine and her family to see the xmas light switch on on the friday – friday morning we went food shopping – i got stressed as our son was misbehaving in the supermarket and i went and waited in the car when we got home i was still a little stressed but was calming down and were getting ready to go out when he said he wasnt coming and an argument errupted followed by me still taking our son to the light switch on. He was in bed asleep when we came home and the following morning the argument carried on – i walked into a room he walked out we started arguing again and he packed his stuff – i thought he would go and come back later! How wrong was i! Every communication we have had has been over text message – which really doesnt help! At first he told me he may have his stuff but it didnt mean anything , told me he still felt severly depressed spoke about how the bloke from work he was staying with had to stop him from losing it at work and losing his job as well as stopping him from hurting himself! He told me he needed time and space. I know i was wrong but i did text him – telling him how much i loved him and how much i wanted him home etc how we can work things out and im there for him begging him to at least consider giving us one last shot! We’d never split up before never had MAJOR arguments just rows i couldnt help it! I needed to know that there was still a slight chance of him coming home and trying again! He hadn’t actually told me it was over – he told me he didnt know what he wanted or how he felt! I then came across an email from the network provider which had a telephone number on it – saying how much this person missed the other one etc etc so i called the number – it was the girl from work! I asked how long it had been going on and she kept saying nothing had happened there was no them 2 she asked who i was and itold her i was his fiancee! He was coming over quickly to see our son who was desperate to see him and he had got a call to say he was wanted for a meeting at work it was serious! He then accused me of ringing work and how he now had to go and try and save his job nothing had happened between them blah blah but promised that he would come and speak to me at some point over the next few days – that was friday
Later that day i had text asking if he still had his job and he told me he didnt know and that it was my fault for ringing work – i didnt – i called the number on the text!! He then went on to tell me that iv pushed him away theres too much to come back from now iv pushed him to this! Im still desperate to sort things out with him and to piece together our family!! Part of me believes that there is nothing going on with this girl and maybe the message was sent to the wrong number i dont know – he has no reason to lie to me now! He could have put an end to it all by saying yes i slept with her we arent together?! But he didnt! Iv not spoken to him/text him since sat- he still says he will come and talk but when the time is right – up until sat he was also still coming xmas day for our son – i now dont know if this is still happening or what! He told me that if i loved him i would leave him alone – which is what im doing! Its so unbelievably hard!! I cry all the time i feel so guilty and hate myself for keep pushing and pushing and texting him! I just didnt want him to forget about us and it seemed everyday he was away he was getting further and further away from us. He last thing he said to me on sat following my “ill leave u alone now but only because of how much i love you i hope your happy where you are” was “you think im happy you couldnt be more wrong”
I dont know how to cope or what to do! I need some help and advice please xx
Hey everyone, thank you all for sharing! A lot of these situations seem not unlike my own, and at this point I want to share that I have been doubting that I will survive this break up.
3 years ago we began our relationship after a relatively short dating period. I have a son from a previous relationship and am a single dad. I thought this would be a tough sell to any woman, nevermind a woman without children. To my amazement, we had an infatuation between each other and she seemed to WANT to take on the extra responsibilities as a pseudo step mom. Of course I was ELATED!
6 months into it, (despite her being on the pill) we became pregnant. She was scared, and being as how I’ve already been a parent by myself for 2 years before us I was supportive and nurturing.
I did have to work, as we were barely making ends meet as it was, so i was absent for all but one ultrasound. I don’t know if the gravity of the situation was subconsciously too much for me, if I was emotionally or sexually starved or could say for certain just how invested I was in the relationship this early into it… I don’t have an excuse, but I found myself getting addicted to the sex that a woman outside the relationship was actively pushing on me. She made me feel desired, and sexy and alive! Well sadly this purely physical relationship periodicly spanned about 5 months.
Guilt, and the feeling that I have to grow up caught up to me, and I know I would have kept it under my hat. Then it happened, I got the call from my pregnant girlfriend “we need to talk”.
I have to touch on this briefly, not only was she dealing with an unplanned pregnancy early into a relationship – she was also dealing with various issues that dated back before “us” that she never made mention of that I can really remember.
Also during her pregnancy she was facing her mother leaving her terminally ill father, and finally the death of her father battering a brain tumor.
I was in a position of trust and I broke it. She asked if I had “made a friend” at work. I didn’t hesitate, I told her everything! No clear answer WHY, but that it had been over for weeks already, because I chose to end it and focus on my new family… I wasn’t running anymore.
I offered personal counciling, couples counciling, complete transparency with my phone, computer email and social media. To rebuild trust, to show her the times I worked, offered the services of a PI and even voluntary GPS tracking.
All of these suggestions, and she said no. That we’d work it out ourselves, so long as I NEVER do that again.
It was an easy choice to say the least!
2 and a half years go by. We were happy, raising the children, family vacations, and a PREDICTABLE home life. I have to emphasize predictable because I think that’s half of what our downfall was.
October 2013. Upon asking what was bothering my beautiful girlfriend she revealed to me that she had been thinking about my affair, and coupling that pain with the issues that she had left unresolved.
She demanded both solo and couples counciling.
As much as I shouldn’t have been – I was surprised!
Over 2 years and no indication… Come to think of it no indication anything was wrong ever!
I immediately agreed, and she proceeded to periodically want to talk about the affair and was seeming to be reevaluating all the information. Weeks went by, I had all but broken my daily routine, I was leaving hidden love notes. Showing up with flowers, telling her shes all sorts of wonderful things and keeping in contact during the days on a regular basis. It seemed tge more I tried, the more withdrawn she was. She was odd now, suspiciously on her phone and when I would notice get closing an app just to open another when I was around, I was getting suspicious. It was around this time that she started to have conversations with me about leaving for a month or two to deal with her issues herself. Of course I objected, and offered viable alternatives affording her to stay at home.
She only accompanied me to the first counciling session. On the way home with what seemed to be an already more open line of communication I asked of there was someone else . She denied me.
The days between the next session the suspicious behaviour continued, but we were still intimate, still loving while maintaining my old daily routine of work/family(extra attention to her)/personal time at home. Sleep was patchy at best at this point.
Then the day came when it was to be the last that shed be there before going to stay with the mother and father of her best friend- despite my pleas and her own family objecting her leaving our home/offering their homes. I believed she’s coming home in a couple months at the longest, that shed be home for Christmas etc, because that’s what she told me.
I couldn’t take it anymore… My personal social media was always accessible but the whole relationship post-affair I didn’t want to promote distrust by invading her personal space. Then I did. I’m fairly tech savvy, and managed to have a quick look into personal text messeges between herself and her best friend… I read messeges between them calling me names, laughing. Then I saw a guys name I didn’t recognize and I couldn’t bring myself to read anymore or anymore into it.
We attended my daughters second birthday party Dec 7. And I think I maintained restraint quite well, but I boiled over after overhearing a conversation between her mother and the mother of her friend. Katie wasn’t coming home for Christmas.
I left in a tearful hurry. I sat for a few minuites and regained my composure as best I could. I decided I’m leaving the party and went to retrieve my son.
She didn’t even wonder why I was in such distress, being as it was a weekend all she was concerned with was if I was taking my daughter. I refused, and she just followed me to get our daughters car seat.
I stopped short to ask her if she was even curious as to why I was distressed. I told her I had viewed the hurtful texts ( I made no mention of the unknown mans name ( Vance ))
All she was asked ” what texts, what texts did you see?” No concern that I had been hurt by what they were saying to each other.
We continued to my car for the child seat… I asked her again is there somebody else? And for a third time – denied me.
I ended up talking with my sister that day and into the night as she kept me company. As I further scrutinized the text messeges I realized that by the times stamps that Vance and Katie have been in contact for some time and that she was considering dating this man. I figured” in for a penny in for a pound!” Do I did what I could have done at ANY point in time… I’m ashamed to say that I invaded her Facebook account.
I was horrified…. The personal messeges between them only dated back to Nov 27, but only because that was the limit of messege retrieval. It was clear that they were VERY invested already by the emotional connection, the sexting, the reminiscing of first sexual experiences with one another… What bothered me the MOST believe it or not,was not that they were physically involved… But emotionally involved. I broke, I had a full on panic attack.
One of the first messeges I read was ” I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I did it! I told him were done…” Etc. this is NOV 27… We were still (as far as she was concerned ) together well into December! I have our text messeges to prove it… Signed with “I love you” and “xoxoxo”.
One of the last messeges was that he was coming to pick her up FROM MY DAIGHTERS BIRTHDAY! I called incessantly with no answer. I left a messege that said to call me before she does somthing regretful
I was up allll night, taking screen shots of the text messeges… About 8am I was kicked off Facebook… She was logging in.
I texted the following:
Good morning, listen we need to talk.
I know your up.
She replied: “And I’m still extremely pissed that you bailed on your daughters birthday party so it’s not a good idea that we talk right now!!!!!!!”
I replied “Oh, but I do. I didn’t say everything…. First I am sorry for leaving the way I did. Bit knowing what I know and choking it down all morning.. I couldn’t take it so…, I love you, I love you with my whole heart and soul… You are special… Beautiful inside and out. You could never be replaced. I’ve been up allll night, and first… I understand… And I forgive you.
The past few months it seems you have now made a friend… You’ve led Vance to believe that we are not working on our issues, and that we are no longer part of each others lives… You’ve fabricated conversations between us, and I get your in a very emotionally fragile state. I realize that this guy is promising the world… I can’t attest that any of it is true. What I do know is, that I am not going to give up on us… I believe there is still hope… I still love you for the same beautiful, sexy, smart compassionate angel that I fell in love with in the first place….. I knew somthing was up… That I wasn’t meeting your needs, I felt like you were pushing me away, and I was right that there was motive to rehash this when you did. I’m still not 100 percent certain how or when exactly you two met, but I am certain that you went out if your way to go outside of the relationship… And what’s worse, I had given you plenty of opportunity to come clean… I know savanna set you up, and I know she wants us to fail. But I still love you the same. Even with the sleep next to me then sneak off to see him during the day routine… Sharing Amy so soon, and talk of meeting parents and planning vacations… I still love you and so badly want to work on us… I love you, I miss you terribly, and have missed you for so long. Please give us and our family a chance. We can do it baby. I forgive you.”
She said: ” You know what Cam, I can’t forgive you for what you not only did to me but to OUR FAMILY!!!! You WILLING put me through that pain, you WILLING fucked and let’s put it honestly a WHORE for at the least 5 months maybe longer!! And I believe it wasn’t just about sex no matter how much you say it wasn’t!! And you did this while I was pregnant with YOUR child and even after Amy was born!! And then to tell me you weren’t invested!!!!! You shattered every single ounce of trust I had for you!!! And maybe one day I could come to forgive you but I honestly don’t think I’ll EVER completely trust you again!!! I felt that you bailed on us then and then you bailed on Amy your own fucking daughter at HER BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!! And then to yell at me in a mall full of people!!!!! ”
Finally some honesty I thought….
I said:” Is it any different then what you just finished doing?…. Again? And no Katie, I was not emotionally involved, and that is somthing you have to understand. Just like now for you, it’s nice to FEEL wanted, and desired.. That is the only feeling I had. She was not a whore as in pay for sex person, so I want to put that to rest… Just a whore in the sense that sex was all she wanted too. I am wrong, dead wrong for what happened, Otis solely my responsibility and I’d never deny it, I never have. I knew about you and Vance before the “make good decisions” night. About the dinner invitations and the spent days and nights… I hoped that you might feel some remorse or guilt… Enough that when I’d ask your intentions that you’d come clean… That you’d say how your feeling and what your missing, but I could feel you falling away. It wasn’t until recently that everything was confirmed without a doubt, and still you won’t face it. I love you Katie Ann Scott and I will love you until he day I die…. I will work for us… I will also trust again! That you wouldn’t lie, and that I wouldn’t lie ever again either. You are my heart, and I will die without you. I love with my guilt and remorse everyday, I see the pain I’ve caused and I don’t think that you appreciate that… I was not kidding when I said that I will do whatever it takes to get to where we once were… If Seth is a burden you don’t want to take anymore, it can happen… I found your letter tonight and now I know how you truly do feel, and what you are missing… I was that person at one point and I can be again… But we owe it to ourselves and our family to work this through to the end. I want to love you foreceri want to wake up to uour angel face still sleeping every morning forever… I want to be there for you forever. My intentions are clear and one day I can love down my sins. and I know you want that too because you told me so…. This will not be easy, or fast… But it’s going to be so much harder without each other. I just want to touch you so bad, but I know why you won’t let me as of late… Everything has come to a head and we must deal with everything… Your mad, and disappointed, and frustrated and FRAGILE… Such delicate emotions and feelings right now… What’s happening now isn’t right, but I understand! I love you Katie ”
All she replied is “Just so you know I haven’t had sex with him”
Since then, no communication… No calls or texts answered. With the exception of dec 11 on my daughters birthday I got to try to talk to my daughter. Any other interaction has to be about our daughter and nothing else… Or there is no communication.
I’ve been an emotional wreck… No focus, no sleep, nothing to eat… And I didn’t even notice. All I could think about is that this guy is 15 years her senior, and that he was filling an emotional void I had inadvertently created… That he had so much more to offer her than me. Financial stability, an actuall house and personal infatuation.
It wasn’t until yesterday that I got it into my head that I need answers… I need closure and I need self respect. Somehow I just knew that she was in fact not staying where she told her family and I, but rather at Vance’s place. I found out where this guy lives, it really wasn’t that difficult. I bought roses and made a card that read:
“Infatuation is when you find somone that is absolutely perfect.
Love is when you realize they aren’t, and you don’t care.
Nobody is perfect, and I love you Katie A** S****
XO Cam. ”
I got to the neighborhood… It was essentially cookie cutter double-wides in the whole subdivision.
I found the house, saw the vehicles there covered in last nights snow… Now I knew for sure. I
rang the bell and Vance came to answer. He’s a short, greasy scrawny 40 year old… i had to laugh for some reason. He must not have known it was me.. I said “Hey There “big guy”, how’s the home wrecking business!?” He looked shocked and confused. I said ” where’s Katie?”
He stumbled on his words and managed to mutter somthing to the effect that she’s in here and went to retrieve her. I heard him say ” take a look at THIS” behind the door. Then I saw my daughter through the screen door window, and she saw me… She lit up and started pointing “daddy daddy daddy!”
Katie came to the door. She accepted the flowers and talked with me on his front step. I smiled the whole time, and remained calm.
She couldn’t tell me that there is not 100% certainty that there is no love left. But only because of our ties with our daughter.
I asked her if I should wait at all… She said that I shouldn’t.I told her we didn’t even try to fight for our family… She didn’t give me a chance… By the time she told me there was a problem again the first time, she was already invested emotionally. It wasn’t fair, and I asked for one more chance to make it right. It felt like progress, I said what needed to say face to face, and I heard what I needed to hear… Not necessarily what I wanted.
Then the lies continued… Which leads me to believe she isn’t as decided as she makes herself out to be. That she wasn’t staying there at all. It was easy to punch jokes in her story, and I let the proof do the talking. I needed the car seat, so I looked in her snow covered car… Not there. Katie then came out with our bundled up daughter and keys to his snow covered truck… The car seat was in the back. As I fired off questions that were contrary to what she would tell me, she fabricated lie on top of lie.
Last night was the first for just my children and I to be together. I thought I’d share my story to say this:
This whole relationship and break up didn’t come and end without teaching me a few things.
