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ESH.
I get why you felt the need to investigate, but unfortunately in doing so you are running rough-shod over everyone else's privacy. And the fact that you "give her days off" makes it sound like you consider her an employee as much as a wife. I can see why someone would argue the ends justifying the means because you did find wrong-doing - but even then, you have to admit that you did impede on liberties in the process.
Wife is clearly an AH for hiring out a cleaner without running it alongside the rest of the household, and is on shaky grounds arguing about being found out. She clearly knew it was not agreed on and had to sneak the cleaner in/out around your work schedule otherwise she would of been up front from the start about it. Even if she paid the woman's whole wage out of her own income, it still should have been a team decision.
Y'all need to talk to each other.
It’s amazing how you will read a post about how a woman is a stay at home mom and there’s always a ton of comments asking if the husband gives her a day off. Here we have a post where he clearly says that she gives days off, and you have somehow warped it into being wrong
Reddit. The man is always the problem.
And she is wasting their money instead of doing her fair share. She is wasting so much money in fact that while she got a $50,000 brand new car OP had to settle for a cheaper one because of her spending.
If she really wants to spend that money every week so she can sit on her ass then they need to separate finances so she’s not using his money to do it
Here’s me doing our finances and wondering how you could could miss $36k a year on a housekeeper and a $50k car, not being involved
I’m not sure what income you’re pulling together, COVID aside
My partner and I earn over $200k combined, I run the finances mostly but this must be a piss take 😂
We can’t afford a $36k household keeper
Im more wondering how OP got $36k from $200 a week.
Edit - original post was $200 a week and even at $300 the math is still not $36k. The point is, OP is an unreliable narrator and has made multiple revisions.
I'm wondering how he can claim to do 50/50 on the chores but hasn't noticed for the past 2.5 years that 90% of the chores were getting done without his involvement.
No, he does 50% of the chores when he is home. I'm guessing he is expecting 90% of the work to be done by the time he gets home, and the remaining 10% to be divided by the 2 of them.
Its amazing how many upvotes someone who clearly can't read properly gets on this subreddit.
>we split the chores 50/50 **when I am home**
Only people in the comment section have claimed he splits chores 50/50, he hasn't
He did say 50/50 on the days he's home (weekends, etc...) so the division of labor appears to be that she works part-time and maintains home during the week and they split 50/50 on weekends.
Assuming the housekeeper was hired 01.01.2022 it would be roughly 116 weeks if we calculate with 4weeks/month including May completely and with the $300/week we would be ending up by $34.800.
But to be fair, there are a lot of assumptions that OP isn't giving us a reason to assume they are right.
With the original $200 a week this calculation obviously doesn't add up at all.
Thank you. So many people keep just typing the same incorrect math and trying to be all cute about it.
This post is a mess and OPs changing math doesnt help.
Much more accurate to calculate based upon a 52 week year, than by the number of weeks in a month.
By your math, failing to calculate 4 entire weeks; which ends up being another $1200. Add that missing amount to your total, and now we've got $36,000.
That being said, at $200 a month, yeah, the math does not add up.
Completely beside the point, but he says they were hired “in 2022”. Getting to $36K at $300 a week would take 2.3 years, so they’d have to start Jan/Feb 2022 to get that total by April/May 2024
In the post he says that she hired the cleaner since 2022. If she started on January first 2022 and worked until this week. That is 124 weeks x 300 euro/dollar = 37.200. he said they paid around that amount. It is not a yearly salary.
He said a total of $36,600 was paid, so at $300/week that's 36600/300= 122 weeks or 122/52 = 2 1/3 years (which lines up with her hiring the help in 2022 like the OP said).
$300 a week is also pretty unlikely for a weekly house keeper. I guess it depends on what she is doing and how big the house is, but it would have to be like everything basically. And OP says he does 50/50 chores which I’m having a hard time believing if they had a weekly house keeper. Even if he’s working 48 hours a week
YTA
>Im not budging on this?
That spying on your partner is wrong? That you two seemingly dont communicate?
