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There is so much about mental health we are still learning about. There is so much complexity to relationships that it's difficult to easily and definitively declare anything.

I don't know know these people and don't want to dig. But I know what I have been through, what I have seen in the lives of those I love. When challenges are long-standing, there is the possibility of both hating the challenge & hating the disease, and loving the person and loving the existence you have.

Again, my focus is not on these people specifically. I just hope that each of us can lighten the load of others when we have the capacity. And I hope that we have our own loads lightened when they become unbearable.

Take care of yourselves.

He was also not supposed to leave her alone... I don't blame him but he made a bad call so he may be feeling some guilt himself.

I am married and still not an expert, but I do know this guy needs professional help. Having your partner do some so unimaginably horrible creates a conflicting image of someone who you love dearly, and your brain can’t rationalize these two incomparable facts. He wants to forgive because he still sees her as who she was before this tragedy - probably the most important cornerstone of his life that he would do anything for. Reconciling how someone you know like that can do something so out of character is going to take lots of therapy to work through and unpack.

You said exactly what I was going to say.

If we're doing the five stages of grief, this guy is clearly still in denial. Inevitably anger's going to make an appearance sooner or later though. Just a matter of time. My heart breaks for the guy.

Everybody is different but definitely and emphatically no. Probably just trying desperately to hold on to a piece of the life that was ripped from him. In a sick kind of way I'd be interested in an update on their relationship in a couple years

Not to get all philosophical, but where does all the love go? I am also single, no kids, no psychology degree. But you love someone and you love these little people so much and suddenly it's all gone. Who do you love? I see it somewhat as shock and a coping mechanism. If this was an existing issue, ad it seems to have been, he must have been mourning the loss of his partner and the mother of his kids before this horrible thing happened. Perhaps the feelings will change with his grief, there will be anger, rage, maybe hate, but for now I think the only thing this man is holding onto right now is the love.

I am literally all those things and I have no idea how I personally would respond. I don't think most people know truly how they would respond either. Without knowing them and processing it with them, speculation is all we have available to us.

It could be a coping mechanism. To fully embrace the anger and frustration he's likely feeling right now might drive him mad. But I do think people should entertain forgiveness more often than they seem to in this world. I'm not saying this woman shouldn't be punished, but punishment never brings back the victims or heals the family of the victims. Holding onto anger and hate is self-destructive.

It’s about understanding mental health and how dramatically it can change a person’s behavior. When someone is depressed, you don’t turn your back on them and this is that to the millionth degree.