@Cyberworrier
your account resonated with me about getting therapy for someone else's depression. Can I ask what happened?
Sorry - just saw your question Cyber
Fed's updates resonate with me too - scarily similar.
I had about 3-4 sessions with the counsellor which was a great help to me: I'd been covering for DP for years about his low mood and I started telling people. He wasn't happy about this but I reckoned it was my story to tell now as my mental health was suffering, and that's how I cope, by talking to people. I felt a lot more in control of the situation which helped immensely. The counselling sessions finished abruptly as the counsellor just dropped me - really weird, and a whole other story, but she had given me enough to get me back into a more positive frame of mind. Actually it allowed me to distance myself from being so wound up in his depression, not to feel responsible for it or for trying to get him out of it. I did a lot of reading around the subject as well.
DP has never really acknowledged his depression, although at one point he did admit to suicidal thoughts. I'd got to the end of my very long tether and was basically giving him the shape up or ship out talk, when he said I should be careful what I wished for, that he'd thought about ending it all. I think at that point gradually his depression was lifting, but he'd learnt behaviours for coping that he couldn't move on from, so he was still behaving depressed, but feeling better. There are some theorists who think that depression itself is a learned behaviour - I wouldn't go that far as there's plenty of brain chemistry in play as well.
All in all I reckon the whole depressive period lasted about 7-8 years and by God it was exhausting, sapping and destructive. Looking back over our relationship, this one was the 3rd episode, all of which started around the time of 30th, 40th and then 50th birthdays, each time getting more intense and for longer. DP still doesn't talk about it, but I have told him, that if I feel he is becoming depressed, I will ask him to seek help and if he doesn't - I am out. I know that sounds harsh, but that 7 years nearly killed me and I cannot go through it again. Our relationship has improved a lot but it is not how it was.
My advice to anyone who finds themselves in a situation where their partner is depressed and not agreeing to treatment, is to get support for themselves and to be able to draw boundaries, limits to what you will accept. And yes - that may mean leaving and I know that sounds cruel and heartless as depression is an illness. But my answer to this is a question - what's the point of both partners being depressed ? - that serves no good purpose at all and if there are children in the mix, one person has to be fit enough to care for them.
Sorry Fed for wittering on about my experiences. Get out before the baby arrives - will be so much more difficult with a newborn. I think you're under no illusion that he will be a transformed man after the birth and newborns are a whole new area of stress for a couple.