Depressed fiancé, feeling confused by his strange behavior

[Maddie781]

My fiancé is going through a major depressive episode. He had one previously when he was much younger and it was so bad he was an in-patient for several months, but he's been generally fine for 15 years.

This came on after a period of prolonged trauma (not understating the word trauma it was a considerably frightening set of events) and he found hard to cope with it all emotionally. At first he got ill with various stress complaints, then panic attacks, then uncontrollable crying, then detachment and so on.

He's currently working away from home at the moment and so I am not physically with him and finding it very hard. We have had visits, and when he is with me, he gets better within a few days and I start to feel like everything is getting better, but he insists on continuing working away so once he goes back he gets very bad again quickly.

I have been doing all I can do and being as supportive as possible but I have a few questions I'd really appreciate if people could answer because I feel like I am in constant pain from this.

1. This started in February, since then, I feel like I have lost the man I love. He still says he loves me, but the sense of warmth and excitement he used to have for me seemed to go overnight. I used to be able to make him happy just by walking into a room - now he just seems cold and detached from me emotionally. Is this part of depression?

1. I am confused about why he refuses to come home so I can take care of him. He gets much better at home, but insists on going off to be alone. I feel a bit like he has detached from me and doesn't even want to be with me, whereas he used to miss me like crazy. Is this part of depression?

1. He seems to be having doubts about our wedding all of a sudden (late summer) and our future, whereas literally days before the anxiety and depression came on, he was the most excited man ever. Suddenly all the things he most dreamed aren't interesting to him. He even says "lets try and think positively about it" as if our future is some horrible thing to endure. Is this part of depression?

1. He vacillates between wanting to talk on the phone or facetime 24 hours a day to the point of being unnervingly clingy, then all of a sudden he wants space and no contact for a few days. We have never been like this with each other, I find it confusing. Is this part of depression?

1. He seems to be rewriting history in a strange perspective in his head. Not just in terms of us, but life in general. Like all of a sudden he can't remember how happy we were just a few months ago. Is this part of depression?

1. He is making slightly crazy decisions. Decisions that just make objectively no sense and which I find hurtful. Like deciding to work away for long when we have the wedding coming up, almost like he's acting like me and our life no longer matter. Is this part of depression?

1. He says strange things which I find hard to understand at times, and he just doesn't seem like himself at all. Sometimes he says things which are unbelievably insensitive, sometimes he has weird rages over small things, sometimes he even gets a bit paranoid. Is this part of depression?

1. He seems to worry about me all the time. To the point where if I don't answer a text he starts calling every five minutes because he thinks something has happened to me. Is this part of depression?

1. He varies between being really bleak and down, to being really anxious and scared to being really robotic. Is this part of depression?

I want to reassure everyone reading that I am doing and have done everything humanly possible to help him, but he is pushing me away and will not come home. I can't understand it. I even felt like maybe he decided he didn't want to get married anymore, but when I asked him he started crying and said he couldn't live without me and please not to go.

I have assured him I am not going anywhere, but I feel frightened and confused and really miss the person I love and don't know what's going on or how I bring him back to me.

Can anyone help?

Call off the wedding or describe it as being postponed. It's hardly going to be a happy occasion with him in this state. Marriage is not just about being in love but having a life with someone. It sounds like you'd be in for a thoroughly miserable time of it. You are not responsible for his mental health. You do not need to devote your life to "fixing" him. There is no mention of professional help and encouraging him to seek it is the best thing you can do for him. You can't love somebody out of depression or marry threm because you feel sorry for them.

You can not help him. He either chooses to get help or he won't, but you are not his fixer. Obviously, marrying him would be a very foolish thing to do.

Has he been to his doctor

I know this sounds heartless but it might be a blessing in disguise if you call off the wedding as this might be what your future looks like

If he’s been in and out of it before I can’t see why he wouldn’t get out of it again. However, he needs help. Much like the last time he was sick, he cannot get better on his own. It is not you that can fix him. He needs medical intervention. Has he seen a doctor and a therapist and do they know about him being sectioned previously?

