My Ex Is Depressed. Do Depressed Partners Come Back?

If your ex is depressed and you’re hoping that depressed partners come back, rest assured that they do. Depressed exes often come back because they encounter emotional challenges and stressors bigger than their depression. When they encounter unpredictable difficulties, they quickly realize that the relationship they had with their ex was fulfilling and that they gave up on it not because their ex was wrong for them but because they weren’t emotionally strong enough to fight their inner demons.

If you’re a regular of this blog, you likely already know that exes come back when something goes awfully wrong. When something or someone makes them unhappy or depressed (or makes their depression worse). This is because negative events ruin their envisioned image of a perfect post-breakup life, hurt them, and force them to come back for love, shelter, and recognition.

Even though your ex is already hurt (depressed), you need to keep in mind that he can get even more hurt. If he doesn’t find a way to improve his emotional health, his established thinking patterns and perceptions can reappear and cause him to suffer another emotional setback.

That’s when he could hit the lowest point of his life and realize that you weren’t the main cause of his problems. You were merely someone he couldn’t keep up with because he had too many of his own issues to deal with.

So if your ex is depressed and you want to get back with your ex, don’t think that you need to help your ex deal with his or her depression. You may really love your ex, but that’s not what your ex wants. What your ex wants is to get some distance from you so your ex can deal with his internal issues peacefully at the speed at which he is most comfortable.

Your ex needs to work on himself without you because he subconsciously connected his unhappiness to you. He basically felt trapped in a relationship and as a result, pushed you away so he could tackle his problems on his own. If you try to butt in and interrupt his problem-solving, self-healing journey and show that you “care” about him, you won’t actually be showing him that you care. You won’t be doing your ex a favor.

All you’ll do is show him that you have certain expectations that he isn’t emotionally ready to fulfill and smother him some more. This will in turn make him feel even worse than he feels right now and possibly even increase his guilt and cause him to cry or react with extreme anger.

Since your ex broke up with you because of depression, the first thing you need is to understand is that your ex didn’t become dissatisfied solely with matters that are unrelated to the relationship. He became dissatisfied with most areas of his life, including you and the relationship.

Depression is a very serious matter and can easily be misunderstood sometimes. It can make dumpees think that they must protect their fragile ex by helping their ex overcome external issues. In reality, though, they must mind their own business and remember that their ex projected their problems (internal or external) onto them and transformed them into a problem as well.

This is how most breakups occur. Dumpers find something bad to focus on and grow their negative feelings to the point where they absentmindedly develop contempt, resentment, disgust, or intense dislike. As a result, they start to crave the breakup, become cold, and wait for one final argument or disagreement to push them to leave.

Today, we’ll talk about whether depressed partners come back. We’ve already mentioned that they come back when they feel worse than they felt at the end of the relationship. But sometimes, they also come back after they’ve healed and found their peace. This is because they’re able to let positive emotions enter their system and redevelop feelings for their ex.

Such dumpers are usually very mature. So much so that they disassociate negativity from their ex’s pre-breakup persona and come back because they want to work on the relationship.

My ex is depressed

Your ex may be depressed and out of luck, but you have to understand that as depressed as he is that he still associated a lot of negativity with you and pushed you away. He didn’t do this because you’re a bad person or to get back at you for something you did ages ago, but because he couldn’t fight his internal conflicts and give you what you wanted.

He felt that it was him versus his internal demons and that he needed to protect himself from things that were making him depressed.

What exactly did he need to protect himself from?

I don’t know your ex on a personal level, but I know that one of his biggest concerns was that you required a certain amount of attention and energy. You needed him to do certain things for you and invest in the relationship like he did before. But because he was depressed and had very little energy to spare on matters that didn’t help him feel better, he began to feel overwhelmed and chose to invest in himself instead.

He did this by shutting himself off from you (and possibly others). Most likely because he needed to prioritize his needs before he gave love, care, attention, and support to you. He was very tired and wished to heal from depression.

But if your ex felt so tired and vulnerable, then why didn’t he open up to you? Why just hold it inside day after day?

It’s because you were his significant other. And you being his SO (the person closest to him) automatically turned you into one of his stressors. One that he couldn’t or didn’t want to inform you about. If he did, it would likely cause an argument and make him feel even worse, so he just kept it to himself.

Your ex often felt that you wanted too much from him and that he couldn’t keep up with your relationship expectations. This is true even if your expectations weren’t that big because the problem wasn’t in the things you asked or demanded of your ex.

It was in your presence because your presence alone smothered him. It made your ex feel that he has to give as much as he receives when all he wanted to do was rest and focus on himself.

If your ex is a man, it’s possible that he was ashamed of telling you he was depressed. He probably thought it was a weakness and decided that he needed to take care of it by himself.

But if your ex is a woman, then she probably just felt that the relationship was weighing her down and that she needed to do what she could to improve her emotional state and find inner peace.

These are just gender generalizations of course. But the point I’m trying to make is that most depressed dumpers feel a strong desire to run away and start anew. They are tired of feeling lethargic, worthless, guilty, hopeless, anxious, easily irritated—and just want to separate themselves from those who need them.

By getting some space from them, they can focus completely on themselves and not have to worry about whether they’re doing enough for their partner.

With that said, here are 5 reasons why your depressed ex pushed you away.

