This is a little longer than I expected so thanks if you read it all.
I’m 21F and my boyfriend (we’ll call him Alex) is 22M and we’ve been together for 1.5 years. We are each other’s first loves and first serious relationship and we really do have a special, once in a lifetime connection. He is one of the best people I know and is my favorite person. He is a good listener, great at de-escalating conflicts, and very logical and emotionally intelligent.
A few months ago, my best friend passed away. It was sudden and very devastating for me (my boyfriend was a rock) and during my grieving period shortly after, I definitely did get drunk and pick fights with him. We had never fought in over our year of dating before this but I was argumentative when really drunk as a coping mechanism. After a huge fight one night, I decided to go to therapy and channeled my grief in more productive outlets. I’m obviously still grieving over my dead best friend but I have managed to get back to a semblance of emotional normalcy and have began to enjoy life again. I know I was very depressed for several weeks and likely an emotional burden which is why I feel guilty about my thoughts now.
Alex is graduating college soon and he has no idea what he wants to do with his career. He is also stressed about financial situations and existential anxiety about the environmental crisis and how living conditions continue to get worse. For two months I’ve noticed he’s been off. Not very present when we see each other, not really making an effort in terms of my interests, less and less quality time. He also began to be more and more unavailable emotionally regarding comments or conversations around my dead best friend. I’m a very devoted girlfriend and really put my everything into making sure he is comfortable. My parents support me financially through school so I’ll cook us meals and do our groceries, buy us food with my allowance, and always invest myself into his hobbies so that we can talk about them. I know I’m not perfect but I’m very loyal to him and I felt that he didn’t understand the extents I stretch myself out for him. I know he doesn’t mean to disregard me but it is also not my style to list out everything I do (ironic) because I am glad to provide for him and don’t need a thank you letter, just reciprocal effort.
I figured our relationship is different because we are out of the honeymoon phase and because he is stressed. I just bit my tongue and kept trying because I figured we were both in a rut.
We got into a spat over something stupid a week ago and I expressed to him that he was not treating me with the respect I deserve and that he was treating me like someone convenient rather than his partner. In that conversation, he admitted to me that he has chronic depression. A lot of the day, he lays in bed because he doesn’t have the will to move and just thinks about dying all the time. He doesn’t enjoy his friend’s company anymore, nothing really excites him, and he basically is living because he doesn’t want to kill himself. He did say he would kill himself in 5 years if the depression persisted.
I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know he had this intense of depression. He didn’t want to tell me because he knows I’ll worry about him and now that I know, I definitely am worried for many reasons.
Quite honestly, I don’t know what to do. I am in love with him and want to see him prosper. But he is not very emotionally open (no, we will not have heart to hearts every night if that is your advice) and I really feel like I can’t help him with his depression besides staying with him and trying to make his life as comfortable as possible. He can’t afford therapy so that’s out of the question. He did place some agreements such as he would spend some nights alone when he didn’t have energy to talk to me and that he could not be very sexually active for the foreseeable future. I love sex but am understanding on why our sex life has significantly slowed down and have 2 vibrators so I think I’ll manage. I just asked for more effort when he could. I really wish I could do something to help his mental health and have been researching tactics like giving your partner massages/back scratches, taking them on dates, and forcing them out of the house even if they don’t want to but I know that’s a bandaid on the surface.
Selfishly, I am also wondering if I should leave and break things off before I get hurt more. Honestly, I don’t believe I am going to see a lot of change in the amount of effort and we both know it’s not fair to me. I am also worried about how depression can transform the love of my life into someone not recognizable and I’ll be stuck in a relationship out of obligation instead of choice. I don’t want to be 5 or 10 years down the line regretting not jumping ship at age 21.
But I am also worried that breaking up with him would exacerbate his depression and make him even sadder but that’s a red flag that I’m feeling bound to this relationship in the first place. He was there for me for a low point and I don’t want to be the person that gives up. I also don’t want to give up what we have. I see us spending our whole lives together, I just want him while also preserving my peace . I think I am still overall happier he is in my life than not and as long as that remains, I will stay with him.
I have read other reddit posts about people with depressed SOs and everyone says that your depressed SO knows that you’re there for them, they just don’t have the energy to express it. How do you as the partner of the depressed SO cope with the emotional neglect? What can you actually do for your partner? Have you stuck through their depression and your relationship came out stronger?
​
​
TL;DR!
My boyfriend was there for me when my best friend died. Our relationship has gone south since then and he admitted to me he has chronic depression. I don’t know whether to keep trying or to leave. If you have had a depressed partner, how have you two been able to sustain and strengthen your relationship?