Anyone ended relationship with a depressed partner?

[Jaded2023]

Hi - so my partner has been suffering with major depression for over a year now - on meds reg Therapy but he seems if anything to be getting worse .

my own mh is now starting to be affected and I feel I am at my own limit in terms of resilience.

has anyone any words of wisdom

• I want to help him but I feel at risk of going down too!

thanks for reading x

Ah okay, well give it time then.

Thanks for your kind words xx

Yup. My ex-H had really poor mental health. His mum once told me I had to concentrate on him getting better, meanwhile I was struggling because I felt that now I was married to him he could get away with being a controlling bully, and the stuff he was doing was driving me up the wall. The church we'd got married in helped me to leave him after I confided in someone how I was feeling.

I didn't learn though, nearly got involved with someone who told me they were depressed but didn't want to seek help in 2020, then did get involved with someone similar last year. He didn't want to get help, viewed me as a combination of emotional support human and sex object, and was always talking about suicide, showed me scratches on his wrist, and would break up with me all the time, including the day I told him my friend had died! God forbid I was tired (he used to really lay it on really thick if I said I needed to go to bed because I had to work, he didn't.) Having to deal with an emotionally incontinent man child when I was so tired I couldn't think led to me having some quite serious meltdowns (ASD related.) Only after he dumped me did I realise quite how bad it had got. I thought I was getting worse because of age, just turns out it was dealing with him, while avoiding harmful ways of coping.

And honestly, my ex-H and ex-bf, both showing off they'd been self harming to me, as someone who used to cut myself, just shows some nasty self centred bullshit right there. Course they wouldn't have thought that might possibly cause a relapse. It didn't, but only because I fought against it, and got counselling and medication.

Oh gosh @SapphireSeptember poor you , what awful experiences for you !

i am glad you are now free xxx

Thank you. ❤️ Sorry for going on about it, once I start I can't stop! I find men are terrible for looking after their mental health, both from my own experience and from reading threads on here, yet the women I know will get help. December 2020 I got very low, my mum told me to go to the doctor and get antidepressants, my friend told me to get counselling, as that's what she was doing, so I did!

Sometimes it's just best to cut your losses and get out of the situation, especially if it's making you ill. You get one life, no point with being with someone who's just going to drag you down.

Do what's right for you, you've supported him long enough.

It's your fault if he wants to end his own life.

I've just had a brief brush with someone who stated their depression was "well managed" and started off being lovely and fun, but their moods were soon horrendous and ruled over everything. He also threatened suicide, blaming me, and I'd only known him a couple of weeks. Then he apologised a few days later, but was saying the same shit after a few hours.

I was utterly knocked back and traumatised.

Not the same scenario as you at all but it's a terrible illness which will keep bringing you down, i think you should save yourself 💚

blimey that sounds hideous ! Xx

Hi all - an update - still in same awful situ except my do even worse if that is possible.

am so losing hope - I have tries so hard to help him but it’s dragging me down so much now . At what point do I start to live my life again is the question (

Leave. It doesn't get better

Time to look after yourself.
Plan your exit

I mean I’m clinging onto the idea of the person I met 6 heats ago but he’s gone now. It feels like a bereavement but no closure .

it seems impossible he can return to how he was before right now

Depression is a very difficult one because sympathy has to be balanced with how you feel.

You often depressed people.use their mental health as an excuse to act in abusive ways - financial, emotional, even physical. You have the right to get out if that's the case.

What does this depression look.like? Is he working? Paying his way? Doing anything at home? Socialising? Expecting you yo behave differently to help him?

Ah thanks for your post.

he isn’t at all abusive to me or anyone but his energy is very draining just to be around

he hasn’t worked for over a year - has gone from being uber successful man , big income . to not working and hating not working. Can’t be alone , wants to be cared for by someone etc

i have tried so hard to help for over a year now but I am really losing hope now I think for things to improve . It’s just so unprecedented - totally normal life until 15 months ago

We don’t live together and he hasn’t worked since it started (but he can afford not to work - not in a huge way but he can afford not to)

Don't feel you have to stay because he's unwell or doesn't have anyone else

you've not said much about him.

What was the situation when you got together? Was he looking for a fixer?

I'm interested because, while I accept everyone is different, I try very hard to ensure my mental health doesn't affect my loved ones. Is he trying to lean heavily on you?

Regardless, there is no point two of you being unhappy.

Yes I did, major depression for several years that effected every part of our life. He would be fine for a few weeks but we would never know when the next depressive episode was going to happen.

When depressed absolutely everything would be left to me, he would be in bed for weeks, and abusive if I tried to help.

I tried to help but in the end I felt my own life was being ruined. Ten years on, he still lives in the same cycle, is probably still angry at me leaving but I’m so glad I did. I feel very sorry for him, I really do but I just wasn’t living my life like that.

This happened to me with my husband and it was soul destroying. We would sit in silence all evening with him staring into the distance looking miserable and refusing to talk to me. I have never felt so lonely as I did in that relationship

My husband went from being the main wage earner and someone who did an amazing job with a challenging career to becoming unwell then getting worse and worse. It has brought major lifestyle changes and he has isolated himself and rarely goes out. Crisis teams, cbt, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselling, drugs. Improvements came slowly and with relapses in between. Things I should have done differently include getting a good private psychiatrist earlier as they were so much better for the drug recommendations. The reason I didn’t go down too was that I prioritised me. I go out, I go on holiday (other people), I run and climb and do what makes me happy. I run a parallel life and it has allowed me to do well. So if you stay plan what this looks like for you.

