My [28F] boyfriend [30M] of 3 years is severely depressed and isolating himself from me. I don’t know how to handle my own anxiety while giving him space.
My boyfriend [30M]and I [28F] have been together for 3 years. We love each other very much. Over the past year, my boyfriend has really been struggling with a lack of purpose and direction regarding what he should be doing with his life. His career goals haven’t worked out, we live very far away from his family (who are important to him), and his own health is not good as he was recently diagnosed with a lifelong condition that impacts his quality of life. Also, our relationship has struggled over the past year and a bit due to issues around physical intimacy and vulnerability. Understandably, he has been very depressed with the weight of everything and swings between states of things being fine to things being terrible and having a life crisis. I do not judge him for any of this, but it seems that all he wants from me is to be left alone. I am really struggling with what to do. I love this person and want to respect his need for distance, but leaving him alone for days on end and barely talking when we live together brings me so much stress and anxiety and feels threatening to our already fragile relationship. It has been like this for over a year. Attempts to talk about everything just seem to alienate him further. We both go to individual counselling. Any outside perspectives on what I should do here would be helpful. I am not leaving him so only genuinely helpful comments, please. How do I support him while getting what I need?
TL;DR: My boyfriend of 3 years is struggling with severe depression following career setbacks, geographical isolation from family, struggles in our relationship, and a new chronic health diagnosis. He wants to be left alone, but his withdrawal and silence trigger intense anxiety for me and feel threatening to our already fragile relationship. I want to respect his need for space, but I don't know how to handle my own anxiety or fix our communication. I want to support him while getting what I need.
Edit: for additional context, we haven’t slept together for 8 months. My boyfriend just doesn’t want to ever. He told me that he always loses interest in sex once relationships become serious and he doesn’t know why. Most of our relationship issues stem from this and me just feeling completely unwanted and unattractive to my boyfriend. Not sure if this context is helpful but it does add an additional layer to what is going on.