I am so sad right now. I live with my SO. We are together for a little bit over three years and I actually am really happy with him. He always was someone who wasn't very punctual. He sometimes wouldn't respond to texts for a few days but he would get back to you.

At the beginning of this year my father died and I had a depressive phase. I was feeling very down, didn't meet any friends outside of work, stopped going out and so on. My SO really supported me the entire time, stayed with me, also stopped going out. So we just stayed at the apartment pretty much most of the time. Instead of going out we talked, watched a lot of TV series and sat in the same room, playing video games in different devices. It didn't feel that bad.

In the summer my SO had a major setback at work. It almost envolved a legal dispute. He really felt bad afterwards but didn't really want to talk about it. He said he would tell me eventually. So I tried to make him feel better. (I was doing better at the time and feel fine now). We made a few plans what we could do. We even plan to go on vacation in a few months. Concerning the plans (little trips, etc.): we would often talk what we could do and planned to do it at the weekend and both were or are really looking forward to it at that pointn but when the time came, we both didn't feel like doing it. So we often postponed. I feel like at a moderate rate this is normal. I don't know when exactly, but he stopped replying to any of the texts of his siblings. He would even stop visiting his parents (which we did approximately two times a month).

One day his brother called me and said that he was worried and that my SO wasn't well and that I should talk to him. Turns out his siblings have had an intervention back in summer, because he rarely replied to their texts/rarely reacted upon their attempts to contact him. In this conversation with his siblings he said that he wasn't well, but didn't want to talk about it. I didn't realize that he was that bad. I just felt like he would play too much pc, but I didn't think that he would have any problems. So I sat with him the next day and tried to talk to him. He said that he did not want to talk about it, but promised me to talk to me in a month.

I waited the month, which was really difficult, because I worried so much. In this time nothing really changed. He still played much. We would watch a lot of series together, but we also went out more, partly because I initiated it, partly because we were invited and partly because he had an idea, e.g. he planned a trip for my birthday (he researched a town to visit and we did and we had an amazing time - which is actually a good sign, isn't?).

At the end of the month I sat down and talked to him. He didn't want to at first but I finally got him to talk. He said that he didn't know what to do job-related. He is not really happy with his choice of job now but thinks that it might be the nearest he could get to his dream idea of occupation. He said that there was more that he would tell me later.

Fast forward two weeks. He still hasn't visited his parents for two or three months. He has not talked to his sister who was abroad for four months, nor to his brother. He hasn't seen any of this friends for more than half year, probably more. He doesn't text them or meet them. But living with him he still wanted to cuddle often, was very sweet and said he loved me very much. Only that he plays so much and that he often would feel no desire for sex are things that I noticed. The household is something we both neglected. It was time to drive down to visit our parents individually. I drove first. He said he wanted to do the rest of the dishes and follow the day after that. That would have been yesterday. I tried calling most of the day. He wouldn't pick up (which is something that really is different from the year before. He now is not reachable.). Because it was christmas eve I decided to drive back. Noone knew what was up. His parents were worried and his siblings also couldn't reach him. I got to our place and he was sitting in front of his pc in the dark. He said his phone battery died and he took a walk outside earlier to state that he wasn't playing all day. He said he knew that it couldn't go in like this and that something had to change (which is a great first step, right?). I asked him what he intended to do about it and he said that he wanted to be alone to think about that. He said he knew that he was obligated to answer my questions, but that he couldn't do that right now. I asked him, if he thought that it was wise to be alone right now and he said that he chose to be alone at christmas because it was so quiet everywhere and then he would have time to think. He said that it didn't have anything to do with me. I asked him if he didn't think that it would be good to look for professionell help and he stated loud that he knew that that would not be weak, but that he didn't want to. He promised me though that he would not be too proud to search for help if he thought he needed it. He said that this was something only he himself could help himself with.

I am so desperate. I thought he would see that he cannot go through this himself. I think it is really mean to 'ruin' christmas like that for his family, who is worried and doesn't know whats up. I am angry, because he didn't say that he wanted to stay alone for christmas. I am worried that he will not accept any professionell help and that it will get worse or stays like this. My mum already talks about how I should be thinking about breaking up, if he doesn't look for help. I don't want that.

Please, if you have any advice on how to convince him to get himself help, I would really apreciate it!!!