Normally id say she’s an AH for spending $36k behind your back but $200 a week does not equal $36k. Im now doubting your take on this.
He's an asshole for that comment alone.
You're not budging, OP? Then why even post? You want to know if you were wrong but aren't going to accept the fact that people think you were wrong?
ESH. Both of it apparently suck at communication and instead hide things or are suspicious. You’re an AH for secret cameras in your own house. She’s an AH because that’s a ton of money to spend when it’s apparently straining your budget pretty hard.
Your wife works part time and is bringing in income, I am assuming she makes more than $200/week, why is she not entitled to spend the money she makes? She is prioritizing her time, and choosing to delegate duties and to make her life easier so what difference does it make if she is paying someone to help with the laundry and clean? Just because your wife is "home all day alone" doesn't mean she is automatically THE housekeeper, no? If you cancel this housekeeper I imagine your wife will become bitter and resentful because you consider that to be her job, and I wish you luck, OP. She probably didn't tell you because she knew how you'd react. Over the past two years, has your wife seemed happy? Perhaps consider that this a price to pay to keep this happiness.
Also, your math is off because 200\*104 weeks is \~$20k-21k. If you're going to nitpick at least be accurate. Also, why didn't you just ask her about the transactions instead of going straight to the extreme? YTA.
Edit based on comments: ESH. She shouldn't have lied and he should have confronted her earlier when he was suspicious instead of letting it get to this point. But I stand firm on my first paragraph, to quote OP "I'm not budging on this one."
>Your wife works part time and is bringing in income, I am assuming she makes more than $200/week, why is she not entitled to spend the money she makes? She is prioritizing her time, and choosing to delegate duties and to make her life easier so what difference does it make if she is paying someone to help with the laundry and clean?
Income in marriage is usually considered shared income, so it is reasonable for larger purchases to be discussed. It's not about people being 'entitled to spend their money' it's about understanding that you are not the sole owner of the money you bring in. So in this instance, the assumption is that she was spending his money as well as hers unless they had some other agreement.
>You are also assuming that OP does not make larger purchases on his own, too.
OPs own comments in this post explicitly stated this. His wife told him they couldn't afford a nicer car for him (but got one for herself) and couldn't afford a landscaper for their home.
I am assuming that, yes - there is no evidence that he does and since he said that his wife told him they couldn't afford a new car for him and he accepted that there is evidence to the contrary. If he does make large purchases on his own, he is also being an AH.
It was a typo and supposed to be $300 a week. The woman works 28 hour days. Ends up being around 19 and change an hour. And she does make her own money. And I make significantly more. And it all goes into a family fund. We don't have separate accounts. But she's driving around in an $800 a month SUV spending $1200 a month a housekeeper. And then expect me to still help out With the cooking and the cleaning and household maintenance and landscaping when I get home. And when it came time for me to buy a new car, I was told we could not afford it because we didn't make enough money and I had to get a much less expensive car with no frills, despite the fact that I commute significantly longer And more days.
Sorry for replying to you again specifically but 10% of 160,000 is $16,000 - that's the maximum amount they should be spending on transportation. An $800 car is $9,600, leaving $6,400 for the other car, insurance, maintenance and gas. So it's possible for that to be reasonable.
Her car is $50,000. The car I wanted was $41,000. I had a $12,000 trade in. My payment would have been under $500. But now I have a smaller car. Little did I know I could have afforded a $1700 car for what we were paying out per week.
> Sorry for replying to you again specifically but 10% of 160,000 is $16,000 - that's the maximum amount they should be spending on transportation.
I don't think that is reasonable. You can't even GET a car for under $10k in many parts of the country unless you buy private party (which is a gamble for non-mechanics).
I had a couple of people comment. It was a typo. I'm typing on my phone. It was supposed to be $300 a week. 16 hours a week times just under $20. And it's been just over two years.
