I honestly found myself thinking, as Sarah did upthread, 'Well why don't you just get on with it'. I think the suicide talk had the effect of alienating me from him in a really profound way. I'm not proud of being so cold towards someone who on the face of it was experiencing serious distress, but there was a part of me that didn't believe a word of it and I could therefore see the whole situation as if from a great height, very distanced from it and from him. The little voice in my head said, 'Just take care of yourself and the DCs, don't fall over from exhaustion and end up looking like the one who isn't coping, don't get sucked into this new drama.' I saw it as yet another drama starring exH, one in a long line of crises he had manufactured throughout our lives together. He loved chaos.
Plus he was a nasty, mean and creepy man and had been for years. As well as that, after a few discoveries on the computer I felt I had been living with a complete stranger and that he had used me since we had started dating.
The time exH had told me he was contemplating suicide he had finally agreed to check himself in to the psych ward of the nearest hospital, but after he was released he decided to stop taking the ADs as he said he was feeling fine. His parents had descended on the hosp as soon as they got the news, and camped in the visitors' room leaving me at home with the DCs who had all been woken in the night by exH walking around the house leaving the lights on. I hadn't slept for about a week. DD1 had found a steak knife stuck in my pillow and had panicked thinking he had killed me until we bumped into each other... He really put us all through a lot. exH's parents offered me no help but instead sat there preventing exH from taking part in the therapeutic group work he was supposed to be doing, deep in denial that their son had any MH problems, and in every way suggesting to him that he didn't belong there and there was nothing wrong with him. And then he just blithely took himself off the ADs, supported by his silly parents (his dad was a doctor but thought psychiatrists were all quacks). exMIL told me later that there was nothing wring with exH but a bad marriage. All my fault in other words.
The worst part of the hospital experience was the discharge interview, which was conducted by a psych nurse. I was present but exFIL muscled his way in and between the hopping and the trotting I missed the part where I was allegedly told I had a right to discuss exH's case with his doctor only up to three months from the date of discharge. exFIL pocketed all the paperwork and I never saw it. I have no recollection of any instructions about how I could talk with exH's psychiatrist, and clearly remember everything else about that interview, especially how exFIL made a real nuisance of himself, challenging the psych nurse in his patented "I'm the doctor" manner and getting him quite flustered. He challenged me when I dug in my heels and refused to have exH discharged directly home (said "You can't throw a man out of his home!". I just didn't want to have to deal with him for a few more nights. I wasn't throwing him out of his home fgs. It still makes me angry just thinking of it. exFIL could be a right old bully). The upshot was that I never talked to the psychiatrist except one time when exH was being admitted and they phoned me to get details and observations from me. If you are able to talk with your H's psychiatrist, do. I got no support and having absolutely no experience, had no idea who to even ask for it.