My Partner Opened a Takeaway Restaurant Without Telling Me

The Yomiuri Shimbun

11:35 JST, December 28, 2025

Dear Troubleshooter:

I’m a nurse in my 40s. I got divorced over 20 years ago and raised my daughter by myself until she became an adult. I’ve been living with a man for five years with an eye on getting married in the future.

We often discussed starting something new together with the belief that we only live once. When he quit his job after 35 years, I was truly looking forward to the future.

However, one day, he renovated a shed he borrowed from an acquaintance, and after a bit of DIY work, he turned it into a takeaway restaurant despite not having any experience.

To make matters worse, people around him had known for a year that he was planning to open the restaurant, but he never told me about the plan. Such betrayal broke my heart, and I was diagnosed with an adjustment disorder for the first time in my life.

I feel I have no choice but to accept the reality of the situation, but I’m still struggling with my emotions and how to get through each day. How should I interpret his behavior?

— S, Saitama Prefecture

Dear Ms. S:

It must have come as a deep shock to find out the person you are living with and planning to marry had been secretly preparing to open a takeaway restaurant. It is understandable to feel betrayed.

However, what was the exact problem for you? Despite his lack of experience, the restaurant does not seem to be going badly. Perhaps you felt ignored while he just decided on his own future path, which you were supposed to be building together.

If this is the case, then shouldn’t you sit down with him and discuss why he didn’t tell you about the plan? He might have prepared the restaurant without considering your feelings. Or he might not have wanted to interfere with your work. He might have had any other reason.

Your feeling of betrayal is valid, but at the same time, this experience will not be wasted if you both can use it to open up to each other about what led to this situation and how you can stay together into the future.

— Yutaka Ono, psychiatrist