I have nowhere to turn

*hugs*

I can understand depression, I have it pretty bad myself. I don't really know what to say, as your circumstances seem rather different to mine, but I just wanted you to know that you're not alone.

I hope your recovery goes well, therapy goes a long way in helping.

Wishing you all the best

xx

So my main support is my fiancé and we are quite open with each other. However, he's been holding feelings inside I guess and in the middle of the night I was woken up to a breakdown. He said he felt like he was losing control because of several things. He wants me to try harder at recovery, be more physical (his language of love is touch), take care of the puppy more and realize that he needs me as much as I need him. I totally realize he needs me as much as I need him. It's also been an intense year/last semester with school work, my grandma doing so horrible that end results don't look great, helping out with a puppy, working at recovery/my depression and looking at wedding stuff. I know that I haven't been there as much for him these last couple weeks and I'm trying so hard to balance everything. There's no one else I can really talk about this with except in therapy but I don't have that until Thursday. I don't know how I'm feeling right now, I feel like a heavy weight just fell on me. I'm really trying not to take it personally and learn to do better. I'm so flustered.

That is quite a load to bear. I would suggest your fiancé receive counseling as well and possibly pre-marital counseling. Just from reading your post, it comes across to me that YOU have to try harder, but what about him?

I'm so glad I am a man. Not taking the mick, just saying for my next statement because it's so much easier for us to rationalise.

Take it for face value if coming from a guy. What do I mean? For example, "I need you as much as you need me" doesn't mean "because you don't love me has led me to the decision to give up on our engagement." On the contrary, it means "I need you" = "I'm having a rough time" = "I need support".

"Take care of the puppy more" means simply that -- "take care of the puppy more". It doesn't mean "I wish we'd not gotten the puppy". It also doesn't mean "I can't rely on you to take care of the puppy".

Anticipating the response of "...but this isn't what I mean...", allow me to further dive. As a guy, we fortunately/unfortunately don't tend to add emotions to our statements. So when taken for face value -- "Take care of the puppy more" -- we then make a plan to fix this problem.

I'm not saying at all that women can't do this. I'm merely trying to change the scope of perception. Focus on what can be done to fix things instead of what "I'm doing wrong." Does that make sense? "What I can do to fix this is..." is much more positive than "What I failed to accomplish". After you have a plan, perhaps even written down, then you can see a path to your desired goal. Would that work for you?

Hang in there. Life can be tough, and the only way we get through it is to just keep on keeping on. I have a slack day where I don't have to do any chores, etc, and my husband knows that on that day, I may just sit around and watch TV or play on the computer and he does what needs to be done. Maybe you need a similar type of setup, that way you know that no matter how overwhelmed you are, there is that one day that you can forget about all of it.

I agree with all of this. If you break up your goals into manageable, bite size, do-able steps, including what seems like obvious and/or tiny steps, you'll likely feel like you're on a path. Good luck!