Jilted at the alter...is there ever an "excuse"?

[ConfusedLady8]

I posted in MI too for a more medical perspective on this, but please ladies can I have an emotional viewpoint on this also. I am so confused.

My DP of 3.5 years and I were in a very happy, loving relationship where I really did feel like I had found my other half. We just got on really well and and enjoyed being together and there was still sparks flying all over the place. He proposed, and our wedding was due to go ahead in October.

In September, he sent me a text to say he was sorry but couldn't go through with the wedding. He moved out of our house and would not see or talk to me to even discuss it. I was completely devastated and still am. I cry all the time and can't seem to let go.

Before this happened, he had previously been kind, thoughtful, unselfish, loving, supportive and dedicated all the time really. I wouldn't have had a bad word to say about him. I had no idea why this happened at the time but I suppose I had presumed there was an OW and I had just been blind to it.

It transpires now, 5 months later, that he has a stress induced nervous breakdown. He was very stressed out in the months before the wedding because my business had failed leaving us with debts and he was worried about the wedding costs. He took on a second job to help with costs and he was tired and frazzled. He's under treatment for a major depressive episode right now.

After treating me like complete crap for 5 months, he has now contacted me and said he is coming out of his depression and realises he made a massive mistake. He said his actions weren't "him".

Does anyone think that being MI is an "excuse" for saying nasty things, behaving very coldly, emotionally withdrawing, behaving very selfishly and causing a lot of pain to others without seeming to even care? He wants me to give him another chance.

I am so confused.

Half of me loves him still as much as before, I miss him, I can't imagine being with anyone else and I do believe he has had a breakdown as I know from friends that he has been signed off work and has not really left the house for months. I want to try and remember him as the man I thought he was and I really want that man back in my life.

On the other hand, months have passed, I have started to move on and gained some acceptance and I am terrified of being hurt any more than he has already hurt me. I feel like (MI or not) he did something really unforgivable to me and caused me so much hurt that I feel like I am no longer confident of his feeling towards me and also feel like I don't know him.

Please tell me if how much of a role an illness like this can play in relationships, and if you feel taking him back would be a bad idea. I am very, very confused.

He has said he will fix the humiliation by writing a public letter to all our friends and family to say he had a nervous breakdown and stuff but I still feel embarrassed when I see people. A lot of people don't even know the wedding never happened and they keep congratulating me.

Please help and try and give a balanced view. I am a serial lurker on here and know there is a lot of LTB advocates here, but please consider that we had an otherwise great relationship and I really wanted to marry this man. if there's any way to excuse his behaviour I'd like to do that but don't want to marry a man who doesn't love me as much as I love him.

The reason I am worried about this is because he said and acted also like he didn't love me anymore during this situation!

I broke it off with a former fiancé 4 months before the wedding because I knew I didn't love him and couldn't ignore it. I think that's a pretty valid excuse.

Tbh if he has had a nervous breakdown I do think it's a pretty valid excuse. I think only you can decide whether you want to go back and get involved in a relationship with him again.

I would be skeptical. Cant pinpoint exactly why though...

My view is generally that you dont treat people you are supposed to love like shit, and then think you can blame stress and think all will be well.

What about NEXT time he is "stressed"? You know he cant cope under stress, and there will be stress in life, especially if you have a new baby at some point. Will he walk out then? Will you live in fear? Tip toe around him to prevent him from being nasty, or leave?

I think you had a good escape, to be honest....

What is he doing to deal with his breakdown? Is he seeing a therapist? I ask because a nervous breakdown is a really serious mental issue. If he has had one then he'll be in the care of a mental health team. I don't blame you for wanting to keep your distance because although everyone is different, he hasn't had very long to deal with the breakdown if it happened in September. I'd be trying to do more digging, not easy where confidentiality is concerned to find out what exactly has been going on. I'm not an MH expert but it seems a bit odd that he was completely fine then just cleared off. I wasn't aware that nervous breakdowns worked like that. I'm a little suspicious to be honest.

As for mental health issues more generally, yes they can cause people do some horrible things (I certainly said some unkind things) but to dump someone by text and refuse to acknowledge them at all for five months seems a bit odd to me.

Would you rather him have bitten his tongue and got on with it, even though he didn't want to get married? I think what he did took courage and was clearly the right thing if he was not sure at the time.

And yes being mentally ill, like my other kind of illness, can bring out the worst in a person's nature.

But, OP now has to chose whether she can accept these traits in a person, or not.

I wouldnt....

You need more info. Your said you thought he had OW...are you sure this isn't the case and the relationship has broke down, and he's now coming back?

I wouldnt be able to trust him again. Like Qunit says - what happens next time?

