That departure is believed by some to be a self-sacrifice.

There are folk who see self-sacrifice in everything Browning wrote about women.

Browning may have originally intended her action to be one of self-sacrifice, but the thing, as he went on, was taken out of his hands, and turns out to be quite a different matter.

The woman really leaves her husband because her love for him was tired out.

She talks of leaving her husband free, and perhaps, in women's way, persuades herself that she is sacrificing herself; but she desires in reality to set herself free from an unavailing struggle to keep his love.