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Relationship with Depression

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  • #106661
    ameliau
    Participant

    Hi everyone,

    I posted like half a year ago about my relationship. In short, we had a very rough time with him hitting on me and me cheating on him later. Thanks for all your previous advice so that we are still managed to stay together and trying to fix the problems.

    But building trust again is not easy, especially my boyfriend suffers from depression now after all the dramas that we had. I feel guilty, angry and hopeless at the same time because I need to fix our relationship while taking care of his illness. I have a lot of pressure as I know in many occasions I am not doing so great. Although I’ve tried to improve myself, I am still not so patience and caring to him. When he gets so depressed that he starts to bring up the past cheating, I feel so hurt that he keeps refreshing the past, which I promised myself it’s a mistake that I’ll never make again. In fact, I never lied to him anymore after the cheating. So whenever he bring the cheating up again, I am so sad and angry and I would say something like “You hurt me as well in the past by hitting me. Why can’t you let go?” We are simply pointing fingers to each other and he would get more upset as he saw it like a blaming.

    Last week he broke up with me during an argument. He said I was selfish and didn’t care about him. He asked me to go reflect myself for all the wrong things that I’ve done to him that lead him to depression. I feel so sad and sorry for his suffer and I do my best to give him my love and care. But it’s never enough. I know my cheating is fully my responsibility and I really didn’t mean to blame him. But sometimes I cannot control my emotion too when some bad memories come so I said things that might hurt him. I have to deal with my own emotion problem as well as his depression at the same time and I already feel so tired and stressed.

    I know maybe it’s better for us to calm down and heal ourselves first. But I still love him and I really care about him a lot. So it makes me so confused if I should leave him alone or keep contacting him. I am afraid that he would feel lonely and sad if no one talks to him. I did reach out for him but he never answered the calls or text. That’s why I think I should step back but I am afraid that he would think that I just wanna get out of this relationship and not caring about him.

    Sorry for my bad English and chaotic mind. I am really frustrated now…

    Appreciate for reading this long passage

    #106682
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear ameliau:

    feels to me that you are very attached to him and that it is better for you to stay broken up with him. He displayed violent behavior before and is blaming you for his depression. He has been causing you distress for a long time.

    No matter how strongly attached you feel toward him, I hope you can endure that emotion and stay away from him. Let him move on, and do your own moving on.

    Please post again

    anita

    #107483
    ameliau
    Participant

    Dear Anita:

    We agree to separate but I feel so guilty and bad about myself for what I did. He keeps telling me that all the bad bahavior that he did or his depression is due to what I did. He said I’m not the kind of person that one can get married with because I’m unable to be satisfied and I’m not loyal. I’m a serial cheater.

    I become so attached to what he said and let it defines me. I always try reflections and I always wanna improve myself. But many people suggest that these kinds of personality traits are developed and unable to change. I feel weak and no confidence in myself that even my future relationships will be failures. I’m afraid my flaws cannot be changed.

    I think I better stay single until I become a better version of myself. Please give me advice on how to do it.

    Thanks
    Ameliau

    #107515
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear ameliau:

    When I wrote to you my first post on this thread, that was before I re-read your December 2015 thread. This morning, I slowly re-read all your posts on that thread as well as your two posts on this thread and I now have a clearer vision about what is happening.

    You wrote that you love him. I hope you do, that is, that you are FOR him and not AGAINST him. If you are for him, leave him alone. Keep this relationship in the past. Let him go so that he will have the opportunity to heal. He can’t heal from his depression for as long as he is in a relationship with you. Every time you reach out to him because you want to prevent him from hurting (” I am afraid that he would think that I just wanna get out of this relationship and not caring about him.”)- you are accomplishing the exact opposite: you are hurting him.

    He doesn’t trust you for not cheating on him in the future and if I was him, I wouldn’t trust you either. You keep bringing up the point that he hit you first as an excuse for cheating on him. And although him hitting you that one time is unacceptable, it is also not the reason why you cheated him. And so I agree with you, that you should be single and heal, heal from the reasons why it has been your pattern, your tendency in the relationship with him and with men before him, to look for comfort in the arms of men outside your relationships.

    I strongly believe it will take way too much work for the two of you to heal while in a relationship with each other (in therapy for you and him, individually and as a couple). It will be way more doable for the two of you to heal individually outside this relationship, after it is ended for good, and having no plans to re-unite. Let it die.

    anita

    #107545
    Maria_L
    Participant

    Hello,

    It seems to me that you are both stuck in an awful vortex and replay the same patterns over and over again, and keep hurting each other. It’s easy to get stuck in one when you are in love, and everyone else sees it but you.

    When I was in this kind of relationship years ago, and I tried every possible approach, and just couldn’t find a solution… The best words that reached out to me were something my philosophy professor said during a class ‘Sometimes when situation is tangled and things get too complicated, maybe the best thing to do is to let it go… In time it might ‘untangle’… And it was exactly what happened.

    You are both probably emotionally exhausted, distrustful toward each other, and loving each other (as i have witnessed) is not enough. Do not get preoccupied with ‘forever’, concentrate on ‘now’. Now you both need to get better as individuals, because if you don’t, you definitely won’t be good for each other. Nothing is written in stone, so taking a bit distance in order to breathe might be beneficial.

    He needs to find help for his depression, therapy and most of all, to do his own attempts and researches how to get out of it. As much as you like to help, trust me it’s not up to you. You are not trained to help him. Some people are more sensitive and more prone to it, outside factors definitely can be trigerrs, but we can’t change the world around us in order to get better. We should change the way we deal with the world. It is a process that needs accepting the situation without fearing it, soul searching, figuring out the core of the problem, changing the chemistry in the body and brain by nutrition and exercise, spending more time in nature, cutting toxic people… etc. Constantly blaming the girlfriend is not in any ‘manual’ out there.

    I hope you’ll break free from this vortex, calm down, get some perspective, before you move forward, whatever that means…Don’t forget, in order to get different results than before, you need to apply different actions than before…

    #107588
    ameliau
    Participant

    Dear anita,
    Thanks for your true words. I still hope that I can have a healthy relationship one day so I will work hard on myself.

    Dear Maria,
    It is indeed a vortex and we both blame each other all the time. I also hope that I will be able to get out for this and move on. Thanks for sharing your opinion.

    #107590
    Anonymous
    Guest

    You are welcome, ameliau, and please post again anytime.
    anita

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