Gary Speed talked "in terms of taking his life" in a text message to his wife only days before he died, the former Wales manager's widow told an inquest hearing on Monday.
Louise Speed told the hearing in Warrington, north-west England, that he had dismissed it however because of their children.
Speed, 42, was found hanged in the garage of his
house in Huntington, near Chester, on 27 November.
Police said at the time that there were no suspicious circumstances.
The BBC and Sky television quoted his widow as saying they had an "exchange of words" on the night before he died and she had spent the night in their car after going for a drive and then being unable to get into the house when she returned at around 1.30am.
Crying as she recalled the events, Louise Speed said she had found the body in the morning and tried in vain to revive him. He did not leave a note.
The doctor who worked with Sheffield United, Speed's last club before taking the Wales job in 2010, told the hearing that he had shown no sign of any mental health problems.
Speed and his wife had also attended a dinner party on the night before he died, with the manager jokingly pushed into a swimming pool and appearing in good spirits.
His mother Carol was quoted as saying in a written statement that her son was a "half-empty person" and "certainly no optimist" and that receiving the news of his death had been the worst moment of her life.
Carol Speed spoke movingly in her statement about her son's successful footballing career.
She said he "loved his sons completely" but described him as a "man of few words".
Speaking about the back injury which led to his move from playing to coaching, she said: "The feeling I got was that he felt it was the right thing to do."
And on his appointment as Wales manager, Mrs Speed said: "Gary said there was no greater honour than to manage his country in the game he loved."
Mrs Speed and her husband Roger had urged their son to use a driver for the long drive from their Chester home to Cardiff, where the Welsh FA is based.
But he told her the drive was "his thinking time", she told the court.
"He had a job and he was striving to make changes.
"Although Gary enjoyed his job he did not enjoy the high profile nature of it.
"Gary always said he was not a celebrity."
She said her son's death left herself and her husband in "complete shock".
"Looking back, Gary was always a glass-half-empty person, certainly no optimist," her statement added.
Speed played for Leeds United, Everton, Newcastle United, Bolton Wanderers and Sheffield United in a playing career that spanned 22 seasons.
With Leeds he won the last first division title in 1992 and retired after making 535 appearances in the Premier League. He was capped 85 times by Wales, who named Chris Coleman as his successor as manager earlier this month.
