Depressed partner broke up with me.

[Sad_Panda]

Hi

So, my partner of 8 years has left me. He has suffered from depression and alcohol abuse for a few years but it seems to have got worse in the last year. I am 30 and he is 33. His reasons for breaking up with me are that he needs to be alone to sort himself out and stand on his own 2 feet. He also said I deserve better and he cannot love me the way I should be loved.He has this belief in his head that to truly 'make it' in this world he needs to be successful in a job, earn lots of money and then he will be a man. I worry that his lofty ambitions will never be able to be reached as there is no actual goal just a vague benchmark that is always changing.  I am devastated. It has been nearly 2 weeks and we are still sorting out our belongings etc (we have lived together and shared everything for 6 years). I am seriously worried about his health if he is alone especially as he is starting a new job where he is expected to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week. 

I guess I would love to hear from people who have been in this situation or can try and explain to me why he feels being alone is the right option, and more to the point, is it? Will it help him? Or will he get worse? He has told me that he has decided to seek help from a counsellor but that he has too much on his plate to do it right now. I am worried that although he recognises he needs help he is still not ready to take the first step and go. He has a very small network of friends and no family close by, his closest friend also suffers from depression and all of his friends drink heavily.

This is such an awful illness, I just feel so helpless, although he has broken my heart and given up on our future, I can't help but feel I still need to be there for him and support him. 

[HA1]

Hi Sad_Panda

Sorry to hear about the sad situation you and your partner are finding yourselves in.  However, welcome to the Beyond Blue forum, you will find many people on here that can identify with your situation.  I hope we can be of some help and support.

Speaking from my own experience, wanting to seek solitude, to be alone to sort things out' is a sign of depression, potentially severe.  Others here might disagree, but that was how I felt.In my case, I guess I wanted to be alone because I thought I could not (for one reason or another) share my distress with anyone, that they would not understand.  I was wrong.  

He should not be alone - not sure how to avoid it, but it is important that he knows that he is not alone. Are you able to convince him to go and see a GP?

Like him, I also began to drink alcohol every night, the sadder I got, the more I drank.

What he needs to understand is that alcohol is a depressant and will only compound his existing depression.  Alcohol makes you forget and is a little escape from the sadness.  I am no health professional, but if he is increasing his alcohol intake it would seem to be a sign that his depression is also getting worse.  Just my view, so you really need to convince him to see a GP or Psychologist.  Also don't forget that he can always contact the Beyond Blue support line (number on top right hand corner of this page).

In summary:

1. Being alone is definitely not the right option.  He needs support.

2. Alcohol will temporarily mask the depression from himself (only), but will in fact compound the depression.

2. Not wanting to seek help is an indication perhaps of him not being ready to accept that he is ill (perhaps he is afraid of the stigma).  Mental illness is just that, it is an illness, it can happen to anyone.

3.  You are a wonderful person who recognises that what he is seeking to do is not the right thing.  If he has no other support network, then he needs someone to support him.

Can you please give us an update on how he is going?  We will watch out for your posts.

Please take care

K

[sibelle]

Hi Sad_Panda,

I have never posted in here before, but your story touched my heart because it has many similarities to my relationship and I feel your pain.  I'm not sure if anything in my experience will help you, but the main reason I wanted to share my story with you is because I want you to know that you are not alone.

My partner and I are similar in age to you, and we have been together a bit longer then you guys have. Over the past several years we have struggled with his depression and alcohol. He saw a GP very sporadically then decided to stop. He was on and off antidepressants as he chose. We have broken up (and made up) many times, usually each break up was initiated by him because he felt worthless and unloved and deserved to be alone

So we continued in this fashion for a few years with things gradually getting worse.  Then a couple of weeks ago  he was admitted to hospital with suicidal thoughts. Now he has a treatment plan and I think he is motivated to stick with it. It is too early to tell how this will work out, but I am hopeful.