1) NEVER bury your emotions, but pick your battles. Communication is key. It’s what initially establishes the trust and friendship, and is the only thing that can mend broken trust, love and friendship.
If you follow #1, you will not need #2
#2) DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN to keep the relationship from going stale. This takes 2 people, and you shouldn’t have to rely on rule one to WANT to do the small things. Set reminders for yourself to do the small things periodically.
I still feel the sharp sting of her not being here, but I know I have to move on. Whatever that means. If she ever wants to come back, we must BOTH be prepared to put a LOT of work in. But in the mean time, work on self improvement, attend personal counciling and continue couples counciling myself.
This isn’t the end, merely a new beginning any way it shakes out.
Thanks for reading,friends:
Best regards, Cam.E
My ex and I had been together 9 years. We were friends in high school, I moved away, and we fell in love through writing letters to each other….sounds cheesy, but it’s true. I moved back to be with him, in a cliche and rash teenage decision, and from then on we were inseparable.
Over the years we were off and on, always living together and moving out, breaking up for a day, a week, a month…always getting back together, insisting that neither of us wanted to or could ever be with someone else. Even though we were ridiculously young and naive, I had the presence of mind to realize he was always too sad for me. He couldn’t lend support when I needed it. It was like he didn’t know how. A family member would die or something and I was pretty much on my own. I would have my own struggles and just be told I was exaggerating. I couldn’t understand it, he couldn’t express himself and would just shut down. Other times he would be so loving and understanding. It was like two people, really.
I had all these hopes and dreams–not just for our relationship, but for my life in general and he didn’t seem to want anything to change—ever. He never set any goals for himself.
Finally things leveled out, and they were the best they’d ever been. We grew up a little. We both (seemed)to be genuinely happy. He started getting involved in life. Making new friends, got a good job, wanted to get back to school. Things continued like that for awhile. He’d still get sad but it seemed he was coping better. We finally made the leap from living together with roommates to getting our own place, and we were EXCITED! We were talking about getting married. I was trying to save up money so we could travel to Ireland together, where we both wanted to tie the knot.
But….despite his better job and our new place, things fell apart fast. He got weird. He got distant. As soon as we moved in he became aloof to everything. He never had money, etc…I was paying all the bills/deposits, whatever–trying to keep us afloat, trying to keep the faith that it was just a bump. To sum it up for ya, he started taking meth. He had an overnight job, but I know now that it was more about self-medication. I knew something was up, but I worked different hours, I never put two and two together. I guess I didn’t want to know. You see what you want to. I found this out the same night I found out he’d been sleeping with a friend of his while I was working extra shifts at a bar to pay our bills he couldn’t help with. It was hell. We lived together for 3 months afterward because he REFUSED to leave as he was on the lease and naturally had no money to move. He became violent. I myself became depressed and resorted to drinking, which only escalated the situation. He’d sleep for days, and wake up and cry to me and apologize, or rage and throw things. I almost got a restraining order, only this required even minimal involvement on his part in showing up for a court date I knew he wouldn’t honor. This cycle continued until he moved out and I didn’t see him for awhile….then he moved in with friends ACROSS THE STREET. It’s been a year now. We talk, because he lives across the street. Somehow, for some reason, despite everything and the realization that I had been ignoring myself and allowing myself to be used as an emotional punching bag, I still care about him. But I know he is toxic and my caring is for someone he no longer is. His depression has caused him to lose three jobs in the last 6 months. He sleeps days on end, and still comes to me for help when he wakes up, snaps out of it, and realizes how he has screwed his life and what pain he has caused. This site has really helped me realize that through the entirety of our relationship, I knew he was depressed. In a way, me being so focused on helping him only enabled his refusal to admit to it. And it completely denied me working on my own problems and dealing with the pain his actions and his depression had caused. It’s a horrible thing, you don’t know what to believe, it all seems like bull, in the end. All trust you had is immediately non-existent. You immediately are to blame for EVERYTHING wrong in that person’s life.
As I said, it’s been a year, and I still care about his well being, but the person I fell in love with and dedicated nearly a decade of my life to is sadly trapped in there somewhere. That future is not a possibility and I am finally becoming hopeful and excited of finding someone who can love me as I love. A week ago I told him I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t want to be the shoulder, because it’s still affecting me even though that time has passed.
I guess what I’m trying to say, and what so many here have said, is that if you are on the fence about it, and they are unwilling to get help, cut it loose. And NO CONTACT. Trust me, after a YEAR I am just now realizing the folly of continuing to believe in a person that really is sort of dead. Also wanted to say for those that are still struggling, as we all are, that IT TAKES TIME. A lot of time. People I don’t think understand that it’s not a normal breakup. It’s a tornado of bullshit.
On a lighter note, thanks everyone for sharing! Really has helped me feel better, and squash any thoughts of self-doubt or selfishness in taking myself out of the equation that I’d been feeling 🙂
Lol I liked the tornado comment and can’t agree more. Sorry youvery had to go through this too, it is so true, if they don’t want to get help = run, and if they do, always remember it will take years to adjust. And it might not end up as you wish neither or you might be the exception but both persons have to work really hard to make it work, not only one (as it is often). Sad people on both sides have to go through this, I guess life is really not fair sometimes. I think I feel lucky at the end to be on the side that can still feels and trust my feelings, even if it’s really hard to loose that person who once could express her love so damn well.
Best of luck to you all 🙂
I’ve been on this before. Last nov exactly a year ago my partner starting acting strange been together 10 years with 3 kids so I could tell the difference. He became very manic and secret and completely over the top angry. By feb he was not eating insomina out all the time and sleeping rough. I knew it was depression so I continued to support him and he went to a therapist but his sure he isn’t depressed just our relationship. Anyhow I started seeing him improve past month more himself with a conscious and guess what I found out! As it began to lift he tried to deal with telling me the truth He’s had an emotional affair since February! Posted pics online of the couple pretending to be in love while cheating on her with me!!!! All of a sudden he wants to be honest and see if I will forgive us but can’t see a future for us just with her!! All very confusing! everyday he cant make up his mind who or what he wants. hes so in himself he cant even realise my feelings or that hes actually got no choice in the first place were pretty much over now! bit watching him continie on the desttuctive train. Everyday he rings turns up at 7am and then switches and ignores me!!! I just can’t believe it! Unbelievable. In a way it’s easier than a normal affair as I’ve had time to prepare myself and know it isn’t true love as he ain’t right but still, watching someone completely screw their life up is hard. I’ve told him ur depressed!!!!!!!!!!! Deal with it but no use he won’t listern to anyone. One day it will lift and when it does I feel sorry for the reality strikes. He’s left a 4bed house 3 beautiful kids and partner that’s prettier than his new girlfriend lol that made me feel better and turned it all in over the grey cloud. Life’s hard even when ur in depression in a depression try don’t care about anything their indestructable and can do whatever they please. When their heart starts turning on again then they reqlise they lost everything. try wish the I don’t care fog back cause everything easier to deal with. Life hurts when u feel emotions not without them. Oh dear.
Really, I feel what your saying alot. My ex and i split Over 6 months ago 6years we where together pretty perfect couple, Anyway weeks after we split she was seeing someone else and is now pregnant to this guy. I know shes depressed i was doing all i could to help giving her space saying doing all i could..but shes denies depression tho she had a bout 2 years ago. She is ruing her life big time it is Unbelievable, but she cant articulate what shes going is mad. Its a quick fix fake happy because she cant deal i know this…but to be so flippant with my own feelings is awful. I agree one day if will lift and they will be sorry, but that time comes to late. Depressives will always find a new partner who is lesser than the one before maybe its what they think they deserve? I know how deep this feeling cuts im with you on that.
You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
It makes u not believe in real love anymore, not only is it the betrayal but it’s the complete ice cold lack of empathy. I would of liked a hug and at least a heart felt sorry. I only got it’s no big deal why r u making me feel guilty? It’s all about them. They have the power to break normal peoples emotions through their heartless acts. Deep down I know that I don’t love him the same anymore I think a lot of my feelings are to do with closure and I’m starting to accept I’ll never fully get it. There’s always a silver lining somewhere.
It makes you question alot. Depression is enemy of love. And its so hard to believe that love can be zapped away. They are void of emotions mostly feel apathy anger. Id also like to be thought of and have a heart felt sorry…but in this state they do think of us but try not to as they feel massive guilt. The only closure we get is what we give ourselfs they have no answers for us and its out of our control. I feel ive just been forgot about and this is the hardest thing to endure and im sad. x
Hi. I am in the middle of a break up with my boyfriend of nearly 2 years. We have, for the most part, had a really loving relationship. It has been very up and down with a few “breaks” that have been his idea but we have always ended up back together. Both of us have suffered from depression and tried to help each other through it – after individual therapy I am a lot happier and getting my life on track and feel I have come out the other side (which I could not have done without him). However, he is having a really bad time with his depression so a few weeks ago I suggested he be on his own for a while. I have gotten sick of going round and round in circles and never knowing where I stand, as well as the feeling unloved and under appreciated. I know that this is because of his depression but I guess it makes me wonder if he has ever truly loved me (he says he does but sometimes I cannot believe him). It has been a very unhealthy relationship when I look back and feel I have put so Much into our relationship with little in return (in his defense, our sex life has never been consistent what with my depression and I have always realised and understood the impact this has on him). We had no contact for the last week and I have been really happy and focussing on my own needs and keeping myself busy and told him that I can’t do this anymore and would not like to get back together or see him for a while. He responded angrily which is very unlike him, and frustrates me. I am now wondering if I’ve made a mistake and feel a bit selfish, but know deep down that it is for the best. I do not know whether to keep trying to make us work or to leave it and try to move on.
Hi everyone. I am currently struggling with the loss of my boyfriend due to depression. His depression, not mine. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. We love each other so much, but he has totally shut down and withdrawn from everyone and almost everything. His business is the stem of his depression and unfortunately, the last I heard, he has not been to the doctor.
We met, fell in love, and basically had a great relationship. He is everything I am looking for and then some. Then all of a sudden, depression reared its ugly head. It started about a month ago. He won’t speak to me at all, answer my phone calls or my text messages. The last I spoke with him was two weeks ago. I have texted him a few times letting him know I was here if he needed me and that I loved him and that I was thinking about him. He never texted me back. I have also called a few times, but he won’t answer the phone. The last time I spoke to him, he told me he just wanted to be left alone and not speak to anyone. He isn’t speaking to his friends or his mother either.
I sent him one last text a few days ago saying that I got the hint and that I will leave you alone. But to know that I am still thinking and praying for you every day and when/if you’re ready to talk to me again, that I will be here.
I am emotionally and mentally drained from this. I just can’t believe that this is happening. I feel like I am living a bad dream. To make it harder when he ended things, he told me he loved me and saw his future with me, but didn’t want to bring me down and said he had nothing to give me because he couldn’t even give himself anything. My heart is breaking for him.
I’ve been going to a therapist to help me get through this,but it’s doing little to help. I cry every day for him. I pray God will heal him and bring him back to me. I can’t listen to the radio because songs come on that remind me of him. Will this pain ever go away?!?! The thought of me or him being with anyone else makes me physically ill.
Stacie, I feel every word you have wrote. Mt gf left because she wasn’t happy she didn t love herself how could she love me. Once she had left she was even more emotionally withdrawn ignored texts calls. I have yet to reach her on an emotional level in 5months. I feel everything you do. It is a bad dream worst ive ever had. It will last for months depending on the type of depression, there mind is to full with them selfs they cant even think about our pain. Its really common and they act in such a text book way as you can read thats how we know we are not crazy. Here are afew links things that have helped me understand. I do understand but its still no easya ive lost my love my soul mate and best friend you can only take one day at a time x
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-to-love-someone-with-depression/
http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/inside-head-depressed-person-0110134
http://halfwaybetweenthegutter.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/depression-why-opening-the-curtains-can-cause-more-suffering-and-other-advice/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/literally-darling/loving-someone-with-depression_b_4002503.html?show_comment_id=289479874#comment_289479874
Have a read. Know your not alone for as many people suffer depression there is us on the other side lost and confused x
Stacie,
I had a bipolar gf who was the world for me; she was a blessing and the answer to my questions. She was everything and the world didn’t exist for me without her. I can say that I was a regular guy; good job, nice family, nice friends and I was a “winner” if that word fits to describe myself. It was the first time I was, seriously, thinking in getting married, have my kids and live my life with her forever; she was the right one.
Once her bipolar symptoms appeared the world changed for me, my job, my family, my friends, my believes, my moral values and myself. It is like living in hell with something punching you in the middle of the chest from inside to outside. It drains you from inside and left you with a unwilling sensation that starts in the throat and goes down to your whole body. You cannot sleep, think straight, breath regularly, smile or have fun. Your thoughts are constantly in that person. You isolate from everyone, cry and don’t want to talk to any body but that special person you suffers for. The worst sensation is when you can’t stop calling that person every 5 minutes to hear her voice (if you hear it, you feel you are alive again) that’s your medicine, her voice. One, question for you. Aren’t you becoming another depressed person? Depression is contagious not matter what others say. It is because another future depressed person is making an appointment with a Dr. the same way you did it
When I realized I was becoming another depressed patient, I had to made a decision that I knew it was the RIGHT one to make, but inside of me I wanted to hear about the magic pill that cures everything and give it to my gf because inside of my soul I wanted her for me; my body, soul and every atom in my flesh and bones wanted her back to me forever and ever and go away from the world and live in our isolated island far from humanity. That pill doesn’t exist, but in your head.
The decision to leave that person by her own will destroy you, and many times you will be tempted to go back with your love one. The same way it was not her fault to be bipolar or depressed, it is your option to be one of them. You know the consequences and you can pick any, the responsibility and decision is yours only.
I strongly recommend you, unless you are already married with that person, your brother, sister, etc. to leave that person by his own. He will survive with his “family” and he will find another person. It is time for you to cure yourself and look for you life with another person. Is it cruel? YES, it is. I’ve been there, I know how it is and nobody is gonna tell me that I don’t know what I am talking about. if he hurts to himself it is not your fault, sooner or later he would do it. Think about yourself, your life, your family, your friends and you fate in life. People come to our life for to reasons only: To be a blessing or to be a lesson.
Time will cure everything, believe me it does. The next time you meet another person with this problem you will know what to do.
whatever decision you make, I wish you the best, but you have a life also and somebody outside is looking and waiting for you to love you.
Duke
Ive been living with a partner with depression for 2 years and its reached the point where i have to let go to save my own sanity. His refusal to seek any kind of help and that he can self cure by withdrawing from life has brought me here. Having read your very frank and honest comments Duke, i have decided that i have made the right decision. While fretting over his moods and wellbeing, ive forgotten about my own.
Thank you
Honestly Duke, I have read forums for a month now, trying to heal myself and even find answers. But your response really touched me and really touched my heart. It sucks seeing the good in someone and doing WHATEvER it takes to make them better! That you lose yourself (especially when u weren’t even strong enough for yourself in the first place). But it’s best to let go, no matter what. My ex “moved on” and it stings!!! But, all I can do is pray that I only wish them the best. Maybe she is the girl for him and can help him instead of enable him like was. And maybe she is strong enough to help him without hurting herself, like I wasn’t. All in all, it sucks. But better than being brought down and being another statistic. Thank u!!! Email me if you need a penpal friend
Sorry may I add that he’s had a recent death of his friend who he was very close too, I feel I should leave him to have space and no contact although its very hard when you have spent 15 years of your life with him..I know he’s not being nice but still can’t help but feel for him as he’s not thinking straight..This has been going on for quite a long time with him coming and going. He sais I show him no love and he’s craving this attention from other sources he loves me then he dosent! He’s so hurtful in what he says sais he wants out and for me to be with another man as he’s not good enough and I deserve better. He keeps it all in makes me think everything’s in my head and ignores me if I message, but if he messages me I show him respect and answer him back..but scared to as my friends said he’s so fragile and best to leave him to it.
