Mental health creating problems for relationship... or created by?

Me and my partner have been together for around 2 ½ years now. For the first 3 months of our relationship, everything was amazing but now everything just feels like it's falling apart – especially me.

First off, I'm not a worker ant. I'm a creative type – a musician; it's all I know, really. There is no money in what I do and focusing on anything else is a distraction. My partner knew this from the beginning. She also knew that I suffered from depression and anxiety and a large portion of my lack in finances is down to my illness, but I assured her that what I can't give in finances, I can more than make up for in terms of trust, honesty, reliability, affection and loyalty so long as it is returned. In relationships, I'm the giving sort to the needy – quite a submissive role, actually, if I find myself with somebody who doesn't reciprocate, and that's the problem I'm having now.

We've been really struggling for around 2 solid years now without relent – be it through financial struggles, emotional difficulties, and so on – but it just feels like the person I used to know no longer exists. It feels almost as though for those first 3 months, everything was possible and she bent over backwards to ensure that she was the ideal person for me. She did everything possible to accommodate me.

Now, it feels as though she does very little for me.

Recently we've been made aware of something called the 5 Languages of Love by a Relate counsellor, but we can't continue with this (on my partner's insistence) because we can't afford it, even though I'm adamant we can.

My situation – I stay at home writing music most of the time (ie. My entire life since I was 19, basically), I balance that out with daily chores, walking my dog and so on, and recently I've been doing CBT. CBT has helped in some way because it makes me work out what it is I'm doing wrong, and how my emotions make me feel a certain way; forces me to notice patterns in my moods and so on in the form of an hourly diary.

During the day, I've noticed, that I'm relatively content by myself but at night and at the weekends when my partner isn't working, my mood, my pleasure and my sense of achievement is very low. These particular feelings have existed for the last 2 years – I mean, I have experienced depression and anxiety since I was 15 but in the past, whenever I've been by myself or maybe with other people, I've enjoyed myself a lot more. Whilst in the current environment I'm in, I feel completely demotivated, utterly hopeless and totally neglected. I feel as though I do so much and try so hard to give this person as much of me as I possibly can; utter devotion in other words; and yet I receive nothing back.

Am I a needy person? Yes, but understanding the 5 languages of love, I feel it's necessary for me to receive (and give) because it's important in all relationships to have a physical and emotional bond. I also need my space to be independent as well though, as does my partner, but we're basically strangers in the same room.

My partner's situation – she works all the time in a job that really doesn't seem to appreciate her as much as it should. She is also currently pregnant with out first baby which complicates matters in the sense that whilst planned, has become an obstacle in the way of us attempting to solve our relationship problems. Our focus has shifted. The child was conceived on what was considered a 'good day', which comes around once in a blue moon.

This has affected her mood massively – the sickness, the pains, the tiredness... what its effectively done is take an already miserable and aggressive person and amplified the misery and aggression. She is also in receipt of counselling for her anger management after I advised her to take it.

As I say, we've been to Relate about this so obviously all of this is something we have discussed. My idea behind everything – my CBT, her counselling, our joint counselling, is to prepare us both for the environment to raise our child in so that it doesn't grow up watching us fight 90% of the time like we currently do.

Obviously, I say, when in fact one of the other major problems is lack of communication – it's something I've discussed. When it comes to a problem that I feel exists, when I attempt to discuss it with her, she has one of two emotions – the first is virtually silence; she sits there either with her eyes open gazing at nothing, or she has her eyes closed the entire time. The second is anger; she will lash out. The gaps in conversation, that I often start up, are left for me to fill in.

The reality of the situation is I just don't know how far I can take this when it affects me so deeply. I'm at a point now where – look, I'm an adult, I've spent half my life fighting a war and I just want peace now, to settle down with somebody I can love, who responds to me, and who makes me feel anything but worthless.

Question, am I an unhappy person in a good relationship or am I a good person in an unhappy relationship?

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