We’ve all heard the advice to “trust your gut,” but even though there is some truth to this, there are definitely times when we can trust our gut a little too much and overreact.
But there are other times when trusting our gut is the only way to go, reassured the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor ChocolateForward2858 was deeply suspicious of his wife’s behavior during and after the bachelorette party trip she went for her bride-to-be friend, during which she spent no money, took no photos, and did not post anything on social media.
When she got loudly defensive and called him names, the Original Poster (OP) had never heard louder alarm bells go off in his mind.
He asked the sub:
“AITAH for suspecting my wife of doing something awful at her friend’s bachelorette week in Mexico? She spent virtually no money and took no pictures.”
The OP was suspicious of his wife’s spending history on a recent trip.
“I am in the middle of probably the biggest crisis of my adult life, and I can barely think, so I apologize in advance if this comes across as really weird or rambling.”
“My wife went to Mexico last week for her friend’s bachelorette party, and aside from the plane ticket, the hotel room, and the first day’s food and drinks, she didn’t spend a penny all week.”
“On the credit card, it’s as clear as day that on Monday up until about 9:00 PM, she was buying dinner, stuff at the hotel shop, drinks at the bar, souvenirs, and then at 9:00 PM, she didn’t spend another cent the entire week until she was at her layover airport in Dallas.”
“She says it’s because her friend took over and paid for everything. I guess this is plausible but it still is giving me a funny feeling.”
His wife’s social media presence and lack of photos were super suspicious, too.
“What is worse is that my wife is a person who posts her entire life on Instagram and on TikTok (mostly Instagram). If she does anything, from getting a latte to picking the kids up at school, she will post it either as a picture or as a story.”
“The last thing she posted on TikTok was that trend of people ‘jumping’ into their vacation from the airport, and after that her social media went blank.”
“I was kind of keeping an eye on it because I was excited for her to go on the trip, and again, I guess it’s plausible that she took a social media break or something, but it gives me a funny feeling.”
“When she got home, I said I couldn’t wait to see all the pictures she took, and she really blew me off and said that she just didn’t feel like taking pics that week.”
Alarm bells began going off once the OP’s wife was back home.
“She has also been incredibly distant, and last night, she said she just felt like sleeping on the couch because the AC hits better (this is 100% true).”
“But I swear I heard her talking on the phone in the middle of the night. When I got up to check on her, I accidentally tripped over the dog and made a huge racket, so when I got downstairs, she appeared to be asleep.”
Then the OP’s wife lashed out at him for trying to talk about his concerns.
“I brought all of this up this morning and said I’m not accusing her of anything, but all this put together is making me feel uneasy. I wasn’t trying to bait her or fight with her; I just wanted to get my feelings on the table.”
“She said, ‘You are a major f**king a**hole for bringing this up on my first day back at work.'”
“I said I wasn’t trying to pry, and that I was just communicating with her.”
“She said, ‘Your commuincation style is prying, and I am not discussing this with you ever again.'”
“She then took the kids to summer camp and left.”
“AITAH?”
With comments pouring in, the OP realized there was a place he hadn’t looked yet.
“I realized that her texts probably sync to her iPad, so I just checked. It took me a while to figure out the passcode but I did.”
“There was an iMessage at 9:15 PM the night she got to the resort from a number with no contact info that said, ‘Okay, I’ll meet you in the lobby. Is the app you said called Signal?'”
“I looked up Signal and see that it’s kind of like Whatsapp. The iPad doesn’t have Signal on it, but maybe her phone does.”
In the OP’s second update, he decided to call in reinforcements.
“If you have been following my comments, you’ve seen that my sister is coming over and she’s an insane internet sleuth and is relentless when it comes to this cheating stuff.”
“She also scares me a bit so I’m hoping this isn’t a mistake.”
“We’re going to talk and I’ll let her do her thing. I am numb but she can do this.”
“Thanks for everyone and the nice comments and the reality check. It’s not looking good.”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some immediately cringed when they heard one word: “Signal.”
“Signal is a messaging app where everything disappears. She’s cheating on you, d**n near sure of it. Besides the fact that she’s sleeping on the couch (probably feeling guilty/uninterested in you), and she’s getting mad at you for ‘prying,’ having Signal is a red flag in any relationship.”
“Ask her other friends who were there at the ‘bachelorette week’ what went down. They’ll probably give you mixed stories or whatever. Maybe hire a Personal Investigator.” – NobodyOfGreatImport
“So to be clear, your wife was directly communicating with a specific older man, on an encrypted secret messaging app while on a trip and refuses to talk to you about anything that happened.”
