Depressed partner pushed me out of his life

Hi there... I’ve been watching this thread.. and I have the same thing happening. Everything was great.. we talked every single day for almost 2 years, he asked me if I would marry him sone day, he said he was all in, would never let me fall, etc... he started to withdraw, so I gave him space. He called me and said he didn’t want to lose me. Everything went on for a week back to normal, he said he loved me on the phone and the next day boom.. tells me we need to talk then ends it. I was completely blindsided and it crushed me. Ended up having a full on panic attack because I just couldn’t wrap my head around how or why this was happening. He says ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ or ‘I love you but I don’t feel love for you, I don’t know what is wrong with me’ so on a so forth. I know he’s depressed and he admitted he has had anxiety for most of his life. He made comments that he doesn’t feel anything, emotionally numb, his kids hug him and he doesn’t hug them back, he feels trapped by the thought of another 10 years before his last kid moves out. Those were all flags to me that he is depressed. We’ve done the back and forth contact thing for this last week. I’ve cut contact with him because I just can’t anymore. It hurts when he texts.. so empty and just nothing like the conversations we used to have. Going from 100% investment of love and care to nothing overnight has pushed me into a spiral. I can’t get out of my head. I realize I have to walk away. Do I want to? No. None of this was my decision. He may not feel anything anymore but I still do. I have those hopes, that he’ll feel better, that he’ll realize what he’s losing but after reading all these posts, it sounds like that never happens. This keeps coming in waves.. for a day or two I am fine and then bam.. hit with a panic attack. I don’t sleep well and can barely eat. I have attention from other guys but it doesn’t feel right and actually kind of irritates me. I know I’m not ready for another relationship. Ugh. I hate to say I am glad I am not the only one, because I’m not glad.. this is miserable.

It really is miserable. I have a lot of what if’s. What if I didn’t agree to move in with him? That’s what caused all of this. We’d might still be together. I have guilt about all of his commitment issues resurfacing.

No contact is hard but so is not getting the conversations that we used to get. No love in it, 1 sentence replies, if they reply. Mixed messages. Hot and cold. Sometimes they can be hurtful. The disease is awful but it’s so easy to get sucked into the depression vortex, like I have. So, in a way, they are probably doing us a favour. As hard as this is.

I am angry today. I feel like I have been shoved to the side with no thought. I guess that’s just one of the feelings we go through.

I know exactly how you feel unforunately. And when I was where you are now, it was hard to take the advice everyone on these forums was giving, which is taking care of yourself. I wondered what that meant at the time. Basically, no matter how much you worry or care it's not going to make a difference. It's only when they decide to get help, and only when they figure out that it's not you that is causing their depression can things potentially start to turn around. Try not to put pressure on them, it just ends up exploding in the end. I would say, if you are sure you love the person, reach out periodically. It hurts when they don't respond, but I believe they are reading and apprecaiting that you're still there for them. Sometimes they just feel they can't respond. I may have recently had a break through with my ex partner. We should be meeting this week to talk; I can't even believe it's really going to happen. I never thought this would ever happen and I'm not telling you to wait. Try your best to move on, and if you can't, like I haven't been able to, hopefully they won't be able to either. He actually started seeing someone right away, that clearly wasn't anything long term. It hurt, but I'm trying to move past that and understand that it was likely just him trying to move on from our loving relationship because "I'd never understand" and if he started something new, she wouldn't know of his depression. I have a lot of apprehension about speaking to him again and potentially opening myself back up to the person who hurt me the most. I hope I have something good to report a few days from now, and if not, I have to find solace in the fact that it was never meant to be and that he has a lot of issues to figure out. I'm actually most scared that he may want to try again, but he hasn't done the work to actually learn how to mitigate his depression.

There are soooo many what ifs. I hate them because my mind just keeps circling through them. Everyone says to move on.. my heart doesn’t want to but I know I probably have to.

That is my issue right now with the contact, the hot and cold, the one word replies, the sometimes seeing the parts of him I once knew and then not hearing anything from him for a day or longer. I had to contact him because my son left something at his house and was asking for it back. He said he would send it. Who knows if he really did and I don’t want to keep having to contact him for it but I will have to. He tells me to have a good night, thanks me for caring. It actually just makes me angry.

I had panic attacks today, just can’t get past this and I know time will help. I just feel discarded.

Please do update with how things go.. I am hoping for you that they go well.. at least a resolution or sense of closure if that is the outcome.

I have the same fears.. that he will get better and he will see what he lost and want to try again. He made a point to text me and say he made an appointment to see a doctor. Then no contact. Then another message to say he had an anxiety attack for the first time in over a decade, but that they cancelled his appointment the same day. I care and I do love him.. I really thought we were going to be each other’s lifetimes.. and now.. I don’t know.

