My wife is feeling depressed. She's had small periods like these ever since we met around 10 years ago. These periods have become more frequent since having kids. Normally they come and go. Lately it isn't getting better. Feeling very down, apathetic, nothing makes her happy. Since a few weeks it feels like this is getting progressively worse and getting out of control. Saying stuff like "if I didn't have kids I would end it all here". I hope that these are in the moment sayings but even then, this feels very wrong to me.

I have the feeling I can't really help her. Attempts from me to reach out and go more in depth on her feelings mostly lead to her lashing out which puts me in a very defensive mode (I know, far from constructive from my side). It's clear she doesn't want external help, any type of suggestion for talking to a therapist are met with a hard no. Trying to push the point of making an appointment with a therapist only leads to conflict. I'm honestly a bit at my wits end here.

She's a great mom, she's a great wife, but the way things have been going downhill for her the last weeks I honestly fear for her wellbeing the coming weeks. The hard rejection of anything towards (what I think) might be a step in the right direction makes that I don't know what to do anymore. When she's asked about what we can do to move in the right direction she says that it's not something she can reason about at that moment. She's struggled with low self-esteem all her life and she had to go through a period of abuse in a previous relationship. All these things are probably partially to blame for what is happening now. 

I feel like I'm not equipped to deal with this and I'm really running into my own limits on how to support her in the best way. Can anyone guide me in what step I can realistically take at this point to help her move forward from the situation that we're in?