@Jaded2023 Have you told him how your feel? Is he taking an active role in managing his own mental health? Given how long this has been going on, I think you need to bite the bullet and end things. You can still reach out now and then and make sure he’s ok, but you need to start thinking about you and your own life. Ultimately, you are responsible for your own life and he’s responsible for his. Guilt is a powerful thing and it can keep us in relationships for longer than we should be there. But you have every right to decide this relationship isn’t healthy for you and to walk away.

Thanks for your kind posts.

the history - 5 years of amazing relationships, high flying Job, life (seemingly) going amazingly , then sudden break down that has been like a bomb going off

private psych and private therapy for nearly a year but just like a shell

i love him a lot (and was very IN love before his happened, it’s been like a sudden death almost - which I have sadly experienced before )

i want to help and would never want to be with anyone other than the ‘old’ him but that person has totally gone. I guess it’s a question of ‘will he come back after so long? ‘

Gosh, this is a timely thread to pop up.

Married for more than 25 years, with adult children still at home, and he has just shut dow. The catalyst was a MH crisis for our elder child in the summer, and he has now been able to verbalise that was when he felt unable to talk to me.

He has been prescribed meds which he won’t take, told to get counselling which he won’t consider, and we will now have the CMHT involved. I know he is not sick enough for any more interventions.

He is punishing himself for something, and by extension, punishing us. He no longer talks at all and this led to our child self harming last night for the first time in months and becoming very distressed by him. They have said that home is not a safe place for them anymore. They do not understand why he can’t/ won’t look at getting help, especially when we gave them no option during their crisis.

My priority has to be my children. Although adults, this has rocked their world. I feel close to tears all the time, and return to work after A/L on Monday. It has been very difficult this week, and I actually feel like I hate him- he has thrown away a successful marriage, being the best Dad, to wallow in his misery.

i don’t understand how, if he is not capable of making the correct choices, then he cannot abdicate these choices and decisions to us- simple things like taking medication is a daily battle, and is very draining. I have been kind, supportive, shouted, begged, coerced, threatened; I hate who and what I’ve become.

He was not able, when directly asked by our child, if he loves them, to give an answer. He just stared at them, was obviously thinking but couldn’t even do the basic ‘yes, of course I love you’. He did the same with me, but seems to expect us to want to be in the same space as him, and even continue to sleep in the same bed.

i find it manipulative and controlling- keeping me in the same cycle of tears and discussion. Am I being harsh?

It’s like living with a dementor.

No you aren’t being harsh that’s fkn terrible !!
so so sorry you’re going through this and your kids

So hard to know what to do, I suppose years ago they would have gone into some mental hosp for a couple of years ? Nothing now unless extreme risk to self or others(

OP I had a nervous breakdown at the end of July (mostly due to care of elderly mother but with hindsight, definitely other things too).

I was seeing someone at the time and he tried to help a lot, but I left him not long after (I don't normally date or have relationships or whatever).

I recovered very very slowly (it felt to me) and no one could see a difference in me till about a week ago. In November I felt I was teetering on the edge of another one but that was very much due to particular circumstances.

Controversial opinions incoming....

I did wonder if I'd have recovered faster without the boyfriend. My situation is unusual but I've never had anyone to help out before.

Is it possible your boyfriend would rather be left alone to recover?

As for whether he'll come back, I don't know, but my experience of mental health issues is that I become a much quieter version of myself every time they hit hard. If he recovers and becomes a very different person, you might want to move on anyway.

We all have limits of what we can cope with.

What is your relationship like at the moment? If he's in a complete daze, he might not care much if you leave. He might want to end the relationship himself but cba.

Or is he leaning heavily on you for stuff? Are you looking after him or do you just feel the "original him" is absent? You can leave for any reason you want.

My sister was in this situation. She loved her husband deeply but the depression kicked in and everything changed. She tried so hard to help him.

She had to save herself in the end, she divorced him, it was only then he called me and asked how to save the marriage.

It was too late. She's now happily married to someone else with a DD.

Point of this story is that this is your life, you are not his support human, you've tried but it's obviously time for you to move on. You have no DC, not married and don't live together. Finish it. He is the person he is now.

I was with my ex for 10 years. Great relationship, never argued, best friends etc etc. But I had noticed a change in him slowly over the years (periods of quietness, not wanting to be sociable, less intimacy). In the last 6 months of our relationship he disclosed to me he had been abused as a child. He came to realise it had happened to him but had no explicit memories of when, where, who. He sought counselling and like you say it was like a bomb went off. But in this case he completely changed, turned against me, and left. Finally about 1.5 years later he felt able to explain to me what had happened and apologised for treating me so badly. He seemed to be his old self again. By this time he was on anti depressants, had seen a therapist and was feeling better and had also been seeing someone else. I had waited a year for him, but after that I had also started dating someone else. After meeting I think there was a few months where I think we both were wondering if we should try again, but then his gf got pregnant (probably unplanned but that doesn’t matter) and I cut contact.

I think the fact that your partner is dealing with trauma as well as depression makes things much harder. You don’t say what kind of trauma but maybe he is struggling with realisations and feelings associated with that too. It is really hard. I absolutely adored my ex, and still adore the old version of him. We’ve been separated 4 years and I still desperately miss him. I also think that the fact that I had to care and support him at times, and was so heavily invested in him made the break up so horrendous. Also whatever he was going through made him act like a totally different person and it was so confusing and heartbreaking. I feel utterly let down by how things have panned out. He has a family and I am alone and missed my chance for kids now (because he couldn’t make his mind up if he wanted them or not). I also realised I missed out on doing a lot of things because of him such as travelling.

Basically you need to think of yourself. I think you could still be there for him in some ways but make sure you put yourself first? It is so hard.