He needs professional help. You can provide support but this is well above what can be expected from a partner.

Ditto- why on earth isn't he under the care of a doctor? You cannot make him better and you would be unwise to go ahead with the wedding.

It sounds cold but if you were my daughter I hope you wouldn't go ahead with the wedding. It's virtually impossible to get over trauma without intervention/psychotherapy of some kind. Has he had this input? It sounds extremely hard at a time that should be joyful.

All the things you mention could be symptoms of severe depression, yes. He needs professional help. I think you might need to look at postponing your wedding until he’s better.

Depression is generally cyclical in nature: most people who’ve had one severe episode go on to have more, but most also recover and are well between times. They usually need treatment to get well again, though.

You can be supportive but you can’t make him better if he is that ill; you need to encourage him to get proper help, and if he won’t I’d be reassessing the relationship.

I’m sorry you’re both going through this - it’s very hard.

I've been there OP. Everything you've described is s common symptom. Watch Living with a black dog dog - you tube. You can't fix this for him. This may well be your life. Good periods then a few years of this then the cycle triggered off again by another set of external circumstances. He needs to want to break it. He needs professional help not avoidance away at work.

Do postpone the wedding for everyone's sakes. He needs trauma therapy- are you able to pay for this? That would be the quickest route. Look for a specialist. Before you marry him you need to think carefully if you can live a good life with the man you have now as shitty things happen in life and he may well get to this place again at some point. Sending

Just to expand a little: anxiety, wanting to isolate, losing interest and enjoyment in life, and believing it’ll never get better so why bother, are all signs of depression.

I second the recommendation for the Black Dog videos on YouTube. The book they’re based on is the only thing that got through to me when I was severely depressed many years ago. I couldn’t concentrate on text but a (deceptively) simple picture book really helped. I think the same author has written something for families and friends of people with depression too:

www.amazon.co.uk/Had-Black-Dog-Matthew-Johnstone/dp/1845295897/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=i+had+a+black+dog+his+name+was+depression&sprefix=i+had+a+black+dog&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1621750010&sr=8-1

Get him help immediately, postpone/cancel the wedding and listen to what he says about his concerns about whether the relationship should continue. There is a possibility this could be your life for a long time if he refuses treatment. Please get support for yourself too....being with and supporting someone with depression is exhausting. Your job is not to go down the rabbit hole with him but stand aside and give him your hand once he comes out of that hole.

I've got a friend whose fiance had bouts of depression like this. They got married anyway and a couple if years later he was diagnosed with bipolar and is on heavy meds (which may or may not be impacting on their sex lives). They now have small children and life is very very tough for her because of the emotional burden of her husband, who still has very dark days. Listen to the advice on MN carefully.

The absolute most important things:

It is not your job to fix him, so don't beat yourself up, and he clearly needs proper and sustained medical help asap.

Don't marry this year. He is not in a capable mental state to undertake such a serious and life-changing commitment. This may be heartbreaking for you right now, but I promise it's better than years of misery followed by an unpleasant divorce.

Take a step back from focusing your whole being around him: he is making the choice to be away and not address his issues. You are not his mother or his therapist, but an individual with autonomous decision making capability. You say you have done everything you can to try and help him and it hasn't worked, so now you have to step back and see if he can help himself.

Echoing this:
I've got a friend whose fiance had bouts of depression like this. They got married anyway and a couple if years later he was diagnosed with bipolar and is on heavy meds (which may or may not be impacting on their sex lives). They now have small children and life is very very tough for her because of the emotional burden of her husband, who still has very dark days. Listen to the advice on MN carefully
Low mood when you are clearly resilient and incredibly supportive is one thing. Low mood, withdrawal, joylessness for your children is another.. And coparenting is much harder with someone like this. I hope he seeks meaningful help very soon.

