"Your spouse or partner is depressed, and you're picking up a lot of the slack. It's important to help your spouse or partner stay physically nourished and to minimize emotional isolation or overwhelm. There just is no way to make this easy, but you will also need more pragmatic ways to get through. the following are a few big levers."
"Executive function goes on staycation during active depression, which means tasks and problems may look like tangled, overwhelming messes to your spouse. Sometimes we can loan our cognitive capacity. This might look like: "Oh, you know what? I think that problem feels so big because it's actually several smaller problems. I wonder if we could identify them so we can consider them one at a time. Are you up for that?""
A partner's depression leaves daily demands unchanged and often forces the other to pick up extra responsibilities. Protecting the partner's physical nourishment and reducing emotional isolation matter, while pragmatic approaches help manage day-to-day functioning. Prioritize self-care and clear limits because one person cannot do everything. Apply support selectively to maximize benefit and choose strategies that also help the caregiver. Recognize executive-function decline and loan cognitive effort by breaking tasks into small, manageable steps. Use evidence-based levers and bring in outside help when appropriate to sustain both partners through fluctuating capacities.
Read at Psychology Today
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