Depression is dogging me bad today. I'm probably going back to bed after I post this. It'll pass - like it has a thousand times before. What never changes is the complete lack of understanding I get from my sig. other. Tells me he really doesn't know what depression is and thinks it's something I just do to myself.

What really gets me is that I am making it possible for him to not be in a nursing home. He doesn't realize that, either . . . . says he'ld be fine on his own - a total delusion. The psychologist and nurse practitioner from the local VAMC tell me they are ready to certify that he is unsafe and incapable to be home alone, if and when I find I can't keep doing this. I'm a retired nurse and enjoy caretaking a person I love. I happen to have the exact skillset that is required to meet his very extensive needs. I did succeed in getting him funded for some home attendant services. They aren't much help. He won't accept any "hands-on," personal care from them, which he needs a lot of.

The work I do isn't the problem for me. Him not understanding that I need being cared for too is the problem. He can't serve me breakfast in bed, like he used to enjoy doing. But saying something nice once in a while would mean the world to me. Today he commented that I'm putting on some weight.

The worst thing is his refusal to try and understand anything about chronically recurring depression . . . and his refusal to grasp that little comments he does, or doesn't, make can have a major impact. We've been a couple for a lot of years. I've tried to explain it to him, AND I'm always admitting to him that it is really on me to do what needs doing and not sit around and mope.

I'm starting to feel like a sucker.

Besides coming here to whine, I do have some questions for anyone caring to respond:

Is it just impossible for some people to understand depression, if they've never had that problem themselves?

What would be a reasonable expectation for me to have of him to be supportive?

Do you have someone in your life who is supportive of you, and does it help you to get over depressive episodes quicker?

If, like me, you don't have a source of understanding in your life, do you think it makes your struggle harder?

He's not especially mean to me. Is that about what I should settle for?

Has anyone managed to get someone close to them to understand, even though, for a while, they didn't understand?

I probably should have put this in the depression forum, but I'm really wanting to talk about the impact that a relationship can have on a person's ability to manage depression. Anything anyone might have to say about that would interest me. Maybe I really am expecting what he's just not capable of.