Question for anyone who has experienced depression or a breakdown

[amalia1]

I am trying to find closure from the end of a relationship and was hoping someone who had experienced mental health issues could try and explain how things are to me.

My husband left a very happy marriage with children about a year ago. He had been through a bit of a bad life, a lot of stress and at a time of very severe stress he had a total nervous breakdown and then became very depressed.

He left us, very abruptly and life was a rollercoaster trying to understand how or why such a loving and devoted man could behave in such a way.

He finally called me yesterday to say he was feeling better. That he was coming slowly off his anti-depressants and for the first time since this all began he sounded more human and more like himself.

What he said to me was that he had deep personality issues of people pleasing, and his whole life was spent trying to make everyone happy, from his boss to his abusive ex wife, to his parents, to me and the children.

He said that while our marriage was the happiest relationship of his life and he had loved me more than he could say, that he had snapped under the pressure and he needed to be alone to repair himself and to not feel like he needed to worry about anyone else's happiness.

He does not want to get back together, or to try again. He says he likes being alone, whereas he said he was always so scared to be, and he says he thinks he might always be alone. He says he is learning how to be a new person and it is all about him.

He says he knows I never asked anything of him, or asked him to please me, and he told me it was all about something broken inside him.

Part of me understands what he is saying (he was always a people pleaser and it hurt me so much to see him always doing this) but I can't understand why he gave up one me and his children because we loved him, we never had an unhappy home and I feel so sad.

My mind is swimming with questions. I wonder how he could let me go like this. I can't understand why he would rather be alone than with me. I can't understand where his love for me went.

I thought people fell out of love because of problems in the relationship. With us things were always great. Great sex life, great romance, great communication (apart from this!), great teamwork, great kids...people just used to tell me I was so lucky.

I am struggling to understand because I know he has made this choice an that I must accept and move on with my life now - but I'm just so devastated.

Can anyone who has been where he is maybe shed some sort of light?

I never thought I would lose my husband. But I have.

And do you come out of a complete nervous breakdown a diferrent person? Is his previous life lost to him?

I'm not expecting to get him back..I know he is never coming back. I just want and need to understand.

It feels so tragic to me and I wish I could change it. I don't think either one of us will ever be as happy with anyone else. We were just so compatable. So kind to each other and clicked on every level.

Our children are so young. I feel like their lives are ruined.

Hi, sorry to hear this, it must be horrible for you. I can relate to what your H said, it makes a lot of sense to me. He may have issues with personal boundaries. I think basically you can't love somebody else until you love yourself first, and it sounds like he never had a clear idea of his own true identity. That doesn't mean he didn't care about you, just that at some deep level there is a part of him that is missing or that doesn't allow him to connect or engage fully with your family life.

Sorry but reading this your ex sounds quite selfish to me. I too am a people pleaser, many women are, but I would not walk out on my DC (even if I have felt like it from time to time)

I may be projecting here but your ex sounds like my ex and it is all about him.

I would say you have to stop thinking about him and start focussing on yourself and your DC. It has been a year now, most likely a very difficult year for all of you. If the relationship had been that great for him he would not have left in the way he did. It sounds as if you have spent a year waiting for him to come to his senses and come back to you. I'm so sorry you are going through this I know how hard it is but at least you have a chance to move on with your own life now even if it doesn't feel like that at the moment

Hi, I have a personality affected by an emotionally abusive, neglectful childhood and an emotionally abusive marriage...and other things, all adding to complex PTSD. I do not connect well with long term partners as I feel pressured to be what they want me to me, and lose myself in the process. I feel damaged and it's been a lifetime trying to manage my personality and the roller coaster which has been my life.

I suffer severe stress/anxiety periodically and a strong desire to be alone so I can recover/regroup/recharge. In relationships/friendships I feel I don't do or say things right, make too many mistakes that I find it hard to forgive myself for, that I disappoint people and have to constantly make 'new starts'. It's sad, it's unhappy, I've hurt people, they've hurt me.

This is baffling to partners as it seems I am rejecting them, when I am just trying to survive the best way I can and actually screaming for understanding and affection, yet I panic when partners get too close and know too much about my faults and shortcomings.

In the past I have had enough on my plate to ensure my children were not damaged like I was, without the added pressure of making sure my relationship was healthy. I really felt I just could not do it all. The relationship was the thing that had to give....children priority, absolutely.

