My (33F) partner (34M) of 1.5 years said "I don't feel stronger for being with you. I just feel exhausted."

Yesterday was a really rough day following a really rough pandemic.

I will be the first to admit, I did not handle the pandemic well. I was an extroverted athlete, so the lockdowns were hell for me. I have been living with my partner for the last year. During that time, he (seemingly arbitrarily) started rejecting me for sex more often than not. We went from basically every day to maybe 1x a week. Rejection hurts, especially when it comes to a person you love rejecting you. It is also really bad for people like me who need regular, adventurous sex to be happy. I tried everything I could think of to fix this problem, but he was uninterested in fixing it. That is where my depression began in earnest— I felt hideous and unlovable. What kind of disgusting beast of a woman can't seduce a man who claims to love her?

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I wound up getting an awful back injury just as the restrictions were loosening up, so I never got to get into my sports that I had missed so much. I have been in pain every day since march. That has made my depression worse.

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Yesterday, I finally get MRI results back (my primary care doc did not take my injury seriously, so I had to work around him to even get a referral to a spine specialist, let alone imaging). My back is far worse off than I thought it was. I seem to have some kind of degenerative disc disease in addition to all the bulges and herniations I expected to see. I may not ever get my previous athleticism back. I may be stuck in this stupid crippled state for the rest of my life. Reading those results were very hard. I also found out that a relative of mine has a degenerative lung disease (not COVID) and has maybe 2 years to live. My relative is a very sweet man and does not deserve a death by slow suffocation. I was horrified by this news.

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I joined my coworkers for a small gathering to see off somebody that was leaving after all that. Apparently I made enough self deprecating remarks (which I thought were jovial and in good fun) that I brought everyone down. I did not notice a change in energy, but my partner said there was one.

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After the gathering, my partner spends a good hour reprimanding me for bringing everybody down all the time. He tells me that he isn't comfortable being in our shared home because he knows I am going to be sad. He tells me that he too has stopped feeling optimistic because I bring him down. He tells me that I cannot speak in any negative way about myself basically ever again. He tells me that I am choosing to remain sad because "Pain is inevitable, but we choose to suffer". He tells me that if everything is one crisis after another, I need to be doing more to get myself better. Apparently the intensive therapy I do, the intensive emotional work that I do, and the psychiatric medication I take don't count. I have often thought that people don't ever actually care about the effort you put into something or your intentions, they only ever care about the result. This confirms it in my mind.

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Then, he tells me, "A partnership should make both people stronger. I don't feel stronger for being with you. I just feel exhausted."

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I hadn't heard anything so painful from a man's mouth since my ex husband have me one last good verbal stab on his way out the door. I am devastated.

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It has become ABUNDANTLY clear that I cannot talk about my depression or even HINT about it in any way whatsoever around any of the people I interact with or care about. How should I handle this? How can I pretend to be happy? I am a sucky liar, so I have just been quiet since everything happened, but that will only work for so long. I need to be able to convince everybody around me that I am happy. How???

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EDIT: I should have mentioned that I am in weekly therapy and I do take antidepressants. I have offered couples counseling to my partner before hand he was uninterested. It seems like a lot of this is my fault. I appreciate everyone’s honesty.

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TLDR: I can't talk to my partner about my depression anymore, and he has said some pretty hurtful things. How can I handle this best? How can I pretend to be happy?

Submitted August 20, 2021 at 06:40AM by L_Fire_Garbage_Barge https://ift.tt/3j4vB3f