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 don't agree on that though FixItUp. He was a great partner, with the only exception being when he was having a breakdown - so in fairness I judge him off the time he was well when I think of his qualities.

In terms of risk of relapse, I am also fine with living with that possibility...this is part of life...he could be ill with any numb er of things that would put strain on us. That is OK with me.

We would certainly be better prepared. To be honest, if we had a really stressful time again I think he would cope better because he would read himself better, talk to me way before it came to it and use the techniques he learned from CBT. I will also educate myself on it.

If the worst happened and he did bolt again, I, and friends and family would react totally differently. We would make I'm stay somewhere temporary while he settled and get him treatment.

My only question and doubt has been how much he loves me. Purely because as one point he said he didn't and left me. I feel worried about only that because I don't want to give all this of myself if he isn't feeling the same depth as me!

It sounds horrendous confused .. so sorry this happened to both of you.

For what it's worth, while this was a huuuuuuge mistake on his part, I believe that usually people deserve a second chance (once). This is so massive that maybe you don't feel you should. But some people really make a terrible mistake and then regret it the rest of their lives and really never do anything like that again.

He must learn different ways of handling extreme stress though.

Not to pee on your parade so to speak but at the moment there is so much going on that it's pretty hard to be objective.
You feel nostalgic etc.
When I look back, I do think my ex and I had some good times together and I don't think he's all bad - I was with him for 13 years so he clearly had some good qualities.
However he also had a lot of shortcomings, including bottling things up until the point where he couldn't cope with how he was feeling, not being supportive of me etc etc. I can be a bit more objective now, whereas I couldn't back then.
I do think it's admiral that you are perhaps willing to give him another chance and risk that you could be hurt again, but definitely give yourself more time before you commit to that.
Spend time with friends, go out and about, go on holiday, have new experiences, find new hobbies, date other men, make sure you are feeling good about your appearance (new clothes, new hair, new make up etc etc). I know this all sounds trite but you really need to focus on yourself and making yourself feel better. So that means getting to do lots of fun stuff for a while.

Once you do feel a lot better, then maybe you can consider taking him back. But at the moment, not enough time has passed - you are emotionally vulnerable. I still feel like I am emotionally vulnerable 2 years on!
Someone once said to me 'when everything around you is changing, do nothing at all' i.e. you need time.
What's for you will not go by you, as my Granny would say, and if he really is in love with you he will give you the time you need without questioning or pressurising you.
Good luck.

Confused - sorry to chip in again, another thing occurs to me that is HUGE in this and that is: how well do you deal with uncertainty?

The reason I say this is such a big question is that you will have to deal with buckets and buckets of it. What he has done has sparked some of your deepest, darkest insecurities. We all fear that the people who appear to love us, who say they love us, who act like they love us on a daily basis, might suddenly turn around and have a change of heart. It's a normal human fear. But what he's done has made that dreadful fear 'real' to you. It is going to take you a loooooong time to feel safe again.

I don't believe that, on the whole, human beings really enjoy uncertainty about the big stuff in life. But some can deal with it better than others. If you are the kind of person who can tolerate that uncertainty, live with it as a constant, nagging pain and see overcoming it as a process that will take time and effort (which you will sometimes begrudge, being only human!), then you can maybe make this work if he is willing to do some heavy lifting too. If you cannot - if it's simply too difficult for you, if you find being patient with that uncertainty excruciating on a daily basis, then it is best to start afresh.

Yes, you do need to leave each other space to heal, but you do also need to establish a way to talk about this, and to keep talking about it. Because that will be critical to ensuring that there are safety valves in future that can defuse a crisis before he reaches this appalling state of anxiety again.

Meerka -thank you!

FedUp -Honestly..I loved him. Was happy. Felt I;d found my perfect match. He wasn't perfect, but he was perfect for me. We fitted together. I liked him, respected him, was proud to be marrying him and could not imagine spending my life with anyone but him. I agree on the rest though.. I am not remotely objective now and am very vulnerable emotionally. :)

Struggling100 -Sadly not very good at all. The thought of waiting to find out how he feels for sure is bothering me already after 10 days. Unsure of how I can cope. I am good at general uncertainty in life, but want to know what my overall goal is if that makes sense. Right now I don't know.

The reason I say this is such a big question is that you will have to deal with buckets and buckets of it. What he has done has sparked some of your deepest, darkest insecurities. We all fear that the people who appear to love us, who say they love us, who act like they love us on a daily basis, might suddenly turn around and have a change of heart. It's a normal human fear. But what he's done has made that dreadful fear 'real' to you. It is going to take you a loooooong time to feel safe again.

