How to deal with a depressed partner

Yes, she's been in therapy for a while. It has helped to some extent, but it seems like the damage from the fruitless job search has outweighed the good from therapy.

(lack of those two are always the reason relationships stop working, IMHO. e.g. "did you TELL him you were growing tired of his late nights out with his pals before you started cheating on him because of it?" no, of course she didn't. so he had no idea, thought she was admireably tolerant and loved her for it, but he hadn't told her. so now he thought it was all her fault and she thought he had stopped loving him. and they both come to the only eternally-single-nerd they know for advice. instead of talking to each other. somehow, living together day in day out for SEVEN years did not involve talking to each other about feelings.)

Specific advice I can offer, is only to tell you what *not* to do. (Well, what *I* would want a partner *not* to do with regards to me during my depressions.)

First, remember that depression is a disease. It's not really something that the person can "help" or change overnight - it's probably utterly NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU, though some things that partners can do can exacerbate or ameliorate the problem. It's not a character flaw, it's a disease, and the person needs understanding and sometimes support. Not someone trying to "help" or "save" them.

The worst thing you can do to a depressed person is try to "Should" them. Often this is dressed up as help or advice - "You should do this, you should not feel that... etc." This is a form of pressure, and pressure produces stress, which is absolutely the worst thing for a depressed person to deal with.

It's easy for a depressed person to use a relationship as a crutch. Because that way it's easier to focus on a relationship as the source of stress and/or unhappiness rather than deal with the actual issues in their life. I'm not saying don't *support* your partner, but at the same time, it's not fair for you to have the hold them up. Constant phone calls are a way of looking for reassurance - find another way to reassure them, perhaps? Take the lead, stop the phone calls before it happens by just sending a little email or text going "hey, I think you're great, love you" or something like that.

Communication is urgent and key, but there are two important things to remember - 1) you can't be her shrink, and don't try to be. 2) don't approach communication is a critical way, because that may be interpretted as hassling, or threatening. Rather, try the approach of "if you want to talk, I'm here" and just listen, rather than responding. Or instead of a talk, try the occasional spontaneous hug to build up that sense of "safeness" that a depressed person often needs.

Anyway, this is getting way too long and personal... hope something in there helps. Hang in there.

Haha oh dear, I totally do that...

If she has been looking for work for a year, of course she's going to feel rotten - it's an inevitable reaction to having endless rejections, and her self-esteem must be fairly rock bottom right now. There may be other issues too, i.e. her lack of a job might mean that finances are tight in your household, and maybe she feels bad about not being able to contribute/having to rely on you for everything.

Is she looking for work in a particularly specialised field? I find it hard to believe that it's not possible to get ANY sort of job, even if it's not the plum one she'd like in a perfect world. Could you not encourage her to sign on with a temp agency in order to pick up some office/clerical work? Or be a waitress for a few months? Or work in Macdonalds? Anything? Having a job might give her day some kind of structure again, give her some sense of responsibility (even if it is only a sense of responsibility to a shitty low paid job), and give her the opportunity to be a paid employee again. She can still be looking around/applying for other 'better' jobs in the meantime, and it would show prospective employers that she wasn't prepared to sit on her arse doing nothing and complaining about being unemployed, but that she was a proactive kind of person. That always goes down well.

It's tough but sometimes we all have to swallow our pride and do things we don't want to do, simply because in life you have to just get on with it and do what has to be done.

If I were in your position, I'd be encouraging her to do this. People feel differently about themselves when they're employed, because it reinforces the fact that they are 'employable'.

And yeah, what everyone else said upthread about communicating with each other. Best of luck, I'm sure this can't be at all easy for either of you.

I'm a big believer that depressed people should avoid being in relationships at all costs, so I think that changing the relationship could be the best thing. A good friend of mine did this, and it's been a really tricky thing for him, but it seems to be working itself out.