Hi don’t know where to start really, I’ve been in a relationship with a man for 15 years but he’s become so hurtful says he dosent love me, wants to be alone he comes back and forth which I take part blame for as i love him and think its going to be better. We did live together up until 2 weeks ago when I borrowed his phone and he had been on dating sites and messaging other woman! The messages are not the same person I shared so much of my life with..of course I was angry and asked him to stop or leave and he’s left which Im devastated as why couldn’t he just stop..he sais he loves me then he dosent..has this picture of a new life and whats out there..told my friends he’s really depressed and not felt true happiness for years..am I too blame for this as its an awful hurt feeling knowing the person you love is so down and dosent respect himself at all. He’s left with nothing no clothes absolutely nothing..I’ve not had contact with him for a week as I’ve got my self so low that I need to pick myself up as I’ve got my kids to think about which are 15 and 16 and I’ve felt at my lowest although I know its not depression just upset and hurt at what he maybe going through! and I can’t help him. The reason I’ve so much sympathy for him is I lost my dad. To depression a year ago and its one of the hardest things you will ever go through.,not knowing why sometimes you just have to exept it and realise he was really ill. Think I may have to come to terms that this is not the man I fell in love with and he needs help to feel normal again..maybe its the depression that’s made him so hurtful or maybe he is feeling sorry for himself as he’s been caught out texting other woman…I, confused myself with it all…he did manage to message the kids saying he loves them and he will always be there for them both and he’s sorry for leaving us all…please any advice would be appreciated thanks kkk
I know exactly what everyone here is going through. After three great years My fiancé left me about 4 months ago to deal with her depression. I had been away 20 out of 30 days a months working to pay for wedding expenses while her depression slowly was reaching a boiling a point. She had a very short lived emotional affair though it rattled her to the point where she could no longer continue in the relationship. As heartbreaking as it was it was without a doubt the best thing for me to happen. I know that depression is at the heart of the breakup though what I know to be the bottom line is that for whatever reason if she cannot reciprocate the love and respect that I gave her then I need to move on and continue with my life. All of the stories on this site are very heartbreaking to read as I can feel the pain you are all going through . I want to say thank you for sharing. This website has been instrumental in me understanding what happened but also coming to hard conclusion that as much as I love the person I fell in love with that person no longer exists. I was given the opportunity to reconcile but the fear of another depressive episode is some thing I cannot live with as luckily for me I have no children with this women. To Chris, dude your situation sucks I know from first hand experience but you will feel better in time. Keep the no contact, try new things which you’ve always wanted to do. This is a time in your life when you can become the strong and independent person you’ve always wanted to be.
Jeff,
I know exactly what you mean. It is hard and for the first time you feel how your heart is taking out from you without anesthetic. You have a life also, and believe me, you made the right decision. I wish you luck in your new life. A friend told me with humor, “The sea is full of fishes, you will find your right one”
Duke
A few years ago I met the most amazing man, lovely sweet and kind hearted.
At the start of the our relationship he told me that he had been in an abusive relationship with his ex, he was nervous about telling me as he felt embarrassed about being beaten by a woman. His ex wood fly off the handle for simple things. She would constantly check his mobile, secretly follow him, turn up at his work place and constantly text and call. After many violent occasions he waited until she had gone out and he packed and left and went to stay with friends. His ex has tried everything she could in order to get him back, emotional blackmail. When we met for the first 8 months he was so happy, we had an amazing fun relationship. then out of the blue his ex called up crying and saying she couldn’t cope with life without him, he went round to see her and right in front of him she took a massive overdose of pills, she spent some time in hospital, after that she has taken a couple more over doses, told him she has cancer and is dying, and will not stop ringing / texting, turning up to the flat crying, and ringing him saying she is being followed and threatened by her neighbours and could he come around as she is scared. There have been some times that he has gone to help her, she has convinced him that she can not live without him and if he is not there she will kill herself. He lost a friend to suicide some years back and she constantly reminds him that he was partially at fault for not being there. I think you must all know by now that since she has come back our relationship deteriorated I am gutted but I had to let him go. He has sunk into such a deep dark depression, and turned to drugs and drink. I still hear from him most days he sounds desperately unhappy and keeps saying hr is struggling and can’t cope or go on with his ex’s demands anymore. He tells me he still loves and misses me but is sorry that he started a relationship with me when he has a suicide ex that makes him feel really bad if he doesn’t help her. She has no friends all her family have turned there back on her because of her aggressive behaviour and her story telling about being ill in order to gain sympathy. On a good note he has stopped drinking and taking drugs and is going through a rehab programme. I saw him s few months ago and he was covered in scratches , bruises and bite marks, he was pacing up and down and shaking, he won’t report it to the Police but I have persuaded him to talk to his family about it which he promised he would do He ha snot moved back with his ex, but she turns up at his flat, outside his workplace, she gets violent and frustrated if told to go away and blames him for the way she is because he moved out I know it’s silly and most people would just walk away but I worry about him, his welfare and situation.
Hi Janet, (I posted in the wrong spot, whoops)
I’m so sorry to hear of your situation. It actually gets to me as I am in almost an identical situation. The man however is the love of my life. We have been together 2 years and we broke up 6 months ago because of jealousy and insecurity on my part. We have faith in making it work eventually. However he met this woman at his lowest and most depressed state and she just leeched on. It is a very hard struggle as he has come back many times saying he has realized we really are meant to be. Then she will creep back in after theire many break ups, most she instigates. I have watched my sweet caring man waste away. Many nights he has cried to me. The best advice I can offer you is educate your self on bpd and narcissism and how to help someone leave it. It is a hard struggle and he will go back to her many times before he can find the courge to end it for good. The manipulation and lying of diseases is her emotional black mail and ironically the woman in his situation is lying about cancer as well. Just offer your love and support and truly hear him out. Chances are she doesn’t listen to him and makes her problems more important. Be there for him and also respect this is very difficult. In my situation she has made him cut off all contact with me and block me on all mediums of contact against his will as she knows his feelings for me as she helped him of should I say distracted him through his and i’s break up. But at the end of the day I stay postive as focus on taking care of me and know that he and I will be together again. This is just part of his journey back to me. Have faith Janet! And stay strong. =)
Hi everyone,
Sorry to hear about those of you who are going through a difficult time. I can completely relate. I will try to keep my story as short as possible. A year and a half ago my 4 and a half year relationship ended. I was in a way glad that it ended though because the relationship wasn’t right. Quickly after the relationship I started seeing a new guy who lifted my spirits. The only problem was that one of my friends used to like this guy years ago. I decided not to tell her that i was seeing this guy but it all came out three months later as someone else let it slip to her. As a result, i lost my whole group of friends. (5 people in total whom I had been very close friends with for 12 years). I was devastated and felt that this was so unfair that they could all just desert me. They made me feel as though i had murdered somebody and made me hate myself. My friend never even dated this guy. I understood that I shouldn’t have kept it from her but i didn’t want to hurt her as she was already going through a hard time with her mam being sick. It has been a year now since i lost my group of friends and it still hasn’t gotten any easier. Over the past few months i have become severely depressed. I even messed up my final year in college and ended up dropping out. I am also unemployed at the moment.
To make matters worse, just the other day my boyfriend of one and a half years (the one my friends fell out with me because of) broke up with me. He says he loves me but that he is going through a hard time too (he has also been feeling depressed) and can’t see us ever working out because of all the arguments and stress this relationship has caused him. I know the relationship wasn’t the best relationship in the world but i just wasn’t ready to lose another person from my life. He became my best friend when i lost my group of friends. I just can’t comprehend all of this loss. I feel like nobody wants to remain in my life and i have hit rock bottom. Just when i need my boyfriend the most he leaves me.
I have been suicidal for a while now and when i get really upset i just want to end it all or i pray that i will die. These feelings have intensified since my boyfriend broke up with me a few days ago. However i will not commit suicide because i would rather be on this earth and suffering then to put my family through the devastation of me taking my own life, i just couldn’t do that to them even though i don’t want to be here anymore because of the pain i am in. I feel like i have nobody right now and i don’t even know where to begin with rebuilding my life. How can i ever get over all that i have lost? And was i clinging onto this relationship for the wrong reasons? I feel like i have been hurt so much over the past year that i will never be able to be happy again. I feel like something inside me is broken that can never be repaired. Any advice at all would be very much appreciated
Im currently going throught a brake up with a depressed partner now and it sucks. Everything thing she hates about me are lies that the depression has caused. Im still hoping that she will realise that all the terrible things she is feeling towards me is caused by her depression, but i doubth it. Does the terrible feelings ever truly go away or just stay dormant for the next fight or brakeup? My feeling is it just gos in hiding, waiting to pounce and hurt again. Its hard letting some one go that you love, but its mutch worse letting go of some one because of a sickness. It feels the same as dealing with the sudden death of a loved one. You still love them but there is nothing you can do to bring them back, you must just learn to accept
You wrote your message on our wedding anniversary:-(
It feels the same to me. Like my husband died. Nowbody can understand how hard it is, when the person you love gets an angry and confused and somehow stupid person you don´t know.
It kills me. I lost him on a disease…
He lost me again. Like the last time that happened. Last time he came back. Will he this time? Nobody knows.
I die with him…
heres my story, looking for some advice.
My boyfriend whom I lived with for a year (we were together three and a half years) decided that he needed to move out and fix his depression, but he told me that he still loved me and wanted to date. I told him no, that I couldnt do that, he was breaking my heart and I couldnt handle the embarrassment. We both moved out and got our own places. Ever since then, he wants to be back together, he is working on himself and trying to mend the depression. He has even said he wants to get engaged. I dont know whether to take him back or not. I dont know if I can handle all the pain, the inattention, the withdrawal and loneliness I felt when we were together. I love him and I miss him so much, but I am scared that the depression will come back and neither of us will realize it. I have heard the general statement that if you are not married to the person, that you should distance yourself and it is not worth the pain of trying to fix the relationship, but I dont really believe that. People also say ” relationships shouldnt be that hard, you arent even married yet”. Anyone have advice?
My fear is further compounded based on the fact that my father has severe depression, and it caused my parents divorce.
Ashley, this was written almost 2 years ago…what happened after this post?
Hi, my situation is a little different in that I was the one who suggested my depressed husband move out.. although he had threatened many times to leave me and our daughter. I believe I’ve made it easy for him by taking away the guilt he would feel at leaving, he has told his friends and family that I forced him out, that I was fed up with his depression after a year of living with it. This couldn’t be further from the truth, I was in fact, fed up with his emotional affair and his total lack of respect for my feelings and our marriage. Fed up with his spending all.his time with another woman, texting and chatting non-stop, buying her gifts, saying how much he loves and misses her and generally treating me badly. And using depression as an excuse. Even after all this though, I still hope for a reconciliation, that somehow after spending time on his own, he will realise what he’s missing come home and we will go back to how things used to be before this devastating illness came into our lives. Stupid, I know! A more likely scenario, he enjoys being on his own, our marriage ends and I’m left alone – the instigator of my own pain. I know I’ve done the right thing, the only thing I could do – nothing would change unless I made it change and have a life to live too, its still so hard to accept that a treatable illness is the cause of so much pain and heartache 🙁
Hi JM, I’m in the same situation. I have been with my fiancé for 5 years and had gotten engaged about two years ago and had bought the house that she wanted the engagement ring she dreamed of just to be shut out, replaced by Facebook and her friends. I had done everything for her and her daughter who is age 5 right now. I have a son age 8 and we or “I” have been raising them. It was as if she forced me towns this relationship and now plays the role of blaming all her issues on depression and I feel that it’s a easy way out of her other actions. I do love her but look back and realized that she has never put 110 percent into this and was always looking for a way out. The pain is unbearable at times and leaves me always questioning what I did or didn’t do. I realize I did nothing… My heart goes out to you it’s very difficult and a horrible thing to have haunt you.
I find myself once again here hoping someone may be able to give me some insight and advice. I won’t go crazy and go over all the details of my break up to me the shins as I’ve already discussed theme however things been weighing on my mind and I can’t seem to decide what to do
when I last wrote I mention that my ex contacted me after 4 months of silent and it was a really rough go. his communications with me we’re all by instant messenger very drawn out and choppy making no sense to what he really wanted…. in return after being open it first giving him time I finally shut down. at first I just kept telling myself I needed a couple days then I had good things going on and I have done things going on all of which kept telling me not to speak to him until I sell them now fast-forward its been almost 4 months again and while he never stop creeping on my mind now it seems to come to a great point I don’t know how to push it aside and more and I feel like I want to I need to talk to explain why I shut down yet he is the one who contacted me they would not give me information as to what he wanted.
honestly I really don’t know if I want to contact him cause I need more closer or because is not part of me that still desperately missing the man that I thought was my true love and soulmate and sadly still do
I guess what I’m really asking here is if it’s keeping me up at night do I contact him and how
thank you from one scared broken heart hoping to find peace and final close
sounds like my story cass… The texts came out of the blue after weeks of silence. It through my through a loop and I was very very angry and I’m still angry. But yes after 5 months its always on the periphery of my mind if not on the forefront making healing very difficult..
VG,
I am struggling with this loss everyday, she has reached out to me via text to see how me and my son were doing. This just sent me on spiral of emotions ranging from anger to sadness to self dought. I don’t understand why she is interested in how me and my son are doing when she literaly caused my life to fall apart….I lost a fiance, a daughter, a sister to my son and my home that I have to sell. I still love her and her daughter very much but it’s to much emotions involved to have any contact with her. At times i want to shake her and tell her to wake up! What are you doing do you see all that is happening! This has to be the worst time inn my life. my email is 21mejias21@gmail.com if you can tell me how to get over this and what to do
hey
very similar situation to me. I however ended the relationship eventually as he left initially and not once could tell me it was over but displayed all the actions of it being over. I never ONCE text or called in 2 months, assuming by his actions the relationship was done. If it was meant to be it would be and i dont want to see this side of him. plus he had left the relationship in everyway but saying it.
Anyway he has continued to text ME every day or couple of days for the whole two months. I finally had enough two weeks ago and said dont text me anymore until youre ready to see me face to face, that i was done with it all and if and when your better the guy i knew you contact me and meet face to face.
He replied with FINE, what that means i dont know but i had to set the boundaries. I desereve more than this and i deserve the man i fell in love with. I have accepted its over on numerous occasons only for him to text again, always hey how are you, then ending with him telling me hes still miserable and depressed and sometimes blaming me for stuff then its not me.
I was sick of his mind games(i know he didnt know he was doing this) but my only salvation was to say,,,,,hey come back onve youre better face to face and who knows or not at all and good luck with your life.
