My wife left me for 3 months and recently begged me to take her back.

my wife left me for three 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 seven years ago I got married to the girl of my dreams Denise fake name we had been dating for two 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 housework 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 six 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 sex no cuddles no going out my entire day was filled with work and housework 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 four months ago she got a new therapist and three months ago the therapist suggested she needed time

away for 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 cash cow 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 in two months and 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 into 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 idiot taking the therapist's 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 in 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 fed and we never even go out hell the last time we had sex is over a year ago all I am to her is I think servant as it seems and I rather live long than 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 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 let me start by thanking all the people who responded there was a lot of insight a lot of advice and a lot of support and while there were certainly a fair share of people just looking for an argument insulting me making offensive comments or trying to rope me into something called mgtaw luckily the vast majority of

replies were great in stuff I could work with especially those who are in similar situations and those who are in said situation but are the depressed party proved to give me some insight I sometimes did not even consider also I am sorry for not being able to respond to everyone I really tried my best to respond but there were so many comments I honestly couldn't keep up anymore but rest assured I tried to read just about every single comment so your advice likely did not go in vain and I appreciate it I ended up having

a really good think about my entire situation trying to wait out whether I would be able to give her another chance to begin with as despite my post would give away was actually something I struggled with I was a bit of an emotional mess after all and honestly I sort of lack slash lacked control over my emotions as you might have noticed in some of my responses sometimes I seem nostalgic forgiving and nice other times I seem vengeful resentful and hateful I will admit of the bat that this is all me and like I told

some people in messages I was and still am not in the best of places emotionally but I've been working on getting my own emotions under control the past few days and I can say I am in a better place than I was a week ago but it will certainly take some more time for me to recuperate from all of this now off to what people were likely looking to see what ended up happening this week that made me decide to make an update post well after all the thinking I decided regardless of what course I

would be taking as some people suggested it would be my decisions and my decision alone not the decision of my parents her parents friends or people on the internet mine alone a decision I would be the one living with at the end of the day so I decided I would inevitably end up regretting it all if I did not at the very least talk to my wife and get some closure so that is exactly what I did two days ago I decided to invite her to our home to talk about what us our relationship what

I would be doing going forward her depression and so forth basically just to get it all on the table now it would be impossible to narrate this entire conversation and honestly it was about some very personal stuff so I would not want to even if I could so I will Instead try to break it down and give a summary of sorts we ended up discussing our entire relationship I must admit it was very awkward and confronting as it was about a lot of stuff myself in particular had bottled up for so long it was very

hard for me not to start yelling I told her I was exhausted I told her everything we had been trying obviously had not been working I told her I felt like a doormat I told her she was not the person I married I told her these three months had been liberating for me I told her I was tired of it all I told her that I felt like she wasn't doing anything to help herself I told her she was not doing anything around the house I told her a marriage is supposed to be a partnership

but I felt like I was basically married to myself and that I was the only partner in this relationship essentially I unloaded the stuff I had been feeling for years by now I told her I had a hard time not regretting the day I married her at this point and while it obviously really really hurt her to hear she told me she knew she knew I was unhappy she knew she had been anything but a partner she knew she was horrible about it all but she felt like whatever she tried she always ended up fearing

getting better getting demotivated to do anything and that when she left she almost felt like she had burdened me enough that it wasn't for her but for me but that she went about it the wrong way and ended up blaming the therapist as an easy way out while it was true the therapist had guided her in some way towards this decision the decision she she made was for the right reasons but the explanation she provided was tailored to her not to me which was disregarding the therapist's advice entirely she said she felt guilty about it

all in that that guilt was just making her psychological State even worse she said she hated seeing me going to work coming home exhausted and having to clean everything up until I just passed out essentially which I might add as a massive step for her as she never admitted this but she started admitting a lot of stuff and apologizing for a lot of things in our relationship she set her time away made her realize how much I mean to her and how much she took for granted and that she should have done better a long

time ago to which I told her I felt like I've been enabling her essentially while I had tried to keep her to her medication and all of that at the end of the day it was always me picking up after her which probably made it easier for her to slip back into it all well after hours upon hours of talking we ended up hugging for what seemed like over an hour before going back to talking and she basically said she understood if I would not take her back she understood if I did not trust her

to get better she understood that I was tired but she asked me to give her one more chance and she would do anything for it I have to admit my mind immediately wanted me to go to the obvious option which was not taking her back not giving her a chance but honestly in this discussion she was the person I was once in love with she seemed to take ownership of things she seemed different somehow but I also knew the risks coming with taking her back and honestly I was not about to pull another Hail Mary

so I told her I would be willing to give it a shot but it wouldn't be like before not at all I told her she would have to prove she was going to put in the effort first before we could even begin firstly I told her she had to get a part-time job I don't care what sort of job whether it is waiting tables at a clothing store or at some company it is irrelevant as long as she made sure to go every single time she was supposed to go look presentable when going and made

sure she did her best at said job secondly she knows I like going to the gym as such she would be going with me at least three times a week get in shape again get some exercise in but most of all be busy in a healthy way thirdly she is going to help her parents around the house while she stays there no more sitting in her room along with her thoughts groceries dishes vacuuming whatever she was going to make an effort doing it every single day fourthly as some people suggested we were going to go

on a date once a week no more escaping not wanting to go outside feeling self-conscious no more excuses fifthly we were going to do couples counseling I know we tried before but we will try again sixth she is going to go to a new therapist not lie about anything anymore and do what the therapist tells her seventh if the therapist suggests medication she is going to take them every time she is supposed to take them and I will keep them with me and she will take them in front of me no more forgetting no more

not taking them no more complaining and if there are issues with them we will try different ones but regardless she is going to stick to it I told her once we are doing all that we can go to the next stage of repairing our relationship but until she does them and keeps them up for a good few months there is not a single chance I will continue our relationship and yes I know ultimatums are a taboo on relationship advice but I don't think I have much of a choice to my surprise she actually agreed into

my even bigger surprise despite it only having been two days she was actually helping her mother and father around the house yesterday and has been looking for jobs her dad also said she seems a lot more cheerful now I know there is a long road left and I know there is a good chance this won't work out and that I should not cheer too early but honestly I'm hoping I get my wife back and I felt I owe it to myself to at least allow her this one last chance call me an idiot for giving

her this chance but well perhaps I'm an idiot that was my update I am not sure whether I will make another I had honestly not even planned on making this one I want to thank the people who responded to my other post again for their insight and advice and I hope all of you live happily ever after something ha