I tend to withdraw, when really I just want support and understanding but have learnt to live on my own resources and the issues are too complex for most people to understand and deal with.

Now I have 2 well balanced, decent and fine happily married sons...but I am on my own. That's fine as I've learnt to accept it.

I can actually relate to the things your husband has said and agree it is sad for the children. If only life was like in the text books, and straightforward. For certain people it is a real struggle.

I actually gave my husband away [so he could make a fresh start] as we did not know how to work out how to save the marriage. I still love him now, so don't give up on your H, just be there for him and listen. Maybe you haven't lost him completely, maybe he feel he only functions 'normally' when he has space. Tough on you though, so sorry.

I think he may be doing the right thing in ending his relationship with you, not because of anything you did or even because of how he feels about you iyswim, but more because he may have realised that he had predicated his entire way of living on denying his own feelings, wishes and preferences. it is easy to be happy in a relationship with a people pleaser... they put on a mask and you never guess what is behind it. he may have realised he simply can't carry on because he is basically erasing himself by remaining in any intimate relationship.

in that situation, the people pleaser is almost like an addict, in that their "fix" is to please, so to kick that habit they need to go cold turkey (be alone even if it hurts) and may have to be on guard for the rest of their life (i.e. be very wary of relationships, perhaps be quite alone for a very very long time).

it's extremely sad, heart-wrenching really.

BUT

you are not clear on how he has or hasn't cut himself off from the children. they do come first regardless of how much the parent/s is/are hurting. i hope he is seeing them, and not leaning on them but rather parenting them. if he has abandoned them and not (at the very least) reassured them that he will be back in their lives very soon, then he's a fuckwit, i think.

all that said, are you seeing a therapist? because you really should. if your DH is really going through this, then there is no way that there are no residual issues going on in the background for you. it may be best to have the children see someone too. good luck.

I'm thinking the same as Mrscaindingle: he sounds extraordinarily selfish right now.

Introspection and focusing on re-building yourself is pretty natural after a breakdown, but from there to letting down your children and family... It's like he has taken it too far. Introspection does not have to lead to selfish behaviour.

TBH, I clicked on your thread because I had a breakdown, and I do see similarities between my own and your husband's behaviour: I left an abusive marriage, realised in my shock that it modelled my parent's behaviour towards each and towards me, was extremely angry at them, and cut them off for about a year and a half. I'm sure they saw my behaviour as incomprehensible and selfish too. Meanwhile, I knew that I just couldn't be in contact with them as long as I blamed them and felt boiling anger towards them.

But it doesn't sound as if your husband blames you or is angry at you. Just like he has decided to swing completely from being a people-pleaser, to being completely self-absorbed, as his remedy.

You can't stop him, of course. This is the path he has taken. But I would focus on moving on, rather than on trying to understand him. He has made his choice.

Thanks everybody for the responses. I have to go out, but I have not abandoned the thread and all of the contributions have been helpful. I really just want to step into his mind and understand for my own sense of sanity.

I keep wondering if he had loved me more would he have not made diferrent choices and this is the part that is hardest. He told me pretty much every day that he adored me, that he loved our life and he hid being depressed from me for almost a year.

He explains that he felt my love for him was conditional on him being the "saint" he had always been known as. Superdad, Superhusband, Superman.

The tragic thing was that I would have loved him just as much (or more?) if he had shared with me what he was going through. He says he knows that now but did not see it then.

Yes, he was initially gone from the kids lives (bbreakdown was so severe he could not have been left with them anyway) but now he sees them and is a good Dad and a good man. He wasn't for a while though.

I just thought love endured everything, worked through everything...but I am getting the sense that this is not the case. it's very hard to understand.

So sorry that you are going through this, it sounds terribly sad for all concerned.

I really think that you need to seek therapy for yourself. He shouldn't be making this all about him. He created a persona (through no fault of his own, though it is his responsibility to work through it) that he was unable to sustain. Once that came crashing down leading to a breakdown he wasn't the only victim. Of course he needs to protect his own mental health but his kids should never feel a burden to that. They are never responsible for what we went through in our own childhoods.

It may not all be lost, he sounds like a very good man and you sound like a lovely, caring woman. I hope he is getting some very good therapy but i think you should too.

