My(28M) wife(27F) left me for 3 months and recently begged me to take her back, I said no and no everyone seems to be against me, I need some advice strangers?

A man shares his heart-wrenching experience of supporting his wife through years of depression, only to be blamed as the cause and left for three months. During their separation, he rediscovered joy and clarity, ultimately deciding to end their marriage. Despite backlash from family, he stands firm in his decision but seeks advice on whether he’s making the right choice. Read the full story below.

‘ My(28M) wife(27F) left me for 3 months and recently begged me to take her back, I said no and no everyone seems to be against me, I need some advice strangers?’

Well let me give some background information as the situation will be hard to understand without it. 7 years ago I got married to the girl of my dreams Denise(Fake name), we had been dating for 2 years before that and it was like a dream come true, that changed after our marriage.

After our marriage she constantly started feeling down and out of it and eventually I got her to go to a doctor who sent her to a therapist and from there we found out she had depression to do with things from her past that she was trying to forget.

I decided to be as supportive as I could be, I took care of most of the house work, despite working 40 hours a week and told her to just get herself in order and if she needed to talk to me I would be there for her.

That was 6 and a half years ago, before she left she was still depressed, she basically only lays in bed and complains, she does nothing, we had no intimacy, no s**, no cuddles, no going out, my entire day was filled with work and house work.

Day in and day out I worked my ass off, came home to a mess of a house and started cleaning up, starting dinner and so forth at the end of the day I was exhausted and all I could expect was for Denise to unload more of her trouble on me and complain about herself, me and everything around her.

I could not even hang out with my buddies to get away from it all as she would relentlessly call me saying she was scared and everything so I also had no social life, not that I had time for it anyway…But despite it all I pushed through hoping that sooner or later she would break out of it and we could have a proper life together as I loved her and as they say for better and worse and this was quite clearly worse, possibly the worst it would ever be.

4 months ago she got a new therapist and 3 months ago that therapist suggested she needed time away from me as her depression started when we married so I may be the cause of it, the moment she told me I was crushed,

I started doubting myself, blaming myself, worrying, but beneath it all this creeping sense of having done everything for her, having sacrificed years of my life as a cashcow and a servant for her to lay in bed and this is my thanks?

It is my fault now? But I rejected that feeling, trying to talk through it, but she decided to leave and stay with her mother, saying she needed time away from me and that I may be the cause of her depression and so forth, honestly the entire argument is a blur in my head.

I spend the next month when she moved out calling her, her family, begging and humiliating myself just to get her back, apologizing for everything I may have done wrong, honestly I was close to ending it all as I was so hopeless at that point.

But that month passed and as it passed I couldn’t help but feel relieved, I came home and it was quiet, I could indulge in my hobbies which I had not done in years, the place was not a mess every time I came home, I could relax and two months in I even realized I could hang out with my buddies again, grabbing a beer, enjoying life and slowly I started to realize that I had been miserable this entire time.

Slowly that turned in to more and more realizations before I realized I honestly did not love her anymore, I felt like my youth was wasting away, I could do much, much better than this, I felt like I was a caretaker of a handicapped old lady, hell I still looked good and as I went out I started once again gaining back my self confidence, women would flirt with me, I felt wanted even though I never did flirt back.

After all these realizations I suddenly got a call from my wife, saying she made a huge mistake, she was sobbing her eyes out and how she was an i**ot taking the therapists words as fact and how much she loved me. For a moment I wanted to say yes, yes please come back…

But I couldn’t, I just blurted it out and said to her she had left me and I was done with this relationship, I told her I would get divorce papers and I told her I had wasted enough time as it was and this final action of hers was the nail in the coffin, after that I just dropped the phone, started crying for a bit before turning in and feeling liberated.

The issue now is, is that everyone in my family is telling me I am making a mistake, I should take her back, I owe it to her to try and make it work, marriage is not always fun etc.

The thing is, I never had fun in this marriage, I can’t remember the last time I had fun and wasn’t miserable, we are both young and fit and we never even go out, hell the last time we had s** is over a year ago,

all I am to her is a f**king servant as it seems and I rather live along then spend one more hour taking care of her. But on the other end, I doubt myself, am I really dumping someone that is depressed? I feel horrible about it, I feel like a failure…I just need advice.

EDIT: Wow, I stepped away from my phone for a while and return to a ton of comments, thank you all so much, I will try to read them all.

EDIT 2: While I have a hard time defending my wife right now, let me clarify something that is popping up in some comments. I know for a fact that she did not sleep around with anyone while we were separated.

