Is it really depression??

[Dollydrops]

I've read a lot that depression is common with BPD due to feeling empty and insecure.
My friend who I feel is devaluing me, and perhaps discarding me but won't come out and say it, has been depressed for over a year, with lots of reasons including everything in his life being bad except 'for me'. This has really hurt and confused me because I've been go to person throughout all of it but he began pulling away a few months ago when things seemed to be getting better for him. I admit I felt it coming ( its happened before) but this was sudden and when I pointed it out to him whilst assuring him I still loved him and still there. I felt I'd done wrong in voicing my concerns but couldn't not say it because of my confusion.
His response has been to go silent. He replies if I reach out but has now made it impossible for me to do so with a vague promise of getting in touch when he can. He says he's being blamed for everything going wrong and so his depression has worsened. All of his problems have been his own making except for one. I'm now in a position of being left waiting, feel like I've exacerbated his bad place, but most importantly lost someone I know has issues but love dearly.
Could I have been confusing his weird behaviour with what is depression or could the depression be deepened because he has BPD traits?

[GettingOOTF]

My ex was diagnosed with BPD and depression. He used both of them as an excuse for his poor behavior. Some of his behavior was intentional and some of it wasn't.

At the end of the day I came to see that the why really didn't matter. What mattered was his behavior towards me.

PDs are very complex. They are often an umbrella term for a host of behaviors. It's impossible to say why someone does what they do with any certainly under the best of situations.

It's important to understand that you haven't exacerbated his situation. We are completely in control of our own feelings and actions. A common behavior with PDs and with abusers is that they blame others for how they feel. No one can make us feel anything. We are in control of our feelings. Our reactions to other's behaviors are the result of our own history, upbringing, environment, conditioning and frequently, our own trauma.

[Hazy111]

 GettingOOTF is correct, you are not responsible for their depression.

There are two reactions to depression. Those who "act in" are those who become quiet and withdrawn and are filled with self hatred etc.

Then there are those that "act out" who project their depression onto others with rage criticism even violence etc and blame others around them for how they feel. 

PDs are very prone to depression as they have a very unstable " false self " and use primitive defenses to maintain a sense of equilibrium. They have "arrested development " and have never  achieved  stable "object relations" with other people. This all starts in very early childhood.

Their moods and opinions of others can shift and change on a whim.

[Dollydrops]

I've known from first meeting him that he can throw a 'hissy fit,' if he feels ignored, put down or slighted in any way, but never with me personally.
Our recent convo after I told him i have a family problem:
Him: I've been thinking about you all the time...but.
Me: but?
Him. I haven't contacted you much have I
Me: its okay if you have other things to deal with.
Him:  no its okay NOT okay though is it
Me: I don't know what to say, you will if you want to
Him:  I'm always here for you
Me:  no at the moment you're somewhere else
Him : i will text you when I can, I can't concentrate on things at the moment
Me: okay then speak soon
Two weeks ago and and  difficult for me as I usually have said no you haven't why not? , how do I make sense of that,

[Boat Babe]

You can't make sense of that DD. He has got you dangling and waiting for crumbs of attention.  Your attention is all on him; what is he doing? What is he thinking? Why is he doing this? Is it BPD? Is it depression? Why isn't he being straight with me? Why isn't he being kind to me? Why, Why, Why?

Is any of this helping you DD?

[1footouttadefog]

I had a friend from teens until he passed in his mid 50's.

At some point the relationship became when he wanted to deal with or discuss something that was going on. He had mental ill ess, great amoumts trauma, and death with both clinical and bipolar depressions. He still had many great attributes and had integrity so I never cut off the relationship. I let him set the pace and learned to no expect or give more than what was healthy for both of us.

This meant distancing myself from a level of emotional support we had shared at one time when we were younger and until our thirties.

Had I not changed my expectations of the friendship it would have hurt to be dropped for long periods of time.

I thi k it's important to re-evaluate relationships from time to time and adjust boundaries, and readjust them to a place / levels that is are healthy.

Sometimes this means discontinueing them.

[Dollydrops]

I get the pacing the relationship.
I've known he had depression for a while and it heightened after a parental loss which I felt very deeply with him and was there for him with support. It was very intense as he's always been with me. I though have always had this dread that he would drop me in between the intense bouts  which happened approaching the Christmas holidays, a very emotional and triggering time for me. He took umbridge with me when I said I was upset and concerned. Amongst my own sadness I spent the whole time upset that he shut me out, especially as I knew it would be sad for him too.  I had to reach out to him in the new year. He said sorry but didn't explain why. It was like he'd planned to cut me off for the holidays but couldn't give me an explanation which really hurt.
Since then he's told me I'm the only person he loves but stopped initiating anything yet says he doesn't want to lose me. I'm trying to detach emotionally but I swing from being sensible to ruminating on it and find im hanging on to his words rather than his actions because all psychologists say to give someone with depression the time they need.


I'm trying my hardest to re evaluate it, have no way of asking to discuss it and youre right, the being dropped from a deeply emotional relationship is painful but you can't just stop loving someone.

[1footouttadefog]

It seems like he is demonstrating that he will not be available in the same ways as before.