I think the hardest thing about being with someone who has depression and alcoholism is that (unless it is life threatening), you can't force them to seek treatment if they don't want to. I know the helpless feeling, because although it was crystal clear to me that he needed medical help, I couldn't make him see a doctor, take antidepressants or stop drinking until he was ready.

All you can do is keep doing exactly what you've been doing - keep talking and listening to him, and keep being supportive and encouraging of any progress. Keep encouraging him to see a GP - my partner found it helpful getting a GP from the list on the beyond blue website. I know how difficult it is to continue to be supportive of the person who has shattered your heart, and it is sometimes overwhelming to deal with relationships problems as well as a mental illness thrown into the mix. Try not to lose heart and keep being his friend because it sounds like he could really use a good one.  He is truly very lucky to have someone like you caring about him, even if he doesn't realise it at the moment. And remember to look after yourself too, which is easy to forget when you are so worried about somebody else.

Hope this helps you in some way, and I wish you all the best.

Sibelle

[Sad_Panda]

Wow, thank you so much both Sibelle and AOK. Just reading your replies and hearing your experiences has made me feel so much stronger.

 I saw him this evening, he has found a place to live and wanted to sort out belongings. We actually talked for 2 hours, and I let him know I am still here for him despite the heartbreak and the devastation. No matter what happens I will not let him fall any deeper, and in some weird way maybe him being able to get some things done on his own and not in a relationship will be good for him.

 He admitted that he has had suicidal thoughts in the last 2 weeks (since we broke up) and that he has been able to talk himself out of it. But he also is more resolved to get help. He now has the Beyondblue number in his phone and he has said he will call the GP in the morning and make an appointment. He seemed much more certain of needing help and less defensive than when we last talked.

 I have just said that I am trying to understand and am hurting but that I am always here, and am aware that this is an illness and that he is not actually this person, that his real person is hidden underneath this cloud right now.

 Your words are all very wise and I thank you so much for taking the time to write to me. I know I need to stay strong and I am taking care of myself with friends, activities and uni (there's a lot of uni).

 I am being told a lot by friends (some who'e been in similar or abusive relationships) to just let him be and he will find his way but I just know in my heart that he still needs me and this isn't the end. I hope I am not harming him by offering this support. I do not want him to feel any more guilt or shame than he already does.

[Dee81]

Wow, this is sounding all so familiar!

I am 33 hubby is 37 and we have been together for 12 years, we have been married for 4 years and been trying so desperately for a baby with no luck.

Earlier this year my husband was extremely sick, we were not sure what was wrong with him, if it was life threatening etc... it took 4 months to get a diagnosis and thank god his illness is something that can be controlled by medication.

In July we started IVF to make our dream of being parents become a reality... I was 1 week into the medication for our IVF treatment when he decided to leave me, he says he doesn't know if being with me is what he wants, he says he has been unhappy for 12 months and looking at it now I see the signs of the start of depression back then. I am completely heart broken as he is my other half, he completes me... and I just realise how deeply in love with him I am. He says he loves me and he cares for me but can only be friends with me right now and he is not hopeful that our marriage will work, I am sure that this is from the depression but right now I am doing it tough... I cannot loose him to this... he's having a medication review and will be organising a psychologist who was recommended by our marriage counsellor... feeling lost and sad right now!!

Shan81

[Mercury]

Hi Sad Panda,

 your story is very similar to mine. My husband of 12 years and father of our 3 beautiful children, suddenly decided that he was leaving. He said we were better off without him, the kids were afraid of him and I deserved better. He believes that he is a failure. 

I desperately want my husband back but the angry, broken man he has become is adamant that our relationship is over and blames me for all his unhappiness.  I have begged him to see a doctor as he has been medicated before but he refuses.   I feel like I am stuck in this limbo of wanting to help him but being pushed away and treated like the enemy.  He believes that I've won because he's miserable. He can't see that there are no winners in this.

I wish you all the best and hope that it works out. I hope I am strong enough to persist and wise enough to know when to walk away.