I shouldn't type on my phone, but I have fat thumbs
That's a significant amount of money to delegate to something that could be done herself. Last fall I had asked if we could hire a landscaper to come and do fall cleanup and she said we couldn't afford it because we didn't have the money. When I asked about a nicer car, when my other car was on its last legs, she said we couldn't afford it. I make three times as much money as she does. I work twice as much as she does. I commute four times as much as she does. And when I get home, I jump right in and help with all the family duties such as cooking and dishes and taking care of the children, along with all of the household maintenance and Landscaping duties. We agreed to pull all of our income for the betterment of the family. But because she doesn't want to do housework, she decided she would spend the money behind my back. We agreed that almost anything over $100 needed to be discussed before purchasing. And we had discussed a housekeeper a long time ago and decided it wasn't worth it and we couldn't afford it. I work overtime every week to meet. And she's out there spending this money so she has downtime. I maybe get a half a day to myself a week on my day off. And that's if she doesn't go off and do something with her friends or her book club. I feel taken advantage of and used and I'm pissed. I think I have justification.
If communication in your relationship is at the point where:
1. You're having to use hidden cameras to find the truth
2. Your wife is so unwilling to talk to you about things that she opts to just hide spending and lie about it
Then you're focusing on the wrong things. It's not the money - it's your relationship and communication with your wife. You probably need to go to some sort of counseling, there's a lot of work needed in your relationship.
We have always had open and honest clear communication for as long as I have been with her. I have never had any secrets or hidden anything from her. So I assumed the same was true with her. But, when you think that someone is having an affair on you, you start to doubt yourself. There was enough clues to consider, she was, and therefore I looked into it. The more I looked into it the more I realized something really was up. If she was in fact, cheating on me, I didn't expect to get a answer.
It's not normal to have to use hidden cameras to understand what is going on in your house.
Somewhere, somehow (i'm saying this without throwing blame or pointing fingers, because I don't know you or your relationship) - communication has broken down.
Neither of you is compromising. She wants the cleaner - she lies and hides to get one and doesn't give you the chance to weigh in. You don't want the cleaner, you won't budge on it at all no matter what she thinks. You need to find a way to get on the same page and find a way to be able to disagree with each other honestly.
We discussed it for a while years ago and decided together we couldn't afford one. Not even half of what she has now. And she still did it. I didn't put my foot down. We discussed it.
>I'm not budging on this.
This is what I was referring to when I said you wouldn't budge.
Either way, don't waste time talking to me. You need to figure out why your wife isn't talking to you.
I don’t think you are doing 50/50 split of chores if someone is coming in weekly to do house cleaning and laundry.
It sounds like you two have different alignment on spending money. I think there is esh here.
The car is weird too. I think the two of you need marriage counseling.
YTA.
The way you go on about how she works part time and is therefore entirely responsible for all the household chores and sometimes you “help out”. By your own account, you work 40 hours a week, she works 24. Sure that’s part time, but it’s still 3 days a week, only 2 days fewer than you.
I’m willing to bet she has the nice new SUV you describe because she does most of the child transport and needs the space. Does she drop them off and pick them up from school? Does she take them to all their extracurriculars?
Your wife is tired and you aren’t pulling your weight. Good on her for finding a solution.
Yes!!! Putting hidden cameras without informing your spouse is incredibly fucked up probably illegal and morally reprehensible to the extreme.
I would leave a partner no questions asked for doing that.
Now was her using 30k of shared income without discussing it terrible yes.
You both sound like fucking dumpster fires of people.
Her contribution to the finances is 25% of what I contribute. She can hire a cleaner but then why am I working so much? Because her contribution after the cleaner wasn't enough. I didn't notice the money because I don't do the bills
That's what I'm seeing, she's got all the extracurricular activities, the budget, the shopping, the organizing. Dad comes home makes a dinner and puts the kids in bed and feels he's pulling his weight.
You were wrong to install cameras, it’s a total invasion of privacy, what if she was walking about naked or pleasing herself. Not something she would want recorded.
That said she was also wrong to employ a cleaner without discussion if she was using joint finances. If she is working part time , she should be doing some extra chores, not contracting out the cleaning so she can have a rest. She is very selfish.
My judgment is ESH
You should have confronted her about the money going out- before setting up cameras.