My ex had severe depression before marriage too. He's a decent person, but his mental health was not, in hindsight, good enough to sustain a mutually supportive marriage as be especially not having children. He would get better again for years at a time, we had more kids, then he'd crash again. It wasn't intentional, but his behaviour when depressed was ultimately emotionally abusive because he couldn't cope at all, and was totally internally focussed. I barely recognised myself by the end, everything was reshaped around his mental health. He had a proper breakdown and now I live separately with almost full residency.

If he's been this ill multiple times at this age, and you are turning yourself inside out, then it's likely to happen multiple times over coming decades. That can be fine, if he's a great partner and for example you don't want kids. If you do, think hard. Would you want your children to experience this? Because they 100% will. To have the same tendencies? My ds1 already shows signs of the same depression and I'm terrified.

People always come on these threads to say how you wouldn't leave someone with cancer etc... But it's not the same, ex had a serious physical illness and that was absolutely manageable, severe mental health issues are another level. And you're not married yet, you can consider what you both need and are able to give.

@Luckingfovely. Very well said.

I especially agree with the last paragraph - OP, you need to take a step back and give him the space to address it himself. I know that you desperately want to help him but only he can help himself, and he might drag you down. I hope you are looking after your own mental health and well-being; from why you’ve written it sounds exhausting. 💐

Is he on anti depressants? You've said he's like a robot, anti depressants can do this to some people it shuts off your feelings and you just feel nothing. I had this issue and it wasn't until I was off them for about a month did I start to improve. Worth looking into if he is.

@Luckingfovely

The absolute most important things:

It is not your job to fix him, so don't beat yourself up, and he clearly needs proper and sustained medical help asap.

Don't marry this year. He is not in a capable mental state to undertake such a serious and life-changing commitment. This may be heartbreaking for you right now, but I promise it's better than years of misery followed by an unpleasant divorce.

Take a step back from focusing your whole being around him: he is making the choice to be away and not address his issues. You are not his mother or his therapist, but an individual with autonomous decision making capability. You say you have done everything you can to try and help him and it hasn't worked, so now you have to step back and see if he can help himself.

Exactly this. I definitely would not get married as planned. He needs to address this himself, and you need to focus your life elsewhere for now — he can’t be at the centre of it, and it sounds worryingly as if he’s your ‘project’. Which is no basis for marriage.

It sounds like he is having a mental health crisis. He needs professional help. You can't fix this.

I agree with everyone else.

Cancel the wedding.

Give him space to take on more of the responsibility for himself and his own mental health. At the moment you are doing it all for him.

Put more of your mental and emotional energy into yourself. Improve your own social life and hobbies. Develop your own career. Make your own life your major project and not him.

I think you need to prepare yourself for the fact that your relationship may not last. Yes, all these things could be signs of depression. They could also be signs that his feelings towards you have changed, or that he has met someone else.

Either way, he’s not going to be very good husband or father material, to be brutally honest.

Sorry I’m sure that’s not what you want to hear.

Life is tough, marriage is tough, parenting is tough. You need a life partner that you can lean on and who can lean on you. I was raised by a mentally ill parent - it was absolute shit. Personally I would walk away.

I’d rule out there wasn’t another woman on the scene - he maybe feeling very conflicted and guilty if he wants to end it.
Where’s he working and do you visit him there.
He maybe trying to push you away.
He still needs professional help.
You look after yourself.
I hope you have real life support and friends to share this with.

I really feel for you. I was in hospital for several months due to MH. It was very frustrating for my partner, I wasn't helping myself at all which was a huge part of the problem. The biggest turnaround I had was when my partner turned to me and said if I was this unwell again he didn't think he could stay. It really changed my perspective, I actively sought treatment and continue to take steps to prevent severe episodes including having a Wellness Action Plan with my GP.

I actually think if it happened again he would stay but only because he sees how hard I try not to relapse but neither would I want to test that theory. There are stages to recovery, denial, contemplation, motivation without a plan and then actively being in treatment. Can you tell where he is at currently? It's perfectly reasonable to set boundaries and distance yourself to preserve your own well being, you can be there if he reaches out but you can't be the only thing holding him up. It's not sustainable for either of you.