[lovemybpman]

Sad_Panda said:

"I am being told a lot by friends (some who'e been in similar or abusive relationships) to just let him be and he will find his way but I just know in my heart that he still needs me and this isn't the end. I hope I am not harming him by offering this support. I do not want him to feel any more guilt or shame than he already does"

I HEAR YOU!!!

Same situation, right now. I just noticed that your first post was put up in Sept last year. Has anything happened?? Did he come back to you? I hope so! and I would love to know 🙂

[patienceisrunninglow]

Hi Mercury

 Sounds a lot like my relationship.  We only have one son together, he works fulltime, I work part time and doing part time uni.  My partner refuses to see he has a drinking problem, and sets goals: he is not going to drink next year, but then goes back on what he says, with everything.  

He was getting quite aggressive towards me and I was in tears at least twice to three times a week with him hammering me anyway he could if I said something to him about the situation.  The saddest part is our son watches this and I tried so hard to get him to understand that our son watches him and even to the point where our under 2 year old son started to pull away from him and would go and hit him and yell at him when he was doing it to me.  I feel exhausted and I now suffer with anxiety, to the point now where it affects my breathing, I have always been a bit of anxious person, but never to this extent.  I was up at the hospital Christmas Eve because I had no idea what was happening, I could not breath properly, I was running low on breath, and I was also told I might have a clot in my lung so had to get a chest x-ray and blood test.  The whole time my partner was just looking at me like I was an idiot.  If something is wrong with me I am just being a sook and i need to get over it.  He shows no empathy.   I seem to get in trouble all the time.  Every celebration day that I have he puts me down to the point of domestic violence.  

The initial Dr's the Dr said count to 10.  So he was happy with that and kept telling me I was wrong and there is nothing wrong with him. I am a pretty quiet person so not very good at speaking up.  Which is a worse situation for me to be in.  Two years or so after I went to the Dr and I told him and he told me he needs to see him asap.  He went in he was put on anti depressants right away.  He took them for a month and stopped before Christmas.  Now he thinks he is fine again, the arguments have started.    He says things to upset people.  He is very aggressive towards me in terms of constantly belittling me, trying to dictate to me what to do.  He lies.  I still can't get through to him? 

[Toya]

Hi me and my partner are going thru the exact some thing, being together for 5 years with 4 kids too are mine and his and he had a child of his own and so do I,  everything was going so good I felt like I had finally found my soul mate , untill recently his behaviour changed he started getting distant from me not really talking to me or even touching me it felt like it was hard for him to sit in the same room as me, and then he started leaving in the middle of the night saying he needed to go for a walk , it was out of character coz when he was ok he would never leave me and the kids at home by ourselfs, after the late night walks things started to get worse, He told me that he gets thoughts in his head that he wants to physically abuse me to the point where il end up in hospital. I then new something wasn't write but this went of for a good month , so I ended up seeking advice from friends and then one friend mentioned to me that he may have depression, so I looked it up and everything that he was doing to me was signs of depression, that same night I asked him to read the same site that I was reading that maybe it can help him realise what he was going thru, the next day he didint say much to me, but then I noticed all the small things he started doing like didn't care about me or the kids, I would ask him daily if he was ok or how was his day, and if he wanted to talk that I'm here for him if he needs anything , right down to the point wea il pick up all the chores around the house and let him just sit there, I feel so helpless, I love him so much but when I look at him he can't even stare at me for 2 sec before looking away, it's like his lost the love he had for me and it's sooo painfull, he still stays here but it's like we not even together I would walk In the room and he'l move soo far off the bed so he won't touch me or feel me near him 😞 every time I say something il look at him and he'l just sit there an roll his eyes, I'm lost to what to do now I feel like I'm making his depression worse by staying , I need to figure out what's best for myself and the kids coz I don't want the kids to see him treating me like rubbish but I don't wanna loose him, stuck and just don't no what to do!!! 

Hate depression!