My SO has anxiety and depression. We’ve been together almost 6 years and it’s been difficult because it impacts his libido and it hurts to be turned down for sex all the time.

He was on antidepressants when we meet and went off then without my knowing when we moved in together (just 3 months after we started dating). He went off them because they impacted his libido and he was afraid it would disappoint me. For the first few months after he went off them his libido did increase, but after time went on it just crashed because while antidepressants can lower libido so can depression. Over the past 5-ish years I’ve been lucky to get it once a month and at first that was okay as I’d switched birth control and my own libido took a blow, but now we’ve decided to stop preventing pregnancy and I’m off the pill and my libido is insane, but he never wants to have sex.

It just feels like I’m in a no win situation. The depression kills his libido, the antidepressants kill his libido. He’s tried viagra but he doesn’t really like it.

I’d never leave him because of a disorder he has no control of. I love all of him and he and the depression are a package deal. But, I think we need to try something new for the sake of our relationship.

So my question is for any other women struggling with this or who have struggled with this, how do/did you fix the problem? I want him to go back on antidepressants (not because of the sex, but because he’s obviously struggling). Any suggestions of medications that have worked for you that we might want to ask his psychiatrist about?