Everyone's breakdown is different, and they can be completely uncharacteristic or they can be revealing of underlying character traits.

So it may be that he treated you so cruelly just because he had a catastrophic nervous breakdown, and is unlikely to do that to you again. Or it could be that the nervous breakdown revealed and exacerbated a tendency to cruelty and selfishness that was already there, in which case he will treat you badly again, especially when the going gets tough. Only you can know.

But you know, whatever may be going on with him, it is what you want and feel that should guide your actions. You do not owe him another chance.

It would be perfectly understandable for you to say, for instance, that too much water has passed under the bridge, you've lost love and trust and you'd rather start afresh with someone new than go back to him.

Do you actually know he is seeking treatment? He is signed off but that could be for stress, and may not actually indicate he is actively in treatment.

Do you know why he wants you back right now, when he is still so fragile he is unable to leave the house? It strikes me that it's to make himself feel better, quite frankly. Can you not be a supportive friend whilst he makes his recovery? Why does anything need to be decided now about your romantic relationship?

If he is genuinely suffering from a mental illness, the person you remember may never entirely come back. I think you need to think of this as a new relationship, and start afresh with the person he now is. Cautiously and slowly. There seems no reason to rush to reconcile, and it may be hurtful to both of you to try too soon.

My view is generally that you dont treat people you are supposed to love like shit, and then think you can blame stress and think all will be well. This is how I feel too, but I keep getting told by people (including the therapist I have been seeing) that MI like this can make people behave completely out of character so it confuses me.

What is he doing to deal with his breakdown? Is he seeing a therapist? He is under the care of his GP and is on medication and having therapy. He says it took him three months to realise he was ill because he thought it was "just stress" or upset over the break up and then he realised it wasn't normal and as the depression started to lift and his emotions returned he realised he had made a big mistake. Of course there were signs he was very stressed, but we both were.

Would you rather him have bitten his tongue and got on with it, even though he didn't want to get married? of course not, but he was as excited about the wedding as I was. I offered him to elope and save cash and he said he wanted to stand up in front of our friends and family and celebrate our love for each other. It was like he went from being desperate to get married to running out the door.

You say he's under treatment for a major depressive illness. So, a doctor has made a diagnosis and he's receiving treatment. What if he'd broken his neck and the wedding couldn't have gone ahead because he was in hospital? No difference between a physical and a mental illness imo.
If you really love him you'll accept it. My DP is seriously ill in hospital and there's nothing I wouldn't do to help him and I don't give a fuck we don't have a perfect life because of it. I love him so I accept the rough with the smooth.
Maybe the kindest thing you could do is break it off though because you don't seem to want him if he's suffering from a major illness.

My gut reaction to this is, you are now starting to move on, as you say, carry on and don't look back.

You were a short time away from your wedding and he bolted. If he couldn't ask you for help, explain his feeling etc why do you think things will improve in the future.

Mortgages, kids, your own health, elderly parents, and day to day married life all bring stress not everyone runs away.

I think there's a bit of a disconnect in your story actually. You make it sound like everything was lovely and you have no idea why he left -- but then you admit that in the months leading up to the wedding he was under massive stress and exhausted, working a second job to pay for the wedding and debts because your business failed.

It's not implausible to me that someone working two jobs and having big money worries and planning (an expensive?) wedding might, if severely exhausted, just break down. In those situations 'fight or flight' can kick in and he just ran away.

I'm not saying he handled it well, or that a breakdown is an excuse to treat people badly. But surely you must give some weight to the situation he was in? That doesn't mean you have to take him back, of course. But yes I would have sympathy for someone who had a nervous breakdown due to stress and exhaustion. I would feel bad things got to the point where that happened.

I don't think you should make any decisions right now. Take it slowly and see how his recovery goes. I would only consider getting back with him if he's going through a lot of therapy and learning how to do things differently so that this won't happen again. But you are also entitled to decide you don't want to take that risk.

Joni, are you reading the same thing as the rest of us?

He dumped her with no explanation and she's spent 5 months not knowing what the hells going on. Its not that she 'doesn't want him if he's suffering from a major illness'.

I'm with Quint, sorry. There are a thousand ways he could have dealt with this - whatever it was - he chose the crappiest way. I wouldn't go back.

Fgs. There is a world of difference between the everyday stresses and strains of life and somebody having a major mental health illness. The lack of understanding on here is quite worrying.

I don't think the issue is whether or not MI is a valid excuse. I think the issue is whether you have enough love/patience/self confidence to get back into a relationship with someone with a MI.

It must've taken a massive amount of courage to get back in touch with you. HOWEVER this is a decision about your life and how you want to live it. Look to the likely future rather than seeking to blame for past behaviour.

