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[Vala]

I know this may end up getting very long. Please forgive me for that.

I have suffered from depression off and on most of my life from early teen on, I am almost 37 years old now.

9 years ago, I met a wonderful man, who I still share my life with today. Except little bits of depression here and there, I was able to cope without it becoming an issue. Until now.

Before I get into the issues, I want to clarify, my boyfriend is a great person, he is kind, caring, compassionate and loves to help others before himself. And he does all the time. However, he is one who doesn't understand true depression.

So with that, right now I'm at wits end, I've learned over the years and previous relationships that communication is key to balancing a relationship and I always go to him when something bothers me, also get him to communicate with me. I've been able to teach him how to communicate in a relationship and for the most part it works.

So, lately, I've messed up my sleep schedule trying to balance everything I currently have going on and it started to bring back my depression and I have been feeling extremely alone. Last summer, him and I started to lose weight, because we both are severely obese. He has lost over 100lbs and I'm down 60lbs. One of the key things to this was getting our schedules on track and eating properly. I stuck by this religiously until the last couple months.

It all started when he would stay up again until 2-3 in the morning playing an online game. (Nothing wrong with him playing games, I do too, we both are big gamers and that's how we came together). However, as right now I'm more of the home keeper until my health improves, I would get up each morning, cook him hot breakfast, get his lunch and dinner read for when he went to work, and lay out his clothes. All he had to do in the morning is eat his breakfast, take a shower, and relax a bit before work. When he was going to bed at 11pm, this worked out great. We even had time to talk and spend with each other before he left for work in the morning. However, once he started to stay up again until 2-3 am, he has been difficult to wake up, he dozes off again after eating breakfast. Or he spends time on the computer and we really don't get much time to chat anymore.

So, I started to get upset, I started to get Jealous, mostly because I felt the people he hung around with were getting all his time, even his morning time, even though they weren't online, because of him staying up until 2-3 am, it robbed me of our new morning ritual that I felt was bringing us closer than we had been in a long time.

There was one girl he'd chat with a lot online and at work, who lived across the ocean from us. (Want to let you know now, he is not cheating, has never cheated, and would never. It's easy to assume since you see red flags in what I am about to say, but I've lived with him, I know him, and I can guarantee he would not do so, just because of his own life experiences in which he shared with myself.) With that said, of course with our time being reduced and the struggles to wake him up. I did get jealous, and kept using her as a reference to do so. I never yelled at her, she was a polite woman, I talked and played games with her to, but I would express my hurt with my boyfriend, until I finally worked past that.

I have expressed to him about his late sleeping, but he says it's not a problem for him, he doesn't need as many hours to sleep as I would, etc. He doesn't really see or understand the toll it really is taking on us or himself. His weight loss has stalled dramatically since he started staying up late. He gets stressed easily, and seeing him like this has been hard on myself. I started to stay up until 1-2 am just so I had more hours with him as I felt I was robbed of my morning hours. It messed up my eating, sleeping, and I gained 10 pounds in the last 2 months, I was at 70 lbs lost last January. And recently my depression came back from before I met him. Because of my schedule getting messed up I kept forgetting to take my thyroid medicine, so things have been out of whack because of that.

I started to feel extremely lonely, even though I joined him on the community that he was apart of, as he expressed we didn't do things as much together as we used to. And now, he says I'm smothering him, and basically comes home and plays games with his friends, even though I own the same game as well. The worst of it, it's another female friend, which I know is not his type, but I don't like her. She flirts around with all the guys in the community, and basically shuts me out fifty percent of the time. She even went as far as telling my boyfriend in a private chat "You need to grow some balls and tell that hoe you want to spend time with your friends." Because one night I was upset that he wasn't spending time with me. When I asked about it, he said that's how she is, she calls everyone a hoe, it was in a joking matter. He does not understand how it was disrespectful to me at all, and no matter how I explain it was, he gets upset at me for it. So I had to drop the subject.

We both knew that my sleeping problem was causing my own depression, and schedule being messed up, so I wanted to start going to bed earlier again. He agreed the other night, before going to finish the game he had saved with that other girl, to play a game with me, then when I went to bed he'd continue. Well, in the middle of eating, he started the other game and when I asked him, "Oh I forgot, sorry." At that point, instead of causing yet another fight, I said fine, you already told her you are ready to play no need to cause drama. So he promised tonight he'd play something or spend time with me.

However, I felt alone, I did what I could to occupy my time despite feeling hurt and rejected yet again. So I started to cuddle with my dog. And while doing so, he lured the dog away, not realizing what he was doing by the way, and so I broke down crying. Afterall, last night that was keeping me from getting upset and making things worse between us. I did not yell at him, I told him how I felt, but he basically said he can't carry my troubles too and basically revoked his agreement to spend time with me tonight.

Basically for the last week, I've been lonely, miserable, at first I expressed anger and resentment towards his new friend. Yes I was jealous, I was pissed she treated me the way she does, but he isn't around to see it. And with basically the last couple months being problematic to my health yet again, I slipped into my depression. I know he is having a hard time at his current job. they treat him horribly, but I've been there at his lowest, even when I was having issues myself. I feel like my feelings right now don't matter and he thinks I should just "get over it" or "work it out myself". He went through a brief depression when he lost his job 3 years ago, but it was one of those depressions you know, where something bad happens that you work through and then get back on track. He doesn't understand true depression, he thinks I should wave a magic stick and be fine.

Like I said though, he is a great person, and I know he is going through his own issues as well. He hasn't really communicated with me lately about those issues to be honest, and that frustrates me too. Only thing he has told me lately is how he feels he is being smothered, that I went from one end of the spectrum to the other, and how he only has so much time each day and wants to be able to do things with other people, which I get. However, all I ask, is him to understand I feel lonely right now, I break down crying everyday, and I want to be able to come to him for support and comfort, but whenever I do, I feel worse off and more useless than I did before. And he thinks I'm unreasonable.

I honestly don't know what to do here. I feel if things keep up the way they are, our relationship wont be able to handle it. And I admit, I constantly think I'm better off not being here at all. I am just about back to the place I was 10 years ago, and if I'm going to head back there and not be able to find a way out, I don't want to be here at all.

Sorry for the long post, I just needed somewhere, someone, to vent my frustrations.