It’s the worst scenario of life with depressed partners. They leave, shutting out a lot of love and support because of the illness. If you’ve been abandoned in this way, the first thing you’re likely to try is to get in touch. You need to say you still care and want to help in any […]
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Trying to Find Hope After Your Partner Leaves – 2
I’ve made hope the centerpiece of this pair of posts because there’s such a powerful need for it after a depressed partner leaves. However unrealistic the hope may be, it’s necessary to take the place of pain and grief. The problem of a hope born of desperation is the risk of further shocks in the […]
Trying to Find Hope After Your Partner Leaves – 1
There are many strains that depression imposes on relationships, and the most extreme can lead to a sudden break-up. Depressed partners seem to change overnight, turn on their loved ones and decide to leave. They may offer an explanation, but many refuse to communicate at all. The abandoned partner is desperate to do something but […]
Is Your Partner’s Depression Changing You?
Over and over, I find stories online about the transformation of a loving partner, most often a man, into a depressed stranger. I know what that’s about because I have been that stranger. I went through a period of withdrawing emotionally from my wife and blaming her and just about everything else for my problems. […]
Depressed Men Gone: The Open Door
Many women write here of the baffling strangers their depressed husbands or partners have become. Most often, they describe one of two versions of the unrecognizable men they’ve been trying to live with. One turns on his partner, blames her for the pain he feels, acts abusively and then leaves, convinced that getting away from […]
Fantasies of a Perfect Future and Emotional Abuse
I have a post on emotional abuse at Health Central in which I compared the behavior of a depressed man who acts abusively with that of a true emotional abuser. It occurred to me after writing the post that fantasies of a perfect future are important for both. As I’ve written in the Longing to […]
