My partner and I have been together for 10 years and the past few years have been brutal. My brother died after suffering through lung cancer and brain cancer, his mom died after a prolonged hospitalization as the result of her heart transplant years earlier, my dad died and suffered from dementia and my mom died, leukemia, COPD... I am sure there are more illnesses, including organs being removed, replaced or just amputated.

Needless to say, we have had a very difficult several years but some how we made it through together.

My mom died most recently in September of 2009 and after that my partner fell into a deep depression.

This January he quit his job and did not tell me for two months. He told me when he ran out of money.

My question is this: Where does depression end and irresponsibility begin? I can understand him not working, we talked at length about his job and I was supportive of him finding any other work (part-time in a shop, working on his own, I did not care). We are lucky because my job is pretty stable and covers our expenses. So we talked about him leaving his job. But I did want him to have some other job to move to because sitting at home alone during a Chicago winter can be the worst thing for depression. Of course, that's exactly what he did. He quit his job Jan 10, told no one and stayed at home alone all day and never told me.

Now I have to completely take care of him. He has no money (no savings, spent all that was in his checking account). He has no health insurance and stopped seeing his therapist when he quit his job... he can be on my insurance but because he waited to long to tell me we have to wait until open enrollment now. So I have to cover his medical expenses in full. I have started going to some therapy with him, partially because as a couple, we are broken. My trust has been really destroyed. He has a past history of not telling me when things have done wrong until they have snowballed so badly that I have to fix them (parking tickets, leading to towing, leading to driver's licence being taken away is a prime example... if he had just paid his parking tickets, it would have been fine).

I don't know what to do. As his friend, I want him to get better. But I am not sure I can be his partner anymore. I just don't know if he is completely irresponsible and the depression is making that worse or if... well, I don't know.

So, where does depression end and irresponsibility begin? I guess there is no answer. I am talking with friends, but we have been a couple of so long that so many friends are mutual that I do not feel comfortable talking about potentially leaving him, though I still want to make sure he gets better. I need to take care of myself during this time as well... and every hour my emotions on this subject are different.

He quit his job Jan 10 and told me March 1... three days before our big and first vacation in the past several years of ER, nursing homes and funerals.