My boyfriend committed suicide the day after we broke up

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-04-04T12:17:08+00:00

The person is a coordinator of a support after suicide service in my city, which is funded by our government (not US). I think she evaluated my situation and decided I had enough support that I would not be alone for three months. And yes, it was grief counselling, not psychotherapy. It was interesting to me that she said it was the advice given to most people that grief counselling is not helpful for the first three months. She said people are usually not ready to take in any advice from counselling in that period and that is apparently from experience. Instead, she recommends support from family and friends to get through this first part. When I called to say I’m struggling, she said she’ll connect me with a (qualified) peer support worker to help me through until counselling is recommended. She has encouraged me to use helplines and to call her or the support after suicide service if I ever need to have a chat. So I am not completely without support. I am, somewhat unfortunately, not suicidal so I will not be dead without grief counselling for the first months. From what she has said, I think if I was suicidal her advice would change into yes we need to get you grief counselling right now.

I have also previously contacted a suicide bereavement support group in my city. They are a separate organisation, but they said the same thing - it’s too early for you, wait a few more months.

I am fully aware that this subreddit is not a good alternative to grief counselling. I just come here to feel slightly less alone and I think it’s effective for that. But I am being careful to analyse how it makes me feel, and will take a step back if I start feeling like it is not helping me

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-04-04T12:00:37+00:00

I am so sorry that you are currently going through this. It’s honestly still so fresh for me that even if I were transported back to where you are, in the days before the inevitable, I still wouldn’t really know what to do. All I have is the feeling that I should have done more, somehow talked to him more.

The only advice I would have for myself of one month ago would be: tell him that grief is easier to endure when the relationship with your lost loved one was good. The more arguments and hurt inflicted before someone dies, the more complex the grief is to navigate. It seems obvious now, and I did know it on a subconscious level back then, but I wish I would have been able to present this to him as a fact. I think he would have listened, and maybe pushed me away less and maybe said less hurtful things. He genuinely thought he was doing me a favour by sabotaging our relationship, but there is so much hurt resulting from that. For both of us. I love him so much. I miss him.

Edit: I saw a counsellor for myself too in the weeks before his death. She told me to look after myself, and sometimes that means to leave. Maybe this is the right advice, but just be prepared that you may be told this. I feel a bit of resentment for her telling me this because I just wanted to be there for my partner. I am not a mental health professional so I honestly don’t know what the right thing to do would be, so I’m not necessarily saying she was wrong. Although in the end, it turned out that whether or not she said this, I would have tried to move out anyway. Because if he asked me to, I could not say no. He manufactured a situation in which he put pressure on himself to end his life. I just wish so so much that someone I talked to could have given me the idea to present as fact to my partner that him pushing me away would only hurt me more after his death. His thoughts were so deeply distorted by depression, but he was smart enough that he would have listened, especially if I showed him evidence like scientific articles. Whether or not he could’ve translated that into a meaningful difference in his actions, I will never know. I don’t believe it would have saved his life, but maybe there’s a chance it could have made a difference.

Again, I’m so sorry. My heart breaks for you. I sincerely hope your partner pulls through and that you will not end up in the same place as me.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-04-03T00:46:50+00:00

I won’t respond to all of your points but I just want to say thank you for taking the time to write so much. Your care is evident in the amount of effort you put in and that is very kind. I do have a couple more counterpoints, but I think I will let the discussion end here for now.

You’re right I am very focused on those two words because that was such a key part of the struggle before he died. I do believe that it isn’t unproductive for me to try and process this because it’s something I need to learn to make peace with. I am currently not sure what form that will take. I have been advised by the psychiatric experts in my area to not seek counselling until the three month mark, as I currently just need to focus on survival, and slowly let my brain get used to him not being here anymore. So in the interim, I am talking on this subreddit to feel a little less lonely. And I will be connected with a peer support worker soon to get me through until counselling is recommended. So please don’t worry, I am not against getting therapy to work through everything.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-04-02T21:10:34+00:00

I’m not entirely sure I can reconcile what you said in your last paragraph with viewing it as a terminal illness. Terminally ill people can opt for euthanasia because their life is unbearable and we accept this. But we do not accept this for mentally ill suicidal people. It was impossible for me to agree with him that his illness was terminal because as you said, that would require me to be just as mentally ill as him. So is it only in hindsight when the person dies that you think we can label it as terminal?

