looking for support

Greetings.....
I'm the partner who does not suffer depression in our relationship. For the most part, I can deal with it. I'm trained in reiki, life coaching, and i have my own personal stuff together enough that i can handle things when he's not coping.

My own personal problem is that when something flares up for me, I suddenly become the person that he can't rely on any more and it rocks his world as much as it rocks mine.
I get overwhelmed with my own emotional stuff, and have added pressure to deal with it so I can hurry up and be back there supporting him. This is what is going on for us at the moment, and what drew me to here. I know it's important for me to have my own support network too, and i do (soooo grateful to them).

I hit the wall about a month ago, and let him know very clearly that i cannot possibly be his 'everything'. I let him know that it was absolutely his choice to find help, but that if he didnt, we would eventually come to the end of our relationship. since then, he's taking some pro-active steps to relieve the pressure for me, and i'm so grateful that he is. i know it's not a quick and easy st to go down, but it's a great place to start, and gives me hope for the future.

Anyway, I'd quite like to hear more about how things are for other people in similar situations... to break down the 'omg, i'm so alone in this right now' feeling

Hi Fluffy_Ducks,

Sounds like you and your partner are going through what my wife and I went through a couple of years ago.

Slightly different in that my wife did not want me to go on any medication. She thought the CBT was a waste of time too. I agree with her on the CBT and stopped it after five sessions or so.

I needed to get some rest in order to think clearly at work. My doctor diagnosed OCD, stress, insomnia and depression. He said I should talk to my wife about the side-effects. We talked, I took the doctor’s advice, went against my wife’s advice and started to drift.

Actually my doctor was going through a tough time personally too. I used to have to hear him talk about all his personal problems.

Anyhow, I was having huge family problems with my mother dying. My brother and sisters had to get together. We don’t really like each other at all. I’m the white sheep in the family.

The family problem has passed. We are no longer talking to each other. In 2008 I was laid off and the blame was put on the global financial crisis. I can go into more details if you like. I couldn't get a job. My wife said that she is not going to work to maintain the mortgage. She wanted to get on with her personal projects. Fair enough. Ironically I wanted to work and couldn’t and she didn’t want to work but had to.

My wife gave me until the end of 2009 to find a job otherwise the house would go on the market and we will go our separate ways. That's what happened. Still friends though. She's a lot better off without me. She’s too nice a person to have an anti-social person like me around. People like me have a lot of well-deserved self-pity. It's noble to look after someone but if people can see the writing on the wall then it's perfectly understandable to shrug and move on. Sometimes people like myself are a lot better off on their own.

It’s not a perfect world. Usually there are a lot of things to take into account. Compromises always have to be made in making complex decisions. Be realistic.