Love isn't always enough. Even when it's real and both people mean well and want the best

:(

I thought the same broken at first, but a year on there is no one else. We live in a small village, know all the same people. I know his every move because he has our friends looking out for him and making sure he eats / sees people. It was definitely a breakdown. There's no one else.

I even know his work colleagues took him out to a pick up joint to try and get him interested in women (the wives told me) and he wasn't. He's not interested in anything.

Would be easier in a way if there was...I know the saying men don;t usually leave unless they have somewhere else to go. I sort of wish that was true. Would make it so much easier to get closure for me.

I have to disagree here and say I don't think it's another woman. I was 'happily' married, or so I thought, and then had a full breakdown, with major clinical depression, that saw me admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a few months. It was a long recovery, two years or more, and I absolutely was not the same person at the end. There were so many realisations along the way about why I was the way I was, why I was unhappy, and eventually of course about why I had got married, and why it was killing me slowly day by day, even though he was a kind, caring man who didn't deserve to have his wife become ill and radically change. I still loved him and cared for him, but it didn't work. That was 16 years ago, and in a way I'm still not ready to be in a relationship because the damage from my childhood is still messing everything up. I agree with the poster who talked about boundaries. Mine are still a mess, so close relationships are potentially destructive to me.

If he is being honest and still being a good dad, then I think he may be doing his best. I know that'll be very painful to you. But the scenario of your OP is possible. Real breakdowns cut you off completely and the rebuild is immensely hard, and you can't carry anyone else as you do it.

NotQuiteSo...do you think this sort of illness, having experienced it..."excuses" walking out on wife and kids without any discussion?

Because I am coming from the perspective that your husband / wife deserves at minimum a chance to fix whatever the problem if...and telling them every day you are happy then just disappearing seems so selfish to me.

I am wondering only why he could not have had the breakdown and stayed at home an d left AFTER once he was better if it was genuinely not a marriage he wanted?

Just asking someone who experienced it. Maybe I don't understand, but your perspective would be great

Just seems SO selfish. Almost as if I did not exist, did not have a right to anything at all?

It sounds as if your husband has gone to the other end of the extreme after a lifetime of trying to earn love. Up to a point, I get it. In the past, he was so busy trying to guarantee your love (by putting forward a more lovable version of himself) that he never offered you a chance to love the real him. Now he sees the way he was living as a trap - including his behaviour within the relationship - and he's recognised that his old approach to life was making him ill. (And breakdowns are terrifying.) By the way, unlike many partners we hear about on this board, your ex has not said that you were making him ill. He seems to realise that what's happened says far more about him than it does about you. He seems to have tried to protect you from inappropriate blame. That's a kind of love. His abandonment may not be decent, but he's trying to play fairly as he sees it.

It's heart-breaking that your husband has made it impossible for you to say that you actually loved him, since in his mind at least, you never really knew him. By extension, he probably sees the relationship you had with him as a partial untruth. I can only imagine how painful it is for you to know that you were never given the opportunity to love him 'warts and all'. FWIW, I think he's right to acknowledge that something needed to change about your relationship, but it simply didn't happen while you were together. Not because you didn't love each other enough but because he didn't have the awareness or the means to stop trying so hard and show you who he was. That's not to say that there was anything false about the feelings between you. My hunch is that his desperate attempts to earn your love were borne out of a deep love for you as much as from his own need for acceptance. I suspect he gave you as much of himself as he possibly could at the time. Now, he's looking back at your relationship and seeing nothing but the fact that he was walking lame.

Depression can have an 'all or nothing' effect on mental perspective, flattening out nuances and blowing up the negative aspects of a situation. In that world, it's easy to write things off, especially elements linked to life at the point when the depression peaked. Maybe your husband has been too sweeping about his own limitations and the extent to which the marriage was flawed. Or maybe he hasn't. Either way, he has chosen to make that decision. Speaking from personal experience, psychological interventions can be a double-edged sword in understanding periods of depression. Your husband may have been encouraged to search for things about himself and his life that contributed to his breakdown and needed to change. But in my experience, emotionally fragile people are almost too ready to believe there is something 'wrong' with them that effectively precludes them from emotional intimacy until they've learnt to love themselves and are no longer 'broken'. That approach doesn't allow for all the healing that takes place within relationships, or all the marriages that love 'around' a plethora of frailties - a bit like the bumblebee that shouldn't be able to fly but doesn't understand aerodynamics so flies anyway! Personally, I doubt things were so far wrong that your husband 'needed' to let you go. But what's relevant is that he believes that - and genuinely doesn't believe in the existence of the man you knew as your husband.