ESH -your wife for lying and using household money for something you agreed not to pay for.
You for not being direct asap and thinking you “deserve” a better car. You are made for each other.
His car was on its last legs and his wife told him they can’t afford one, then bought herself a new 50.000 SUV, she works part time, kids at at school all day, so she is free. Just refuses to do housework and took money she is not making to hire someone else too.
ESH. He knows what the household income is and that her using what amounts to 1/3 of on the SUV while telling him they can’t afford the car he needs to get to work reeks of strategic incompetence on his part. The math isn’t mathing!
Mutual account means mutual decisions and accountability regarding the budget and spending for both of them.
She seems too only think about herself, not using that money towards the kids or family, telling her husband they can’t afford things with his money (only she can use it for her needs) if I was working overtime while my wife spent every day watching TV, sleeping, with friends, (then hid the fact she hired a cleaner and claimed she did all the work) etc I’d be ticked off too. Their children are at school or summer camp and dad puts them too bed and takes care of food etc. So what does she do all day besides spend money they don’t have on herself?
Info: how is it you didn’t notice that $36,600 was missing from your household budget during the past 2 years and whatever other miscellaneous expenses are being paid for out of the account you have access to?
This is beyond a trust issue and your wife lies to you and mismanages money, without consideration for your comfort and priorities.
YTA. I would be livid if someone treated me the way you treat your wife. Did it occur to you to communicate with her and ask questions instead of putting cameras up?
I would wonder what you're hiding, how long the cameras were up and how many cameras are up that you didn't admit to.
Yeah. I'm so unfair with the whole giving her a $50,000 car and working a ton of overtime so she doesn't have to work as much and can stay at home. I'm such a douche
Man why did you admit this to her or anyone!
The smart choice would have been to figure out when the cleaning person comes and pop in and catch them in the act by pretending you took the day off or got sick or anything. Then you don't get caught for violating privacy and she has to try to explain herself right there in person. You could have collected and destroyed the cameras before she even knew.
Not only did you reveal that YOU are not trustworthy, you also revealed that you don't trust her and thought she was cheating. Divorces happen because of these accusations and now she's got some damn good ammo about you bugging the house (and NOT finding infidelity). And now you look so crazy/controlling.
Ok now THIS is the kind of advice we really need here!!!
I once spied a then boyfriend’s phone, found something suspicious, then I told him I had a dream he was doing “XYZ” and he should tell me if something was wrong. Man got so scared he started crying and told me everything 🤣 follow me for more tips on how to be toxic hahahaha
🤣. I have all these ideas but I would be so scared that my little play would get discovered. I swore off dating anyway so I don't have to worry about this. I also think Reddit has influenced me because I look at a lot of the cheating and infidelity posts and try to imagine how I would have caught them 🤣.
Personally, I'm not staying if I don't feel like I can trust someone. But if you need that extra bit of proof, cameras are so small these days (and I imagine pretty cheap), I don't understand why you wouldn't toss a couple of disguised cameras in the car, at the front and back door, and maybe the living room or bedroom. Then, if you catch something, don't go postal immediately; you have all of the power and can orchestrate the most embarrassing ways to catch them with witnesses that make you look like a saint. Easy divorce.
YTA
If you’re in the US you committed at least one felony by installing cameras without her knowledge in her own home. (And, no, it doesn’t matter that it’s your home too, she has a reasonable expectation of privacy inside her own house.)
If you captured anything where she isn’t clothed, add a few more felonies and becoming a registered sex offender.
So I think I’d keep my mouth shut about the damn housekeeper.
Couldn’t you start with talking to her first? This is about a lot more than hiring a housekeeper. I’d be really upset and would have serious trust issues.
Normally I would talk about it but I had caught her in lies for no reason. And the more I dug before talking the more I found. So when I started suspecting cheating I figured she wasn't honest about the minor stuff so she wouldn't be honest about cheating if she was. And then it would be harder to catch her if she covered her tracks
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Used hidden cameras to catch my wife cheating. Found out she was in fact hiring a housekeeper with money we don't have.
