[relationshipa1]

I have a BF of 3 years. We have always been intimate from day one. The most we miss making love is a week — and that is too long for him. Our lifestyle together is not your ordinary set up – we work in the same company, we go to the same workplace, we live in the same building – in short – we see each other everyday. Our workplace got to be boring after more than 4 years of seeing it 5x a week of our lives, so we resorted to so many other recreational activities to get our minds off negativities — we ended up spending more time everyday with each other. If you would ask if we have other set of friends — we have but after so long, seems like we got tired of doing things with them too — its just always the 2 of us in the end in everything. To make the story short — he admitted being depressed in the recent months due to lack of challenge at work and a lot of frustrations setting in — it was the same way for me — but i was fighting the depression, bearing in mind that I have him beside me — and that is enough. It had me worrying that he got depressed even if we were together — and i tried to explain to myself that our unusual set up must really be a big contributor to this. It also saddened me that as his GF, it seems not enough that we are together and worst, I can’t do anything about it. My dilemma: i badly want to find out if it is only the depression that has changed him and our relationship for the past month. I tried asking him — there is not anything that we do not talk about — but he said he is just bored and irritated of how life is going for him everyday. I want to understand him and give him space — but i just miss him being sweet and intimate. There has been no making love 3 weeks straight now. Not lots of cuddling, no caresses whatsoever — and i am dying to know if its right for me to just keep on understanding him, continue being a friend that I am and let him be and give him the space or listen at what the back of my mind has been saying all this time — that there might be someone else. Thoughts that play around my mind include the possibility that he must have some contact again with his ex-GF of 10 years but who is miles away — continents away, or somebody else of her lady friends (tons of them where he comes from) I will never know what he is up to when he is on his own in his room, on the net. He is a die hard gamer — but what if there is more going on than him being a game addict? Its not like him not to initiate intimacy for this long — i wouldn’t dare because i want him to be healed first and realize on his own if he misses me that much too —. SO PLEASE TELL ME, what am i supposed to think, what am i supposed to do?

[April Masini]

FIrst of all, it’s very normal to have the kind of symbiotic bliss you and your boyfriend have had in the beginning stages of the relationship. Couples often feel like they’re in this bubble of intimacy where it’s just the two of them against the world. That doesn’t last for very long — [i]normally! [/i] It’s much healthier for couples to not be everything to each other. Having friends, family and hobbies that you do separately is part of a healthy relationship for most couples who make it in the long term.

It is also very normal to go through ups and downs sexually, emotionally, and financially in relationships. These ups and downs are usually like waves and there are things couples can do to control the waves, and tricks they learn together and apart to weather tough times and even to prevent them — as they got to know one another and each other. But there are always changes and surprises in life. That’s the one constant you can be sure of.

So don’t blame yourself or feel solely responsible for your boyfriend’s depression.

That said, since you haven’t had sex in 3 weeks, and you feel that this is because he’s not interested, and you’ve presented him with lots of options and alluring situations that might tease him out of his boredom or depression, you should wonder what’s going on.

Since you’ve asked him what’s wrong, and he’s said he’s depressed, I think you have to accept that answer. The truth is that if one person in the relationship has a problem that is affecting the relationship, there is only so much you can do. For instance, if your boyfriend’s hypothetical weight gain was keeping him from having sex with you, there would be only so much you could do to encourage him back into bed. The burden of the problem is his to address. If he’s got a hypothetical medical problem that is keeping him from being affectionate and sexual with you, there is only so much you can do to lure him back to your regular sexual routine, but the burden of the problem would be his to address. The same is true with depression.

If he’s depressed to the point where he’s not functioning normally, as you describe, and his depression is interfering with his life, first of all, he’s got to be the one to deem the depression a problem, and then he’s got to be the one to try and address it. You can’t do it for him, as much as you want to.

My advice to you is to be considerate and compassionate with him, and continue to tell him how much you miss him and in which ways, but don’t become his “mother” or his caretaker. It’s an impossible role for you to take on. In addition, you have to make sure you take care of yourself. Sometimes when people see those around them behaving in a healthy and fun-loving way, they want the same for themselves. It’s really natural to see something you like, want it for yourself, and do what you can to get it. If you’re living a good life, he may want it, too.

Give it some time and see if things change, while addressing what I’ve suggested above. If it doesn’t change over time, understand that your boyfriend’s depression is not your problem. You can’t help someone with something they don’t want to change, or don’t do the work to change.