My ex told me he’s depressed

It’s extremely important that you recognize the difference between situational (temporary) depression and persistent depressive disorder (depression that lasts longer than two years). Both types of depression can occur because of work, relationships, death of a loved one, etc, but the main difference is that one lasts a few weeks on average whereas the other is much more emotion-numbing and difficult to deal with.

I won’t go into detail about these types of depression, but what you need to know is that if your ex didn’t have depression prior to the breakup that his depression is likely temporary and heightened by his understanding of his behavior. This means that your ex probably feels awful for breaking your heart and that his depression won’t last very long.

When it ends, he will probably stop feeling guilty and start dating someone else.

I’m not sure why guys think it’s okay to use their temporary depression as an excuse for breaking up with their partner, but I think that most guys with depression genuinely feel bad for hurting their ex, They hate being the bad guy because they know that they’ll soon start dating someone new.

In the past few months ago, I worked with three different women who got broken up because of depression. Not because of their depression but because their ex felt depressed after losing a job/business. You would think that their depressed ex would stay single and work on depression, but for 2/3 of those women, that wasn’t the case.

Their ex actually stopped talking to them and started dating someone else.

And I can tell you that the guys didn’t look very depressed on social media. My clients said that they looked “in love” and relieved and that they felt like a fool for falling for the depression excuse and worrying about their ex’s health.

I’m not saying all dumpers celebrate their breakups and start dating someone new the first chance they get, but I know that those who use temporary depression as an excuse for breaking up often monkey-branch to someone else. This means one of two things. Those dumpers either associated a lot of unhappiness with their ex-partner or they just ignorantly moved on to someone else and hoped that the new person would heal them.

I don’t think anyone should underestimate depression and blame a person who has it. But I think that dumpers should stop using it as an excuse when they feel extremely guilty and intend to try their luck with someone new a day after the breakup.

Do depressed partners come back?

Depressed partners come back. But since there are more types of depression, we can’t pretend that all forms of depression are the same. Some are more severe and last longer than others.

As a general rule of thumb, unhappiness will always be the biggest incentive for reconciliation (even for depressed ex-partners). It’s what causes couples to break up and what causes them to get back together after a period of no contact. The only requirement for depressed exes who come back is that they let go of the negativity that they created during the relationship.

This is very important because exes must leave the past behind in order to focus on the present. If they can’t or don’t want to leave the past behind, they can’t successfully repair their relationship. Instead of fixing it, they feel victimized/resentful and break up again when the same issues recur.

So if your ex is depressed, make sure he gets enough space to work on his depression. Give your ex so much space that he’ll be able to process the negativity, grow respect for you, and fall back in love. I know that psychologists all over the world tell us not to ignore people with depression, but that’s not what you’re doing with your ex. You actually offered to help your ex simply by remaining loyal to him. It was your ex who declined your offer by breaking up with you.

Now you need to respect your ex’s decision and look after yourself. You probably have your own depression or anxiety to deal with.

As always, there’s no guarantee that your ex will fall back in love with you. But the chances of your ex coming back after getting hurt for the second time are much higher than if your ex were to reflect on the relationship for no apparent reason and realized he’d made an impulsive decision.

Only people who break up with their ex to exert power make impulsive decisions. Those who lose feelings have a real breakup and not a fakeup.

So if your ex is depressed and you’re still wondering if depressed partners come back after the breakup, the quick answer is yes. They come back. But before they come back, they need to go through the dumper breakup phases and hit another emotional roadblock.

When do depressed exes not come back?

Depressed dumpers are honestly not much different from normal dumpers. They’re people with emotions, thinking patterns, and perceptions, which is why they don’t come back if they lack the maturity to reflect and improve their views on the relationship.

Immature dumpers don’t come back often because they don’t value their ex-partner. They don’t see any romantic value in their ex, so they keep moving on, oftentimes jumping from one person to the next.

I’d like you to know that such dumpers are not ready for a serious relationship. Not only are they emotionally unprepared for a relationship, but they also lack the tools to grow on their own or with the person they’re with.

Depressed exes also seldom come back when they blame their ex for the way they feel. This is because they feel victimized and constantly use their negative thoughts and emotions to stop themselves from getting close to their ex. Instead of improving their perceptions of their ex, they make sure their perceptions stay the same because doing so empowers them and justifies their behavior.

The sad truth is that many dumpees reading this want their ex back even if their ex isn’t capable of growing with them. They feel so hurt that they forget all the red flags and laser focus on reconciliation. I forgot about my ex’s red flags too when I was going through my breakup. My ex-girlfriend wasn’t the ideal person for me, but because I was sad and lonely, I thought she was the one for me.

If this is how you feel, I encourage you to get some space from your ex even though you don’t want to. The truth is that your ex fell out of love with you and pushed you away. He decided to deal with whatever he’s dealing with on his own and began to chase after happiness on his own.

Just how your ex is trying hard to be happy, you need to do the same thing. There’s no need to feel bad about it. You have to look after your happiness and your ex after his.

So if your ex is depressed and you don’t know what to do to win him back, try to focus on getting over your ex a bit more. When you leave your ex alone, you’ll also give your ex what he’s asked for and make it easier for him to think fondly of you.

Do you want your depressed ex to come back? What did your ex do after he/she broke up with you? Post your comment below.

And also, if your case is more complicated and you’re looking for personalized 1-on-1 guidance, click here to see our coaching plans.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.