I am sorry you have been challenged with this so much. I think that it's important to keep in mind that this bf is psychologically challenged in some way and it would have come out eventually and nothing is due to any "lack in you". As far as him cheating? It doesn't sound like he was just being selfish, I think it has something to do with him being challenged early on with his relationship with his parents and getting kicked out. I think that he found "some" comfort in hooking up with older women but those were not really long term healthy relationships either.

In your other thread you thought about him more and you did come up with some red flags that you didn't notice before when you and your family were helping him so much. It is not unusual for people to view others with what they "know" about themselves and not really recognize cues where another person is struggling on a deeper level then you think. You knew you loved him and you were ready to have a family, well, that is something he really never felt a strong long term connection with, as each time he was in that kind of scenario, it didn't "last" for him. Just because he was in other relationships where women had children doesn't mean he really knows or feels that he has learned how to be a part of a family scenario where he is appreciated and connected and will not just eventually no longer be a part of that unit at some point. What it sounds like to me is that he became more and more uncomfortable, did not tell you, pretended to be "ok" and "I love you", but kept feeling a "deep grief" that he didn't understand.

What I have learned first hand is that sometimes we struggle with our emotions and even suddenly feeling depressed or uneasy without knowing why. It kept happening to me and I could not understand it until I dug deeper and finally got to the root of something that really hurt me more than I realized.

Can something debilitating come on so suddenly from Sunday to Monday? Yes it can, and it sounds like it had been building up in him too. What we do not realize about our brains is that as we go through life and have experiences with other people in different scenarios, we develop a deep "prediction process" that we don't really consciously know about. It is almost the same as when you tie your shoes, and you have gone through that motion so many times that you can do it and not even think about it, that is because it is deeply hardwired in you and you can just do it. Same thing with knitting, at first a person has to really pay attention, but after repeating and repeating, a person can actually knit and have a conversation or watch TV without really paying much attention to the knitting, we do know this now.

The same thing happens in other ways that we don't realize too. We have interactions we experience where we may get hurt and the answer was always "run" or to be "pushed away". And each time can also come pain, feeling lost and being depressed and sad and even feeling abandoned and "unworthy". If someone experiences that enough, they will create an emotional and interactional mental map that predicts "failure and hurt" that they are not really consciously totally "aware of" either.

Well, if someone hurt/damaged deeply is in a scenario where a commitment like you are having with him is taking place, and now it is "his child", the failure signals can become too great and lead a person to "want to avoid and distance" and not really understand "why".

Middie, you really did love him, you had no intention of hurting him and you were looking forward and you did know how to have a long term relationship and you do have good family connections too. Well, I wonder how many times he was told "I love you" and it ended up with him being left somehow? Think about it Middie, he has that "prediction" hardwired into him and there is just "too much hurt there too" and it comes forward to a point where as "now" he is battling depression and broke down.

Actually middie, a lot of "disorders" develop because of how someone is "hurt repetitively" to where that person "without really realizing it" develops deep fears and develops different ways to "self protect" when they face certain scenarios where they already "have been very hurt and have deep scars that they may not be consciously aware of". And "yes" someone can fall into a "deep depression" and "break down" as is being described to you that is happening to him, and the person struggling doesn't even know "how to explain it at all, but is just totally confused and broken".

It is not surprising to me that his parents don't know what to tell you or even what to think about it either. They never did know "where they went terribly wrong and caused a lot of confusing damage". Unfortunately, "this happens a lot" and we have named it "dysfunctional family". And out of this brings some seeds that grow in the minds of individuals where we have recognized a common "reaction within groups of people" enough to name disorders like BPD, NPD, Complex PTSD, GERD and Generalized Anxiety disorder just to name a few.

OE