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

trextine −  Also the only person who knows what is best for you IS YOU. Those other people were not in your relationship, they have no idea what it was like. Just do what is best for you. You’ve put yourself to the side for years.

kinkyscum −  You are fully justified to never take her back. Depression sucks, yes, but she clearly didn’t do anything to try to get better. You cannot treat depression by giving in and having someone enable you (no offense, you were just doing what you thought would help). She’s been like this for too long, you haven’t been happy at all, please leave!! Enjoy your freedom

Campbell090217 −  No absolutely not. You have clear evidence that your health and happiness are 10x better when you are not in that relationship. I have debilitating mental health issues and I would never treat my husband like that or blame him for my depression. It’s a cruel and awful thing to say to someone who is taking care of you full time.

I don’t care that she was blindly listening to her therapist, she should have taken 1 minute to think about the relationship from your perspective. You can not control her actions or behavior. But you CAN control your boundaries with her. Put up those walls and do not let anyone tear them down. Not her or her family. Be selfish and do what is best for you.

emdess8578 −  I (62 yo fe) think that 7 difficult years of what you have been through is enough to compare the new found perspective you have on your life. Three months isn’t long enough for her to k ow what to do with herself. She’s blaming everyone except herself. Her family and your family expect you to be her caretaker for the rest of her/your lives.

You have changed, matured, she hasn’t. It sounds like you are trying to break the cycle of enabling. Your families can be over invested in your relationship. Try not to fall into that trap. You might regret the loss of 7 plus years. But that is nothing compared to 40 plus more.

onesickostrich −  From reading everything you’ve said. Youre right in thinking that you want a divorce. F**k everyone else whose telling you different. Where were they when all of this was going on? They sound like they’re very quick to judge but nowhere to be found to offer help and/or advice. Now’s the time to put your mental health first. If they can’t see that, then they ain’t worth your time or energy.

shipcapitan −  **The reason people are telling you to take her back is because they want the drama and crying to end.** If your wife was in my living room, wailing in my ear, about how she misses you and can’t live without you, I’d ask you to take her back too. Because I’m not married to her. And I don’t want to deal with her intense and constant negativity.

**I would rather YOU deal with it.** So understand that all these people telling you to swallow your pride and take your wayward wife back aren’t looking out for your best interest. They just want peace and quiet. They want you to take one for the team, sacrifice more of your time, burn away more of your happiness, so that their lives can go back to normal.

**That’s why you need to stay strong.** You have your friends. Tell them about the situation. Ask them for support. Hang out with them more often and lean into this new and awesome life you’ve found. Go out on dates, f**k beautiful women, and live the life you were destined to live. Dude, you’re 28 years old. You are entering the prime of your life. You don’t have time for a disloyal lump of coal.

[Reddit User] −  What’s interesting is your family don’t understand what you go through. I think once they get a glimpse of what it’s like then maybe the outcome could be different… I don’t know. From my POV, I think you should leave her because this is going for too long.

SNORALAXX −  Depression sucks-I’m a sufferer myself. But I love my husband and family so much that I fight like hell to get better. Do I succeed all the time- no. Depression or not I would never treat a person like you have been treated. She is a grownup. She needs to take responsibility for her own recovery.

[Reddit User] −  Your family says that you owe it to her to try and make it work, but dude she’s the one who wasn’t trying. I suffer from depression, but I don’t make my husband wait on me hand and foot. She wasn’t really trying to get better.

What I genuinely think is happening, is that she’s sees that you’re happy. You stopped calling begging for her. Now she’s afraid of losing you. This is something that she should have considered before she left to begin with. If a therapist told me to leave me husband because he was the reason I was depressed, I would tell them no.

It isn’t your job to heal her. She has to heal herself. You can be supportive, but you can’t make a person heal. Do what you have to do. You deserve to be happy. You did try, and if that means that your family doesn’t understand, then so be it.

Arcades −  No one in your family will ever be able to appreciate the amount of sacrifice you put into trying to make it work for years. To them, you have only been separated for 3 months with her mostly out of your hair. For you, this has been an agonizing 7 years. You’ve gone above and beyond what most people would have done given the circumstances.

If she came back, nothing would be different. It’s not just her mistake in listening to a bad therapist, it’s her not having any direction or ambition in life. Therpy wasn’t the problem; it just wasn’t the solution either.

Go live life young man. You already know you have it in you to be a selfless, giving partner. There are countless women out there who would be lucky to find a partner with those traits and you will be amazed at how much better life gets when you don’t dread coming home at night.

Sometimes choosing your own well-being means making incredibly difficult decisions. Do you think he’s justified in prioritizing his happiness, or should he try to rebuild the relationship? Share your thoughts and perspectives in the comments below.