It’s hard not to think maybe he found someone else and is just hiding it. Or that if I wait.. things may never change. I continue on with my life, working, being a mom, all of those things but it’s difficult because I used to share things with him and vice versa, every day. Something will happen that I want to share with him and that reminder comes back.. nope, he’s not there.

Hoping for better days but today has not been one.

I hear you both.

I would love to share things with him about the day but I don’t know if he wants to hear from me. It’s now day 4 of no contact.

Its funny that you mention how you feel like he has met someone else but can’t tell you. That has come across my mind too. Then I think that he probably hasn’t because he was honest to me last year about not being ready for a relationship and he never slept with anybody and worked on himself during that time. I just have to trust that’s what he is doing now.

this really is like withdrawing from a bad habit.

I’m trying not to let it get to me and the person I used to know, didn’t strike me as the type to cheat but then again, I had all his time and attention. Now I don’t and it was like turning off a switch. Which makes me fall into that battle with myself over him finding someone else and giving them all that time and attention.

I’ve read the same quotes in these posts, that he says to me. It’s not you, it’s me (although he has taken opportunities to tell me things he doesn’t like about me but then says that has nothing to do with how he feels or rather doesn’t feel) That he’s got to figure this out in his own, his head is a mess, he just doesn’t know why things changed or why he feels different but he just does. He says he deeply cares for me but he lost something that he just can’t get back. Never anything specific.

I truly hate being flipped upside down and consider myself a fairly strong woman. So for this to shake me to my core.. I don’t even know what to do. I’ve never been crushed this badly by a breakup and I’ve been divorced twice.

And from what I have read, it can be like withdrawal from a drug. Studies have shown our body has the same response to a break up as a drug user does to withdrawal. Odd to think that you basically need rehab from just trusting and loving someone.

I took a chance again after being in a long term abusive relationship, which he knew everything about. Until this last week.. had really felt I had found someone who wasn’t abusive and yet.. here we are.. and it feels like abuse all over again. *sigh*

Yes! That's exactly what it can feel like. Abuse. I defended my ex when my mum said that but as time goes on, that's how I am starting to feel. I hate mind games, but that's what I feel it is as they are so indecisive.

I met with a friend for lunch today who knows him as well. She told me to just let him go and fix himself. Although, as she reminded me, he has been saying that for a while now but never has. She made some good points about him to me, which I wouldn't have listened to a couple of weeks ago. He was always flaky, didn't handle stress well and shyed away from responsbilities. All true.

He didn't handle the situation with me well at all. Instead of talking to me about how he was feeling when he was having a freak out with me moving in, he just spiralled into his own thoughts. Perhaps that may have been because of his past relationships and how they reacted to things and he thought I would do the same. I was very positive and understood him when he finally told me. I took that pressure off him immediately. But it was just too late. I just hope he wakes up one day and realises that I am not his ex's and that I would have always stood by him.I just can't believe the complete turn around this disease has done to him.

Today was an interesting day. I talked to him a little.. someone had given me the advice to say everything I needed to say NOW. After almost two weeks of this emotional roller coaster he put me on, I decided for once to make it about me and had written down everything I needed him to hear now that I had time to think about everything past the initial shock of the blindside breakup.

I was ready for closure and had figured out what I needed to hear from him to get that. That... didn’t go completely as planned.. and he still interrupted with how much he hates his life and the million reasons why... but I redirected back.. this was about me this time, not me being his vent outlet. He cried.. and admitted that he still loved me but didn’t even love himself so he didn’t know how he could give someone else love. Understandable. So I told him that sometimes it’s just best to walk away and that for me, being just friends wasn’t an option, and this mean no contact anymore. I wished him the best of luck in finding who he was again in life, love and happiness. He was sad when we said goodbye.

Afterwards, I reached out to a few people I know are in his life and fairly close. Just told them that he’s at a really low point and he needs all the help and support they can give. One called me.. we talked for 3 hours. She has known him for a really long time and actually gave me a lot of information about him that I didn’t know. It truly changed my perspective and made me feel sooo much better about the decision I made to just walk away. Plus.. I know he now has people in place to keep an eye on him and hopefully keep him accountable for getting the help he needs. It’s all I can do, for myself and for him. I do really wish him the best of luck.

As far as all of you, feeling that constant pain.. I can tell you that from this experience, I was my own enemy. I had romanticized him.. rose colored glasses, truly had trusted and believed 100% of what he was telling me only to find out it was about 60% true. It’s easy to still pine and hurt for someone you lost, but in my case, I was hurting for someone that was never 100% honest with me about who they were. Made it much easier to stop hurting.

I am glad you got the closure you needed. You are absolutely right. It is easy to be so consumed about them that you forget about yourself and your needs.

I have tried to have the conversation with my ex but he just doesn’t seem to answer my questions. I think I need to do your tactic and turn it back about me. He is sending mixed messages and that’s messing with my head. I will leave it for another week. I’ve gone a week with no contact.