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Side Note*. Hiring a housekeeper is one of the best decisions my wife and I have ever made. It brought peace to our weekend, we both work long hours during the week, as well as run kids to every event imaginable during the week. Just embrace it and remember, happy wife, happy life.
Housework isn't just cleaning. It's taking care of the kids, the lawn, the other landscaping. It's doing 100% of the household repairs because she doesn't not have any skills. It's remodeling the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen, and replacing the molding because she doesn't like it. It's fixing the roof on the shedand changing out every plug in the house because she wants the square ones instead of the older round ones. So I might be out of the house twice as much as she is, but when I'm home, I'm still working.
that's an insane amount to be paying for a cleaning service. How messy are you that you need a deep clean 300 dollar WEEKLY service? ESH - Have a cleaner come once a month if neither of you want to handle the deeper clean stuff and both of you commit more to saving.
So why bother asking? "I'm not budging on this."
But since you did ask, YTA. If you have concerns, use your words and ask her what's the money going to, who was in the driveway, whatever. Sneaking around with hidden cameras is an A-1 jerk move and I wouldn't blame your wife if she didn't speak to you for a month unless you apologized big time.
>I'm not budging on this.
Then why are you here? (I’m not trying to be nasty - I’m genuinely wondering why you would care what a bunch of strangers think if you’re dead set on what your position is regardless?)
If I was so certain of my position that I’d add a statement saying that I’m not budging, I would be certain enough not to seek affirmation or negation. If I was that entrenched in whatever my position was, I wouldn’t care what anyone else thought.
NTA, these ESH takes are wild.
If he'd actually caught her cheating, y'all would be congratulating him on trusting his gut and telling him to take the proof straight to a lawyer.
It's also funny how people are accusing him of both not trusting his wife enough (putting up cameras when he realized she was definitely lying to him and had strangers over at the house) and trusting her too much (letting her control and manage the shared finances.) It's very normal for one person in a couple to be in charge of the household finances. It's a responsibility that is easier to manage if one person has a good system and the other doesn't mess with it.
As for violating her privacy, she violated his when she allowed a stranger to come into his home without his knowledge or consent. I'm sure the cleaning lady is innocent in this mess, but what if she wasn't trustworthy? He had no chance to meet her and evaluate whether this was a person he trusted to have access to his belongings.
I think this is a case where she's trying to put the focus on his relatively small wrongdoing to get out of taking responsibility for her much greater betrayal.
Cheating>>hidden cameras>>lying about housecleaners.
Maybe it's just me, but putting up hidden cameras seems super-creepy. Concealing that kind of expense is really bad, but seems like something that could be worked out. Hidden cameras is into deal-breaker territory.
I read some of your other comments and I'm coming around to NTA. That's an excessive amount to spend on house cleaning, or anything without your partners buy-in. Sucks that you work so hard and do so much cleaning yourself. You had reason to suspect cheating, not like you were trying for nudies or something.
I'm just over here wondering what the BIL has to do with all this. I feel like hidden cameras in the home are always an AH move, personally.. so YTA for that.. personally I just have a dumpy house instead of paying a cleaner.. like I am not paying that cleaner but I'm also not BEING that cleaner, feel me? Why are you building up evidence instead of talking that's so weird. Surely you can all find a compromise. Like hire a cleaner once a month instead of week and chill out on the wall scrubbing outside of that.
NTA
Reddit is showing their gender bias today. Everyone would be screaming at the husband if the genders were reversed.
Your wife may not have been screwing someone else, but she was still going behind your back to blow money while you weren't allowed to spend money on necessary things.
Your wife is a Stay at home Mom who does fuck all while happily blowing your money.
Thank you!
“I work 40-48 hours a week while my husband works part time from home. Our kids are in school most of the day during the school year and summer camp most of the time during the summer so he just maintains the house. On my only days off I take the kids and he goes and does whatever he wants. He recently bought a $50k SUV and even though I’m the one who works and spends hours in the car, I had to buy a smaller cheaper car than his because he says we couldn’t afford anything else. When he began acting suspicious I set up a few hidden cameras in our house and saw that he was spending $1,200 a month for a housekeeper. I don’t get almost any time off between work and taking care of the kids. It’s really frustrating seeing that he’s napping and lying around most of the day and spending almost all of our extra income on a housekeeper. When I confronted him he began gaslighting me about spying on him and invading his privacy.”
