I agree that you have always shown understanding and compassion for your BF's depression, and think that has made it easier for you to reconnect with him without huge resentments, etc. I'm happy you've come as far as you have! I worry a bit, though, that his depression leaves too much of the work of the relationship to you: you are left in charge of researching alternative medicines, manage difficult conversations, steer him towards sex, etc etc, and the more depressed he becomes the more he depends upon you. Yet a caretaking role is not the equitable partnership you were looking for.
My H, too, had a childhood marred by his domineering mother's physical and verbal abuse (although he always tried to minimize this and insisted it didn't affect him). It resulted in him having low self-esteem and trying to be a pleaser. The counselling he got while deciding whether to work on our marriage helped him to acknowledge and shake off the effects of this abuse, to set up boundaries with his boss ensuring he puts his family before his work, to stop needing distractions (obsessing about material goods he "needed," drinking too much, listening to the dramas at work and then "rescuing" people), and to stop stuffing his feelings.
While I know it's not your job to get your BF to take counselling, I believe that he requires it to be a good partner to you, and that it is the only effective way of diminishing his depression. I hope you could be successful in encouraging him to go.