As i said its been a week and a bit now since i said this and he replied FINE….your guess is as good as mine as to what will happen next
S.Good,
So what has happened? I have a partner who has done the same. She has gone off to fight her demons and try to make peace with her past. She has done the same, given all signs of a breakup yet texts me every night with the same sort of stuff about how she is in turmoil blah blah blah. I thought it was over? Then last night she says she hopes it’s just a hurdle? Why are these people always in the driver seat of a relationship? Better yet why do I let her? In my experience once its over its over and don’t contact me. Its all very weird to me and I don’t know how to handle it. Since I love her I don’t do what I would normally do and just cut her off. Part of me says hold out another month. Since I have been where she was until I finally came out of my fog of post relationship breakup depression and knew I was finally ready for something real. Anyway, I’m just curious as to how things went after he said FINE.
Hi VG, Thanks for responding…It’s nice to know someone else out there feels similar pain and suffering. Though again it would be nice that no one had to go through all this. Sadly after a month or so my ex and I ended up talking and it was horrible. In a way the worst time yet. He was so blase like nothing had or has ever happened. Even said how sweet it was when I asked how he was. But he really never asked how I was -and a lot of stuff has happened including me appearing on TV for my charity. But the worst of it all was how somehow it all seemed turned on me and how he was just this nice guy who really just wants to be there for me forever and always has my back. I told him it was too hard for me and if I did need him I wouldn’t call and he said one day I there would come a time would I would need him…It seemed so minipulitive and like a stranger. Even his voice sounded odd…he was so happy sounding it was fake. Not to mention he almost acted like I made up how serious we were….and he just woke up one day and was like this is fun but not enough….seriously who was they guy saying he never found someone so supportive , loving and his best friend…we were picking out rings and talking to doctors on how to have a baby…how was it now just being with a cool person. It feels like it was all a lie…but god forbid if I tell him that…he would turn me in to the bad guy as Im just now some controling woman. I guess it helped in some twisted way to see how he is not the same man at all and never will be…I just have to let go so hope is gone for good. If only the pain would go away. It is better and I a have tried to move on and even think about dating…though I worry I will never trust another man again. Im 37 and he is the only one Ive loved and seen forever with…I’m going to leave that you only got one true love he’s mine now I guess I have to believe that either its a lie and my true love is still there to be found or it was real and he was taken by the depression and Alochol and I have a second True love me.
I hope you are coming along in your healing and that peace is finding you. Feel free to write anytime. And thanks again for responding to my post.
I met and married whom I thought was my dream partner for life 3yrs ago this past September 26th after 2 years of a loving relationship. my second marriage after 15yrs and his first. we were both 47. last October , several weeks after my our 3rd anniversary I was informed by him over the phone that he had gone to see an attorney and filed for divorce. the fallout I have suffered fromhis decision these past 8 months is more than I could put into words. the man has a long history of depression and anxiety and a strong family history of bipolar. his mother had been hospitalized several times when he was a child and once for a period of several years, having undergone electroshock therapy. an older brother also diagnosed with bipolar at age 20 and unable to ever lead a normal life. when I met through a mutual acquaintance he told me he was coming out of a two year depression related to a breakup and death of his father. there are many other stories he related to me about job difficulties, relocating to Vermont because of stress issues , unable to have a longterm relationship, difficulty maintaining a healthy weight, heavy smoker, daily pot smoker. unfortunately not even 2 years into our marriage when stressors hit and real life was happening he slowly sank back into depression and I became his nemesis. everything wonderful and loving and amazing about me became trash. nothing I said or did was right. I was accused of withholding affection and being nicer to my kids than I was to him. when I asked him what was wrong all he would say was he was not happy and had low self-esteem. if we argued he ran from the room or took off. everything fell apart so fast , I was blindsided. he said his only choice was to get away from me. I begged him not to make such life changing decisions during a depression. long story short. we are now divorced and he has hardly spoken to me since last October. I’ve never known a person who could completely destroy the wonderful life they created with a person so fast , furious and with no good reason. he now portrays himself as the victim and has placed all the blame on me. I fear that it will take me many years to completely heal from this betrayal. it’s as though I have been punished for his lifetime of anger and unhappiness. he refuses to acknowledge he needs help. just needed to wipe me from his life so he could go back to his comfort zone.
Hi Susan, that sounds horrible! 🙁 And it is absolutely unbelievable how can someone we gave our hearts to would crush our hearts and blame us for all the wrongs. But it rings a familiar tone to my own story.
I was once the “special” and i once made my partner, and i quote, felt like he’s the luckiest man in the world. But I too all the sudden became the enermy- the cause of his depression. He also pushed me away from him many times, harder and harder each time as deeper and deeper he fell into depression. Like you, i also begged him not to make life altering decisions as he claimed he wanted to sell the house, throw away everything: his job, our 4 year relationship, just so he can run away and have a new start. I felt so betrayed too, so hurt. How can he say such cruel words? when all i did was love him!
Somehow i managed to talk him out of it and we are now trying to maintain or trying to get back to where we were before all this happened. (but ofcause lets not kid ourselves, it can never be as innocent as before). Recently he had a minor surgery, and i was the one who drove him in and out of hospital early hours in the morning and late at night straight after my work which meant i ended up sitting in rush hour traffic for over an hr just to get to the hospital to pick him up. I tended to his every need, cooked and cleaned all at the same time holding a part-time job while studying my last year of university degree full time.
I am at the moment, extremely exhausted. I am now sitting at work, half asleep counting down the hours that i have to go home and make dinner and also do my assignments for uni. All for a man, who hurt me so deeply that i feel that i can never heal, and almost threw our relationship away just only 3 month ago. From the way he looks at me when i bring him water or slaving over the stove the minute i get home, i can see guilt, sadness and appreciation. But unfortunately, i can never forget what has been said no matter how much i try. The damage has been done.
No doubt Susan, that women like us wonder, why do you give our all to our partner who sees/saw us as the great nemesis? I have no idea how my relationship will turn out, will it take a turn for the better, we get married and have kids and live a wonderful life happily ever after? or will it eventually die no matter how hard i try? Susan, please take care of yourself, i know it hurts and the scar is deep and angry. Depression will always hurt the ones that’s the closest and love the most. And unfortunately, thats us.
All the best to you dear. <3
I got back with my now ex partner after 20 years. He had lived in Scotland for 3 years and moved back down here. He had a ex gf who had ripped him off. 2 weeks moving back to England he had his bank account closed. I let him use mine, everything was paid of there. For the last 9 months he basically had a break down. Bankruptcy, a close friend pushed him over the edge. We didnt live together, but i did everything for him. Sorted out his bills, took food up to his house. I only saw him once this year. He wasnt happy in his job. 2 weeks ago he turned up and told me he was going back to Scotland. It was a Friday and he was going on the Sunday. He had ignored me for 2 weeks prior to this. By that time he had jacked his job in, been up to Scotland and got old job back. Someone was letting them use his account. Just like that it was a case of see ya. He says he will be happy there. His Mum and Dad retired there. His Dad died up there and is buried there. He said he will be closer to his Dad. His Mum has alzheimers and moved back down here last year. He told her out of the blue. I am devastated that he can do this. I cant get over what he has done. Everything i did for him and he can just do that. No cares, nothing. Now he is back up there with people who think he is fab, when all he had done is left path of destruction down here. I feel so betrayed, but also think he has had a breakdown. He is living in a caravan. I just cant get my head round it. He has been treat like rubbish from all his exes, and i was the only one who treat him right.
I’m soo glad I came across this. My fiance is depressed and has recently been doing some really hurtful things. He’s the love of my life and to say I’m hurting is an understatement. It’s like he’s died but then I still see him but inside this person is someone completely different. Selfish, rude and mentally hurtful! I hope the hurt and pain stops soon. I kno I’ll never have the person I fell in love with back … so I guess I have to be strong and after over 8 years on and off move on 🙁
I have been reading this site alot recently, and it has really helped me get over my depressed partner leaving me. It has been the most heartbreaking experience of my life. I have commented on several posts already, but when ever i feel a little overwhelmed, I just cant help but write down my feelings on this site.
I was only with my girlfriend 4 months. But in that time we fell, what I thought, was deeply in love. She told me after several weeks she had fallen for me, and it made me fall faster in love with her. She involved me with her family, who really took me in, and she made friends with my mum and sister. She was simply the most loving and caring person I had ever met, and she was gorgeous too. She was my perfect girl, and we did talk about marriage, living together, kids etc. Not stuff I talk about with a girl, especially so early on in the relationship. A week before Xmas she wrote me a card telling me how me she loved me and wanted to be with me.
2 weeks later she wanted to split from me out of the blue. I had seen a complete change in her charachter, she had become cold, unresponsive and un-loving. She was then diagnosed with severe depression, and pushed me away, claiming she didnt know what she wanted anymore. I tried to stay with her for a few weeks, telling her much I loved her, but she wouldnt have any of it. She said she was no longer in love with me. My life had crumbled in a matter of weeks. My future was gone. The girl of my dreams, the love of my life was gone. And she didnt care. Its been over 2 months since we last spoke, she wont get in contact with me, and it seems like she really doesnt want anything to do with me, which is the most heartbreaking thing at all. Even worse, she claims she fell out of love with me, becasue she felt I didnt care. Thats the most heartbreaking thing of all, to know she thinks in her mind I dont care, and she doesnt want me to fix it. (I would like to point out I dont think there is much to fix, this is simply her illness compounding her beliefs).
Looking back I can see the warning signs were there. She had massive self confidence issues with herself, and me. No matter how much I reassured i loved her, i thought she was beautiful, and that i was there for her, she would dismiss it sometimes. She also was abandoned by her father (and raised by a very good man indeed who she calls Dad), lost her baby brother a few years ago and ended up raising her younger brother and sister whilst her mother coped with depression. She was only 16 when she done this. Ultimately I think she struggled with things for so long, that pressure was always behind her, wearing a mask, trying not to break. And when things were finally working out for her, it gave way, her guard came down and the depression took over. She truly believes I dont care, and this is why she says we split up, not for the fact she has depression.
being someone who has not got depression, this has been so hard to deal with. Every inch of my body wants to support her. At least 10 times a day i consider just messaging her letting her know im here. BUt she told me to leave her alone and that she had no feelins for me. I have to respect that.
Walking away has been the hardest thing, because it was the last thing i wanted to do. I want her to know how much I love her, still, and would do anything for her. She is the only person i would be calm and patient for and give her the support she needs. BUt she rejected it, and told me to leave her alone. I do wonder what if she has changed her mind and her pride wont let her contact me? What if she has met someone else, and these things arent an issue for him? What if she repeats this over and over again because she isnt dealing with her problems, and just taking her medication, numbing the pain.
All i wanted to do is love her and support her. All she wanted was for me to leave her alone. And I cant help feel that our love didnt mean as much as it did for me. Everyday I wake up wishing things were different. Everyday I long for a text asking to talk and sort this out. Deep down I cant let go, because in my heart and head this isnt how its supposed to end. We had a connection for a reason.
Or maybe im naive, and i feel these things because its not what I want to believe. Im meeting new girls now, hoping to take my mind off it, and despite her telling me its over, I cant let go.
Hi chris
I am in a similar boat as yourself – my boyfriend of 3 years came home three weeks ago and said he was leaving to focus on himself and after some initial contact from me trying to find answers he has completely ignored me now, my life is devastated so I know how you feel
If you want to chat email me
Jenny
Hi Jen, so sorry to hear about your breakup, I think I have it bad after 4 months, your relationship gives me perspective although still doesn’t stop the hurt.
Very interested in knowing how you are dealing with this right now and how you plan to handle going forward.
Unfortunately there is no happy ending from my point of view. Still not a word between us, despite seeing her several times she has ignore me and blanked me. I don’t why she feel she has to do that.
I still feel exactly the same as when I wrote the original piece. It’s quite clear she doesn’t and pretty much accepted she has no feeling for me what so ever and would rather be with someone else.
What I still struggle with is the sudden change from seeing love in her eyes to nothing. And dumping me because she felt I didn’t care when I showed as much as I could that I did care. I figure she just wouldn’t listen..:and in her mind she’s convinced herself she’s right
Anyway please feel free to chat to me, and hope you keep your head up and don’t give up like I have l
Hi chris and Jen,
Reading your posts sounds very similar to mine situation:
my bf of 7 years ( we were supposed to get married in a few months and thought i was going to spend the rest of my life with him) has been depressed and came home a month ago and told me he can’t marry me and was no longer in love with me–he claims he has soo much love for me and I’m a great partner, but the spark was gone. he used to be so caring, loving, and affectionate. but now He seems so cold, like he hates me, and just shuts down anytime I’d ask him anything.
At first, he kept flip-flopping on if he wanted to work on us. Now he says he’s certain he wants out–he’s also hinted that the reason why he’s depressed is because of his realization he no longer is in love with me. He’s buying me out and I have to start looking for somewhere to live for my own sanity. It’s really hard not to get pulled down into the depression with him.
The change in his behaviour was just so drastic: crying spells, hate for his job, co-workers, loss of pleasure in everyday activities, no motivation, hopelessness, etc–he physically looks the same, but its like he’s a total stranger. He’s also talked about needing to hit rock bottom and how he almost wants to run away from his life. Now, he just thinks his meds are supposed cure him, and therapy won’t help.
I’m started counselling–both from a counsellor and a psychologist–and strongly urge both of you to do the same. If you can afford help, look for local free resources to help you deal. This isn’t easy, and its nothing you have done–I constantly blame myself: i should have done more, i should have told him i love him more, but deep down i know there is nothing i could have done to prevent this from happening. Depression causes a lot of irrational thoughts and feelings and depression ultimately wants to isolate the person, so it can have the person all to itself.
Try and get yourself a support group–friends, family, etc and don’t be ashamed to be sad, upset and even a little angry that you’ve been hurt. Talking about it helps. I wish I was able to give you guys a hug, as it seems like we’re all in the middle of own own hell, with more questions than answers.
Hi Chris,
Do you think I could email you sometime? I have gone through a really heart breaking break up with my boyfriend who is severely depressed. I feel hopeless, and I feel like our stories are very similar, and I would love to talk to someone who went through the same pain, because it is un bearable
Hi, this is for attention for Sara. Yes you may email me, my email is trig1988@gmail.com. I will warn you though that there is no happy ending from my point of view, except that I am living my life as best I can. Today is my ex gfs birthday and I can’t even bring my self to wish her a happy birthday. In fact, i generally feel numbness towards all, I can’t consider a relationship, yet my ex has moved on. It’s undervalued my love, and all my advice will be is move on amd drop the person from your life…it’s so sad but its the only way I function.
Hi Chris
What has happened to you is awfull and i complete relate to it as this happened to me only 9 days ago. My beautifull girl left , took all her things and just left me the doorkey no note nothing. She has depression but i didnt realise how bad it was until now. Im in pieces cannot sleep properly or eat and have this horrible ache in my stomach all the time. We were together 3 years and she was my life. She wont return any texts or calls and i now have a restraining order and have to attend court where she will be. This is the worst time in my life im 43 so have been around long enough to know she was the one. When i recieved the order at 1st i felt ok at least i know now ( she has accused me of keeping her in a prison and lost all her friends and family because of me whicch is so not true, has twisted every innocent comment i made into something nasty and painted me a monster ) why she left and she is making things up but after reading this site i realise its her depression talking not my beautifull girl its ripping my heart out. I hope we both get through this somehow.