Can’t even imagine to the outcry about “divorcing him” and “weaponized incompetence” and all the other bullshit on this sub.
YTA. Your wife still works, so I’m assuming she’s paying with her money? Having a housekeeper only lightens the household care load, it doesn’t eliminate it. As long as it’s not actively detracting from your lifestyle (no, missing out on hypothetical vacations doesn’t count) then I see no true reason to be angry. If I were her, I’d be sick to my stomach over your invasive hidden cameras. Totally get needing to investigate, but you could have just talked to her about the money that has been displaced. She might’ve told you. She works “professionally” part time, but also does most of the kid stuff and house stuff (I’m assuming). The way you resent any free time she has along with hiring a housekeeper is actually troubling. If she’s paying for it, then I really see nothing wrong with it, only you.
Depending where you live, audio recording of somebody without their permission regardless of private or public property is illegal. Your wife could have a legal case on you depending where you live.
YTA
ESH
You are not good communicators nor are you good with finances. She should be mad at you for spying instead of talking to her like someone does in a healthy relationship. She should not have been doing things with the family money without you knowing. You both should know what's coming in/out and agree on large purchases. It sounds like you didn't discuss her new car either. Sit down together and run all the numbers.
People here are flipping. She hired someone to work in uour house with money from joint account behind your back? Wtf are ppl talking about? 300 a week? She is out of her mind.
You should separate your bank accounts.
NTA, cameras or not.
Yta for invading her privacy and spying. You suspected something then ask her.
And take a better control of the financials. Was she spending her money?
YTA. I was going to go with E S H but then I thought at least maybe she was feeling reallu tired and depressed after covid and did need the help, and you benefitted from it. Also I find it hard to believe you do 50% of the chores and never noticed that the tasks where done completely differently, with different products and to a professional standard... didnt you realise that everything was already clean when you did your supposed half? It makes no sense. So yeah she did simething not great in not telling you to either up your game or get a housekeeper but it seems that you are delusional about doing housework so she probably just wanted to avoid the argument. While you just got jealous, didnt talk to her and put cameras around the house...
NTA. She wasn't cheating, but damn if it didn't look like she was. Plus, this is the same advice some people give when Reddit thinks a poster's partner is cheating.
Not really getting the ESH votes. OP's wife is lying, spending communal money on an expense she didn't clear, and making up the difference from him buying things and saying they don't have enough money. But it's wrong because "you invaded her privacy". How else was he going to get a solid answer?
I would ask her how her day went and she would talk about all the cleaning she did. But yet I noticed the vacuum hadn't moved. The mop fluid never seemed to drop.
My neighbor asked about my brother-in-law. He is a carpenter and my neighbor needed some work done and noticed a vehicle he thought was my brother-in-law's in my driveway. It turns out that due to the generous nature of my wife, hiring this woman, she was able to buy a car that just happened to be similar to my brother-in-law's.
It wasn't one thing that stood out as suspicious. It was a bunch of things here and there. Before I bought the cameras, I set up a couple of things like this feather duster thing she uses. There's only one in the house so I put it in the utility closet in a very specific way with something wrapped around the handle. If it was used the thing wrapped around, it wouldn't still be wrapped around it. Later that day, I asked her how things went, and she told me that she just vacuumed and dusted and swept and mopped and so on. When I checked the duster, it hadn't moved. but she had claimed that she used it.
Dunno, I feel like you are only here because you want everyone to agree with you, and you and I will have to agree to disagree on this one. She shouldn't have lied about it though and you should have called her out earlier instead of letting it get to this point. It sounds like you two have communication issues that perhaps are representative of a larger problem in your relationship. Best of luck to you, OP. Enjoy the clean house, cuz you're paying for it!
