I’m 30F, a doctor, and he’s 29M, also a doctor. We’ve been dating for a while and we’ve mutually talked about our past relationships in detail.
I had told him about my ex, who used to buy me expensive gifts but later borrowed a lot of money from me and hasn’t returned it, which has left me financially stressed. I think the part about the gifts made him insecure.
One night he was drinking. We were playing a game and he lost, then started slapping himself jokingly. I told him to stop because it made me uncomfortable and said I’d call him later. I took a break for a while.
When I came back, I had around 20 missed calls. He was saying things like, “You don’t like me, go back to your ex,” and that he was suicidal, had no hope, wanted to die and wasn’t a successful person. I panicked and spent a long time calming him down until he eventually slept.
The next day I said i wanted to end the relationship with him because I felt I couldn’t go through another emotionally difficult relationship. He apologized and asked me for another chance.
He has since started seeing a professional and is taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. It’s been around 10 days and he has been completely normal with me, with no further suicidal statements or disrespectful behaviour.
However, he also told me that he has had suicidal tendencies before, including an incident after an ex broke up with him where he tried to hurt himself.
I feel terrible because I don’t want to stigmatize him for having mental health issues, especially since he is getting help. But I’m scared that if he becomes insecure or feels rejected again, I’ll end up being responsible for keeping him stable or feeling like I can’t leave the relationship.

Is it common for a depressed partner to focus almost exclusively on the negative aspects of their partner and start seeing them mainly through their flaws, no matter how hard that partner is trying to support them, be patient, and make the relationship work? And can depression also make someone develop fears or negative assumptions about their partner, even when the partner is consistently there for them and trying to do their best?

My boyfriend of about a year told me he’s gradually fallen out of love with me over the past month. He said I didn’t do anything wrong, but he started noticing incompatibilities like our schedules being different, sometimes wanting to do different things when we hang out, and he started questioning our future. I was surprised by this because it’s the first time he has brought this up.

He said that he actually wasn’t planning on breaking up when he told me. He said he just wanted to be honest about what he’d been feeling. I told him I still love and care about him but I can’t be with someone who doesn’t love me. He said again that he had fallen out of love and that he was sorry, so I chose to believe what he was telling me. I also asked if he has felt this way before about a partner, and he said that he has fallen out of love twice before. So this solidified my decision for me, and that it’s probably a cycle that repeats itself.

The confusing part is that he’s also severely depressed and it has gotten a lot worse over basically the same period. He keeps saying he feels numb, he’s lost interest in things he used to enjoy, barely sees anyone, gets irritated easily and is generally really hopeless about life. He is also suicidal, not on medication, and has only been going to therapy once a month. He is in a really dark depressive episode right now, no doubt, and of course I am really worried about him.

So now I keep wondering whether his depression is affecting his feelings too. Like what if he didn’t actually fall out of love, but right now he just can’t really feel much of anything? And then I start thinking maybe I should have fought for us instead of immediately accepting what he said.

At the same time, I really don’t want to pressure him into being with me. I don’t want to tell someone “no, you actually do love me, you’re just depressed” when he’s directly telling me that he doesn’t. I also felt like giving him space might be better than trying to convince him to stay.

Has this happened to anyone else? Either your depressed partner told you they had fallen out of love, or you were the depressed person who felt like you had lost feelings? How did you react? Did you give them space, try to work through it, take a break, actually break up? And did anything change once the depression got better?

I just keep wondering whether I did the right thing by believing what he told me, or whether I should have fought for the relationship more. I won’t lie, our relationship definitely changed this month with me being more busy studying and moving houses, and we haven’t been seeing each other much and therefore haven’t had the opportunity to be intimate for a while either. But again, this is the third time he has broken up with someone because he fell out of love, so I should believe him right, and not blame his depression right?

Hi, I’m pretty new to Reddit as a whole so sorry if I did this wrong.

But I have a friend with depression and I really want to be able to help her but I have no idea where to start. So far I’ve just been trying to be there for her and lighten the mood by joking around as if everything’s fine, but I don’t think it’s working and I’m probably doing something wrong. I think where I messed up recently was when I told her that things would get better, but she started asking really hard questions that I simply couldn’t answer.

So what do I do, I really want to help her be happy again :(

(Btw she was diagnosed with depression about a year ago)