Is this normal behaviour for someone with depression? Losing my sanity dealing with it.

[lwater19]

My partner and I have been together for 5 years now, and for the last year or so he’s been suffering from bad depression. He’s lost his job because of it, so now we’re dealing with financial stress as well. Lately he’s been really bad to me, and I feel as though I can’t do anything about it, because that would make his depression worse. I guess what I’m asking is if his behaviour is normal for someone with depression, if I should just deal with it so I don’t make things worse for him, or if how he’s acting isn’t normal.

He’s been having trouble sleeping lately. He hasn’t been sleeping at night, but then sleeps all day. Yesterday he was still asleep when I got home at 4pm. Then this morning he was yelling at me for keeping me up all night. He was so mad about it that I couldn’t even raise the point that the fact he didn’t get to sleep was probably cause he’d spent the previous day sleeping.  

He’s going to a councillor, which is great, but now he says that this councillor has told him that he shouldn’t have to worry about doing any house work, that I should do it all. I work a full time job, cook dinner every night, clean the house on the weekends, all while my partner stays home and does nothing. I know he’s depressed, and people with depression have a hard time doing anything, I get that, but then he goes off and tells me I’m lazy if I haven’t done the dishes one night. He tells me I don’t do anything, but I can’t bring up the fact that I work and pay the rent, cause then he thinks I’m throwing it in his face that he’s not working.  

He’s also told me that my feelings don’t matter because he’s the one with depression. I’ve come home stressed from work, or stressed about money, and he has no sympathy for me, and I just have to deal with it on my own. Not only do I have to deal with it on my own, I have to act like I’m happy and okay, otherwise he gets mad at me for being anything other than happy and tells me I’m being selfish.

I think what makes it the hardest is about 4 years ago I was suffering from depression and anxiety. I got anxious to the point of being physically ill and vomiting. And the only thing I got from him was to suck it up and stop looking so sad... and now here I am, putting everything I've got into supporting him.

I guess I’ll leave it there. Is this normal behaviour? I feel like I have to just deal with it all because I don’t want to make things worse for him, but I feel like I’m losing my sanity now.

[Pixie15]

Hi lwater19,

Welcome to the bb forums. I am not sure if there is a "normal" way for depressed people to act. However a lot of what you have written here would be reflected in the conversations on other threads in this forum. It might help you to have a look at some of those threads. There is also a lot of material available in the form of publications. You might find the one for carers particularly helpful.

It does sound a little unlikely to me that a counselor would tell your partner that you should do all the cleaning as well as going out to work. This sounds more like your partner's own ideas of male privilege. I would want to hear that directly from the counselor. Is it possible for you to arrange to go along to one of the counseling sessions. It would seem more likely to me that the counselor would be encouraging your partner to do all the practical things that he can on a daily basis.

From my experience accepting poor treatment out of concern for your partner's welfare is just not helpful for either of you and you could end up with you own mental health problems.

thanks,

Pixie.

[geoff]

dear Iwater, hi and good to have you post on the site.

I am in 2 minds about how he is treating you, and what I am going to say may or could happen, but I'm judging this on how I felt when I was depressed, but could certainly be different for other people who suffered from depression.

During the time that I was struggling there was NO way I would ever complain to my then wife about NOT doing any dishes, house cleaning or looking after the finances, because basically I couldn't have given a damn, simply because my mind wasn't even interested in any of that.

I'm not saying that he is isn't depressed, but I wonder why he even thought of yelling at you, let alone do the dishes, because already you are doing all the hard work and earning an income.

I simply can't understand why he would have the rationale of calling you lazy, because in depression why the hell would he even have worried about it.

It maybe different for other people and welcome their comments, but is the relationship fine apart from this. L Geoff. x