Has he been to the doctor? Medication might help him. Therapy for you.

Yes he has, in between meds ATM. We both see a counsellor and a marriage counsellor - I see mine now every week....

Sorry you are going through this. You are incapable of making any other human being happy or sad, they make choices about how they feel, choices you cannot control. you can only control your own, your own reactions. Well, I say we can control it, yet I have depression, and I can guarantee I didn't choose it. but we do have some control if we choose to exercise it.

i noticed when I had a severe depression that the needs of the people I loved pulled me out, hunk by hunk, from the despair. That's because depression is intrinsically self-obsessed.

Depression created in me a kind of unawareness of what was going on around me in other people. I was suicidal and miserable and desperate and didn't notice what was going wrong for my children. Finding things going wrong for them made 2 things happen:

1. panic as it was another burden I was scared I couldn't carry;
2. a very real sense of putting my personal misery aside as being a 'nice to have' thing for rainy days. A discovery that I didn't have the free time for wallowing. I had to look after this child's needs and be there for her.

I had an undemanding daughter. She saw what I was going through and didn't want to increase the load. And I was too selfish to notice until she'd have a crisis and then I'd wake up. Wake up, and crawl out of the pit a bit towards her...

You're in the role of that daughter and I am profoundly sorry for it. I did not know what was happening around me, and my daughter protected me from knowing, and that wasn't okay. I did however drag myself out of my lair when things were made clear to me.

So I recommend you stop carrying him, and start making the reality of your situation clear to him. Very clear. It's amazing how fuzzy we are and how hard it is to get information in to us through the big wall of goo that surrounds us. But you have to. And you have to fire it hard, sometimes, with high calibre bullets, to get through that goo or fog some people call it. it's like being in a bubble of agar. Noise is muted. Vision is blurred. You barely know what's going on.

But when you find out what's going on, that's something that is down to you. Do you care, or do you not care? When the information has made it through which way do you jump?

Test this guy and find out. Otherwise you're just going to be a junkie on a hook for life.

Omg thank u so. Uch for both replying... I feel like I'm in danger a lot of the time from me... it's like I can't bare it anymore. That when it all feels too much I feel like I'm going to explode and go absolutely crazy... I may also have depression but most of it just feels like pure emotional and mental exhaustion. I can usually find some way of crawling out of a hole (if he is ok) on my own- with u guys on here, my therapist and even just thru my children. But when he is down and low it is impossible for me to not take the blame for it all. How can I not be enough to make him be even slightly happy about his life. I'm suppose to be his best friend, his wife, the mother of his kids and we are business partners- yet I'm failing at everything ???

Bridgie ur words have really sunk in and I am so grateful for that. It all makes sense and I know I am in some ways getting better and a little stronger but there's still those days where I am just so tired of what u described as carrying him... it's hard...