“Her cohorts on the trip are deleting the pics from their social media.”
“2+2=4, my guy. There are no possible good explanations for this.” – QueensPet
“Just an idea…”
“Get on Signal on the iPad, get that other number, have a friend download Signal and then message the mystery number, ‘Hey, had to get a new phone. Husband suspects.'”
“While they are messaging mystery dude, have your wife busy in a pool or something with the kids so she doesn’t get alerts if they message her to check.”
“See what happens.” – Smart-Assistance-254
“I’m questioning if there even was a bachelorette party…”
“If she was cheating is she really going to do that in the open among so many friends? I doubt this was a bachelorette party.”
“But I hope she is soon a bachelorette. Cheaters are the absolute worst.”
“As if the sexual betrayal isn’t bad enough, the gaslighting, deception, secret app use, and serial lying is torturous emotional abuse. The epitome of selfish, crude behavior.” – majordashes
Others felt that if the wife didn’t value their relationship enough to have this conversation, the OP didn’t need to value it, either.
“You feel something is off because something is certainly off. Listen to your gut.”
“Ask for 100% honesty about her trip and if she refuses, you should assume your instincts are spot on. I don’t know what your plan is if she were to cheat on you, but if she doesn’t come clean about exactly what happened during vacation, you should move forward as if she had cheated. She should try to put herself in your shoes, ya know?”
“The way she is handling this, every step, is a huge red flag and she would be stupid to not see that herself.” – InteresDean
“NTA. We have a gut instinct for a reason and right now yours is telling you that something is off because it IS off.”
“A lot of people will take a social media break a bit on vacation, but it sounds like she did a complete 180 and just stopped everything. Not spending one penny the whole week is suspicious as I doubt her friend was buying every single drink and meal, not to mention whatever souvenirs she brought home?”
“Then sleeping on the couch, you hear her talking but by the time you get downstairs, she’s silent. The attitude, the distance, how she didn’t deny but immediately got angry and deflected. Accusing you of prying? Prying into what exactly? How it sounds like she had an affair on her trip?”
“Please update us on what happens, I don’t think this is over just yet.” – Caspian4136
“Any partner who gives a d**n would stay and talk it out. Her reaction is VERY suspicious, and would be the smoke necessary for me to think there’s fire.”
“If you’re the primary on the family plan, you can get the numbers she’s calling/texting late at night from the logs. If you have her phone password, I would be checking it after she goes to bed.” – TheCucumberPurple
“I don’t know, man, her response of, ‘How dare you ask, I’m not ever talking about this with you,’ is honestly insane. How else are you supposed to find out if you don’t ask?! And how can she said she doesn’t want to talk about it again if she hasn’t talked about it at all?”
“Is this response ‘normal’ for her? I would give it a day so you both can breathe and then bring it up again. And yeah, bring up the signal thing and ask to see it.” – cocomellamo
“Nah, she’s for the streets, bro. I don’t give a f**k how long we’ve been together. You’re not gonna brush my anxiety to the wayside. Especially if it’s anxiety you caused by being weird and ghosting life in Mexico.”
“You aren’t disappearing from life for a whole week on vacation, texting people on shady apps, and then coming home and telling me you won’t ever talk about it. Insanity.”
“If you were dating her for a month and she did this s**t, you’d be gone. I don’t know why she gets a pass just because she has a ring? Clearly, it means nothing to her to be so dismissive of you and your worries.”
“If I had to guess, some s**t went down she 100% knows you would not like. She decided then, f**k your feelings and f**k your well-being; she’s going to do it anyway. Now she’s home and can’t shake you off and probably still maintaining contact with whoever the f**k late at night on the couch.”
“She didn’t take any pictures. She didn’t pay for a thing. And she refuses to talk about it. So just don’t waste your breath bro. Tell her to get her s**t and go. Or you get YOUR s**t and go. I wouldn’t waste a minute more on someone so disrespectful and dismissive of their own partner’s worries and anxieties. Take care of your kids. Leave her to her own devices.”
“I just know that if I had disappeared for a week, and my girl was worried AT ALL, I would take her hands, sit down with her, and reaffirm her. I would make sure she knows we are a team, and that she doesn’t need to worry because nobody takes her from my eye. I’m with her because I love her.”
“You guys have kids. You have history. There shouldn’t be any weird unexplained bulls**t coming into your busy lives.”
