I've had depression for about 15 years. It varies in intensity, but had been fairly bad for about 6/7 years, and has led panic attacks, agoraphobia and severe anxiety (I'm having treatment for this). I find it very hard to go to new places or to attend social gatherings; they leave me feeling really drained for several days, plus I sometimes get very anxious for several days leading up to them.
DH and I have been together for 5 years or so. I've tried to explain all this to him, but I don't think he really "gets" it. Fair enough, I know it's hard to understand if you haven't experienced it. But what I find difficult is that he constantly seems to disagree with me when i tell him how I feel, and that he does nothing to help me to get time to rest and relax.
For example, we were looking at our calendars for the next few weeks. We've a few social things to go to, but it's all manageable for me. However, I said "look, this is as much as I think I can manage between now and Christmas. Let's try not to agree to doing anything much else" (obviously I don't mind if he wants to go to things, if he goes on his own - I just mean that I can't cope with any more events). He immediately said "But my family might want to do more things" (he's from a big family, who organise a lot of things; these tend to be very noisy, in-your-face gatherings which I find really hard to cope with). I said "Well, you can go without me" and he said "but we should both go". He has this idea that if his family organise something, we both have to go - he fairly often comes home and tells me "X is happening on this date", not even asking whether I want to go or am free or whatever.
I find this really frustrating, because my therapist frequently talks about how I need to be careful not to try to do too much, but when I do try, DH just ignores me.
He also currently wants to move house. I don't feel I can cope with it. I'm pregnant, and really don't want to move around the time the baby is due (if we bought now and all went smoothly, we'd be moving around a couple of weeks before my due date; obviously, any delays in the process could mean we'd end up moving just after the baby was born). In fact, the therapist has specifically told me to get as much rest as possible, and not to do anything stressful "like move house". DH knows this. But every time I try to tell him what I think would be stressful about it, he just seems to shoot down whatever I say. For example, I said that I don't want to be living in a new area when the baby comes, because I won't have my friends around if I need help or company. He said "but you could take the baby out for walks to explore the area". I pointed out that if I have a c-section again, I wouldn't be able to drive for a while, so how would I get to the toddler groups etc that i currently go to (where most of my friends are)? He just said "Oh, it'll fine, you'll find a group you can walk to" - doesn't seem to get that that would be a whole new set of people, which is not what I'd need, and that in any case, I might not be able to walk that far either! Whereas if I'm at least in our current house, I've friends who could pick me up to go to groups, or call in on their way home with messages etc.
Told him I'd find it stressful to have to pack all the stuff, and he said "oh, but I can do that" - but he doesn't have much time in the evenings after work, and in any case, if he's packing then I'm having to look after our toddler all evening and not getting a break anyway. Plus, I can't face the thought of living out of boxes for a few weeks.
I know it sounds really silly to worry about all this, but really I'm feeling so unsupported and finding it really tough. Not sure how to get through to him how I'm feeling. He's generally very poor at understanding anything that he hasn't personally experienced. To be honest, I'm not really sure that he "believes" in depression as such; I think he thinks that you can basically choose to cheer yourself up. He also thinks that my fear of social gatherings will get better the more I go to, but my therapist tried that approach and found that it just made me worse.
Any advice?