I don't think he is getting enough compassion either.
Personally I think he deserves another chance but only if you are one hundred per cent behind it

I agree with others saying don't take him back and continue to move on.

You felt ready for marriage with him, he wasn't ready for that because he could not share his breakdown with you and instead treated you cruelly.

It isn't him having a breakdown I'd be thinking about but how he handled it and that doesn't demonstrate someone who is is in a marriage ready relationship... If you take him at his word, which would be a risk given he treated you so badly.

More generally, yes, the excuse is not wanting to be married, not that you need an excuse for that really.

Yes I bloody am reading the same thing as everybody else thank you If the guy HAS had a major 'breakdown' I feel a lot of sympathy towards him. The OP has to decide if she wants him back, it's her choice but she should make that choice with the full facts available to her.

You need more info. Your said you thought he had OW...are you sure this isn't the case and the relationship has broke down, and he's now coming back? I know for sure there is no OW. His family, friends etc. have spoken to me and say he hasn't stopped crying since all this happened and stays home alone or at the neighbours (a man!) all the time. His mates said they have been trying to get him out but he just refuses all invitations.

Do you know why he wants you back right now, when he is still so fragile he is unable to leave the house? It strikes me that it's to make himself feel better, quite frankly. Can you not be a supportive friend whilst he makes his recovery? Why does anything need to be decided now about your romantic relationship? He said he contacted me as soon as he was able to articulate words enough to explain to me. He does not want to get back together right now, he says he is ill and wants to repair himself but he wanted to ask me if we could start off with rebuilding a friendship and see if we could start again because he is sure he made the biggest mistake of his life but he says at the time he wasn't himself.

I do feel like I need to decide "now" though because I am supposed to be moving on in a sense, and him asking me to consider starting again confuses my progress. I have a date with someone else on Thursday and feel totally confused now.

^If you really love him you'll accept it. My DP is seriously ill in hospital and there's nothing I wouldn't do to help him and I don't give a fuck we don't have a perfect life because of it. I love him so I accept the rough with the smooth.
Maybe the kindest thing you could do is break it off though because you don't seem to want him if he's suffering from a major illness^

This is the part that is totally wrong though. If he'd come to me and said he needed time, space or as ill with stress I would have bent over backwards for as long as it took to look after him and wouldn't have given a shite about the wedding. I really, really, really love this man. It's hard for me to explain on this forum how much, but to me he really was my world and I would have gone with him through whatever life threw at us. The problem is that he didn't do this. He ran off, with no notice and blocked me out for months and told me he didn't love me anymore. I am now supposed to decide whether or not I believe this was a MI induced episode with no bearing on reality or whether or not as the other posters say it exposed a selfish and cruel streak I hadnt seen. It's a very confusing position to be in.

If I could 100% believe this was all MI, I would be over there like a shot nursing him and would wait a year or even two to start up again because he's worth it to me.

I just lost faith in who is is and stopped believing that he loved me as much as I love him. He says he does now..but its not easy to believe after being on the end of such cruelty...and he was CRUEL.

I think the key here is how the ops ex handled himself, his stress, and how he behaved towards the OP ; not in a loving way. He bolted, rather than addressing this together.

And if he has serious mental health issues, OP does not have to accept a life with a mentally ill person, if this affects her. My BIL married a woman who had been institutionalized with Munchhausen (not the by proxy variety), he did not know, she and her family kept that secret from him. His life with her was hell, and if he had the choice again, not 10 pretty fluffy pink unicorns would have made him go ahead with the marriage had he known.

OP still has a choice, ill or not. It is her life, and we cant sit here and be politically correct and say you have to love a person, ill or not, because because because.

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I don't think stress is an excuse to treat someone badly on a continuous basis. I think a nervous breakdown is something different. It's a very acute situation, people are not necessarily in their right minds. They panic.

It doesn't mean you have to forgive him. But I think it's pretty harsh to say a nervous breakdown is no excuse. Obviously he should have taken steps to head it off, but if he was working two jobs and exhausted all the time he probably couldn't deal with it.

But to be honest if that is your attitude then no I don't think you should get back with him. You are entitled to feel that way but I don't think it would work out in the long run.

I feel sympathy for his breakdown tbh Joni. I just don't think sympathy is a reason to marry someone or be in a relationship with them, just like I think a breakdown is not an excuse for being vile to your partner.

If I could 100% believe this was all MI, I would be over there like a shot nursing him and would wait a year or even two to start up again because he's worth it to me.

Then you are kinder than me. You would have to think pretty carefully before resigning your life into the hands of a mental illness. Sometimes they cant be nursed better.

offred I'm sorry but do you know anything about mental health? Critisising somebody for not handling their reaction to it well is like being angry that somebody with a broken arm didn't make a full recovery within a week.