ITAMI, Hyogo Prefecture--After years of living in isolation and struggling to deal with physical and mental ailments, a man killed his wife upon her request. He now says that ending her misery has exacerbated his own suffering and left him all alone and feeling guilty.

According to one psychotherapist, this tragic love story underscores the dangers of co-dependence between couples in isolation, and a system is needed to allow experts to intervene when couples facing dire problems refuse outside help.

The plight of the 68-year-old man won sympathy from the judge at the Kobe District Court, which convicted him of “murder at the victim’s request” in November last year.

According to the ruling, the man strangled his wife, then 49, with a rope at their home here on Aug. 5 upon her request.

“It was a rash act that led to a dire consequence,” Judge Takushi Noguchi said.

But he sentenced the killer to three years in prison, suspended for five years, rejecting prosecutors’ request for a four-year prison term.

“The defendant deserves some sympathy because he was convinced that he had no choice but to comply when his wife, in a strong and serious manner, asked him to kill her,” Noguchi said.

According to the prosecutors’ opening statement and the defense lawyers’ final arguments, the couple became acquainted through their work around 1992 and got married in 1996.

They used to go to a shopping center on holidays to shop for her clothes.

But about two years into their marriage, a disease caused her facial skin to become rough.

She developed mental disorders because of feelings of inferiority from her skin problem, and day after day, the man comforted her when she said she wanted to die.

The husband suffered a stroke around 2005, but he still took care of his wife while receiving livelihood assistance. The couple had no children.

She began using a wheelchair because of a knee problem, and her husband had to help her eat and use the toilet.

Several years later, the man was diagnosed with depression. His wife’s mental condition had worsened, and she kept begging him to end her life and started slitting her wrists.

On Aug. 3 last year, the couple argued over the cost to feed their pet dog. The next day, she started recording herself on her smartphone saying that she asked her husband to kill her.

The following morning, the husband returned home from walking the dog. His wife, wearing makeup and a white dress, was waiting for him. On a table in the home were a photograph she wanted used for her funeral, a farewell note and a thick hemp rope.

According to the man, his wife said in a calm, level tone: “Kill me with this. You’re the only one I can ask to do it.”

Before strangling her, he told her, “Let’s be together in another life.”

The man also said that since he was 19 years older than his wife, she feared that he would die first in 20 to 30 years, leaving her all alone in the world.

During the trial, a defense lawyer asked the defendant why he couldn’t talk her out of it. He replied that she appeared different and deadly serious the final time.

When a prosecutor asked him if he thought he had done the right thing, the defendant said that although there might have been another option, he wasn’t sure what he should have done.

Prosecutors also said her death could have been prevented if he had stayed away from her and sought assistance from third-party specialists.

In interviews with The Asahi Shimbun before and after the verdict was announced, the man said he had received assistance from a care manager once a month from about three years before his wife’s death. He had also asked for in-home care support once every two weeks.

“But my wife wanted me to take care of her,” he said. “It convinced me that I understood my wife better than anyone else.”

Clinical psychologist Sayoko Nobuta described the marriage as a “co-dependent relationship.”

“I think that the wife, who used to say, ‘I want to die, kill me,’ on a daily basis, was testing his love by seeing if he could go to such lengths for her,” Nobuta said. “I think the husband was driven by the thought that his wife would die if he weren’t there for her.

“The couple deepened their bond with each other while choosing a path to isolation,” she added.

For privacy and other reasons, it is often difficult for third parties to intervene in the daily affairs of married couples, such as for domestic violence cases.

“In any case, it is important not to let them isolate themselves,” Nobuta said. “It is necessary not only to arrange meetings with them on a regular basis but also to have them temporarily keep a distance from each other.”

She also pointed to the urgency of setting up a system in which psychiatrists, care managers and other experts can share information and actively intervene.

The man returned home after the verdict. He said when he wakes up every morning, he remembers the days when he took hold of his wife’s hand to help her out of bed.

“At that time, I just wanted to grant my wife’s wish,” he said. “Now, I think I’ll suffer for the rest of my life.”