Chris – this mirrors my situation. I was told to move on, told that he can’t see himself in a relationship with me, told me he wasn’t 100% in love with me, yet those were NOT his actions over the 6 months we were together. He told me he loved me many times, told my daughter the same, yet completely cut me out so easily. I have not seen him in 5 months yet healing is not going that well at all. Its just below the surface. I’m trying, really i am, but even now as I write this the tears are streaming and the lump is growing in my throat.
VG it’s a process that may last a life time. Been 7 months now since we split, no contact no nothing. No explanations no idea how’s she doing. She’s with someone else now. I have just had to accept she was just as serious about not being in love as she was when she said she was in love with me. Investigating it more I think my ex has attributes of someone with borderline personality disorder. I have had to accept she isn’t ever coming back and that this whole ordeal was real. It’s broke me down to my lowest but made me appreciate someone you love that much more – hopefully I will get the chance to show a girl that one day
Hello Chris and all the above or anyone visiting this sight going through a hard time…
I know that it has been a couple of months from these comments so I hope that you are all feeling better from when they were written. I have never commented on any forum or anything like this ever before- however this page resonated with me on so many levels and reading the hopelessness from many of your comments didn’t really give me a choice but to say something.
I have been on both ends of the situation from having to leave the love of my life due to their depression and the weight that hung over myself from the pain of leaving him, to being in a relationship when I myself fell into depression and starting to affect my truly loving partner. Although we cannot shelter ourselves from the many ups and downs of relationships, or other peoples choices and life in general, I have learnt a huge lesson that has been and I hope to be a corner stone for resilience throughout my life that I want to share.
For any one of you looking for advice here, there is an answer and a solution no matter how hopeless it feels. Without meaning to sound too hippy like, you have to give the love, attention and energy that is going on the other person to yourself. At the basis of all love (rather than need) is love for yourself and respect for yourself. Because this is a large statement, it might be easier for me to break it down into the actions that anyone struggling can start with.
Start small as it will take time- although your body writhes when you are in emotional pain (and man do I know this physical and mental pain and anguish), losing your appetite, and having no motivation for anything- you must love your body and mind anyway and treat it with love- eat as healthily as possible, exercise even if it is only a small bit a day at first and try to sleep at a reasonable hour and get as much fresh air as possible. Stay away from alcohol completely until your mind begins to clear from the fog. It will still be painful but be aware and accepting of the pain- the more you do this, the clearer things will become and the more positive your outlook will start to become. You will learn new tools to deal with the past of the painful situation but begin to see endless positive possibilities in sight.
The choices that you make are the key- all the love and kind supportive words that you were wholeheartedly giving to the other person needs to go to you. Start to find out what YOU really love to do and what YOU have always dreamed of doing and start steps to make it happen.
From my own experience I realised for myself that when you have genuine love for yourself (in a non cheesy way) your love will radiate outwards into everything you do and will attract the same back.
Ultimately when someone treats you in an unkind and hurtful way it is purely a reflection of the problems/feelings that they are dealing with in the only way they know how to at the time. This realisation will free you from the hurt of other peoples actions.
Keep going- you will get over this hurdle and there is sooooooo much love on the other side
Sal (28) x x x x
Hi all, just came across this post and it knocked me sideways.
My own situation right this second is remarkably similar to yours Chris – I met a beautiful, funny, intelligent girl and we fell instantly in love. The first 4 months were unbelievably good and we talked about things like starting a business, having a family and so we moved into a house together. But, at some point there was a sudden change and almost overnight we went from being intensely close and intimate lovers to complete strangers. She has had depression for many years and although she told me that from the start I figured I would be able to deal with it as I am a very stable and, I would say, patient person. However, I could not deal with the coldness, anger and hostility and when she eventually said she didn’t love me, we parted, she moved out.
Since then there has been no contact until last week. I met her and she told me she no longer leaves her house, just works and sleeps. She has no friends, having only recently moved to the country we met in (Ireland), and she is clearly in a pit of depression still. It tears me up that she is like this but following our meeting she got really sad and is now insisting I not contact her ever again. I am not sure what to do now as I worry about her sanity and wellbeing – the ‘suicide’ word popped up now and again in our discussions when we were splitting up.
But anyhow I just wanted to say thanks for posting this – it is strengthening to read that you are not alone and others are having the same emotional trials as yourself. I hope your situation improves soon and the healing process is well under way.
I am so happy o found this. I’ve been sobbing reading every entry. Ill make this short cuz I’m writing this on a phone. I have been heartbroken and seeking answers for a year trying to get over the man who left me. I have thought there was something wrong with me this whole time, so much so that I barely talk to anyone. Its like I have isolated myself and can’t move on till I figure out what I did wrong. I’m not perfect but I know I supported and loved this person more than anyone in my life so far. He had trust issues because he caught his mother cheating on his father when he was a kid and wasmade to keep the secret. I bent over backwards to show he could trust, forgave his cheating and let him know my intentions were pure. I thought I was a positive in his life, at least I tried to be. And I believe he was in mine…then he got a new job, met some new friends and became distant. He was doing some qierd triangulation manipulation nonsense because the few times I met them I was treated with blatant hostility and treated as though I was a controlling witch…fast forward to the demise where he tells me, and I quote, “I’m not going to let you get in the way of my dreams” since he has moved on and seems happy citing that he needs his time to be free and be a son of a bitch with as many women as he wants. That I depress him and because of me he spends time alone feeling down. I have ups and Downs but that left me so hurt and confused. Despite all my good intentions did I bring him down. After that my reaction legitimized. His perspective because I have become so depressed. I feel as though I hurt people around me. His new life seems to suit him and his new pals told him I was a negative person, that most likely cheated on him. Never happenned. I loved him. I felt like I was being punished. I’m pretty sure the last thing he said to me, was while I was crying. He told me he couldn’t help somebody that didn’t help themselves. Again, I’m not perfect, I’ve got some issues but this blow is taking me forever to recover from. I fear new connections with people for fear that I bring people down. If you’ve never been told you are in the way of someones dreams I envy you. This page helps maybe its not me totally. Does anyone have any advice
The stories here remind me so much of my situation, as my partner recently broke up with me and it has left me devastated.
We had what I thought was a perfect relationship, we were very much in love and he would constantly say how I was the one and was excited about our future together, marriage, children etc. Unfortunately he suffered a massive below to his self esteem when he got rejected from his dream career, it sent him very quickly into depression and he became very cold and distance. I have been depressed myself and I know how vital it is to receive support and be there for someone even if they don’t think that’s what they need, so I did my very best to be there for him but the more I tired to save our relationship the more he pulled away, he started going out all night getting completely wasted and the only time I heard from him was when I called and when we did speak as he seemed resentful of the way things were going well in my career and life. The ironic thing was that during this time when we did actually send time together we got on so well, it was like there was nothing wrong and he seemed happy. Needless to say that I found this situation incredibly hard but I stuck with it because I truly believed that if he could get through this that we could be happy again and have the future we imagined.
In the end all of my efforts were futile as he decided to leave me with a mass of contradicting words, he said that he loved me and that he was happy with me but that he wasn’t happy in general and that the only way for him to resolve this was to break up with me and be on his own, he also asked if I would take him back in the future but didn’t want us to just have a temporary break or for me to wait for him, he kept saying how that he knew that he was going to regret this but it was something he needed to do but didn’t want to do.
Now I am left here struggling to make sense of it all. We are still in contact a little bit and he still tells me that he loves and misses me but that he still thinks he’s made the right decision but wants us to be friends and he wants to be there to support me through this, which honestly just serves to confuse me even more. It also frustrates and angers me talking to him as he still is not trying to get over his depression but seems to be just trying to escape and run away from his problems rather than dealing with them, which was the whole reason he threw away our relationship in the first place!
The trouble is as selfish as it sounds I don’t want to just be friends and I know the I probably should cut all contract but there is a large part of me that thinks that if I can still be present in his life that he might realise that he has made a mistake and finally sort himself out so that we can get back together.
I’m just so confused and miserable at the moment and trying extremely hard to not fall into depression myself.
Fey…
My story is below and it is yours too. But I while I dont have all the answers I’m now a year out from the day my ex dropped the same bomb on me as yours did you. What I wanted to say to you is please do not think you are selfish for not wanting to be friends…its not selfish at all. One it is not the future he promised or what you signed on for, two if you can’t do it -its ok we cant be just friends with the one we love and wanted forever with as its just painful and does not allow you to move on. That said I dont say give up instantly as sometimes its a stop gap to healing but only if they are working on their healing and sadly it sounds as if he is not. My ex did the exact same thing -drinking and all wanting me to wait but yet not -he never actually let me as no matter what I did to cut contact he would find himself contacting me again…and again like now.
I know its not an answer per say but your not alone. Take care of you and never let guilt take you….you did nothing wrong. It is hard and now is the worst and only you know what you can handle. When it does become too much for you then step away for you -he will only realize his mistake -his sickness- when he gets help and only then can you have a chance at a future. You too are a victim to this depression and I had to say no more when I realized all too late the toll it had taken on me. Just be honest with him and while he never set out in a malice way to hurt you he cannot close his eyes to the pain and damage he caused you. But the power we have to find as the partner is to walk away before we become as depressed as them so we can fight for us. Loving him is ok but love you more!
I wish you all the best and hope for some peace soon
I find myself after 4 months coming back to this site again comforted by finding my story… a story of so many others and knowing I’m not alone. 4 months ago I told my axe I just couldn’t do it anymore we’re in the process of trying again after 9 months of a roller coaster break up. 1 since the day he left me did he quit saying he loved me and his decision to leave me was always to push me out of the way and save me from the chaos Seefeldt a depression because of my life… not to mention the bankruptcy and I did financial and legal burdens he had. that’ll sad when we started trying it was good you’re taking it very slow but I could see a glimmer of the man I fell in love with and I was happy to go as slow as needed and take as long as it needed to see him recovering heal. before I knew it it seems like we weren’t really trying at all… well at least he wasn’t trying he said he was he said he wanted to same thing. I finally made my mind up after couple weeks realizing he never asked how I was anymore to say something and if I couldn’t handle the answer but I had to walk away to save myself because I was now crying and depressed at night every single day. I called him on Sunday and he was still sleeping at 3 p.m. despite his son waiting for him on the couch to watch the football game, how he was all we had how to say was how he was tired, depressed, missed his daughter and I soon realized nothing changed at all actually had gotten worse. I ask him again when he wanted… he told me exactly what I wanted to hear and I told him that’s what I wanted but it didn’t feel like we’re really trying… that he was really trying and then he agreed with me that he wasn’t really trying not because he didn’t want to do the same just didn’t have the energy and couldn’t do it anymore anyways sorry keep hurting me if I wasn’t sure what I can do it anymore either maybe I was right and we shouldn’t talk again. we talked a little it was fruitless mostly I cried and he kept saying baby I’m sorry I can’t hear you…. then it ended with me on the phone crying and telling him how much I love him and how I just wanted him to be happy and loving self as much as I love him and that no matter what happened to my front of us I wanted him to be happy. I could hear him breathing on the phone but he said nothing I cried more and I asked if you had anything to say and wanted to even say goodbye he said nothing I cried and cried and he just listened finally I hung up after about 20 minutes. fast forward for months later no contact with missus birthday Thanksgiving Christmas New Year’s and Valentine’s Day and suddenly here he is messaging me again obably it comes right when I’ve been thinking about him a lot again not to mention on the same day I just got a letter I wrote him and didn’t remember writing and the same day someone else asked about it for the first time…. I have been desperately wanting to contact stuff from your mother just to see if he was okay getting any better. it was like a new like always he can read me if he was reaching out to me when he knew I wanted to talk to him. scared and shocked wifi first message didn’t know what to do… always said with how are you? I decided I would answer because that is what I really wanted I wanted to know how he was and I would want him to answer the other way. I just gave him a brief statement time I was at work late because we’re figuring a new job and it was good.. when I asked how he was. his response came the next day; “oh sorry look like you’re online”…. nothing else to finally a day later I said no worries… then later that day he asked if I’m still looking for new truck…. he does work at a car dealership is used car manager and I have been trying to find something for a year it was 1 of the problems in a relationship that seem to cause depression to be worse… 1 of those things he just didn’t have the money to fix. now I’m baffled confused as to why he’s contact me after so much time to file and what he really wants. does he miss me why they just trying to sell me a car? I answered and said I was looking at a couple right now because I am… but if that’s always contact me for it will kill me. now it’s been another 48 hours and I’ve been sitting here anxiously waiting for response I feel I can’t take it anymore I want to know what he wants and I’m scared on what to do….i stroll love him and I believe he’s my soulmate but I can lower myself to get hurt that bad again and when I do want to talk to my only want to talk to me if things are getting better if he’s getting treatment.
I know this is a really long post anybody has any advice I greatly appreciate it. Thank you all for your strength courage
I find now my story belongs here – ‘Trying to heal after the final break’.
I have posted a comment on communicating with a depressed partner some 4 months ago, this was just before my ex came back into my life. I was under the false hope that finally the love of my life was getting help and things were looking bright for the future.
Two weeks ago she ended the relationship again, this time she is adamant it’s for the final time. I still feel in shock and just manage to do simple things during the day to keep me going. My thoughts are still with her and I do feel compassion for her. I knew over the last 4 months when we reconnected things started going downhill – her depression seemed to get worse. She was drinking more and isolating herself when she could. I do wish i had put the brakes on and told her I would step away while she got help. Instead she ends it with me by saying she has no feelings for me anymore, isn’t in love and dismisses the strong connection we use to have.
I know i have to give her space and try to move on. I saw her last night for the first time since the break up. She is a shell of the person i fell in love with. There is no sparkle in her eye and there hasn’t been for a long time. She has started a diet and seems to have started looking after herself- although she was good at band-aid fixes and not getting proper therapy or meds for her depression.
I still want to be there as a friend for her, but it does seem like she is not giving me a lot of energy for this at the moment. I will pull back the contact and try to focus on myself. It is very hard to let go when you still love someone you envisaged growing old with.
Hello.
Sorry that this is going to be long. I can tell…
I am just looking for somebody to talk things through and listen to me. As sometimes as you may know, friends and family don’t understand the ‘waiting’ etc, when all they can see is from their perspective that someone hurt you therefore you should not give them your patience, nor love. You understand me right.
Okay so, my boyfriend (of 2 years) broke up with me a week ago. We are currently long distance as I am University, but I spent a lot of time at home where he is – months on end of the Summer at home, and pretty much every day I am home was with him. Anyway, we were infatuated with each other. We had just spent Christmas with each other too – and everything was fine. We were perfect and he has even said things like he would be lost without me and that I am the best that has ever happened and everything like that – we were the strongest and he was madly in love with me, he made sure I knew this.
Until 2 weeks ago – I moved back here, and in that week he was VERY down and kept telling me how much he missed me and the only thing that would make him better would be if I was there. I didn’t think much of this and thought it was just the sadness of getting used to me being away at uni again for a few weeks. I am home soon again anyway and we had made plans between that time of being home to see each other. Everything was good!
Anyway, he broke up last week. SO out of the blue. He said the reasons such as that he can’t be with me anymore, he is so down, he feels he has no prospect in his life, in a sh** job and that I can’t be in all of this with him without it affecting me. He kept telling me that he loved me whilst breaking up with me, but that he couldn’t do this anymore. That I deserve better. And that it had been on his mind for a while, but he thought he could get past it but obviously couldn’t. He said he that he feels that he is going to into a depression and he needs to be alone and needs to be alone relationship wise. He kept saying sorry and repeatedly said, for me not to hate him, and begged that I am his friend, as I am his ‘best friend’ and he can’t deal with loosing me as a friend as he will need his friends when he is better etc etc.
