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.

Hi , just wanted to say I am going through something very similar and have found your thread very helpful.

Started seeing someone just over a year ago, who was separated from wife. He seamed very level headed had good relationship with his children but just after Christmas had a breakdown - we had a great relationship, just enjoyed each other's company - no pressure but he and his ex were at each other constantly and his relationship with his children broke down - he cut off from everyone for 3 months. I started seeing him again for 2 months but it happened again when he received his divorce papers. I really love him and it's been really hard - not as hard as it must be for you married with children but after a very complicated marriage I finally thought I had met a great guy - and he is but just can't cope with the situation. I do occasionally receive a text from him saying how sorry he is but he can barely hold a conversation so I know he is far from ok. He was someone who was very popular lots of friends who now sits in a flat alone it's so sad. He is not on medication, his choice but does have counselling. His councillor said he should go back to when he left his wife and start again which effectively wipes me out - I too felt cross as he knew nothing of our relationship and also felt totally pushed out as I too would have liked to go to counselling with him so I could help him through it. I realise I should let him go but feel like I am betraying him x

I am really, really sorry this happened to you but knowing what I know now, in your position I would run and never look back.

If you met when he was just separated and you don't live together or have children and are not married then the person you met was someone in a transitional phase and it's all about him.

You're not betraying him, you had no vows and no official ties and the none of this is your fault.

I know how horrible it is when someone changes like this, but if I had not had a marriage and kids and our relationship had been shorter I would have run for the hills.

People in this sort of situation can't give anything back, and it destroys you. In a way I feel like I may also have been a rebound. Even thought he married me, because he did not allow himself time to grieve or address the pain of his previous marriage before loving me.

In the end I paid the price and he has STILL not resolved or confronted emotions from his previous situation and might never do.

I think your right xx

It's like you end up being used to play out what they should have played out with someone else? if that makes sense?

I know and I have left him alone I don't contact him, but do reply if he contacts me. I split up with my husband of 20 years and have been on my own since so just can't really believe my bad luck and it has left me feeling quite depressed even though I know none of it is my fault. X

I relate to what he's said, too. You've had some wonderful replies, imo - not the 'selfish' ones but those who respect both your feelings and his!

Self-care can look selfish to people who want you do something else. It's that simple, and that hard. He's got a long way to go yet, but I definitely feel it would be foolish to 'wait' for him, on any level.

A breakdown is exactly that - total disintegration of your personality. Mine were about 12 years ago, and I'm still not fully rebuilt. I'm another one who's content to be single and celibate for the rest of my life now, despite being everybody's idea of someone who should be in a happy couple, surrounded by lovely friends.

It's like you end up being used to play out what they should have played out with someone else? if that makes sense?

It makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, people don't realise they're doing that. As your ex said, he finally realised he was having to make a big effort to "be" who you, and he, thought he was. There would have been a dissonance between the person he felt he really was and the person he wanted to be, which caught up with him in the end.

When you think about what healthy, well-balanced couples are to one another - there's a lot about compensating for each other's deficits and heightening each other's best qualities, isn't there? Unless you'd already been through intensive, long term therapy, I don't see how you would know you were actually overdoing that. With all the sadness & disappointment, I think you deserve to forgive both yourself and him.

Perhaps eventually forgive, garlic... but I imagine there's a process to go through first?

I already forgave a long time ago. Forgave in the sense that I want him to be happy, do not want revenge, want to see him better, would like to salvage a friendly relationship if we ever can.

I do see he never wanted, planned or intended any of this.

Forgiveness is not the same as making peace with it though. I wish it was that simple, but sometimes things happen that are no ones "fault" but it's still hard to make peace with them because they feel so wrong.

I think that's the part I have to work on in accepting sometimes really sad things happen. I always thought you could fight your way through anything, or that we could get through whatever life through at us and maybe that unswerving faith has done me some harm and made it so hard to let go. It's a horrible feeling to let go of that hope or that belief as it's been with me my whole life.

The responses here have been amazing and the past couple of days I have felt some release begin to happen. I can't explain it very well but I posted here because I felt on the crux of "letting go" and was just not able to do it. But the past two days I've begun the process. I have read and re-read and copied and pasted into my diary so I can come back to some of the things said.

I've been actually feeling the release as a physical sensation and I know I probably sound mad as a March hare right now but it's felt like emotions just spraying out of me.

I really loved him. I am only typing that because it's such an important thing to say even if no one really knows me. I really, really, really loved my husband! It's so hard to accept any of this but I am beginning to see that he is just not available to be a husband to anyone.

GarlicAugustus I'm really sorry to hear you had a severe breakdown. Thanks for what you wrote. It was compassionate x