Boyfriend gets depressed at least once a week

Sorry for stream of consciousness type structure.

I think I might not be suited for relationships or something. He’s my first relationship ever, around 3.5 years now. We moved in together after a few months. It was great.

I’m (27F) now applying to med school. It’s a busy process. Boyfriend (27M) gets lonely pretty easily; he’s an extrovert who’s not very good at actually making sure he gets the social interaction that he needs. I’m more of an introvert. I love him and I’m super grateful for everything he’s done for me, he really changed my life and helped me become mentally healthy and mature enough to pursue my med school dream.

I used to work with him on his small business, but I pivoted to med school because of my interests and also having a clearly defined path with milestone goals is much better for my brain. He doesn’t like doing that, and I think that part of him sees my career change as a betrayal or denial of a part of him, which is way more spontaneous and hates rules or something.

Every Sunday he gets super emo. Mega depressed about the weekend ending. And he talks about how he “has nobody” and nobody understands him.

I hate when he asks me “are you going to leave me one day?” because I hate being turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The insecurity genuinely makes me have thoughts of breaking up with him too because it’s unattractive for one, but also every single time he’s upset it always feels like this major thing and I kind of soak up all of his feelings and it messes me up for the day or week. I wish he would just be positive, like at least frame it like “are you going to stay with me forever?” because honestly I’m so easily suggestible I’d be like hell yeah babe.

I hate to say it but I think his own lack of concrete goals and vision and passion is doing him in. If you ask him, he’ll say that he does have goals but then you hear him talk about it and it’s all super vague lofty stuff with no actual steps on how to get there or what that even means like becoming a billionaire or “amassing power”.

He seems to be getting depressed that he hasn’t been able to achieve his dream of “globalizing the whole world/conquering a country” yet either.

He gets insecure about my interactions with other men too. Kind of understandable, because when we first started dating I promised him I wouldn’t have any male friends anymore because that was one of his things but I ended up talking to a few anyway so I technically broke that promise. But also, idk, he says it’s okay now but also needs to see my phone/message history to feel okay and asked that I only use discord to talk to them instead of texting because texting feels more intimate. I wish I didn’t have to be so on guard.

When I said I wanted to go into med school he said okay as long as you don’t make any male friends or look at any penises. He allegedly was joking but it honestly sounded and felt serious to me. I’m not sure if he’ll be able to handle it once I’m in med school, interacting with a bunch of new people, and honestly above all just being super busy. The days of being with each other 24/7 are long behind us. He seems so depressed that I’m not working on his business with him anymore. Admittedly I was super tired of doing it and one time when I was really tired and didn’t have a good brain filter working, I said that I don’t respect the work that we do. He understandably took it personally. But also later agreed that he also hates the current business model and wants to pivot to something else.

I don’t know. Am I making him more miserable by trying to make it work? And at what point should I be thinking that enough is enough? I hate how miserable I get when he’s upset. He’s largely inconsolable too, tbh. At least not as easy to cheer up as I am. Unfortunately because trying to cheer him up doesn’t really result in any improvement, I now find myself getting distant when he’s visibly upset, if only to try to protect myself since I’ll just soak up his sad vibes. But I soak them up anyway. So I try to make myself talk to him and get him to talk about why he’s upset at least. I’m probably a bad girlfriend.

But I’m tired of the codependent thing. It was cute for the first year, but now I just wish he were a complete person outside of me with passions and goals and some ability to self-stabilize. Depending on me for fulfillment of soul and social interaction just isn’t going to be super fruitful at least at this point. I’m all-in on becoming a doctor, and if I had nothing else I’d seriously be happy. But I do love him and recognize that he loves me a lot and maybe I feel a little indebted to him too. I just don’t know. I wish there were a formula where I can plug in all the pros and cons of being with him and it would give me a weighted answer on how to proceed.

Like clearly he accepts me with all my flaws, am I being a bad person for not just putting up with it and wishing I could just spend more time with him forever and forever? (If money weren’t a thing then I could see myself being more like that)

And now I’m here lying in bed while he sleeps because my good study day was ruined when we got in bed and he told me how alone and sad he is and now I can’t sleep. I hate to admit it but I just get so mad on days like this because it feels like he’s sabotaging me. Why can’t I just do what I want to do and have a good day and good mental conditions for doing the hard work I need to do in a day? I know I sound selfish as hell.

I think it’s probably 75% my own issues overall. I’m not super good at human relationships and kinda neurodivergent.