I feel numb, and as if none of this is right/happening in my head. He is the love of my life.
Stupidly, yes, and naturally, the past few days I have kinda gone on about how much I love him and will help him through this and how this isn’t right…He hasn’t replied for the past couple of days.
I said stuff like that I know we both know it is still there and to just forget it for now and that its my choice to wait and try later, and that i just hold hope as everyone has to hold hope for the best things in life.
But he simply replied with that it’s ‘not likely, and i dont want you to wait like this’ as he said a main factor in this is my happiness. He said i need to be active in dealing and getting through this. And then (I think and hope he did this for perspective/to try push me away) – he mentioned what if he was to meet someone else months/year or so down the line and that i would be crushed. He said i need to start dealing instead of waiting, for him.
He said that he does care about me but that is not a reason to wait for him as I will end up heartbroken, and that we are over as a couple, and our memories will always be his favourite. He said to not make it harder on myself as it could end in us not being friends. I don’t know whether this is just his depressed mind saying this as he knows he can’t make me happy right now and believes I deserve someone who can make me happy, and that he is just trying to push me away as he thinks it’s better for me in the long run.
When I mentioned that maybe he should see someone if it’s serious he said he is honestly fine and just needs time. I think that part of it is because he is frightened to see someone because his dad was sectioned from depression. Obviously i reassured him it would not come to that it could simply be talking to someone.
Although he has said to me that it is over and I need to accept that and try to move on – part of me has hope. I am hoping that us not talking for a while will make him realise how much I love him and how he still does care under this cloud of darkness. But then again I also naturally worry that he finds comfort in someone else, hiding from this in someone else.
I told him I will wait for him but he said not to.
I don’t know what to think or feel anymore. I feel numb. But I still feel slightly slightly okay because I feel that there is hope for later on – despite him knocking me back. I can’t accept that it simply ends here.
I know that I need to look after myself and think about myself in the long run but for now, I am not ready to give up.
I feel as if (although he isn’t talking to me at the min) – that if I give him some space at the min (he said he didn’t need space as it wasn’t my fault/me at all), that maybe it will make everything a little better. The whole distance makes the heart grow fonder saying… But then again he may just think me not talking is me trying to come to terms with this and feels as if him pestering me (despite begging me to be his friend still) is just giving him time to feel better with it all too…it’s driving me insane. I just don’t understand how he can say out right it’s over and we won’t try – is he trying to convince himself this is right – will he realise and change his mind that we can try again, like many stories in this thread? This breaks my heart. I know he loves me under this.
Today I am feeling more low than I have so far…not a good day today.
It just hurts you know, him telling me that it is over and that I shouldn’t wait for him – I know he is saying that so we can ‘be friends’ without me expecting more each time I was to see him, and for me to deal with this as soon as possible without waiting around and being more heartbroken. But he knows how I feel.
It can’t go from perfect, to not wanting me so fast!?
And what really hurts is seeing him going out to gigs and stuff when I can’t even bring myself to get out of bed or do anything…!?
Please help me.
When I read your comment, it almost made me cry again because of how exactly it mirrored my situation. My girlfriend, too, broke up with me and said all sorts of incredibly hurtful things: I caused her depression, she deserved to be treated better, she’s felt more like herself in the first two days after we broke up than for the last two months, etc. I, too, tried telling her that I loved her, I’m sorry I couldn’t fulfil her needs like she needed to, and that was my door was always open. To say I was devastated by this completely out-of-the-blue would be a massive understatement: for the entire first week after, I could barely eat anything and felt like throwing up all day, every day. She was the one who made me change my views on love and marriage, and I felt with every fibre of my being that she was ‘it’ for me.
However, in the time since then (and it hasn’t been that long at all), talking the ears off of all my friends and family has helped, as has blogging about it. I’m at the point where I just can’t find room within myself to be angry at her, because I understand that in her state of mind, she acted to the best of her abilities and did what she thought she had to do. Do I agree with her choice? Not for a second. But she has a s*** ton on her plate and obviously isn’t capable of a relationship, no matter how much support I gave and could have given.
What helped me is viewing the situation like she died. And in a way, she did. Depression robs people of their personalities and turns them into something wholly unrecognisable. I know this is the last thing you want to hear (because it was the last thing I wanted to hear), but the best thing you can do for yourself is not contact your ex and try to move past the breakup. When he sees a text from you, his warped state of mind will interpret it as it being all about your needs and how right he was about the breakup. If he texts, great! Respond, but be non-committal. Saying anything about your feelings or relationship just adds pressure that he won’t be ready to handle.
And keep your life as busy and full of routine as possible. Pet dogs and cats. It’s pretty hard to focus on how numb and devastated you are when a puppy gazes up at you with big eyes and licks your hand. Plus, the more that you belong to, the less *all* of your energy and thoughts about the breakup will be focused on.
You can get through this, no matter how little you may feel like it or want to. I promise you there will come a day when you stop crying or don’t feel like throwing up.
Hello.
Thank you for replying.
I am sorry to hear that you had blame put upon yourself – I hope you are not still or never infact, did blame yourself for any of what happened.
Luckily I was reassured that none of this whole situation was to do with/was my fault whatsoever. Which made it harder I guess, too in a way.
I am trying my very best to keep my head up and bury myself in my University work. Proving very difficult but I know once I am past the little barrier that is finding it so hard, and I have inspiration again it will be a very good distraction from everything else in my head.
I am trying not to contact him. I actually feel relitavely okay about that right now. He however has texted me a few times, asking how I am and when I did not reply he further asked if I was not talking to him. I did reply to this and told him that I needed to get my thoughts together as it had not been long and I still held the same feelings/was confused. In which he replied with saying he knew I wouldn’t be used to it, and that he is also still getting used to it himself…You see, he wants me to be his friend VERY badly. But obviously that will take time, I know.
We are going to a concert together in March and about that situation he said that he is – looking forward to seeing me again, and that he knows it will be awkward but can we please try and get past that to enjoy the gig…
He also says that depression makes a person say and do things that they know are wrong and are not what they really want.
I have read so many stories of depressed people saying that they need to be alone relationship wise because of all the factors they cannot handle having a relationship at that time. And that, however, when they are better the love/loving feelings return.
This is the only thing that I am hoping for. Despite him saying not to wait for him – I am holding that hope in the very back of my head, behind the priority of being busy/keeping my head up right now. Because I love him with all my being and I just hope to god we could start again 🙁
CORRECTION…..
Sorry, I meant ***I’ve also read that depression makes a person say and do things hat they know are wrong and not what they really want
I really hope it works out for you and that your boyfriend gets the help he so desperately needs. It’s one of the toughest things in the world, watching someone you love go through something as wrenching as depression.
Be his friend only if you think you’re physically, emotionally, psychologically and mentally capable of doing so, because if you wreck yourself, there’s no way in hell you can be there for another person who demands so much more than you do.
Keep doing what you’re doing. Bury yourself in schoolwork, get out there- but remember to tend to your needs. Don’t ignore yourself. For me personally, I just couldn’t do anything for the first week after we broke up. That meant I didn’t get my errands done, I didn’t do my school readings, I didn’t go play hockey. And you know what? The world still kept turning.
You’ll be alright. Just hang in there, m’kay?
Hi imoon,
I was wondering if there was any way I could contact you, or any follow up information on how your situation panned out?
I am currently in the exact same situation being at uni and my boyfriend, now ex, who thinks he is suffering from depression just broke up with me out of the blue but is adamant he wants to stay friends. He feels he has no love to give with what he is going through at the moment. I am very unsure with what to do and how to cope with it. Any advice would be welcome.
Whether meaning to or not, I was equated with responsibility. Carrying responsibility was impossible for him to do. He was just too immature and needy to ever be there for anyone else. He was doing me a “favor” to get off his rear to do anything, and if I didn’t show gushing appreciation, he refused to do anything at all, or shut me out entirely.
Someone always had to be the parent, or the child. Never mutual maturity. He said I kept him a prisioner. It wasn’t me it was his inability to deal with life maturely, consistantly or responsibly. He always acted like being a “grownup” was an option on his part, and his “childlike” retreats were my job to maintain.
Then wham, you got the “adult” part of him and needed to just step aside and let him be one, only to within a few days, just get dumped on and he was back to being a child, and totally dependant on me to be mom, then he starts to resent “mom”, and here we go. Roller coaster with a depressed person. Explosion! Blame! Tantrums! Default! Control! Abandonment! Dictator! Escapee! Child looking for a “parent” and resenting it too.
Mitzy, I wrote last year and after a few months apart fell back into the belief in him and his fantasies that he and I could make it.
He had to open up the many pockets of lies that shield him from responsibility and commitment.
You just told me why after another 7 months we are exactly where we were last April. I AM commitment. I am responsibility and I am something he has to make an effort to have.
It’s not wrong thy we are. We probably like committing and being responsible to our loved ones. It enriches and enhances our life and times.
Not for them though, I am learning I am the dreaded hated horrible thing that kills his ability to maintain his survival tactics. His depressed waif like, bpd lifestyle.
I am sad. For you and for me and, yeah, for them. I am sad.
Eirie
How do you deal with the “no contact” aspects of healing when there is so much unfinished business? I constantly deal with the reality that “I drove him away” because most of the time he was here, he wasn’t “here” but more into his deep depression. He was needy, and gave little. His ego and phsychological state required constant praise and deferment. The world HAD to center around him and what mood he had “on” that day. I had to be a mind reader, and never talk about MY needs or just “pretend” his were always more important.
He would start stuff and then abruptly stop, promise to be supportive then pulll the rug out from under me and check out, if we talked at all he would NEED to rescue me from the stuff that or disaster he had created by his needy non support of anything but him and his goals, that he then prompttly wwithdrew from, if I let him “in” he wanted out and then it started all over again, this cycle of in one day and out the next. the roller coaster ride.
Mitzy, I wrote last year and after a few months apart fell back into the belief in him and his fantasies that he and I could make it.
He had to open up the many pockets of lies that shield him from responsibility and commitment.
You just told me why after another 7 months we are exactly where we were last April. I AM commitment. I AM responsibility and I AM something he has to make an effort to have.
It’s not wrong that we are. We probably like committing and being responsible to our loved ones. It enriches and enhances our life and times.
Not for them though, I am learning I am the dreaded hated horrible thing that kills his ability to maintain his survival tactics. His depressed waif like, bpd lifestyle.
No contact. I shake my head. How do I make myself want no contact when what I want is for him to hear and see himself and be the real person who I see under all his illusions of perfection and grandeur. I love the real him. He isn’t dramatic or extraordinary and won’t have 24/7 feedback about how awesome he is for eleven months of the year. But he is able, he works hard, and he has his own gifts and abilities that are appreciated. Not enough for his needs though I guess. His lies get him the value he can’t find within his real and wonderful self.
No contact. My god. How DO we do it?
I am sad. For you and for me and, yeah, for them. I am sad.
Eirie
Well, here I am with an update on my own personal story.
I wrote about a year ago to talk about what happened with me and someone I believed was the ‘one’. I met him through a colleague at work. He actually broke up with her in the midst of meeting me. They had been together for 13 or so years since highschool and there were always problems but the depression was his main priority in trying to get better. We were talking about living together, we fell in love quickly but it all felt very natural and we were both surprised how this happened out of the blue. He showed me where his grandparents once lived, his childhood spots, and he said he saw us years from now with kids, being very happy together with what we simply have. His depression began to spiral down and he wasn’t making any ground. I gave him space and he had pretty much lost all hope. His therapist recommended to just finally get better without our relationship (it had been kept secret from his family and friends because his ex/my coworker) didn’t know and she hated me with a passion. We were both very stressed out with that……Anyways, when you love someone you just want tthem to get better and be happy. I gave him space and we broke up. I respected that. I found out (after moving to a new company) that 4 months ago they got back together and today I learned she is pregnant. I cried and I am still in shock. After everything we talked about and the space I gave him to get better, this is what happens. She treated him quite badly and I saw how she walked over him with her demands and guilt-trips on how he wasted her time, how she’d never be able to have kids (back when they broke up). He was totally at peace with the break up and said himself he felt bad for saying this, but that losing the cottage felt worse than losing her.
Who knows. I mean, I don’t know anything anymore. Thank god I got another job at another company but hearing this news was devastating. I wish he would have told me rather than hearing it from a colleague. Just as a sign of respect. I think he is embarrassed and ashamed and he probably felt he had killed any chance when we broke up but this is reality and I’m trying to adjust.
I guess there aren’t always happy endings. I feel bad for him and disappointed in him too.
Anyways, good luck everyone. I wish you all truly well. Life is not easy and I guess this is another one of those examples…..
Take care,
Melissa
Oh Melissa,
You are good and caring and still and may always, love him or the memories o the two of you that were good.
But he still loved her. He wanted to be walked on. He wants to be in drama and pain. He wants the adrenaline and anxiety that comes from these and makes him feel how he did as a child. Sadly we all seem to want what we learned life is unless huge focused internal evaluation and personal commitment follow any ideas we have of changing our life’s expectation. I know how hard this is as I struggle daily to make sure I raise my children in ways I wasn’t..it’s even harder when relationships pull and tug at the child within and the need to be safe overwhelms.
A side note: Sweetie, NEVER have a secret relationship again. Demand honor, respect, pride, and a want to celebrate the relationship. Uncomfortable past stuff is unfinished business. Avoid that like you might avoid anything that could bring the feelings you had when you wrote this letter. Demand that unfinished relationships be ended before you take another step together with anyone. It just makes sense…..
Or you will cycle through this torture again.
You probably were the dream woman. The good, kind, caring, comfortable, forgiving, understanding, wished for “perfect” mom/girlfriend for a guy who never experienced healthy mothering. Not saying you “mommed” him. But in contrast to the old gf, and seeing him go back to her, leads me to believe he vacationed in fantasy land with you. Honestly, as any of us would, you probably loved being all he ever wanted. Adored, you more than likely gave more and more, and you probably expected responsibility and commitment to match all this love. You still wish he would act respectfully and responsibly.
*Sigh*
Yes I am analyzing my relationships as I use yours.
If I am really nowhere near getting it.. Tell me. I want to know if I am lost.
He went back to what he will probably always want. He went back to his version of what he deserves and feels worthy of…what he can trust.
Be glad you are who you are. Keep telling yourself this. Over and over and over. Look at his choice. You simply couldn’t be her.
Smile. This is a good thing. A very good thing.
Eirie
Melissa,
Very sorry to hear about your tale. You sound like a great person and you deserve to find happiness. Don’t overlook the shy guys with glasses at the bar/pub, I’m most likely one of them and trust me we are good people 😉
Our stories are a little different, but with mine the end came similarly. My ex-gf of 2 years had a major depressive episode and suddenly dumped me at the suggestion of her therapist. And I mean suddenly; I took a day off work to visit her in the hospital and we had a lovely day together. 2 days later she told me it was over, *snap* just like that, and that her therapist had been the one to suggest the break up.
Is this normal??? I didn’t think therapists were supposed to dictate life changes like that.
