My boyfriend and I have been together for a total of about 2 years, and lived together for a while as well. He struggled with depression, and through not confronting it he let a lot of anxiety build up in between the bouts of depression. About a year in he tried to break up with me, as he thought he would be “nothing good to have in my life”. After taking space (couple days) and returning to have a conversation we both felt a break up was too much because we still were deeply in love and being in each others lives was too important to us.

Fast forward almost a year…he has a failing job and money issues now after a big move and some unfortunate situations (we both moved states, but decided to live separately as I had an opportunity to live really close to my work and he couldn’t). For about the last 6 months he started confronting his mental health, albeit very lightly and haphazardly, but as I have been working on my anxiety problems for 7 years I understood its an extremely difficult process, especially if you are so stand offish like he is to get treatment. Nonetheless, his mental state was getting worse and it started affecting us. He teeters with the idea of a doctor or therapist all the time but would never make the move or let me help him make the move, and tries meditation/yoga but can’t seem to stick to it.

Of course this lead to me starting to get frustrated, as he would mostly talk about how hard life was and how he felt he had nothing good going for him (aka hello, hi, me). He understood when I confronted him on these things and would apologize and reassure that he loves me, but this started to build up. And if I brought it up in a bigger way, he would cower and it would escalate to defensiveness and arguing.

He just went home to visit his parents, and it escalated again. This time, however, he was not nearly as responsive to me and really took advantage of being long distance. I let him be for a bit and finally got a phone call. You could tell immediately he had been crying for a while and was almost hyperventilating. I asked if he was alright and he rambled that he’s going crazy and can’t do this (work, life, etc) anymore and that he’s just a negative influence on me. ((HE IS NOT SUICIDAL- he is with his parents and I’ve talked with them))

It’s true- lately his negative tone’s and behaviors have had a negative influence on me and my own mental health. But I would never go as far to say that this has been the case for even 20% of the relationship. When we are BOTH feeling good, I don’t think I will ever connect with another person like him again. I feel so loved, comfortable, and happy being with him and he will still tell me that he is fully in love with me. We’ve discussed the future and have both oogled over an eventual daughter.

He did tell me that he is seeing a doctor tomorrow, his mother is making him. I told him that it’s a shame he didn’t listen to my advice of seeing one before it escalated to him pushing me away, to which he started sobbing, apologizing, and saying “I don’t know what to do”. I left it with telling him to concentrate on his mental state.

So what do I do now…back off and ‘wait’ (in the sense of re-shifting my focus off of the relationship for the time being), or let this be the end of things between us?

Our relationship runs so deep in both of us, I can’t fathom actually parting over this and not regretting it horribly at a later date.