And he's probably exhausted because trying to please everyone is painful and degrading. If he's managing to let go of those feelings, albeit only within his own mind, rather than in a relationship, the relief must be immense. That he feels he might never be in a relationship says something about the measure of that relief. I find it sad to think that he sees nothing lacking about a lifetime of choosing his own company over the joy and companionship within a relationship. But if this is how he really feels, it's difficult to see how he could make you happy now.

You've been through an awful experience that's bound to leave some kind of crack running through your heart. It's unfair to you. Tremendously. I wouldn't suggest you try to accept it, only that you make your peace with the pain for now. There's a lot of time to think through what has happened - and to look forward to the day that you - and maybe someone else - will watch these scars fade slowly away. Perhaps there will be several explanations you can use about what's happened, each one taking you so far, but no one 'solving' things completely. Your husband is self-absorbed in a way that's difficult to forgive now he's in better health. At the same time, he may also really perceive his present course as the only possible option. In your position, I'd probably aim for the day when I could think of him as someone I loved deeply, but who turned out to have emotional frailties I couldn't have guessed at. to you OP.

Umm. I can't obv speak for your DH, but I believed I was happy and in love at the same time as becoming clearly very ill and very unhappy, and I couldn't understand my depression.

I had no real internal sense of self and didn't really feel any feelings. It all looked good 'on paper' so what was wrong with me, being unhappy in a happy marriage? It made no sense. I was using external definitions of happiness, having been taught that my definitions weren't welcome. So it became a facade, the 'happy wife', and one day it was too heavy to hold it up any more. But I had no understanding of this, it all came later.

It was a relief to go to hospital, because I could put down the relationship. Maintaining it was exhausting me and nearly killing me.

It's not selfishness. It's very basic survival. You are fighting for your 'self'. My psychiatrist shocked me by saying 'you must be more selfish if you want to get well'. She also was trying to get me to believe that my wants and needs matter. I was trying to erase them, to erase ME, out of the picture. People pleasing is a way of not being yourself. You subsume yourself in others to avoid who you are. And then one day it spectacularly backfires.

It's not an excuse. It's an illness. If your DP had a critical physical illness that took him away from you for a year or more, you wouldn't say he was using his illness as an excuse to leave you, he'd just be being ill. It's the same. If it's a true breakdown then his mind, hence his feelings, his emotions, his 'self', is what is ill, and rationality doesn't come into it.

It's a harsh cold place to be. It cost me my marriage, and very nearly my life. It was the hardest thing I've done, fighting an endless exhausting battle with myself, every single minute of the day stretching out like hours, and no escape from it because I carried it everywhere. The impossibility of 'acting normal'. It was a terrible pressure to see friends and family because they cared, and wanted me to be different, to be well, and to care about them in return, and I couldn't, because it jeopardised everything I was fighting for, and their needs became demands that distorted everything I needed to see and feel and understand.

You couldn't have fixed this, as you weren't the problem, and did nothing wrong. He can't fix it whilst staying, as all the dysfunctional programming if you like stops any move towards mental health. It requires incredible focus. It is selfish, in a pure sense, as it is all about the self, but it is a necessary, healthy selfishness. He has recognised that he cannot be who you deserve, or indeed be himself, the person he deserves to be, unless he does this. And he is right.

It is an illness, not a choice. By all accounts (his mates saying he won't engage) it is a true breakdown. He is doing what it takes to get well.

I really hope this helps. I understand all your feelings. Try to hold on to the fact that it isn't deliberate, it's an illness, it's serious, and it does sound like he's doing his best, from someone who's been where he is.

Those two last posts had me in floods of tears. I feel like they really shed some light on this for me.

Thank you so much.

Ps: he did blame me for many months. It is only now he sees that all the work he did to keep me was invented in his own head. I never asked it, and was never aware of it.

And also yes, a month after he left we almost reconciled.

We met up and he instantly told me he still loved me desparately but was lost and needed time alone to get his mind in order. I was understanding (could see he was in a bad way) and did all I could to help him. I let him be alone, but we met up.

It was like this for a couple of months until his 2nd counselling session (he only had 12 which he insisted were enough!!!!!!).