This was 2 months ago and I haven’t heard from her since. Needless to say like everyone here I’m pretty devastated. I’d understand if I actually had something to do with the depression, but I didn’t. Her depression was triggered by a career ending injury (she’s an elite marathon runner that had competed in the Commonwealth games), her parents getting divorced, and her losing her job. Her major episode came when this very same therapist tried to wean her off her medication (she was on really some heavy stuff for 6 months). I was loving and supportive throughout it all, so it leaves me with quite a bit of anger at this therapist. I just don’t understand how giving me the boot is going to help her heal. I hope that purple haired swine that is her doctor knows what he is doing, for my ex-gf’s sake…
Sigh.
Finding this website couldn’t have come at a better time. I have been with my boyfriend for 11 years, and as of two weeks ago he just broke up with me for the 2nd time this year. Ever since I’ve known him he’s battled depression. Sometimes it wouldn’t show for years, and for the last few years its really come to light. He’s gone to therapy for the past 5 years and while it did help for a bit, he clearly is still extremely depressed.
Earlier this year he had an affair with a co-worker for 5 months. I knew, I just had that feeling. He broke up with me in April, but we still continued to live together (living in SF, it’s quite expensive and hard to find a place these days). I was angry and extremely hurt and betrayed by him. For someone to always tell me he hated cheaters and then did it to me was mind blowing. However I believe in second chances. Around 3 months later he full came clean about the affair and confessed everything to my family and his. He said although there had been problems in our relationship he was willing to seek couple counseling and start over.
August we started going to couples counseling and boy did that help tremendously! We were making great progress and we both even stopped drinking for a month. The not drinking made us realize that we got into many of our fights this way (he used to be a borderline alcoholic, where as I can tend to binge drink at random times). After our month was over, I occasionally started drinking again which kind of annoyed him. 2 weeks ago there was a birthday party I attended and I proceeded to get extremely intoxicated beyond belief. He arrived at the party and everyone was in that same state of mind. Drama unfolded as someone stole his jacket with his personal belongings and wouldn’t give it back. He ended up getting into a fight with a coworker of mine, and called the police. After that night things would never be the same. I blame myself because at first he blamed me. He said if I wasn’t drunk this never would have happened (which is true). He didn’t speak to me for 2 days, then told me at our counseling session that he is through with the relationship, and will be moving back to Texas in 2 months. He told the therapist and I that the evening made him so angry and it took him back to the dark place he had been for years. Angry, irritable, depressed, rageful. He realized that those issues have never gone away in the past 15 years or so.
So here I am now, feeling abandoned, and ashamed for my mistake. I feel that I forgave him for his affair, and he can’t forgive me for this one night. But as the therapist and he both made me realize is that it’s not my fault. He is a depressed man, has been for a while, and needs more treatment then therapy. It’s hard to fathom the fact that in 2 months he will be gone. It’s also hard because we are currently still living together (as I go on the search for a new place). My world has been turned upside down and I feel so lost. I want nothing more than to be here for him and help him through his recovery. But he doesn’t want my support, he wants to go home and have the support of his family. I don’t know how I will be able to heal. I want him back so bad. I long for the old relationship, so reading this blog makes me realize this is normal. This blog has helped me a lot. I just wish I could change his mind, I wish he would seek therapy and medication (which he was so against all these years till about two weeks ago) and see where it could take him, then later on us. Sorry for the rant, at time I feel I can’t talk to my friends about this because they just don’t understand. This community has made me feel less sad and I’ve cried less and less since I’ve been reading it. Thank you all.
I talked to my depressed, erstwhile partner this weekend. It has been six weeks since she decided she wasn’t able to talk to me. It has been seven weeks since she told me I was the greatest thing in her life, and the person who’d made her happier than anyone ever had.
This weekend, things started OK. She sounded better than when I’d tried to talk to her three weeks ago (my last attempt). But just when I got my hopes up (a little) and things turned to “us” it all fell apart again, as she stated painting a narrative of our time together that has nothing whatsoever to do with reality. I was controlling. I have issues I haven’t begun to deal with (when I ask her what she’s talking about her sharp answer: “I am not going to do your work for you!”). Our beautiful 14 months together was “a small amount of good time in the beginning”, etc. If I try to argue that this narrative she’s painting has nothing to do with reality, and try to provide rational examples I get responses like “That’s my opinion take it or leave it.” And so on.
When I got off the phone. I felt much worse than before. Not only because I got no hope that the person I had loved, and who had loved me as a soul mate for 14 months was ever going to return. But also because her insistence on this alternative I-am-horrible narrative makes me feel like the past 14 months–when I helped her through hard times, when we were incredible close, when I felt so good about myself for all I had done for her, and with her–are now invalidated. How can I feel good about what she is now telling me was a lie? I know I should accept that this is the illness talking. But it is really hard.
I feel like not only has my best friend in the whole world died, but all the positive feelings I have about the past 14 months, about myself, have been ground up and thrown in my face. I have not only lost her, but I have also lost some of my faith in what I perceived as the most wonderful 14 months of my adult life (I am around 50).
Take heart DMP you are clearly fully aware of how depression wrecks hearts and lives and reeling from the devastation it has wrought on you, but i hear your heart and i know that when you find yourself a good woman with no depression in her dna you will have a really superb life where all of the love in you is returned manifold. You have seen the bad, I know that you will see the good and live there for the rest of your life. So take heart, all will be well . x
it’s such a relief to find this site!
i am still in shock over my partner leaving me. we have been together for over 4 years and have lived together for all of it. he has been depressed on and off for all of our relationship, but it has never changed his feelings towards me or our relationship. it doesn’t mean it’s never been hard but i never questioned that we would be togther. i also suffer from anxiety.
i’ve tried hard to convince him to get help, but he wouldn’t. he was always convinced his depression was something external… like if he just got into a certain school he would feel better. but of course, that’s not how depression works…
he moved across the country at the beginning of september for school. i’ve been a little worried about it in general, because the program is very hard and is setting himself up for a very stressful job. but i was supportive nonetheless. i had a semester to finish here and we planned for me to move to be with him in january. he had been quite depressed since he’s moved away, but was still attending school. i was doing all i could to support him.
then out of the blue he broke up with me. i am devastated. he’s not blaming anything on me or being mean in any way. he says he still loves me but he can’t be in a relationship. he sounds so sure that he can’t be with me, but it was truly out of nowhere (he says it came out of nowhere for him too.)
we had planned our lives together. our whole future. i have a wedding dress. i am so sad. i am living here in our apartment still surrounded by our stuff. i just wish i knew how to get through to him, how to make him realize he doesn’t have to go through this alone.
he is seeking counseling for his depression, but i don’t feel that it’s enough. i am also seeking help for my anxiety. i wish i knew how to fix this. he is the love of my life. but maybe this can’t be fixed, especially from across the country…
John,
This site has been such a huge relief to find. It’s amazing when you see that you are not alone in your struggle! My husband is an extremely depressed person who just never truly found the help that he needs. His depression is typically cyclical and the cycles have become shorter and shorter between depressive episodes.
During our 4 year marriage, he had a four month affair during the first year. We moved to a different state and he still maintained contact with her via email. His depression this year was so bad that I would come home to find him crying after I got off of work. He became more angry and distant during the 6 months before he left. He pushed everyone away that tried to help him. He refused to return friends calls and texts, he started hating his job and finally he started pushing me away.
His decision to leave me was surprising in one way but in another it was almost an expected event. Whenever he had problems that he didn’t want to face in the past, he would just run from them. He did it in his first marriage, he had an affair and moved to a different state to work for his father. When he left me, he moved back to work for his father and started his relationship with her again.
We have communicated briefly over the past two months, this past week he has called me 5 out of 7 days to talk. He told me about the girl that he had the affair with and how he will always care for her but that he realizes after moving there that they really don’t have too much in common. I think that I am just a safety net for him at times. He says that he feels hope sometimes that we could work past it but at this point, I am just so emotionally and mentally drained, I just can’t stay on the emotional rollercoaster any longer.
I decided yesterday that I couldn’t keep this up. The calls and emails need to stop. Your website really helped me to understand that he really needs to seek help. I’ve also come to realize that this entire time we’ve been married, we have been constantly up and down and it truly was never a healthy relationship for me.
Thank you again for your site and for your helpful information. I did forward the link to him a few months ago when I found it. It truly has helped and continues to help!
Oh eirie,
I read your story and I’m feeling bad for complaining about mine. I really really hope you can find a way to find yourself, find your answers to get back to being you again. It’s not fair that you have to go through that for this long. But it is a disease and whether anyone wants to admit it or not it needs to be treated as such.
I think one day they wake up and realize they’ve done something terrible. That they’ve been living this fantasy that isn’t reality and has hurt people along the way. I want to believe that, I hope that their actions come back to haunt them so that they can begin to heal.
Try to make yourself happy even if it’s little by little, try as hard as you can to begin to heal. I purged all the messages and contacts recently, started a journal, and got rid of any reminders. I think it’s important to try and move on. Easier said than done and this is a delicate situation you’re in. I wish you all the best. It just breaks my heart to see people write of how hurt they are and the man in their life is just prancing around oblivious to the hurt.
This is one of the few places so many women seem to be having my experience rather than men. five years of on and off fantasy and such amazing wonderful good times that the bad seemed possible to bear. but watching what the hard times did to my children wasn’t easy, and i started learning about things a bit more.
even in the good times i would become obsessed, and this grew into a bit of a compulsive needfulness later on in the relationship, as my fears and anxieties drove so much more of my actions than love and happiness did. i was learning to expect the worst, and it would eventually come everytime and always when we were at out most together and secure and happy. as i relaxed and began to feel like all was good and the relationship could grow and expand, he started the seeking of alternatives. i was always blind to this need of his to be “covered’ or to have multiple sources of comfort or love to remain secure inside himself, and only now do i really see how it has devastated me. only after he left this last time am i able to see that IT WAS NEVER MY FAULT!
i didnt make him unable to control his cumpulsive need to feel good in every moment. i didnt make him unable to accept himself and thus need acceptance from others 24/7. i didnt make him see any smile or kind word as an invitation to more (after a lifetime of harsh putdowns and abuse) and i certainly didnt compel him to lie to every woman he met who did smile, saying he was single.
i didnt ask that i be hidden and that he tell others i was an annoying past gf who wouldnt let up on seeking him out. i didnt pester him in texting hi and sending snippets of my day as i asked about his. i was not obnoxious in anyway and i didnt ask that he ever interrupt anything to respond. he was who felt the need for multiple phones to hide the various women who might be communicating with him. my phone was an open book. he was who acted as though i had abandoned him if i said nothing for six hours.
i didnt make him create me into a monstrous woman so he felt doing what he did was okay and not montrous himself.
i certainly didnt ask that he lie to me along his way in seeking other women, telling me he loved me and wanted me and finally making me, in the end, the one he occasionally cheated on THEM with.
no, it was not my fault.
but it feels like i should have done something better or differently. it feels like i left someone who needs me. it feels like i dont want today if i cant know how he is. it feels like i cant think tomorrow really wont have him there. it feels like i am a louse for doing this to him and i dont want to be that person.
it seems i should be able to find the way to fix myself and us so that he will be the way he is at times that i loved so much.
it seems that i should be able to not be bitter or resentful and be fun like the new ones are and not have the issues of knowing he is cheating; after all they dont.
it seems i should be able to understand that he is sick. thus i should be able to handle it and not get sick myself.
i know all the feelings i have are unrealistic and just plain wrong in many cases. however, it’s killing me that he isnt caring that i finally have had enough. not a single text. nothing.
yesterday, and all the days he spoke or wrote to me for five years, he couldnt live without me, but while he pretended to sleep after six last night, he went out with her. he has the secret messaging sites that they use till three or four in the morning.
then he sometimes comes around to say he just woke up and can he get hugs (and…) and sleep with me? he is missing me so much. he forgets he missed me in the morning, though, as she picks him up for work, and they spend the day together there.
ten months he has known her. she wont last, but she is the one killing me. not him, of course not him, her.
i am so hurting.
i know i have to do something to help me. it’s just so hard to want to.
i started taking celexa a couple months ago. i dont cry now so much. for a month i was actually making beds and plans and shopping and functioning. but as i see the true futility in hoping for a real relationship where there shoulda woulda coulda been one…i am losing the want to bother and just dont know what to do. yes. i am a fool. i want one thing. him back as we were in the good times. i know, not possible, but that is what i want.
Eirie,
Your story is so like mine, I feel for you so much.
Its interesting you speak of fear and anxiety driving your actions. Only today I have thought that my reason for being unable to let go of this toxic relationship is fear. He has manipulated me for almost a year to such a great extent that sometimes I have him on a pedestal and believe that the whole world thinks he’s a hero and that I am an awful person. He says he wants me back, yet he is still involved with his new woman, its just that he has no money and is about to loose the roof over his head. That should be her problem now, not mine. Except he doesn’t let her see that side of him.
But maybe I fear that I will one day regret turning him away? I fear that one day I will see him with a beautiful woman, living a wonderful life and I will be devastated that he isn’t sharing that life with me. Though in reality I believe he is practically in the gutter, ruined by drugs, drowning in debt, friendless, and that no self-respecting woman would look at him, I am struggling with the image of him suffering.
Leaving him to sink to such depths became my choice, however, as too many times I have bailed him out, paid his debts, allowed him back in my bed, made excuses for him. And that teaches him nothing except that its ok to treat me like this.
If this is truly how he is, I feel responsible (even though I’m not) and that gives me fear. If he is at the other end of the spectrum, as his stories would have me believe, and he is living the dream, from which I’m excluded, thoughts of this also fill me with fear.
But then, why is he asking me to take him back if he is living the dream?
He is messing with my head. And I am living in fear. And its time for me to make it stop.
Eirie, that constant need for approval from other women, that disloyal talk of being single, that interpretation of every smile or kind word from a woman as a sign that someone thinks he’s wonderful.. I have lived with all that throughout our eleven year relationship. You and I deserve better than that. We know we do.
Big hugs,
Deb.
Hi, eirie –
Your two comments tell such a painful story, and I most want to tell you that you are not a fool, not to blame, not a louse, that there is nothing you could do to “fix myself and us” with a man who is acting like this. I have not only heard several stories like this where depressive behavior turns to emotional and psychological abuse – I’ve done it myself. Perhaps the abuse started first – I can’t pretend to know, but even depressed people have to accept responsibility for inflicting personal pain in such a sustained and callous way. At least, they are responsible for recognizing depression and making recovery the first priority of their lives. Whatever the cause of his behavior, his behavior points to someone who is not interested in real intimacy. That takes constant effort and a lot of empathy for your partner. Seeking the high of other relationships that are free of real responsibility, that fill the endless need for gratification is much more about addiction than a life relationship with another person. I would urge you to find a good therapist rather than rely on medication alone – a therapist who has a lot of experience dealing with situations like this. Going to a therapist doesn’t mean you’re ill, it’s just a way of dealing with all the abuse you’ve had to live with and sort out your needs rather than his. You’re a strong, loving person who deserves a life free of deception and abuse.
