My boyfriend says he’s depressed. We have lived together for nearly a year and over time, it’s gotten worse. He is unmotivated to do anything. He doesn’t work. He finds odd jobs here and there to help pay half the rent but nothing consistent. He used to see a therapist but the cost was so high he stopped going. I finally helped him sign up for health insurance but now she doesn’t accept that plan and he says he refuses to see anyone but her. She offered to see him for free, to help him. And he still won’t go. He is constantly eating, then talks about how gross he feels and how he needs to lose weight. The house is a disaster. Trash everywhere. His dog has been pooping inside when he’s home.

I work a full time job. I have been in the process of finding us a better place to live where I can keep my horses, because I can’t afford to live in this house and pay for my horses elsewhere. I have Bipolar Disorder and am medicated. My grandfather recently died and I was gone for a week for the funeral. My boyfriend was supposed to be packing since we move in two weeks. I came home and the house smelled rotten. Nothing was packed. And he just looked at me blankly and said he’s depressed.

I am really trying to be supportive. I buy all our groceries. I try to invite him to go out to eat or go to the park to get him out of the house. He just wants to sit at home and watch tv.

I am not exactly mentally stable myself. The stress of work and a move and my grandfathers passing has me incredibly anxious and emotionally taxed. But I feel like I get no relief. These burdens have fallen on me and if I ask my boyfriend for any help, he just says he’s depressed. If I ask again, because honestly I NEED the help, he gets upset with me. If he does help, he says it’s got to be his way. Yesterday we were fixing a fence and working together and he decided I wasn’t going fast enough so he yanked the wire and it cut my leg. He just glared at me and told me to stop getting in the way and just let him do this. He spat “I’m doing this for you after all....”

I’m at the end of my rope. He is a different person when he’s depressed. He’s not kind. He’s not caring. He won’t leave the house. He lives in filth (and therefore I am too). I get off work and cater to him. Weekends I am cleaning our house and packing.

What can I do? He won’t get help. He won’t do anything. He told me maybe he’d be happier moving back home with his dad. Because there he can “do whatever he wants”. A reference to my asking him to do anything around the house. When I said that if that makes him happy, I support him, because I truly do want him to be happy. He stared at me and told me I was trying to make him leave.

Help!! I want to support him but I feel like I have just been enabling him.