Accept that and find others to replace those needs in your life.

There are different types of friends.  Some we can care about and touch bases with periodically but we do not rely on them for comfort or emotional support on a regular basis.

Perhaps he has found new ways to self sooth or has a broadened network to lean on in times of need.  People change.

[BeautifulCrazy]

As difficult as it may be, perhaps "Just Stop Loving Someone" would be the best next step for you. 
The fact that someone is married, to somebody else, is usually an indicator of their level of availability.
Dear, lovely, Dolly!! You are a beautiful, deeply caring, articulate and witty woman. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of attention. You are worthy of these things all of the time, consistently, from someone who loves you and only you. 
Reading your posts the past few months, it looks like, at best, you have only ever been one option (or source of supply) among several for this man.
You deserve so SO much more than this!!
All your loyalty, energy, intensity, attention, analysis, love.... would be better spent on someone worthy and deserving of it. That's you!!
The world is full of better things! A wonderful person like you should not be wasting their precious life begging for leftover scraps of someone else's.

[Boat Babe]

 

And I know that it hurts too. ❤️

[GettingOOTF]

Unavailable men used to be my specialty so I totally get where you are and know how painful it can be.

This website is very helpful in explaining the dynamics when one of the parties is married. She refers to it as “cake”. The man (it’s usually men though very occasionally a man will write about is wife) has no reason to leave the wife and no reason to dump the other woman. He wants his to have and eat his cake https://www.chumplady.com/

This man is not there for you and it’s likely that he never will be. I spent my first four decades in relationships like this. I spent years of my life pining for men like this. They never chose me. Ever. No matter how small and available I made myself. One thing I noticed that frustrated me is that they always picked women who weren’t as nice, caring and available to them as I was. I could never understand why. Working on my codependency and self worth really helped me to understand and to break this painful pattern. I see now that these behaviors came from my upbringing. My parents were not available emotionally to me so this is the dynamic that feels the most familiar to me.

I highly recommend Do The Work by Dr Nicole LePera. She really breaks this down and her writing is conversational and easy to understand. It’s a great primer on understanding our attachment styles.

[Dollydrops]

I know all of your answers are correct. I'll look at the links given too.
Yes I think he's trying to tell me he won't be there in the same way. I think the desperately unhappy marriage thing improved. I said I would understand and step away if it has, he's asking me not to.
I've been given the impression that separation was inevitable but its time for me to let it be and get a mindset that he's going to someone else for support. Probably his spouse.
I'm just having a hard time with him not being able to tell me.

[GettingOOTF]

When ever I hear a man telling another woman that he’s in an unhappy marriage I wonder “does his wife know?”  The whole “I’m stuck in an unhappy marriage” is a desperate cliche. Look he very may well be stuck in an unhappy marriage, but in general people who are genuinely unhappy in their marriage don’t go looking for comfort in the arms of other women while remaining with their wife.

I’d tread carefully here. Of course it’s impossible to tell as I don’t know you or him but if you were my friend I’d tell you that he was stringing you along. And it’s highly likely he’s doing the same to his poor wife.

It says a lot about his character that he is behaving the way he is. I really encourage you to spend some time on the Chumplady site reading the comments. There are so many women there who have been with men like this and their stories are truly heartbreaking.

[Dollydrops]

Thank you for the replies and advice.

I am aware that married men , and women, Quite often do fall into the arms of someone else if they feel they are unhappily married, and  there are also married men who are serial cheaters, and also those who stay in unhappy marriages due to many reasons for which they don't feel able to leave. This is not a physical relationship I have with this person. That happened long ago, was aired with all the heartbreak and confusion and ended without proper closure or answers, it didn't ( as they say on all relevant sites for that topic) fade out on its own, it left me with trauma bonds which doesn't generally happen if you was ' just scratching an itch" and both people had normal healthy personalities,
confirmed by my therapist. I've done all the tests for attachment styles, my childhood was a good one and my therapist informed me there was nothing abnormal about my attachment to him apart from having been deeply enmeshed with someone who had ' moulded himself into me' and appeared to be using intermittent reinforcement, gaslighting etc. throughout a very vulnerable time in my life, he made himself my saviour. He was good at it and knew how to push my buttons, but of course for me, not knowing what a disordered person looked like couldn't get my head around it all. I clearly wasn't fully healed from it when he re appeared.

Re: Chumplady
I've read lots of sites on that topic trying to tell myself how she feels, feeling guilt, sorrow , been confused, listened to stories about his poor wife ( and heard conversations between them confirming it wasn't happy) and often wondered if she had the same behaviour from him. I took on a lot of her pain and felt so sad for my part in hurting her, but I eventually had to stop that to concentrate on my own wellbeing, however, I do understand why a cartoonist might liken it all to 'cake'.  It takes away the fact that the third party involved in these dynamics are real humans also being hurt.
I know I have to put this where it belongs, to see clearly what it has come to. I know I have to move on from it, but its not something you can switch off overnight and reading on here and gaining knowledge is helping me to sort out my own rational thoughts from the irrational ones whilst I move someone I love to a place which is better for me to come to terms with.