John
so scared. not of him..how sick is that…so scared of not being wanted and needed.
now this is real…what i just wrote and i stare at it…for fifteen minutes and counting.
he has been chasing and wanting and crushing out and fantasizing about another woman for ten months…and in that time they stay up all night and do all the things he wont with me….movies, books, music , art and photography sharing…all that he USED to do with me. it’s hers now.
but i am scared i wont have this guy in my life if i leave him and honestly i don’t know how to leave..i try. and then i am calling him. i try again and i am emailing him. i hate the days he doesn’t care that i am not there. ok. yes i need something. but i tried a therapist twice. once she wanted to discuss how i had to see things differently…like an uninformed anyone and i had to finally say to her…this is all great, and if i could do that i wouldn’t be here. i KNOW i need to do that…but i don’t know HOW.
and the other wanted me to analyse my past and i have done that..i know why and all that..i know i need to be needed and that was the only way my parents knew i existed and i know i wish my abusive dad loved me rather than the gf’s he had as i grew up after he quit abusing me and assumed that i didn’t know he had as i must have been too young to remember and i know that i find myself remembering the bf with the gf’s on the side who was my first teenage love and that i am trying to heal all that and all my other lack of worth issues if maybe this guy would find me worthy..i know….but i still don’t know how to walk away…
i read about ptsd and i swear i have it.
okay so what am i to do? live away from my daughter as an inpatient? where someone could oversee my sad addicted behavior and keep me from the internet or phone?
idk idk
and in some ways i find me acting like him sometimes back at him…in mean ways that aren’t me…god i hate that. anyway…been a bad day. and i am venting..i am sorry.
thank you for allowing me to be here.
and thank all the rest of you for sharing. i read you everyday and mentally tell u my opinion and what to do and then i do the same for me and try so hard to do it…but then i miss him so much i am crushed and cant breath. why? idk
i want him to no longer want her and to give me back all his time with her so i am not hurt. i want love to not hurt.
~e~
I too, have gone through a similar story as most people here. I was only with my boyfriend for nearly 4 months when he suddenly withdrew about a month ago saying that he wasn’t doing well. Our relationship was beautiful and thoughtful, he said the right things and we were moving at a steady pace. We were nearing a serious committed relationship and I still feel very strongly for him. We never fought or argued, our only disagreement was regarding lack in communication (he’s a resident physician so he didn’t have time to begin with.) other than that, he made time for me and things were really doing very well.
About 3 weeks ago we were not communicating and I finally asked him what was wrong, he told me that he was having a personal crisis and took his vacation time to be with family a few hundred miles away. He told me it wasn’t my fault, that he needed to work things out, and that he wasn’t ready for a relationship at this time. I’ve had limited contact with him since I want to distance myself in order for him to do what he needs. But I’m so broken and hurt by his cowardly behavior of just leaving with no explanation…I told him I want to talk about things, and I think it’s right that we do since I don’t know anything really, just that he says “it’s my fault.”. He told me he’ll be back soon and now I wait…but, I’m looking at these posts and I think ‘what am I waiting for?’. Since he’s feeling better maybe I can listen and be there for him, and I want to. But another part of me wants to salvage myself and just cut my losses. But I feel very strongly for him in so many ways that I don’t want to give up hope for the possibility of reconciliation, I know he has to miss me. I’m hoping, anyway.
Thank you for the light shed on this subject. It is really a tough thing to have someone walk away and turn into someone you don’t know.
Debbie, the sense is the same over and over again, mixed messages, blame, on again off again. Today I packed the last items from the house we shared, he wanted me gone, and said our last goodbye, of course I’m devastated, but can’t love the man he’s turned into, but can’t unlove the man I fell in love with, before the depression took over.
I’m sorry you are going through this, but I think sharing the crazy feelings we have in our minds and hearts about this is one of the ways we can all get through it.
My therapist reminded me again this week, that
“People with depression, create problems for other people, and they either don’t care or don’t know, the chaos that they are creating” I try and remember that I didn’t cause his depression, that it wasn’t my fault, yet days like today, I can’t help but blame myself.
Thank you so much, Heather, for sharing this. I so hope your pain eases, even though like you I cannot see how the healing will begin. It is almost like a death. Or at least it is now I’ve realised I can never have the man I chose back. I dont know if its harder knowing this or if it was harder when I believed I might one day find him again.
Every day a new lie of his comes to light, even when I am not even seeking new information. I dont want to live in a soap opera anymore, I just want a peaceful life.
Love and best wishes to you Heather.
oh god i understand how you feel. so much.
the lies…they drive us insane dont they? its like there is no way to leave, heal, or move on if we are stuck not knowing if our assumptions or the answers that seem askew are real. what was the truth? no matter how often we realize we cant honestly know and that we cant let it matter much, IT DOES!
did he really do what i am so sure he did, or was he asleep as he says?
did he really spend that on what he says, or is he hiding the bank statement on purpose?
did he really work this morning or did they have breakfast since i was cut off from all phone and text access, and that is usually only during what i call, masochistically, “her” time, and since he wasnt at the store? i wish so much that i hadnt tried to reach him, so i wouldnt wonder.
and on and on it goes.
funny thing is happening to me. he WANTS me back and i said i cant consider it with out the truth. it’s killing me. the TRUTH HURTS. BADLY.
so far all i thought based on how it was with him when we had our first years, and how i know he is, and what was missing between us this past year, combined with some pisces intuition has all apparently been on target.
do you want to know you were right? i personally am discovering every minute of the last four days that i have not wanted to be right at all. now i am stuck in a weird place.
he and she swirl through my brain in all the ways as before, but now i know it’s real, and they were doing all that and the other. i can no longer stop the hard knowledge with his lies, when i know its true. i have to deal with it. and uh oh! i dont have a clue how to do this either.
this sounds ridiculous as i re-read me. i know… but its real and i guess i am going a bit crazy. i am glad to see that (though i wished some names here could have healed and no longer need to write.) i am not alone in my desperate longing for fantasy to be real, nor am i the only one wishing for the one i once knew to be allowed by himself
can i get angry…oh no, of course not. i promised if he would tell me the truths, i wouldnt leave and we would work to some sort of place that is positive for us both. (i think she turned him down…or?)
sleepy
thank you all for being here. if you discover a special way to heal….please share.
Today I have told him, I feel for the last time, that no, I wont be giving our relationship another chance. How can I? Its not the first time he has left. Its not the first time he has thought a different partner would be the answer to his problems. Its not the first time he has expected me to bail him out of thousands of pounds of debt that I cannot afford.
Only this time he has sunk to new depths. He has lost his job, become involved in drugs and drink, continued to alternate between stories of another woman and stories that she is in the past. He has even had a tattoo describing the revenge he wants to have against me; the woman he blames for everything. This time he refuses to get help. He has failed to contact the psychiatrist his doctor has referred him to because.. well, he just doesn’t want to.
No wonder then that his plea for another chance leaves me cold and certain that he wants me only because he has nothing left.
I have to think of my children now (they are not his, and he has shown them nothing but hostility for twelve years, I am ashamed to admit).
So I have turned away (for the final time) the man I used to love. The man I have broken my heart over for the past 10 months. I had the choice. He stood on my doorstep and asked me to reconsider. I could have had him back. But he is not my man. How hard is it to reconcile that? Only you lovely people here can understand that, because I couldn’t understand it myself before I met you. He is gone. I cant make him come back. I could have had the sick man back. But I can’t cope with him. So I am alone.
Hi, debbie –
In light of what you said in your two comments about this man’s behavior, I can only hope that this is the last time that you turn him away. It sounds as if both your health and safety could be at risk. You seem to have had all the right advice, yet suggest – if I’m reading you correctly – that you are drawn to help him and hold onto the relationship in spite of everything?? Clearly he needs help that you can’t give him, and just as clearly he needs to take responsibility for getting well himself. Refusing to get help is one way some people hold on to others – in effect, pushing all responsibility for their lives to someone else. Then they always have that person to blame. Vulnerability of that type, I think, is manipulative. You’re so right that it’s only the sick man you can have in your life, and it sounds like neither you nor anyone else could keep themselves whole in the midst of his sickness.
You’re doing the right thing for you and your children.
John
Hi John,
Thank you so much for your insights.
I was shocked at first at how certain you are that I have to make this break. You are quite right, I remain drawn to this losing battle. Then I re-read my comments, tried to take a step back and read them as another person might. It was like a lightbulb moment!! All those reasons, all that abuse.
So I read it again and asked myself have I been accurate and fair in my assessment of him. And yes… I have. Everything I have stated is either what I know to be true or what he has told me himself, which may possibly be true, but if not, is what he wants me to believe about him. Either way it paints a pretty ugly picture.
It has helped me a lot that you feel I am doing the right thing, particularly for my children. I feel this may well be the start of my recovery at last.
Thank you, John, you are a true inspiration to us all.
Debbie.
Hi, debbie –
I don’t often get that direct but when I do I usually mention that I’m just going on the words the person has written. I should have done that in this case as well, but I’m glad you checked back at what you’d written. It’s so hard to keep a balanced view when feelings, hopes, grief are all so strong. I do hope this is the start of recovery for you.
My very best —
John
Hi John,
Despite all the above great resolve, I continue to search for answers. The most recent of which has been irrefutable proof that my ex partner got engaged three days after he moved out of my house last July. I am devastated. Of course I knew by his behaviour that he had someone else, just as I had known the first time he had an affair, but finding out for sure has put back any recovery I was making.
Added to the hurt, we had been becoming close last month, and in his pleas for a reconciliation he was insistent that he had not been involved with anyone whilst living with me. Of course, these continued lies were just necessary for his own survival, but I would have preferred the truth.
Whilst I am getting continued support from your website which I value so much, I now feel a bit of a fraud for being here. Depressed or not, this man had been cheating on me for the second time. Surely I am just another statistic now? In fact, initially when I found out about his engagement I declared to friends that I felt better because I no longer need to feel compassion, he is a serial cheat, not a depressive. This euphoria didn’t last though.
I still have thoughts of him in my head from morning until night. I still recount the strange behaviours before and since he left which point to an indisputable bipolar diagnosis. And now I can add to this that 3 days after leaving our home he got engaged by SKYPE to a lady thousands of miles away who he had not yet met. Can this be construed as normal behaviour?
I am now compelled to add that his first “affair” consisted of his infatuation for a work colleague and a text message he sent to her declaring he loved her and wanted a future with her, which turned out was nothing but embaressing to the poor girl whose only crime was to listen to his tales of woe. I call both betrayals emotional indiscretions which to me are worse than sexual ones. But can he really be said to have had affairs at all? Am I just grossly over sensitive? Am I STILL making excuses for a lifetime of disloyalty??
Both of these events happened at a time when my life was going particularly well with career achievements, personal goal success and good times with friends, although I do not feel I at any way stopped showing my love and appreciation for him at these times. I wonder if there was an element of narcissistic personality disorder about him… still surmising!
As you can see, John, I still haven’t let this go. I want to move on but I cant. I don’t even know where he is anymore and still I worry about him.
I realise that my issues are becoming more about me; my devastation at his betrayal, my inability to find closure, so I understand I should probably sign off from here as I am not on the right forum really. But I will continue to follow all of you with interest and heartfelt empathy, and I thank you so much for this site John, which helps me more than I can say.
Love to all, Deb x
Hi, debbie –
I sympathize with your frustration about how long it takes to get over such a painful relationship – but – Fraud? Sign off? Probably half the people who write here are talking about their difficulty in recovering from loving a depressed person – in fact, I’ll have to do a post on that topic. It’s only natural that you can’t stop thinking about him – bipolar, depressive, serial cheater, relationship fantasist, irresponsible liar, narcissist and wonderful guy that you have described him as being. Your feelings have been mauled, you’ve been lied to, betrayed, humiliated – so, of course, the issues are about you and your pain and grief. And I hope you can give yourself the time it takes to come to terms with it all – while getting all the support you need, wherever and however you can get it. Hopefully, at some point the obsessing and anguish about things you can’t control or change turn into regret. I’m no one to talk, since it’s taken me a lot of my life to stop obsessing about every failure and humiliating or painful moment I’ve lived through. That’s the sort of thing therapists can be very helpful with. — All my best to you!
John
Hi
I can relate to everything mentioned above. He’s been gone for ten months now and I’m still no nearer understanding why my loving man turned into a monster. Humiliation is a word that resonates. He has recently been talking about us trying again, but as soon as I get close to him he embroils me in the fantasy world he has been deluded in since we separated.
He tells me detailed stories about a girl in another country he met online and was going to marry. This delusion was played out initially some months ago and left me in so much pain, yet he invented more and more stories until he could no longer keep up with the lies himself and decided to tell me it had come to an horrific end involving police intervention which he wanted me to support him through.
Constantly worrying for his well being, I would contact him and offer my support. He allowed me to feel close to him, voicing his regret and his need for our relationship, only to inform me that he is back with his fantasy woman.
I know that the whole thing is a fabrication but I cant begin to understand his need to hurt me so badly. We went through something similar 8 years ago when he ended up admitted into psychiatric in patient care and I let him back into my life. Why then cant I see how this can never be a healthy relationship? Toxic is a word used in this forum and it sums him up completely.
I sought counselling but was told in no uncertain terms that he is an adult and I need to leave him to make his own mistakes and find myself a new project! If it were that easy I would have done it by now. He was the love of my life for twelve years and I’m stuck in a groove I feel I will never get out of.
Thanks for an amazing site.
Debbie.
I’ve been just come across this site and it strikes me how heartfelt all of this comments are. As they are quite old now, I’d like to think that people have now found peace in their lives.
If you’re all still around, I hope Heather you have moved on.
Debbie, sounds like you lost the only person you have ever loved in your life through no fault of you own. Likewise, I hope you have found peace.
I find myself constantly confused about the end our a beautiful relationship, due to depression. One week he was in love with me, the next he didn’t want anything to do with me, it started a week after he started Champix, I’ve since moved out, and am utterly devastated, I go to my own therapist, to deal with it, but how to you truly let go, especially when you have to let go of two completely different people. The wonderful partner, and then the angry, mean, blaming one that arrived? any advance would be appreciated.
Hi, Heather-
I guess one part of the feeling is grief at a terrible loss. It takes time to deal with it. So many feelings crowd in – differing for each person, but confusion, hurt, maybe humiliation, anger along with grief. I’m glad you’re working with a therapist to help sort it all out. I know everyone talks about letting go, and many people seem to expect it of you. But I’m not sure what it means. I’m sure you can’t will it. I believe the pain of loss becomes less overwhelming when you start to be able to observe it, meaning you’re detached enough to look at what you’ve been going through. That’s the goal of mindfulness, but the idea is common to many forms of psychotherapy under many names.
Here’s hoping things become clearer soon.
John
I wasn’t the one who initiated the breakup, my depressed partner did. I resisted it as best as I could until she said that being with me made her feel worse (I never did anything but try to make her feel better), and then I gave up.
I’m still far from over her and it has been really hard. She’s in a very bad shape and I constantly worry about what she’s doing to herself and if I need to intervene in order to save her. What has made it easier for me is what made it hard while we were together. She left me a few months ago, but she hasn’t said a kind word to me long before that because of her depression. As a result, the recent memories are all negative, which makes it a little easier to move on. I read somewhere that in order to move on you should think about the negative qualities about your partner, and I think depressed partners make it really easy to think of those.
Hi, Liz –
This must be a painful time, and I hope you can move on. It’s not surprising that your ex is still in bad shape – leaving and blaming someone else for the way you feel doesn’t work. You eventually have to face yourself and do the hard work of trying to get better. No one can do it for her. When I was going through a break-up, I couldn’t focus on the bad things only, however much it hurt to dwell in the wonderful memories. Feeling a relationship fall apart into anger and pain is bad enough – losing the ability to recall happily the best in the relationship makes it all the worse. In the end, though, you do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself.
My best to you –
John