I’m Waiting for My Husband to Return Home after He Left Me for Another Woman

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:03 JST, October 8, 2023

Dear Troubleshooter:

I’m a female part-timer in my 50s. I have two children and live with my in-laws in a two-family home. My husband left us five years ago, after he was caught cheating with a married woman.

I’ve no idea where he is or whether he is living with this woman. Whenever I talk to my in-laws about it, asking for advice, they only say, “We don’t know what our son will do to us.”

I’ve managed to help my daughter navigate her university entrance exams and my son through his high school entrance exams without their father. My husband pays our living expenses, but he ignores my Line messages, and I feel so miserable.

Still, I’m hoping that he’ll apologize and come back to me because I’ve no strength to live on my own when my children become financially independent.

I always pictured a future where my children have their own families, and we all get together for family gatherings. My children also want their father to come home.

I get so anxious thinking about what I would do if my husband were to say that divorce is the only option. Please tell me how I should deal with my feelings.

U, Saitama Prefecture

Dear Ms. U:

You’re living with your in-laws in a house where your husband is absent. You don’t know where he is, and you don’t know if he’s with this other woman. You’re dreading that he might divorce you, and you’re still waiting for him to come home.

You’re asking me how to emotionally handle the situation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your husband will come back to you. Since divorce is not easily granted, you won’t immediately lose your status as a wife, but can you accept living with such anxiety for years to come?

With your husband remaining absent, you’ll eventually begin providing nursing care for your in-laws. If he’s been in a common-law marriage with the other woman, there’s no denying that sooner or later he’ll ask you for a divorce, even if he’s the one responsible for causing the breakup of the marriage.

The future you had hoped for has been unilaterally destroyed. You said you don’t have the strength or the courage to live on your own, but now you have no choice but to do so. It would be better for you to leave the house as soon as possible and start a new life.

You’re still young. Instead of leaving your future in the hands of your unreliable husband, you can receive sufficient compensation and rebuild your life little by little.

The question now is: “Who owns your life?”

Hazuki Saisho, writer