Let me know how things go!

[Anonymous]

wow april, i really appreciate you taking this dilemma of mine point by point! thank you so much

there is just so much truth in what you said and i guess i was just looking in one way and not at all sides…you know what i mean? i was so wrapped up in trying to understand him and what is going on with him — when if he himself cannot figure that out yet then how can another apart from himself do? anyways, somehow i learned to lift the burden off my shoulders. at least trying to analyze the things you said got my mind off the possibility him fooling around (which i really hope not).

we had a drinking spree this weekend — just the two of us (as always) — there really isn’t just too many pleasant people to bond here with in our neighborhood — and it was like the old times — i forgot to mention that we were just friends before it became us. We are still the best of friends though — and our weekend unwinding was OK. Just being in a light mood and having fun — he was really bubbly, and seeing him that way really made me smile. That was the fun part. The sad part — i guess him being tipsy just made him kinda loosen up more to me, i was not his GF at that time, i was a buddy. He was able to get some things off his chest and just spill it out. He said he did not think his life had a direction— well being the buddy i was, i just let him talk, nodded here and there and made him really feel somebody is listening. Well i was listening. And i tried very hard not to show the GF expression and i suppressed the GF reactions. I wanted to know what is up with him at the moment and if he is coping with the depression. But now i am writing this because there is nobody else i can tell how saddening it was to hear that —- even knowing that he is in the middle of a war with himself — just hearing THAT just made me feel invisible in his life, past or future — and it left me plain sad. =( I know he had to deal with himself and sort things by himself especially that his dilemma is his own — nobody else in the picture– I know that. I guess there really is always in one point of our lives that we encounter this stage.

I just feel the need to get the sadness off my chest too after hearing that. That night — i just felt like I would like to burrow in my own depression too which i was holding and fighting off all this time. Other than that — i’m ok. I just would like to keep in mind one of your points where I just have to treat everyday beautifully and that somehow, when he sees that — he would want it too, again. I remember, what really striked him in my person was the optimistic, kindhearted me. I guess i lost that in time too — and i have to work bringing that back in me. Not only for him to see that — but i know its for me to be.

I guess there are just puzzles in each of us at one point or another. I just hate how it can be so tricky sometimes.

Thanks again anyways! And, ow. Since i want to keep you posted — its 4 weeks straight no sex now.

ciao!

[April Masini]

I’m glad my advice helped.

I would caution you, however, from being “the buddy” and “the girlfriend” at separate times. You can’t be both. You’re the girlfriend. End of story. It’s too much of a burden for you to be two separate people for your boyfriend just because you don’t want to show him how disappointed you are in him. It’s also not honest. 🙁

It’s really good that he was able to tell you his problem is that he has no direction in life, and for a man, it’s understandable that that would cause depression and kill his sex drive. Men get a lot of self esteem from their work and their success at work. They need to feel like successful warriors in order to feel good about themselves.

That said, your boyfriend may not be capable of being a boyfriend until he heals himself. Four weeks without sex is notable. If this goes on for another four weeks, I’d suggest you have a more serious problem on your hands. 12 weeks without sex with your boyfriend of three years, and I think you may have a deal breaker.

At a certain point, if he doesn’t take care of himself, you have to let him go. So balance being with him, in the moment, for now, but keep your eye on the future. If he doesn’t get his act together after a reasonable amount of time, and your sex life dwindles to nothing, you’re going to turn into a nurse, not a girlfriend.

My concern is that you’re [i]not[/i] a nurse! Nor is being a nurse something you signed on for. When you talk about your own depression as a result of being in a relationship with someone who’s depressed, I would encourage you to put the spotlight and mirror on yourself. Make sure you don’t get sucked into the dark hole of his depression. He can’t take care of you because he’s got his own problems, and if you get clinically depressed, you can’t take care of him or you.

So while you’re balancing your relationship and deciding how it’s going, check in on yourself and make sure you take care of yourself, first! I know that sounds selfish, but if a plane is going to crash, you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before you can be alert enough to help anyone else around you.

😉

The same is true when someone close to you isn’t doing well. You have to be healthy and happy in order to be of help or in a relationship with anyone else. You may have to let this boyfriend go in order to do that. So, one day at a time — but not forever.

[Author]

Posts