This is like reading from my own thoughts and heart. This is the exact reason why I am so afraid right now. Even though I believe what he is saying, I also believed what he said before so I have doubts that were never there before and a part of me hates him for that (even if he couldn't help it)

My therapist said I can either move on or live with the uncertainty that this situation poses, so her comments were right in line with your own.
I have no idea if I can do it. I want to try.

There's a chance I just can't. That I might start looking around for other people (especially if we are apart) and I do definitely feel "single" which is worrying. I suppose what will be will be.

I am living and breathing permanent INSECURITY right now. I lost my business, DP, wedding, planned future and moved house all in a couple of months and I have been amazed at my own strength not to completely crack up but at the same time I know it;s changed something in me that really hurts inside.

If the worst happened and he did bolt again, I, and friends and family would react totally differently. We would make I'm stay somewhere temporary while he settled and get him treatment.

Really? That sounds very idealistic. I can't imagine being okay with that. If you had children and their dad had to "bolt" to deal with his MH who knows when or how often and you were left to do all the not insignificant work of parenting, managing a household financially/physically etc - I don't know many people who would be happy to cope with that while their partner gets treatment for an undetermined amount of time.

I'm just trying to give an alternate perspective is all OP as you do sound vulnerable.

FixItUp...it's not ideal...but if it is a remote possibility I could handle it, knowing he just needed time to recover. I seriously doubt it would ever get to that point again! Going into it knowing he might relapse I think I have to accept this as at least a future possibility though. I can cope with it, as long as I understand why and know what to do.

I think the point I am making is that I felt like that too. I felt we were right for one another, that we could never be without each other. Now I feel quite differently!
I'm not saying you are wrong in how you feel now - maybe you are right and he is the one for you. All I am saying is that you don't have much perspective at the moment. You need to get some. You can only do that by having some time to yourself.

You know, he is 37. You have been with him 3.5 years. The last 5 months, he has been cruel. In your short relationship you have felt very happy with him. Yet during this relationship he has planned a wedding, supported you through losing your business, and having to work two jobs himself. This is pretty shit for most people, but you had only been with him 3.5 years. Not a long time at all for reasonably mature people. I dont mean to rubbish your relationship, but I do wonder if you and him were in the same relationship, or if you are looking back with rose tinted glasses.

It is alarming that you are planning, and thinking through how you are going to react next time he bolts!

Why not just cut your losses and see that your relationship was full of stress that you could not handle, call a spade a spade and move on!?

Sometimes love really is not enough. Seeing and understanding how the other is feeling, supporting and being supported, communicating and being a partnership is much much more important. It does not sound to me that you and him have that. You seem to have been highly out of sync for such a situation to develop.

Points taken and being digested...

"To be honest, if we had a really stressful time again I think he would cope better because he would read himself better, talk to me way before it came to it and use the techniques he learned from CBT."

Um... on what basis do you think this?

He had a breakdown several months ago, during which time he cut off all contact with you and he has only been in treatment for a few weeks.

How can you possibly have any kind of opinion about how he would cope with stresses in the future?

The reality is that you don't know anything about the person he is post-breakdown.

You don't know how he copes, how resilient he is, what he's thinking.

If you want to try to build a relationship with this man on the other side of this episode, then that is one thing. But you won't be getting the "old" him back. The man you thought you knew did not exist.

The laid back guy who took everything in his stride did not exist.

And you didn't know that.

I'm not saying that your entire relationship was a lie, but you must surely accept now that there was a lot of important stuff about him that you didn't know.

And given the break in your relationship, that remains the case.

What about children, Confused?
How old are you, can you afford to wait (if you want them).

I dunno Quint. He's a pretty honest, down to earth guy, not prone to displays of madness of feeling and he told me all the way through he'd never loved anyone else like that. He says the same now. He's never proposed to anyone else. He said he'd never been as happy and he seemed / acted that way too.

I suppose I could think he was lying (but why would he), or that his feelings changed (which I suppose can happen after a time), but if they did there was no signs. I could drive myself mad with these types of thoughts (And I have) but aside from him flipping out I don't see that there were any problems.

He didn't share this with me, but he didn't really understand himself. He def told me every other thought and feeling he had. I think we were as close as two people can be.

Of course I might have everything totally wrong and that's been what I have been thinking for the past 5 months. The breakdown is the toilet pass out of that though and I hope it is a one off brought on by huge stress.

*"To be honest, if we had a really stressful time a to again I think he would cope better because he would read himself better, talk to me way before it came to it and use the techniques he learned from CBT."

