When we marked 28 years of marriage, I never imagined this would be the year my husband would leave.
He left early on Friday morning, as usual, heading to work. But on the dining table, he had left a folded letter. At first, I thought it was a reminder or a note about errands.
Then I opened it.
The first sentence took the air out of my lungs:
“I’m not leaving because of another woman. I’m leaving because I no longer have a soul here. You took my air away.”
The Letter That Changed Everything
He was never a man who wrote letters. That’s why the fact that he chose to leave this way hurt even more.
As I kept reading, memories of our life together started coming back.
And yes — I was an angry woman.
He had told me so many times, but I never wanted to hear it.
I made scenes over everything.
If he came home ten minutes late.
If he wanted to see a friend.
If he went to a football match.
If he talked on the phone with a female colleague — even though I knew they were just colleagues.
He was a quiet, calm man.
And I always found a reason to fight.
Not conversations — fights.
Shouting.
Reproaches.
Groundless accusations.
How He Slowly Disappeared
Little by little, he stopped inviting friends over.
Stopped going out.
Stopped talking.
Stopped having opinions.
Every time he tried to say something, I interrupted him.
I told him he had no right to be tired. That he should be grateful to have “a woman like me.”
I thought that’s how you protect a relationship — by controlling everything.
I didn’t understand that I was suffocating him.
The Signs I Refused to See
He started getting angry more often.
Complained of constant headaches.
Withdrew into himself.
Sometimes I saw him sitting in the living room, absent, distant.
I interpreted it as indifference.
Not sadness.
What Our Daughter Saw Before I Did
The worst realization came when I learned that even our daughter had seen what I refused to admit.
She lives across the city, but when she visited, she noticed how weaker and sadder he had become.
One day she told me she was worried about him — that she no longer saw any spark in him.
I got offended.
I told her she didn’t understand.
What I didn’t know was that the two of them were talking behind my back.
The Day He Left
When he left the letter and walked out, it was our daughter who came to pick him up.
She confessed to me through tears:
“Mom, I told him to leave. I told him it wouldn’t get better with you. That you don’t listen. That you’re destroying him. He was depressed, Mom. I couldn’t leave him there to fade away alive.”
That was the first time I felt real shame.
Not guilt.
Shame.
Because my own daughter had to lead her father out of my home so he could breathe.
What the Letter Said
In the letter, he wrote things he had never dared to say out loud.
That he missed speaking without fear.
That he felt watched all the time.
That he was exhausted from walking on eggshells to avoid triggering an explosion.
And the most painful line of all:
That he had felt lonely for years — even though he slept next to me.
“There is no other woman,” he wrote.
“But there is no me either. You lost me a long time ago.”
That broke me.
Eight Days Later
Today, it’s been eight days since he left.
I don’t know whether to reach out to him or let him go.
I’m afraid that if I do anything now, I’ll cause even more damage.
I don’t know what’s right.
Should I look for him — or should I let him leave?