My boyfriend is always depressed....

My boyfriend and i have been together for 2.5 years. We live together and currently have a 1 year old daughter together. When we got together we both had children from previous relationships. I had been out of my relationship for 2 years and had completely moved on. My daughter was 5 at the time we started dating. He had been out of his relationship for 2 years also, but he was still trying to get back with his ex. When we started dating he supposedly had stopped trying to be with his ex. His daughter was 16 months at the time. He had dated his ex for 2 months before she found out she was pregnant. He wanted to have a family with her but she broke up with him as soon as she found out. She had just wanted a summer fling and it broke his heart. He was never with her in a relationship for the majority of the preganancy or for their daughters whole life. But he was always trying to be with her and they would hang out and even fore play but she was still talking to other guys and she made it very clear she didnt want him. In a way she kept using him.

When I started dating him, we had known each other for years prior and he said he wanted to move on with his life. After a few months of dating we moved in together and he told me he had completely moved on from her. About a month after living together I found out that through our four months of being in a relationship that he was still trying to get back with her behind my back. But that she kept turning him down. She had a boyfriend and didnt want him. She just wanted to co-parent. He apologized to me and of course I forgave him.

Fast forward 2.5 years later and I have always been dealing with the same cycle of him always trying to seduce his ex and me always forgiving him. He will be fine for months and then out of nowhere start with the whole "he misses her and loves her and wishes he could had been with her" and he will tell her these things and she always shuts him down. And I always forgive him cause I know he does love me but I feel like he has obsessive problems over her. It is as if she is a drug and he tells me all the time that he hates getting impulsive and always going down the same road because he knows she isnt good for him but it is as if he cant control himself.

Lately he has been doing better as far as being neutral towards his ex but I have noticed that he is still ALWAYS depressed. He will be fine and then has an episode.

And his depressions, even for the last 2.5 years, is always linked to the fact that he doesnt live with his daughter. She is now 3.5 years old. His daughter lives with his ex and her parents. It has always been like that. He always expresses how he wishes that his daughter lived with him, how her mother doesnt love her as much as he does, how his daughter is sad cause he isnt there for her...let me add that his daughter mother DOES loves the girl and that his daughter has ALWAYS been happy and well taken care of. He doesnt have closure in the fact that he cant have his daughter everyday since he dosent LIVE with her/ the mother. My boyfriend works all of the time and his schedule always changes. I am the one who takes care of OUR daughter while he does literally nothing. He sees and plays with our daughter for maybe 30 mins a day, even less. Otherwise I do the grunt work. I bathe her, feed her, change her diapers, put her to bed and do everything. He isnt good at doing all of the parental/household work. I keep telling him that he should seek a counselor to get closure over the fact that he is a part time parent for his oldest. He wants for his oldest what me and him have for OUR child and I keep telling him that wont happen cause he doesnt live over there with his ex. He needs to accept that he cant give his oldest her mom and dad together. He always says that his ex doesnt love their daughter cause if she did then why didnt she give their daughter a family. He doesnt realize that not being with someone doesnt determine the love you have for the child.

I just dont know how to help him anymore? What advice should I give him so he can have closure? He wants his daughter to live with him but he is NEVER around. I have 2 kids that I am alone with the majority of the time. His ex has HER parents helping her take care of her daughter. His daughter is better off with people she has always lived with and better off with the mother who will take care of her properly. I feel like he is only thinking of what is best for him and not what is best for his kid. He barely makes any money and I cover the majority of the expenses as well as majorly support BOTH my kids. I feel like he isnt being realistic as to what we can handle since he doesnt see how much work it is to take care of kids 24/7 since he is always working or sleeping or relaxing watching tv. There is no room for his daughter. My daughter has a small bedroom to herself and the larger bedroom we have our bed and our baby’s crib. (I pay ⅔ of the rent since my daughter has her own small bedroom and also because he cant afford to pay no more than ⅓ of the rent). He doesnt take care of our daughter so he is basically living in a fantasy world if he thinks he can all of a sudden be capable of taking care of his oldest. Cause newsflash he cant just live there taking care of only 1 kid while barely contributing to the household and the household expenses.

