My fiance left me a week before our wedding. Then we both had mental breakdowns. This is my (long) story.

Hi all, thanks in advance for reading. I'm having a bit of a tough few days so I found 7 cups, signed up and here I am. My story is long and complicated (as with most relationships!), so I'll try to be brief but what I've been through has been the worst. I guess this is my way of coping today. Settle down with a cup of tea before reading!

I was in an amazing relationship with the girl of my dreams for 10 years. I met her at university way back in 2005 and we spent all of our 20's growing up together, living together, loving together. I never for one second thought that this person wasn't going to be the one I would spend the rest of my life with. So I asked her to marry me in Christmas 2013, she said yes, and we couldnt have been happier! We tentitively pencilled in the Spring of 2015 for the day.

Fast forward to Christmas 2014, where the stress of organising the wedding was starting to show. We were saving every penny we could, really neglecting spending time together as the wedding hung over us rather than became the exciting day we pictured when we first got engaged. She was starting to get distant, uninterested in organising anything. I assumed she was just suffering work stress so I ploughed on, organising pretty much everything.

It was then, around March 2015 she opened up to me about her depression, she had tried to hide that she was on anti depressants. I said it didn't matter, we could postpone the wedding if she wasn't right, she was my number 1 priority. She took some time out back at her parents while I did my best to keep it all together. Then I got the call. 'I can't go through with the wedding. I'm not coming back'.

The following months were the worst. I wouldn't wish what I had to deal with on my worst enemy. Racked with guilt she contacted me a month later, saying that she had made a mistake. I was so glad that we could work on another shot together, however something wasn't right.

She would stay awake all night, asking if I still loved her. She would start calling me every 5 minutes when I was away from her. Eventually she would be diagnosed with Agitated Depression, meaning that she couldn't sit still. She would pace around the house, constantly asking if I still loved her, not really listening to me. I was starting to lose my mind. She kept calling me at work and would want to just have me at the end of a phone. Whenever I tried to end the call she would get upset. I was spending hours trying to reassure her.

She was not well, I tried to seek help and her parents stepped in. They offered to take her home and try and get some help for her, I was eager for something to be done, I hadn't slept in days and I was so worried about her. So she went to live with her parents, and that's when her mental health really deteriated.

From that point on things got worse, the phone calls became a huge issue. I had to disconnect my phone, getting calls at 4am every day because she couldnt sleep and wanted to talk to me for hours at a time. It's probably the hardest feeling, to watch someone you love go through a mental breakdown. I tried to see her a few times over the coming months, but each time was a disaster. Everything was fine, up until I had to leave. Then she would physically stop me from going, screaming, shouting, trying anything to stop me from going back home.

They say it has to get worse before it can get better, and so we reached rock bottom one sunny morning in July 2015, when she rang me at 5am saying her parents had kicked her out. I knew she had nowhere to go, so I drove over to see her. She had packed her bags and was coming home. I went to collect her, and then her seperation anxiety kicked in and she decided she couldnt leave her parents. The crazy look in her eyes is something I'll never forget. It all escallated, an ambulance was called, who then got the police involved, who then sectioned her under the mental health act.

The next few months were rock bottom for us both. I decided that although I still loved this person with all my being and soul, I was an influence in her mental health getting worse. In her head it was either me or her parents, so I decided that she would never lose that tie with her mum and dad, so the only option was to cut that tie with me.

I cut off all contact, I couldn't be the one to break the silence, because I would never forgive myself if I contacted her and it triggered her depression / anxiety off again. This is when I had my own breakdown and a couple of suicide attempts. In all of this I had to move back into my mum's house. There was no way she could have coped with seperating our stuff, so I took it all back with me. Unfortunately this included her wedding dress, rings and every sentimental items we owned. I had to shoulder the burden because I knew she wouldn't cope.

Then the Paris attack happened late in 2015. It was something that affected me, I didn't want to live life without knowing what had happened to her. Life is too short. I sent her an email, and we reconnected. I found out that she was recovering well, and soon she had a new apartment, in a new town. She was going to get a tatoo of a pheonix, she was reborn anew. I was happy for her, but yet I struggled understanding how she could have recovered so well, and I was still so affected by it all.

We decided to meet up, and it semi rekindled our romance, however both of us knew it was tough seeing each other again, so it was very infrequent, maybe once a month we would spend the afternoon together in a town mid way between us.

However it wouldn't last. I finally managed to get the mental strength to seperate our belongings and she was finally well enough to get her stuff collected by a courier. I was still suffering and I had stupidly booked us in to see a band in the town she was living in very close to what would have been our anniversary date. I was emotionally charged and when the band played lots of heartbreak songs it got too much for me and I broke down in tears.

So it was at that point that she ended things with me for good in April 2016. Hearing her say 'we are living different paths now' will live with me forever.

I am now off my anti depressants, and some days I try to live life and be kind to myself. Its just the last few days all I can think of is how she used to smile and dance in the sun in her colourful dresses, and how I would twirl and dance with her and think to myself how I was the happiest man on the planet. So this is maybe a way for me to get her off my mind and remember that it wasn't all roses. I don't know, I just wanted to share my story.

Cookies for you if you managed to read all the way through!

Thanks