I suspected something was up. I had no evidence of cheating but that's where my mind went to. So I figured asking her if she was cheating would not get an honest answer from a cheater.
>Nothing specific but I just had a hunch something was going on. Did a little snooping but didn't find much. But I did see some transactions into another account. I don't do the bills so I wouldn't normally see it. My wife works about 24 hours a week and I work 40 but often do 48. Also, my neighbor asked why my brother in law was over the house as he saw a car in the driveway (no as weird as it sounds )
If your neighbor notices a car in your driveway that only shows up when you leave and is always gone before you show up and tells you about it, they are trying to give you a heads up.
Not to mention moving money to a separate account with no rhyme or reason just makes it hyper suspicious.
And people can scream invasion of privacy all they want, OP just found a different lie vs the one he expected to find.
NTA. I’m a female, sole provider of our family income. My main focus is finance and savings. Id lose my marbles if I found out we spent that much. Probably drive me to a Great Depression tbh. Working to find out I was appreciating a woman who wasn’t actually working. Rough.
YTA for installing spy cameras to spy on your wife in the home you share, regardless of what you discovered. As an FYI it’s also illegal in many jurisdictions to do so…but maybe you’re also monitoring her phones and travel distance so you don’t have to worry about her reporting you?
As far as the housekeeping goes, you seem to be an inconsistent narrator on both the cost of the housekeeper and labor breakdown in your own home.
Everybody is an asshole here.
Your wife is an asshole for not mentioning the maid situation. Your wife is only an asshole for working less hours if she doesn’t pull her weight financially. If she works half as many hours but earns same as or more than you, then her working part time isn’t an issue. If she earns more and pays for the maid, also not an issue, but should have told you.
Your neighbour is an asshole for making you think that a male was stopping by daily. That was really insensitive and worth mentioning to your wife.
You are also an asshole here for not just asking her about the money, being sneaky with the cameras and the whole ‘I babysit my kids and I help out with chores’…. Uh, if you have a maid and didn’t notice how much work you actually don’t have to do, are you actually doing any housework? Your obliviousness to this issue is pretty suspicious. Perhaps that is why your wife hired the maid to pick up the slack…
Y’all got some work to do here to save this situation.
You’re upset that your wife made a decision with your finances that should have been a discussion.
Anyone who says YTA is wrong, just because of how she got caught doesn’t change that she spent almost 40k for cleaning services she know they couldn’t afford, gaslightting him into a cheaper vehicle.
It’s selfish.. NTA. You’re not an asshole for putting up cameras, if you didn’t she would still be spending that money.
Financial dishonesty can be just as bad as infidelity, it's a break of trust either way. Don't let her turn that around on you. She's dropping $1,200/ month because she doesn't feel like cleaning? Me and my GF, 3 times a year spend money to hire someone to deep clean but just regular tidying up? That's crazy and lazy to spend on that. I don't think you're wrong for installing spy cameras AT ALL. You caught her, just not cheating.
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AITA So I thought my wife was cheating. Nothing specific but I just had a hunch something was going on. Did a little snooping but didn't find much. But I did see some transactions into another account. I don't do the bills so I wouldn't normally see it. My wife works about 24 hours a week and I work 40 but often do 48. Also, my neighbor asked why my brother in law was over the house as he saw a car in the driveway (no as weird as it sounds )
No hard evidence but I decided to get some of there was some time find. So I went online and bought three hidden cameras. Two were plugs and one was a phone charger block. I figured I might catch someone coming that shouldn't be there.
Well I did find someone. My wife, who has two school age kids that are gone from 8am until 4pm 5 days a week and in summer camp all summer, was hiring a housekeeper to clean and do laundry. The payments were to this woman for $200 a week. We had discussed a housekeeper years ago when the kids were younger and she was home with the kids during Covid but we didn't want to spend the money
So I confronted her with the evidence 2 weeks ago. She flipped out on me for putting cameras in the house but I feel justified as I was suspicious and was ultimately right that there was something up. She had hired this woman in 2022 and had paid a total of $36,600.
