My boyfriend is depressed and I'm a compulsive fixer and we have problems.

My boyfriend is depressed and I'm a compulsive fixer. I don't want to lose him because of a rough period. If I can't fix things, how am I supposed to help?

TL;DR I have bolded the most important information if you don't want to read it all.

My boyfriend and I are young college students, in a fairy new relationship. We've been together for 8 months. Things were amazing, we became very close and best friends very quickly. He has dealt with depression since his childhood and was very depressed when we first met, though he very quickly got better and it was never an issue after like the 2nd week of being together and his regular therapist visits. However, after a streak of bad luck and a lot of stress, his mental health is going down again. We went from arguing only once a month, to every day this past week. His job (that we both work at) has turned sour after bad relationships with coworkers and doesn't pay a lot, his truck starter had broken so he had to pay $300 which was all of his savings gone (he keeps having to take out of savings to fix his truck), he had just gotten his new debt card after losing it a couple weeks ago and just lost it again yesterday so he doesn't have a way to pay for anything, he is failing classes even though he does moderately try to get good grades, because he has to work so much to try to make money he doesn't get a lot of rest or free time, and I don't think he has realized but I believe he's slowly becoming dependant on marijuana and nicotine as a stress relief, though he hasn't been able to get either this past week and it's making him even further unhappy. His mother is also overprotective and can't let go, continuing to monitor everything about him but never being supportive or helpful, just getting onto him and yelling at him when he doesn't do good. He has to live with her though because he can't afford to live independently. My situation is pretty opposite and I think it's because I am blessed with a well-off family that helps me with my expense; I have great grades and I barely have to work and my parents gave me one of their old cars that works very well and I have been slowly working on my mental and physical health.

He isn't lazy, he wants to be successful, happy, and has ideals for a great life, but I think he feels lost, stuck, and hopeless. I think he's too overwhelmed with everything to know what to do first. He's just kind of stuck in the mud.

He naturally isn't very expressive, which doesn't fit well for my insecurities which need a lot of affirmation, but he was slowly working to be more expressive and I was working to not need as much reassurance. It has been working great for the past months. However, now with his stress, he is barely outwardly loving and snaps easily when he's stressed, so if I even just ask a question a bit of a wrong way, he gets a bit "attitudinal" and it hurts my feelings.

Now, for information about me: I got out of a bad relationship that I was in for almost 3 years, before dating my current boyfriend. That relationship was bad for a long time. My previous boyfriend also had depression (except he had no idea for a long time and it went undiagnosed until the end of the relationship) that started to become very worse. This is when I realized I fell guilty to being a "fixer." I have been doing research about this and found this quote from an article that resonates with me: "I tried to fix things because I knew deep down I wasn’t worthy of love (or so I thought at the time). Being the glue gave people a reason to love me and keep me around. It also gave me something to focus on, and distract myself from my own pain. In hindsight, being a fixer offered me a sense of control that I didn’t have otherwise. It was an illusion, but it brought me a sense of purpose." I don't want to repeat the heartbreak of my previous relationship, which now I realized I caused a lot of my own problems by being a fixer.

After an article randomly popped up about being a fixer in a relationship, I have now realized that's what I have unintentionally been doing the past months. It's slowly making things worse. I feel more lost and insecure with myself as his mental health declines, and instead of giving him the loving support he needs, I feel like I'm becoming his "second mom" and trying to pressure him to change. I feel humiliated and guilty to be acting like this. I try to work through steps he has to take to make his situation better and tell him everything that he should do. It comes from a good place, but at the end of the day, I forget he's an individual adult that is going to act how he wants, not how I want, even if I had a method to make things better (and that's how I want it to be, I just have a hard time accepting it and acting by it).

This is how have I been all of my life and obsessively so in my previous relationship. I only recently learned how bad it is to be a fixer. But this is all I know, so I'm very lost and confused on how else I'm supposed to act. If I can't help him fix something, how do I help him be happy? I assume the answer is to be supportive, loving, and a good listener, but what if he hasn't been acting lovingly towards me because of his problems? Do I be loving anyways and just hope that he eventually comes around? Should I be loving when I don't feel loved in return? Do I completely let go of trying to guide him?

Is there anything that just being myself can offer him? I feel useless and unhelpful to just act independently like myself. If I were to take off the mask that being a fixer gives me, is there anything left to help him?

And also, I realize I'm just a young girl in college and it's "not that serious" but he's my best friend and I have so much fun with him and he makes me so happy when he's happy, it doesn't feel like time to leave the relationship.