Um... on what basis do you think this?*

This is what he said when we talked. He said he sees where he went wrong and is learning to understand how he could have prevented what happened and will make sure he comes out stronger. Of course I have no idea if this is true but would not enter into a relationship again without confidence this had been dealt with.

Avalon I am 32, so there's time. Yes, we wanted them. I can wait a few years I think?

I don't think anyone is trying to say he didn't love you or that his love wasn't genuine, just that things must have been pretty off-course for it to end up like this and you either didn't notice or he didn't tell you or it was awful for quite a while.

He didn't share this with me, but he didn't really understand himself. He def told me every other thought and feeling he had. I think we were as close as two people can be. I find this an odd statement, this lack of privacy, over-intimacy, perhaps that's why he ran away rather than be honest about any negative feelings? Did he really never look twice at that new girl in the office? Have doubts about how he'd cope with something? It all seems 'dream come true' rather than a real-life relationship somehow.

I just meant he didn't hide stuff from me and he felt able to be open. He told me some pretty bad stuff he'd done when he was young that he'd never been able to tell anyone about etc. Just illustrating as far as I knew communication was ace between us.

About the new girl in the office...I am sure he looked!

I asked him now if things were off course, if he was unhappy with anything between us and he says no. I can only base it off what he says, but at the moment, I don't have more info than that.

He says it was just that he felt hopeless about life and unable to cope and just had to escape.

We were like best friends who had great sex. Best way to describe it.

And now he wants to be friends, with the bonus of some sex, and no commitment? And you are seriously considering this?

Confused - I know how hard it is to deal with the insecurity. I have always been hotheaded, impulsive, and impatient (it's been my 'role' in my dysfunctional family since I was born!) - and the idea of sitting something out was anathema to me. I like to FIX THINGS! I'm a controlling beyotch!

I came to see it almost as a kind of mental discipline to let go of those feelings that I needed to do something, fix the situation, sort it all out, make a decision one way or the other. Part of it is consciously letting go of control - saying to yourself 'OK, this is going to be a bit of an adventure. I could get terribly hurt. It could work out. I'm going to accept that risk, and let the river of events carry me gently along. Instead of trying to make him what I want, I'm going to listen to him properly, without being defensive'. It was a kind of liberation - scary as hell, but also freeing - and, without wanting to sound naff I learnt a lot about myself, including that I CAN actually be compassionate and patient if I want to, and that being controlling is actually a choice I make that doesn't always conduce to my own happiness.

I don't mean to sound like I was some Zen priestess - there were plenty of times when I woke up at night in a cold sweat and panic so bad that I literally had to get on my hands and knees to breathe. I'm ashamed to say there was a time when I smashed a glass on the kitchen floor in frustration (not my finest hour). But I got through those times, and each time I felt a flare of panic or anger, I got a bit better at handling it until it stopped. And it has led me down a path I never expected, which is still ongoing - it made me think a lot about my family, and why they need to control things and judge everybody and fix everything, and how they never really talk to each other - how real feelings are actually prohibited - and what they've lost as a result (the answer is an awful lot). Not only am I now very happily married, I honestly think it has given me tools to make changes I needed to make to myself to be happy.

If it were meconfused i don't think i could go back. I say that as the wife of someone with some MH issues. I love my husband more than anything in the world. But i think i can be honest here and say if i had known at the start how life would be with him, i might not have ever got involved. I long to be carefree.

You OH may never be the person you think he was. He might be, but you could spend years finding out that he's not.

If he was so ill that he shut down, how on earth is he supposed to do anything about it if he shuts down again?

Sometimes live isn't enough. You have started moving on, i would carry on and support him as afriend.

Quint, that's not what he said.

He said he wanted to tell me he made a mistake, wished he could travel back in time and just talk to me instead of running off, wished he hadn't done it and wanted me to know he was ill. He wasn't asking me to be his pal or come round and shag him. He actually said he's lost all sex drive completely!

What he wants is to talk, work through it and try and find a way to start again when he is well. He wasn't remotely demanding. He was amazed I even spoke to him and couldn't believe it when I told him I still loved him.

It;s me who wants to go and see him and start up again right away to be honest...I think he just wants to know he hasn't lost me for good.

Love not live.

Struggling100...you sound exactly like me and your DH sounds exactly like my ex!

Maybe it is a journey of self discovery for me. Letting go of my need to KNOW things for sure.

Maybe in any relationship you don't KNOW for sure. Certainly from some of the threads I have read on MN a lot of us get shocked