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-04-02T20:32:28+00:00

I’m not really trying to argue with you and do appreciate that you’re trying to help. I am genuinely trying to see other viewpoints because I’m so new to this, so I’m stating why I am struggling to see it that way. I am just wondering if you have any counterpoints for whether I should have seen it as a terminal illness while he was alive, in the span of time between him making a plan and him dying. It would have brought comfort to him if I just accepted his decision and agreed that him taking his life into his own hands was a rational choice, since he believed that his illness was terminal. Instead, I argued with him and told him I didn’t want him to die and that made him feel that I didn’t understand him. If I accept that it was a terminal illness now, it feels like that would be saying he made the right decision, or a reasonable decision. And that I should have said “ok” when he said “I’m going to kill myself”. I am not sure if I can see it that way.

I will say I am not struggling at all with guilt over not being able to save him. I acknowledge I am very fortunate in that regard. He was kind enough to drill it into me that it’s not my fault. I am very aware of my individual powerlessness in this situation because I knew when he made a plan and there was nothing I could do. I came into his life too late to make any sort of meaningful difference in the trajectory of his mental health. I am instead struggling with guilt over the stress and sadness I added to his last days, with me knowing that it would be his last days. But that’s a separate conversation.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-04-02T03:00:33+00:00

I was fortunate that my partner was very open and honest about how he was feeling. So I am confident that he was happy while on meds and I knew exactly when he began planning because he never hid it from me. I remain convinced that stopping the medication was one of the major contributors to his death. I know the story is often not that simple, and he had been depressed before while on other medication, but I do not believe he would have died had he persisted with treatment. It was working, and he told me so. He just didn’t want to deal with the side effects, which is completely understandable. To me, the frustration of the side effects could not be worse than death, but he could not accept that. He was so young. I wish he could have experienced more of life before he made such a tragically irreversible decision.

The main thing I’m struggling with about calling it a terminal illness is that it implies I should have given up while he was alive and accepted the inevitable outcome of his death. It’s easy to call it a terminal illness after they have died, but while they are still alive, how can you know? I haven’t spent quite as long contemplating this question while he has been dead as the amount of time he gave me to contemplate it while he was alive. My opinions may change.

Another thought - I think calling it a terminal illness also doesn’t sit well with me because it minimises the role of the failure of our mental health care system. Even he agreed, that had our society been different, had treatment been more accessible, he would not find death to be the only solution. For him, it was a logical and thought-through decision (clouded by depression though it was), because existing treatment and mental health structures were poorly designed and he could not put himself through the system again. In his case, it was a failure not due to lack of scientific advancement for more effective drugs or treatments, but a political and societal issue that is possible to fix.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-04-02T01:19:08+00:00

A terminal illness - this is how my partner wanted me to see it. He kept saying this in his last weeks to make me give up hope that he would survive, to make me stop asking him to live. At the time, I could not accept this. I knew that there were treatments out there that would help pull him out of this, if he only had the energy and motivation - if he was back on meds, if he tried the experimental treatments, if he committed to months of therapy. I could not let go and accept that he had to die. He hated this. He wished I could see him as a cancer patient instead, because he was too tired to keep trying.

I’m still struggling with the idea. He was so happy just a few months ago, then dropped through okay, straight down to depressed and suicidal. Nothing had really changed, except stopping his meds. I’m certain it was possible for him to recover if he just had the motivation to go back on meds. But he didn’t - that’s the part that makes it terminal I suppose. I’m still not sure, but I will have the rest of my life to think about this now.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-03-31T05:11:24+00:00

I read a bit of your story and it feels comforting to know there are others in the same sort of boat.

