<human>: He's a pretty "regular" guy.  He likes cars, he is a news junky, he likes to hang and have beers with his bros, he doesn't express his emotions verbally very well and doesn't have much exposure to the sort of deep introspection and psychological (pop and otherwise) thinking that we Redditor-types seem to really like.  Since English is not his first (or even his second) language and he is a theoretical physicist I feel lucky that he is as verbally expressive as he is.  Which is not to say the physicists are unfeeling jerks, just that he hasn't really been trained to express himself verbally, either orally or written, and he does fall a bit into the robotic/emotions-confuse-me stereotype.

So, having a girlfriend in a depressive episode is pretty terra incognita for this guy and having long conversations about how he feels about it hits a wall pretty quickly.  Since he is not going to go out and read every book and article about depression and having a depressed partner, I need to sort of guide him through this.

For what it's worth, this is mostly (I think) a reactive depression due to multiple external stressors, not just something that is happening to me out of the blue.  Most of the issues in my life have nothing to do with my partner or our relationship (family, health, and work-related, mostly), but some do.  I don't really want to work on that relationship stuff with him right now because I am unable to distinguish what are "real" problems and what only seem like problems when perceived through the depression.  Plus, I am not really excelling these days at taking constructive criticism.  I am seeing both a psychologist for psychodynamic therapy (which works well for me) and a psychiatrist to start medication next week.

This being Reddit, I imagine that quite a few of you have been through a depressive episode with a partner (depressive types seem to gravitate here).  What do you wish you had known?  What do you wish your partner had been able to communicate to you?

Can you condense the text into a few key points?
<bot>: Depressed girlfriend asking for tips and advice on how to help boyfriend with dealing with me and my issues from people who have been there.