I don't know what to do?

Hi everyone, bare with me on this.

I've been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 4 years now. I just need someone out there who is not my mum or whoever i know.. I need an outsiders view on this. I believe he has depression but i'm not sure. I also know i'm hurting really bad because of his ways. I don't even know where to begin. Our relationship has been a series of tests in the beginning from him - these tests being him pushing me away, being distant and testing my loyalty over and over again to see if i'd stay. He is very negative, and looks down on himself a lot and he needs so much assurance. "I'm not enough/ You deserve someone better / I'm like my dad / Everyone leaves me / I'm better off alone / I shouldnt been borned" are just a few examples that he still uses till now. He says all these things but wakes up the next day like none of it ever happened. Even when we fight he, he gets so cold, like a totally different person and i'd have to be the one who'd go to him and baby him because he is there beating himself up like crazy.. but if he does come back on his own to me he'd pretend like nothing ever happened and expects everything to be okay...like he never hurt me and most of the time it's him hurting me.

It's been really bad lately, it's always been rocky but it's been extra rocky. It's harder for him during the festive period which was a few weeks back because he does have some emotional trauma from his family? His dad is still around but isnt there for him and hasnt been for a while. His dad married another woman, and was seeing other women when he was married to his mum and is still married to his mum. He has two wives basically. His dad comes in and out of the house but isnt there for him as a father figure, and not financially either as he was growing up which has been extra tough on the family because his mum stopped working 4 years ago (she gets sick often). He doesnt talk about it and i feel like thats the reason why he bottles his feelings up and runs away when problems arise and possibly the reason for his depression? He avoids family dinners, and retracts himself from me during this period and from time to time he just switches off. He retracts from me, but is alright hanging with his friends. This is something i don't understand when he says i'm the only one he has and that he is afraid of losing me but yet he pulls away from me when he switches off. It's hard on me because i feel him distancing himself. In my 4 years with him i've seen him cry 3 times the most? But in the past two weeks he was crying, saying he never felt so alone.. and also that i was the only one he had and when i was sleeping i woke up to him sobbing in the dark beside me. I just comforted him till he stopped crying and til he went back to sleep. He has asked me before why he is the way he is. And how to stop it.

He doesnt do well with getting hurt too.. at all. I'm the sort of person who really really thinks through everything i do before doing it.. like would it hurt my partner this and that so i really am on my game when it comes to that. Also because i wouldn't want to be in the same situation if the tables were turned. I feel like my partner should do the same too you know? But yeah, he doesnt do well with getting hurt. And from time to time, you know i cant read his mind.. he doesnt communicate with me either what bothers him like i said he keeps it all in. And i do make tiny mistakes here and there but nope, he just does not do well with getting hurt (but here he is hurting me countless times). I'd learn to read him and what bothers him and at times i had to force it out of him to tell me what was bothering him. In general he feels like talking about his problems to someone wont solve anything and that we all die alone. It has become second nature to him.

I don't know what's going on or what to do. I had a rough few weeks with him.. we actually broke up but we got back together a week ago. He'd breakup with me and we'd get back together i dont know how many times this has happened but i have stayed all those time when he was lost and confused and he still is really but I let him find his own way all those times. I dont know if i explained enough but i hope i did. I just feel like he has two sides to him. One minute he is this great guy that i can see myself marrying and the next he retracts from me and goes into this shell and acts out by not prioritising me and the relationship. He becomes selfish and cold and the expects me to not reciprocate by his actions. I'd bring it up but all he'd do is beat himself up and drag himself all the way down and i don't and can't see him hurt himself like that? So i'd have to set my feelings aside no matter what it is i have to always set my feelings aside and put him first. Im emotionally drained really and i dont know what to do. It's not like he is a bad guy you know? I see his potential, i see how great he is really when he does take care of me and this side of him does not get in the way. The last time he broke up with me he got so drunk that he lost himself really. He got into a fight with a bartender and just so much more. He was more lost than ever. I can't imagine if i leave him for good, what will happen then? I don't have the heart to leave him, i never have also because i love him dearly. He is my first love and even if he wasnt i still do love him but i am so emotionally drained. I've been so patient, and just loving him you know? Showing him he is loved and that he isnt alone.

When i was made aware he might be depressed i did bring it up nicely to him. He couldnt accept it at first but when he was retracting again he accepted that he too might think he is depressed. I read up on it before bringing it up to him. I have pitched the idea of him seeking help when he wanted to patch things up, and he shot that down even after "accepting he might be depressed". Now he is in denial, i don't know. He said im crazy to think that he is and his response was "im complicated" and how counselling/seeing a psychologist doesnt work and to stop fixing him. this was right after he hurt me again just after we got back together. He became cold and basically ditched me, but came 4 hours later. he was numb after the hell weeks we had.. and in return he was cold and pushing me away again. Saying i should leave him but after breaking his walls down he kept saying he didnt want to lose me. To give this another chance and that he wants to marry me and only me, he kept repeating he doesnt want to lose me. It's a cycle, a vicious cycle really. He said if he was distant again that he'd agree to go and seek help through counselling/seeing a psychologist but he also said and laughed at the idea of it. I don't know what else to do or how else to help him. I've exhausted every option there is to save this relationship all these years, i've loved him and i love him through and through even when he treated me like crap, i've assured and all.. i've done everything. I'm at my wits end really. I'd do anything to make this work but i can't help him if he doesnt want to be helped, if he doesnt see that theres something clearly off? You know i feel like he does know but he doesnt want to acknowledge it. He acknowledges it in some moments when he breaks down but wakes up the next day like it never happened. If not why would he have asked me why he is the way he is and how to stop it? He said he is fine with being unhappy if he was alone but i don't believe it one bit. If he really was fine with it it'd be so easy for him to let me go but it isnt at all. He let's go and he comes back, and i'm not petting my own back but it's obviously not because i made him sad or unhappy all these years, and he actually admitted that too.

Please advice me on what i can do, and thank you so much from the bottom of my heart if you read this far.

-Mira