I am not his daughter mother, and his daughter should be with her mother, cause I feel like only a mother can properly care for a child because of the special bond they share. I just dont know what to tell him anymore since he always gets sad out of no where. He has no closure and he always talks about how he is missing out on his daughters life since he dosnt see her everyday and doesnt live with her and how his ex screwed up their daughter's life. how do i respond to this? He gets visitation but he feels like it isnt enough. He wants all the time, the same perks he would get if he was in a relationship with his ex. He cant expect to be over there all of the time when we have our own family and our own child together and his ex has her own life as well. I feel like he should focus less on the negative and focus more on the positive. He should stop chasing after what could had been and start focusing on our relationship and raising our daughter tougher cause honestly it is very stressful when he is always depressed, always talking about the past and always talking about not having his oldest daughter when he barely participates with the one he lives with and he should be doing everything in his power to make sure our daughter is brought up in a loving family and that she doesnt suffer the hardships both of our other daughters had to experience of being from separated parents. When he has his episodes, he becomes mean and emotionless. It continues to be a huge stress on our relationship. When he isnt having an episode things are great between us and we are happy. Him being depressed all of the time about his oldest child takes away from the happiness and new experiences we are supposed to be sharing with our shared baby. He doesnt want to let go of the past or his hurt feelings regarding how his oldest daughter life is.

What advice can I give him or what can he do so that he isnt so depressed all of the time?

How is he working all the time but can't pay bills properly and you need to support him?

Honestly, I'm sorry this is going to be harsh but you really need to get your head out of the clouds and face reality. He is and has always been in love with his ex. If she told him tomorrow that she'll have him, he'd be gone out of your and your child's life without so much as a backward glance. In fact he'd run out of the house so fast, you'd think it's on fire.

What can you do about this? Tough love. Stop supporting him, stop forgiving this bs. Tell him straight up that either he gets his life together and starts being a good SO to you and a good father to the child you two share or you are kicking him out of your life and mean it and follow through. He needs a harsh wake up call and all you are doing is enabling his bs and that just allows him to keep on wallowing.

He makes about minimum wage which is why he works so much but makes so little. But I have a bachelor's which is why I make more. It is very hard to leave him cause I love him so much. And I know that I am most likely enabling him but I feel like he is bipolar and he has mental problems and i feel like if he got proper help that he can change. I see him try to be a better SO but then he always reverts back to being a jerk whenever his ex starts being too nice to him. He always takes it the wrong way. I know he loves me but I also feel like I'm not his first choice. He tells me all the time that his ex isn't good for him. That she is lazy and talks to a lot of male "friends". And I'm the complete opposite. I take good care of him and cater to him and do so much for him. Recently his daughter was sent with the grandparents to live in another state temporarily, Since the grandfather retired and they have a condo in another state. The mother lives in the same city as us. Since both her and my boyfriend have no savings or means to properly care for the child she was sent with them for 5 months so that the mother can save money for daycare. During those months of his daughter being away and there being no need to communicate with his ex. I feel like he become closer to me and focused more on our relationship and being a good SO. But now the past month since his daughter is supposed to return soon, he had started communicating with his ex again. And then like always it escalates to him not acting appropriately as a man who is taken should. He wants to constantly converse about things not regarding the child and excessively co parent and then even confessing his love for her still. She made it clear she only wants to co parent but she is also at fault cause she likes to become flirteous with him at times which confuses him. It is hard for me trying to have a relationship with someone who has a child with his ex and be supportive of him being a present father to his other child when he clearly can't co parent with out catching old feelings. How he is supposed to move on from his ex when he constantly has to be exposed to her. He just doesn't know how to separate the two. I really want to make my relationship with him work out cause I truly love him sooo very much but I don't know what he can do to get closure with everything that has happened to him in his life.

I think you're framing this problem incorrectly by thinking it has anything to do with you.

Nothing you do or say can change his behavior, make him understand, or heal him.

Also, this is not a competition between you and the other girl, starring him as the judge and the prize.

The only thing about this situation that has to do with you is the time you're wasting on someone who is clueless and unable to appreciate what he has in a partner who actually cares.

Really? Seriously? You genuinely think that a grown azz man is just such an idiot he just doesn't know how to move on??? You've got to be joking.

Do yourself a favor and look up co-dependence. What you have going isn't love.

But what about him being depressed all of the time because he doesn't have his oldest daughter with him? Is that normal? How can he get closure for not having his daughter 24/7 and only having visitation?

He, like every one else on the planet, needs to learn how to cope with reality.

The better solution is to take your boyfriend to a good consultant. He/she might give your a better solution.