My Wife Said ‘Give Her Back’—But I Chose Our Daughter Instead (2 of 3)

But slowly, I began to notice the cracks.

Claire grew quieter, more distant. Her smiles didn’t quite reach her eyes. At first, I chalked it up to adjustment. This was new for all of us. But then came the whisper from Sophie, one afternoon as she played with blocks on the living room floor: “Daddy… am I staying here forever?”

I knelt beside her. “Of course you are,” I said. “You’re home.”

But that night, everything unraveled.

Claire met me at the door with a blank expression and a chilling sentence: “We need to talk.” Her words spilled out fast—too fast. She felt smothered. Sophie was too much. She missed our life, our space, the quiet. Then she said the unthinkable: “We should give her back.”

I froze.

“You don’t mean that,” I said. But her face told me she absolutely did.

“I can’t do this,” she insisted. “She’s manipulating us. She’s ruining everything.”

I looked at her—this woman I had loved for over a decade—and saw a stranger. And in that moment, I had to choose. My marriage or my daughter.

“I’m not giving her back,” I said quietly. “She’s mine.”

Claire didn’t argue. She grabbed her keys, slammed the door, and was gone.