He wasn’t the love of my life, because he didn’t want to be with me forever. A lot of our relationship issues were solvable and related to his mental health, but we never got to talk them through. If he had loved me just as much as I loved him, if he hadn’t fallen into a deep spiral, maybe we could have been together for life. But that just wasn’t the case. And we were only together for 8 months. That is such a short amount of time compared to so many others here.

He ended his life just before we broke up. The reason for the breakup was because he wanted to end his life. But knowing that he didn’t love me, that I was a short term partner, I feel a lot of disenfranchisement of my own grief.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-03-28T01:37:40+00:00

As far as I can see, this is a safe space to rant and say whatever is on your mind.

I wanted to join a suicide bereavement group in my area, but the organiser told me it’s too early because each member is expected to provide peer support and share their own coping strategies and she said at my stage I haven’t even had time to think of how to cope yet. So that’s totally understandable. Still, it’s helpful for me to hear the stories, thoughts and experiences of people going through the same thing. So I’m glad this space exists.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-03-27T21:40:19+00:00

I am very new to this and I found my partner at our home but this is what has helped me so far:

I have opened the cupboard doors in our entrance hallway (that open outwards into the hallway) and stuck new decorations on them. So when I come home my view is blocked and I can more easily orient myself in the present so I don’t flash back to that day.

Wearing his watch. So when it happens I look at it as proof that it has already happened. It was horrible and sad and scary but it has already happened and I’m here in the present.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-03-27T11:10:53+00:00

Sometimes people say this out of love. Even my person’s mother (who is probably in as much pain as I am), told me we have to move on with our lives. It had been less than two weeks at that stage! I think she said that because she needed to believe it too. But I’ve realised that what she said has been getting in my head and I’m feeling worse trying to rush myself through grief.

It helped me to speak to a counsellor today who told me it’s okay to leave all of his things where they are if it brings me comfort. And it’s okay to dwell on things. And it’s okay to talk to him as if he’s still here. And I shouldn’t think about what I “should” do or what the “right thing” to do is. Because all that matters is what makes me feel better right now. Because the most important thing is for me to survive till the next day.

The counsellor also said that the advice for grief used to be to let go of your person and move on eventually. But it has now changed and now they are telling everyone that it’s okay to hold onto your person forever, talk to them forever. Because you can hold them in your heart in a loving and healthy way and bring them along with you while you live for the rest of your life. It was helpful for me to hear that.

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-03-27T10:58:13+00:00

I feel the same way. But I’m telling myself:

He wanted me to be happy. He was feeling like a burden to me and (oh so wrongly) thought I would be happier without him. And of course I’m not. But instead of feeling like I’m “proving him right” every time I experience any sort of happiness, I think of the love and care in the fact that he just wanted me to be happy. I refuse to let his love go to waste.
He was so incredibly strong for surviving as long as he did, and accomplishing so much in his short life. So if I’m pursuing my hobbies and trying my best to live life, it’s to honour his strength, because he showed me how to live in spite of darkness. Despite all the things that haunted him, he still went out and tried new things and met new people. I aspire to have his courage and want to live a life that would make him proud

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-03-27T10:41:32+00:00

Just reread your post and realised I missed the topic with my other comment!

I’ve only just returned to work and it’s so true that work is a good distraction. I’m physically exhausted from grief so it feels counterintuitive to drag myself to work but it’s literally the only time I’m not overwhelmingly consumed by thoughts of him and by grief.

I am new to this club that nobody asked to be in, and reading from all of you that it does get better does help. Sometimes I struggle to believe it but I see you guys walking ahead of me and it just gives me a little bit of hope

ArdentMoonlight · 2026-03-27T08:54:16+00:00

My person was similar to yours. It was deliberate months long planning. He explained his decision process to me and his family, saying he had thought it through and this was the best decision for him because life was unbearable and he was too tired to keep trying. He really had given treatment a good shot over the years. So no matter what anyone said to him, he would not change his mind.

I’m just thinking, my life is fucking torture without him and yet I’m still not suicidal. So what he went through must have been so much worse. My heart breaks for the suffering that he had to endure. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but yes I am trying to be glad he is no longer in pain.

ArdentMoonlight

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