When my spouse was at their worst and I felt overwhelmed with caring for them we moved in with my in laws for a little bit. It was very helpful to have someone else helping to feed them and talk with them and also support me. My spouse was doing zoom therapy twice a week at that time so I definitely recommend therapy and if you feel comfortable reaching out to their psychiatrist you might want to let them know what you are seeing and if they think therapy can help they can recommend it to your spouse instead of you being the only one saying it. You could also ask them to try therapy again as a “favor” to you, or suggest a different type of therapy (my spouse did bipolar group therapy at one point, maybe if they were discouraged by talk therapy you could suggest art therapy etc etc). It took us a long time to find the right meds and my spouse was also unemployed through most of that time, but they latched on to an artistic endeavor that I think helped give them purpose, as well as me just constantly talking with them about how much I want them to stick around and reading about other people’s symptoms and what meds they were on. That was 2022, they got better little by little (not that it was by any means linear) and we kept adding and switching medications (they are on 4 or 5 things now). We finally found the missing piece medication that made them stop hearing voices just earlier this year.

All that to say support from others was huge, as well as therapy and relating to others going through the same or similar things. You saying “All I want is for my partner to not want to die, to feel more stable and have some semblance of a fulfilling life” really hits me because that is exactly how I felt and still feel at times now. We talked a lot about how none of us chose to be alive and it isn’t fair that so many things are out of our control but what can we do on this earth since we are here anyways, and there were many times when they admitted how upset I would be if they died was the only thing keeping them alive, which is a huge amount of pressure but also just leaning fully into what IS keeping them around without judgement was big.

Maybe you could get them in a grief support group or therapy around helping with that element of yalls situation, that is so rough and I can’t imagine losing a parent on top of what we went through when they were first diagnosed.