He came home from the second counselling session and told me it was over for good, that there was no point discussing it, that he had to do this for himself. It was a 360 degree turn from what he had been saying the day before.

So yes, I suspect that this woman, who knew nothing about me, us, our marriage or our lives advised him when he was a totally broken man to cut out anything in his life that contributed to his breakdown.

At that time, he felt being married was a huge contributor. Not because we had problems, but because he could not keep up what he felt was required to be my husband in his mental state.

In a sense, it was a giant misunderstanding, and I do feel that if this "counsellor" had asked me to come in with him, had taken our marriage seriously....then she would have advised him to put off major life decisions until he was better. Or at least to give me a chance.

I suspect, however, at the time, he talked to her through a very depressed lens and gave her only the negatives.

Looking back to that time, he was so negative it was unbelievable. He was focussing on things like "the kids always have problems, I always come home to problems" when reality was he came home every day to me waiting by the door with a massive kiss and a smile. Every statement he made at that time was "this always happens" but if you asked him to elaborate he couldn't. it was like talking to a teenager.

It was like he forgot the 90% wonderful and focussed only on the 10% stress which exists in any life.

I had a breakdown in 2003 (I was 20) and now, 11 years later, I am still not the same person.

I was studying at the time but not in a relationship. I put SO much pressure on myself to be a great friend, a great student, a great adult... just great in general that when something went wrong it was the worst thing in the world. I made some awful decisions that immediately proceeded the breakdown. Of course this is all hindsight.

I didn't know what was happening to me at the time, but I woke up one morning crying. No idea why I was crying. I felt nothing. Not happy. Not sad. Nothing. Like there was no internal monologue at all. Complete silence. I tried to study but I would just zone out and hours will have passed with no idea it had. I decided I couldn't get my essays done and left my room to walk to campus (at this time I hadn't spoken to anyone yet) and on the way someone stopped me and asked how I was. I burst into tears. I apologised, said I was stressed out and had to go see my lecturer, all the while not actually FEELING anything. I didn't feel sad. I had no idea what was going on.

I visited the first lecturer and again burst into tears the first time I opened my mouth. I said I was stressed and needed and extension, he said okay and I left. I saw the next one, a lady, and the same thing happened. She told me to book and emergency appointment with the counsellor (who I'd never seen previously). I did so because she implied it would be the only way to get an extension.

I saw a shitty counsellor (again, hindsight) who told me that the MOST important thing was finishing my assignments. I told her I'd tried but I couldn't seem to focus. She said I had to try so for a couple of days I tried. Nothing happened. I had to drop out of Uni and I was far enough in I took a hit educationally speaking and "failed" those classes. No-one understood. I don't know anyone that's been through the same thing.

I did eventually see a good counsellor though who gave me some aids to help me try and identify when I was having a depressive thought. When you're depressed, at least in my experience, everything is thought of in absolutes. You NEVER say you love me. You NEVER help me with the housework. I'm ALWAYS doing things myself... etc etc. I don't know where that graph is but I had it on my wall for a long time.

I did attempt to finish studying, and I did over a year later, but I changed courses so I was less stressed, and I needed a lot of organisation to focus my attention.

I also have some medical conditions I didn't have prior to this. It was explained to me why this mental issue triggered some physical responses but I don't remember now, I just live with it.

I still have depression. I cry at the drop of a hat (happy, sad, frustrated, stressed) but most of the time I feel like I'm just putting on a show, going through the motions. My DH doesn't know this of course and in some ways I'm sure he should know, but it would only hurt him and there's nothing he could do to change anything and it would just put pressure on me resulting in me feeling worse. Vicious cycle really...

Amalia, I really do sympathise with the awfulness of where this has left you. And the need to blame someone, be it him or his counsellor. You are hurt, and bereft, and angry.

I truly think it's one of those things it's very difficult to 'get', unless severe depression is something that's happened to you. It bears no relation to feeling 'down' or 'low', it's a horrible kind of emptiness, and EVERY emotion disappears or becomes distorted. He wasn't feeling the 90% of happiness/good times. All 100% of it was a tremendous crippling weight. You couldn't have made this go away. It would have been too much pressure for you and the children to try to be what he needed, to cope with him whilst he numbed out.

