Starting dating my best friend but then his life completely fell apart

I (34F) recently started dating my guy best friend (30M) a few months ago. I’ve known him for about 3 and a half years and we’ve been best friends for the last 2 years. We met through my old roommate because she grew up in the same town as him and they went to high school together. I’ve had a secret crush on him for a long time and always had a gut feeling that he liked me back. He confessed he had feelings for me about 2 weeks before his birthday in April. Our personalities are very similar and we have a ton of things in common.

Soon after his birthday though, his life completely fell apart. He started freaking out over his job not paying him enough and feeling really bad for not being more successful yet at his age. He’s always been very hard-working and ambitious and he wants to be rich. Then he got evicted from his apartment because his brother who he lived with wasn’t paying rent and then the next day he got in a car accident and had to get a new car because his car got totaled, which cost him a lot of money. Then soon after the accident, he got sick and had to take a week off work to rest.

I drove him to work the day after his accident and then didn’t see him in person for a month after that. And it was a group hangout with my old roommate and other mutual friends for her birthday in June. But we still talked almost every day and he gave me frequent updates on his life. We’ve been trying to plan a date night for the last few weeks and it keeps getting rescheduled because of him needing to work more hours at his job or deal with issues with his brother, who he’s always had a complicated relationship with. They’re immigrants from another country (I’m a white American girl) and his brother is his only family member in America, so he tries very hard to have a good relationship with him even though his brother is a loser who treats him bad a lot.

All my female friends (except my old roommate because I’m not telling her anything to avoid drama) are telling me I should just cut him off because they think he lost interest or met another girl he likes better. But I truly believe that’s not the case. I think he’s going through a depressive episode because of everything that happened recently and he just needs time and space to get his life together. He told me he’s been isolating himself from all his friends to just focus on work and he’s been posting on Instagram way less lately, whereas he used to post on his story almost every day. I’ve tried explaining this to my friends and they don’t believe me and they think I’m just making excuses for him because I’m a very understanding and empathetic person with everyone and I got taken advantage of by my last ex because of that. So I know they mean well and are just looking out for me, but I think they’re being too overly harsh toward him. They’re convinced he lost interest or found another girl but we have zero evidence to prove he actually found someone else. I think they just find it hard to believe because he gets a lot of attention for being good-looking and foreign, but I’ve never seen him act on it and he’s never cheated on me or any of his exes.

Part of me wants to wait for him because he’s my best friend and I know him very well and really love him. If he were some guy I just met recently who I didn’t know very well, it would be different and I would definitely cut him off in that case.

And I know his situation is temporary and he’ll eventually bounce back. He’s very determined and hard-working, just in a tough spot right now. But part of me thinks maybe I should try meeting other guys who have more time and money to take me out on nice dates. Although I think a lot of it is because of what my friends are saying and not because of what my heart actually wants. Like my friends’ words are really getting into my head and making me doubt him. What do you guys think?

TL;DR: Recently starting dating my guy best friend who I’ve had a secret crush on for 2 years. He’s been dealing with multiple traumatic life events all at the same time and not prioritizing spending time with me. My friends think he lost interest or met someone else, but I think he just needs time and space to get his life together and I want to wait for him. But my friends are telling me I should cut him off and try to meet other guys.