Hi Fullcircle,

I don't think we can lump depressed behaviour into the same category that we lump other socially unacceptable behaviour. Well at least I think we can't. I believe the difference comes down to intent. Someone intentially doing something to hurt another person vs. someone unintentially doing something to hurt another person. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure your DSO did not cancel the wedding in order to hurt you. In fact your feelings probably do not even register on his radar ... as horrible as that sounds. But of course that doesn't really answer your question. In fact I've read nothing so far that has answered the most basic question, which is why is it that the depressed push away the very people who love them the most. It seems opposite to what should happen. We should be the ones they come to for support when they are hurting. Instead they turn and hurt us. It really makes no sense ... no sense that we can logically feel and understand.

I too am struggling so much with this and it makes me question everything I do and say. Right now I am struggling with letting go and moving on. Do I take control and start doing the very things that DH says he wants? Or do I wait for him to do them? If I go ahead and take control then I feel like he manipulated me into ending things before I am ready. If I wait then I feel like I'm a puppet on a string dancing along to his whims. It's a no win situation. I'm pulled in two different ways and I really do not know what to do. If my DH was not suffering from depression and was acting this way towards me and hurting me intentially I would take control and do what needs to be done. But in my heart of hearts I know that he is still hurting and struggling and trying to do things that he thinks will make him feel happy again. He's not doing this to hurt me, it's to help the hurt inside him. Which makes it so much harder to let go and move on. Am I making sense?

So I don't believe that we are rewarding anit-social behaviour because I don't believe that depressed people fall into that category. I hope I've helped you some ... more likely I just confused the issue even more ...