He didn't get 'bad advice'. And it's not a giant misunderstanding that a simple 'Aha' moment would undo. He's the way he is because of a lifetime of faulty scripting and programming (sorry about the analogy, hope it works) and he needs to strip back, wipe it all out and start again, building a person who allows himself to matter, to have needs and not feel guilty for them, to give himself equal weight within a relationship rather than desperately trying to match every need of the other person to keep them happy so they won't leave. You didn't ask this of him, it comes from within himself and he is the only one who can stop himself doing it, and it is a huge job. It's not an obligation you can release him from, by saying you don't need it, he has to release himself.

I would ask for support yourself. Get some counselling to process what is happening. It'll take you time to come to terms with this. He is gone, perhaps forever, definitely for quite some time, to deal with this internal collapse. He's not being a teenager, he's not being selfish or oblivious or choosing to hurt you. He is deep in an illness.

If it was physical eg he needed specialist therapy for an injury in a hospital far away and would leave you abruptly for a long time, you would just cope, and wouldn't for a second say he shouldn't go or that he's being selfish to do what he has to do to get physically fit again. You would be angry at fate or the unfairness of life or whatever, but you would clearly see that, for instance, learning to walk again is a total priority if the rest of his life is to be lived at its best. It is almost exactly the same. You don't want him to remain a trapped, disfunctional, unhappy shell of a man in order to fulfill a perceived obligation to yourself and your DC? His 'self' has malfunctioned. He may get well and come back to you, he may not. He cannot help that or choose the outcome, because his 'self' is what has to change. And it is a priority for him to fix this so that living the rest of his life, whatever form that takes, is bearable to him. Because deep depression is an unbearable living hell.

Sending strength to you. I do so feel for you and wish it was different where he is. But I was utterly cut off, and I think he is too.

There is a forum called Depressionfalloutmessageboard which helps and supports people in your situation. The founder of the board, Anne Sheffield also wrote a couple of books about living with depressed SO's which I found very useful and insightful in helping me come to terms with my H's breakdown and its effectson me.

I went through a similar experience to you with my H and felt like my soul had been trampled on, something in me has been permanently broken. I couldn't trust my instincts as it seemed our whole" happy" past had been a lie. I was paralysed by grief and despair that at the worst point in his life my H had not reached out to me for support but had seen me as the enemy.

I am 2 years on now and I feel a lot less frantic about finding answers and I am much more calm. I have been able to make the shift that everyone advises to put your own needs first and stop trying to put all my energy into helping the other person. I suppose I'm trying to say that things will improve. It is such a lonely place to be - others may try to be understanding but everyone's situation is unique. No one felt my heartrending pain but me.

Strength and good wishes

Notquiteso, thank you. knowing you felt that way too helps me to try and stop blaming myself or feeling like he did not love me enough. I have to believe that and can't quite explain why.

Thanks misty, that's exactly how I feel. Something is permanently broken, like our "happy" past was a lie. And the part that has hurt the most is that he never reached out (still after 9 months) to support me and for a long time he saw me as the enemy. Your post made me cry too.

I have given up on trying to help him. The hardest thing I ever did, and I cry all the time about that too (weirdly feels like I abandoned him even though he wanted me to!) and I feel so much guilt over what i should have or could have done.

I just thought we were unbreakable. Maybe naive but I felt that what they say is true. That love bears all things, forgives all things, hopes all things and never gives up and that was and is the way I feel about him. Which is why, in essence, I feel unable to let go.

It feels like letting go betrays him. Such was my love for him. I just truly, truly loved him. Sick, well, mean, selfish...he is still him. No one around me really understand that and that compounds my lonliness.

I'm sorry you're going through so much pain. Thankfully, you are getting some wonderful responses on here - invaluable.

One tiny point: a year on ADs is not enough when you have had a full and complete breakdown. It is also vital to come off them very slowly - I hope he is doing that. Neither are 12 sessions with a therapist enough, though perhaps he feels he has to 'perform' with a therapist, too? It looks like he's still far from well.

A good therapist also wouldn't advise eg when he flatly refused to continue your relationship after a session with his therapist; effectively did an about-turn. This wouldn't, or shouldn't, have come from the therapist.

I hope you find a way to peace around this, which is effectively a bereavement and is likely to follow a similar path as a real bereavement when someone dies. Acutely painful, I feel for you.

Thanks springy. He was only on for 6 months in total. He felt the 12 sessions were enough. As I'm not part of his life I am in no position to have an opinion, but I agree completely. Especially in terms of the 12 sessions.

Yes it is a bereavement.