“But either way, too d**n old to play these f**king games. Ask her straight point blank, ‘Did you break my trust?’Â If she is dismissive, if she is mean, if she acts cold, if she ignores you, I would toss all of the husband perks out the f**king window.”
“I wouldn’t lift a finger for her anymore.”
“Trust is a massive deal. Trust in a relationship actually is the relationship. When it’s broken, it’s easier to break. If she did f**k around, she will f**k around again. That’s just how it is. You can’t get that trust back.”
“Either way, I wouldn’t worry about it anymore. If she doesn’t care enough to spend a little time and talk, she isn’t worth the time anyway, bro. Wishing you the best either way.” – 99HeartBreak
In the OP’s third update, the OP confirmed exactly what the subReddit suspected.
“She cheated.”
“We tracked the number from my wife’s iPad back to a real estate agency in Florida and found the guy’s name. I’ve now seen the guy’s Instagram and Facebook, his wife’s Instagram, and I can confirm he was in Mexico alone at the time my wife was there.”
“My sister was able to get lots of info from the real estate guy, and my wife denied it at first but then admitted it.”
“My sister had a burner phone and texted him as my wife that her husband (me) was suspicious so she had a new phone and for him to contact her on Signal there if he wanted to stay in touch.”
“Literally within seconds, he sent a Signal message, and over the course of an hour or so, my sister (again, pretending to be my wife) was able to get him to reminisce about the week they had, he sent pics of them together in a bar, them on the beach together, etc…”
“We took pics of the Signal messages with another phone so there is 100% smoking gun evidence of her with the guy and him saying how much fun they had. You can’t screenshot in Signal, which is one of its features my sister told me about.”
“There was nothing graphic, just like selfies taken at the bar with arms around each other, them sitting on the beach in lounge chairs sort of snuggled up. There were a few pics where he paid for her to do parasailing and riding ATVs.”
“There’s enough where she can’t deny she was spending time with him but nothing graphic enough that would make me want to blow my brains out.”
“When my wife got home, I confronted her. My wife flat-out denied it at first, but when I showed her the Signal texts and pics he sent, she couldn’t deny it anymore.”
“She basically said how sorry and embarrassed she was and then took two Ambien, emailed her boss that she wasn’t coming in the next day (today), and went to sleep in her sewing room, and I haven’t seen her since.”
“In one of her more lucid moments today (it takes a long time for her to wear off Ambien), I was begging her to tell me why she chose a guy who weighs 300 pounds with greasy hair on his fourth marriage with at least six kids, and she flat out told me he made her feel ‘special.'”
“I guess I don’t know women at all because I’ve spent my entire life trying to NOT be that guy and have my wife set up for retirement, my kids set up for college, we have a nice second home on the lake, and I took risks to move from engineering to management in my company so I could provide our family with everything. I work late hours, I love my kids, and I coach little league and volleyball and swimming, even though I can barely doggy paddle. I love her parents and paid for them to go to Hawaii with us last year.”
“And now f**king fat Tony Soprano wannabe with his rented Ferrari on his awful Florida real estate site made her feel ‘special,’ and I’m looking at the prospect of legitimately not seeing my kids on Christmas morning ever again.”
“Since then, it’s been VERY up and down. In one minute, she’s devastated and begging me not to do anything rash and asking me to think of what the kids will do being raised in a split household, and in the next minute, she’s utterly unapologetic and telling me I caused all of this.”
“I’m all over the place emotionally too, so I get it, but it’s a little hard to hear that I caused this.”
In the final update, the OP wasn’t sure what else there was to do or say anymore.
“I know people really want updates, and we’ve been talking, arguing, screaming, and threatening all day long. I’m more confused than I was this morning; that’s for sure. But I’m also confused, exhausted, sad, upset, nervous, and I don’t know what to do.”
“I did make a preliminary appointment with a family law attorney tomorrow to talk about protecting assets and how to navigate the legal way ahead regardless of what I choose to do.”
“I’m very tired and I doubt people are still invested, but if there’s still interest, I can update either on this post or in a new one in a few days. I’m really hoping to sleep tonight.”
“My sister still has the kids, and they are having a blast and went to the lake with her boyfriend’s family today, so I’m glad they are in good hands.”
The subReddit felt that there had never been a time in Reddit history when an entire group of subRedditors came together with the same conclusion: that the OP’s wife’s behavior was not only suspicious but terrible and that he deserved better.
But after the OP’s sister sleuthed out the truth, the subReddit hoped that the OP would do the right thing for himself and move on from the relationship, rather than listen to his wife try to blame him for her infidelity.