The drama in this thread is absurd but from all the sources close to the situation, it's pretty clear that it was not Meredith that made this decision for him and playing "blame the wife" is a low-blow. It was an emotional choice, a shared choice, and a last-minute compromise. He was torn between playing closer to home but also thought about signing back to play with Lindholm and Tkachuk at the last minute before Columbus called. That's what he said in interviews/his letter and there's no reason not to believe him.
In a recent interview in Columbus, Johnny explained that Meredith embarked on a 9 month retraining/re-certification to be allowed to work in Canada as a nurse (interrupted by Covid). She does not do that if her ultimate plans were to pull him back to the US all along.
https://www.nhl.com/news/johnny-gaud...ld/c-335676784
Gaudreau chose to leave and that's totally fine. He's a professional sports player, not your ex-wife. All these bitter break ups are stupid and there are 11 days until the next era is here.