r/depression_partners

My boyfriend (m23) and me (f18) have been dating for a year. And he’s the best thing to ever happen in my life. I’ve been through some dark shit . I raised myself. And I’ve never felt safe with anyone until I met him. He’s kind and funny . And always knows how to make me smile. But he has epilepsy. It’s not a problem for me . I’d gladly drop everything to make sure he’s safe . But he feels like he’s a burden to everyone around him . And I hate that he feels that way . I hate that I can’t make him feel better because I don’t know how . He’s been talking about ending it . Saying he doesn’t know how much longer he can make it . And I’m scared I want to help him I just don’t know how and I can’t lose him . So please if anyone has advice please let me know

Please be kind but tell it to me straight because I feel like I am losing my mind. My husband (29M) has diagnosed OCD, depression and anxiety. We have been together for five years. The past year and a half ish he’s really struggled with the depression which is entirely understandable as he experienced the loss of someone very close to him and has recently undergone the stress of a big career change. Through these times I’ve learned to just let him do and be as he needs to get by. This is usually just by him retreating, we don’t talk at all even though we share a house and I don’t ask to do anything out of the house of those days so he doesn’t feel pressure. I’ll cook a meal and leave it for him, get him coffee or his favourite snack and leave it so he knows I’m thinking of him but don’t want to pester. Basically, I worked hard in therapy to not feel rejection in his need to pull away, which regardless is very hard to experience from your partner, but I want him to feel loved when I know he’s going through something (I think at a minimum we just all deserve to be loved through our bad days). Where I start to slip and feel like I’m losing my mind is I genuinely make a conscious effort to meet his needs, but all I’ve gotten in return lately is anger and blame. It feels like I’m being set up to fail in certain situations just so that anger towards me is justified. For example, he briefly told me “next week we are getting lunch with my grandma” about a month ago, in the middle of a day when things were good and I said great let me know when and I’ll be there. He never told me what day it was, was in a depressive episode when it came up and he left the house to go meet her without saying anything to me even though I was home. I didn’t press him to tell me where he was going as I don’t (to let him do his own thing) and he then texts me 20 mins later saying “grandma was really disappointed you bailed on lunch with her.” Should I have asked? Am I in the wrong for feeling like I was set up to fail there? What am I supposed to do if I don’t know where you are going?

Some additional context: The depressive episodes will come on completely like a switch flip. We will be having fun together, laughing, enjoying ourselves, then the next minute he goes completely silent, avoids me and doesn’t talk to me. So naturally I start thinking about whether I did or said the wrong thing and ask if he’s okay and he always tells me he’s fine when he’s clearly not. Lately there’s been a lot of anger, he’ll slam doors, stomp around the house, today I came home to our coffee table in the backyard which he had clearly thrown and broke. I was not around when he did this otherwise I would have addressed it, but if I address things now when he’s already angry then we can’t have a productive conversation. I guess I just need to know, am I doing too much? Or not enough? We are best friends and don’t fight, but for some reason this just feels like a constant state of conflict. Please help.

TL;DR: My ex (44M) of two years broke up with me (35F) three weeks ago, citing depression and a need to "heal." We are currently on a pre-paid two-week holiday together. He has said he'd like us to maintain a friendship, but I’m struggling with the irony of his past jealousy vs. our current history, and the fact that I’m still attracted to him.

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I’m currently in a surreal situation. I’m on a two-week holiday with a man who ended our relationship 2 weeks before we left. We’ve been together for two years, met each other’s families, and been through a lot.

He initially said he needed to end things because he’s depressed, doesn't love himself, and needs to heal. A week later, he added more to this, saying we simply "aren't meant to be." I didn’t want the breakup btw. I’m the type of person who believes you work through differences. He, however, has a very "my way or the highway" approach to conflict. If I ask questions to understand his perspective, he feels attacked. If I say "sorry" for the impact of a fight, he gets angry because he expects "sorry" to mean absolute agreement with his point of view. IMO this has been the recurring issue in the relationship.

Now that we’ve broken up, he’s insisting he wants to stay friends and that there'll be a gap in his life without me in it. The irony is killing me. At the start of our relationship, we had a massive fight because I was still amicable with a coworker I had kissed a year prior we got together (we all work in the same company btw, and before you say anything, my ex is the only one I wanted to get together with properly. And only kissed one other guy in the company before him.) Even though there was no emotional or physical intimacy involved, my ex found it "disrespectful" and made me unfollow the guy I kissed twice on Instagram. Eventually I removed said co-worker, as I valued my relationship with my ex more.

Yet now, my ex wants me to pivot into a platonic friendship with him - someone I have a deep 2 years physical and emotional history with. For me, the baseline for male friendship is a total lack of physical intimacy. I’m still very attracted to him, so I don't see how this transition is supposed to happen overnight. He still argues that I was able to be friends with "that guy I kissed", which in itself tells me he still harbours feelings towards that.

A major source of tension was our different life stages. I would say, I'm fairly independent - I was single for 4 years before we got together, I rent my own place, have no dependents, and have a lot of freedom. My ex lives with his parents after his breakup (from a 12 year relationship) and has a daughter he still hasn't introduced to me after two years. He feels stuck, guilty, and pressured by his responsibilities. My therapist thinks he might feel "not enough" for me because I’m so carefree, and he’s projecting that as "we aren't meant to be." To add more context we started couples therapy at the start of the year to work through our issues. And we also do individual therapy with the same therapist.

Where I'm at at the moment is I'm realising we actually get along great when the "pressure" of a relationship is removed. This holiday so far has actually been "easy" in a sad way because the expectations are gone. But I’m angry. I’m angry he won't talk through things and angry that he’s asking for a friendship that he himself would have labeled "disrespectful" if the roles were reversed.

There's obviously a lot more to the dynamic that I've not mentioned, but I'm wondering if it's actually possible to transition a two year relationship into a friendship when one person is still attracted to the other? Or is he just trying to keep me around to ease his own guilt/depression while he "heals"?

Has anyone successfully navigated a "breakup holiday" or a friendship with an ex who has rigid communication blocks?

I'm not looking for success stories or hope that we'll get back together. Ultimately I do understand that we have a lot to work through even if we get back together tomorrow...and I'm not even sure that he wants to work through them. I guess I'm just processing this from my side and I don't want to take the depression away from him either as this is very real but need to allow the impact it has on me.