Q: How can I deal with a depressed boyfriend that doesn't seem to care one bit about me or my feelings?
Hi there
This is a tough question indeed. I think the first thing you have to do in this case is to set some boundaries for the relationship. What will you or won't you tolerate? You do have to look after your needs too...as much as you wish to help your boyfriend.
It is hard when you have depression...there can be a lot of anger there. I don't know how your boyfriend's depression manifests but there can be a pushing away. And that can be very hurtful to the person who is being pushed away.
Decide how you wish to be there for him but also look out for you too...you cannot help him if you are drained.
There are two really good articles I want you to read...one is written from a man's perspective of being depressed and how that affected his relationship with his wife and the other article was written by our Deborah Gray about how to handle when your partner is depressed.
Please hang in there...I know this journey is a hard one.
Very tough to say with so little information. But it takes two people to make the relationship work even if one suffers from depression they can still make an effort to stimulate the relationship.
You have feelings and the other person needs to be considerate of those feelings and attentive to them. If not then he is being very selfish and is allowing the depression to affect you.
Let me try to explain a complex issue in a simple way.
A person that experiences depression is self contained. What I mean is this is there feelings. No one can feel what they are feeling. No one can imagine what they are feeling. This is a self experienced emotion.
What does this mean to you?
A depressed person needs to take responsibility for getting help so that they can experience relationships the way that they are meant to be experienced.
Being depressed is no different than having an illness. It takes treatment to feel better and the person depressed needs to get that treatment.
A person such as yourself that is dealing with a depressed individual needs to decide what they expect from the affected person and go from there. Depression does not have to rule your life. Its truely up to you if it does or does not. Set expectations of behavior regardless of his depression and if those expectations are not met, then you can either move on or keep going thru this.
Pat
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Thank you both very much for your reply. I have read so much about depression but I never thought that it would be so difficult to deal with. I am at a point where I do not think I can deal with him any longer. My parents live far away and my father is coming to visit, I commented this to him and he didnt even care to ask when he was coming. I told him that I knew he felt bad but was it really too much to ask that he ask me how my day was, his reply was that some days it was. I left and had a long walk just to get away from him and not let his mood affect mine, I am usually a happy person and I find myself miserable when he is in these moods. It is so difficult to see this complete stranger in front of me. If he were always like this I wouldn't know any better but I see how great he is when he is fine, he is funny and charming and loving and attentive and now I have someone that won't even ask me how my day was. What a terrible terrible illness this is. Not only does it destroy the sufferer but also those around him or her.