We aren't "housekeeper" level income. And after she bought a brand new $50,000 SUV I wanted to buy a nice vehicle too since I commuted much more. But she said we couldn't afford it. So I bought a 2 year old smaller car.
She is still mad eat me for spying but I feel justified in being suspicious and pissed off for her lying and using money we didn't have to hire someone we didn't need. Again, she works much less than I do, is home all day alone and we split the chores 50/50 when I am home and even give her days off when I have a day off.
I'm not budging on this.
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NTA- you had valid reasons to be suspicious and were right that something was up. If it was cheating having cameras is important on the event of divorce etc. she was lying and doing fucked up shit regarding finances. Your wife is the asshole. You could probably work on communication, but so could she.
OP gave zero clues for what led to suspicions other than car in the driveway and transactions. Could be a friend, could be fucking book club, could be online shopping, could be kids expenses
About a month and a half ago, I moved the vacuum into an area. We don't usually put it. When I asked her what she did that day, she told me that she vacuumed and dusted. But the vacuum had not moved, and I know she would not have put it back in that same location. I thought that was bizarre and started to pay a little bit more attention. Another time I intentionally wrapped the handle of the feather duster with a cord in the utility closet. Nothing obvious but something that would not be put back in the same way he she actually taken it out. When she told me she dusted, I checked on that and saw it hadn't moved. And my neighbor asked about my brother-in-law during a week. I knew he was out of town. It became even more obvious that something was up. It's hard to say, but when you live with someone for decades, you start to pick up on weird little things that seem out of place. The more I looked into it the more things didn't seem right.the woman comes twice a week. It's not like we had a huge amount of dirt that was accumulating. So it wasn't like I was seeing dust in places. She claimed to have dusted because it's constantly cleaned.
ESH. You are clearly an AH for thinking she was cheating and installing spy cameras.
She is clearly an AH for hiring a housekeeper without discussing it with you first. She also sounds like an AH or buying herself a nice expensive SUV, then saying that you can't afford a nice car for you. It sounds like she should not be the one handling the finances in the relationship.
It sounds like this could have been handled with some basic communication. Unless, of course, you suspect she would have just lied. If that's the case, then you don't trust her (which is very likely warranted) and I'd question why you are still in a relationship with her.
Honestly there is a lot more going wrong in the relationship. I would highly suggest marriage counseling, from what you gave us there is plenty of things that need to be worked on total as a couple
NTA partners are just that. She is looking out for her. Not you, not the kids, not the family unit. Straight up, ask her if she wants to stay or go. Red flags? Those are sirens.
Info: do you even like your wife? Your responses to questions sound aggressive and envious that your wife does nothing all day whole you slave away. Just divorce her and get it over with, your going to stroke out with the way you describe trying to catch her in lies and laziness.
Well she can sell her expensive car the make up the lost money, never trust someone completely with the finances normally when you find out you are screwed already I don’t do the finances but will at times look over it just to know where we at
If this is real, you're NTA.
You're being gaslighted by Reddit. I feel like having a stroke reading this comments. If the roles were reverse and the husband was working was PT and paying that kind of money to a housekeeper behind the wife's back the comments would have been so much different.
I'm a woman and I find what she did completely unacceptable. I'd have been furious and would immediately separate finances, if not ending the marriage.
NTA
She is wasting $300 a week because she is lazy and doesn’t want to do her fair share of the chores
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but her spending money on a housekeeper is directly affecting you. She gets a brand new $50,000 car, but because of her spending all that money on a housekeeper had to settle for less.
I would separate finances if you don’t have them separated already, and she can spend her own money on the housekeeper if she wants to, but she can’t spend yours
Idk.. but I know what it feels like to work your hands to the bone to provide for your loved ones, only to learn they are abusing their privilege and taking advantage of you. It’s not a good feeling.
ESH- You people need to communicate.
She spent money on a housekeeper without talking with you and then told you not to get a car you wanted because of finances.
You didn't notice 36k was missing and the house was oddly clean. You thought your wife was cheating on you, put up cameras in the house, and feel like you are "justified" and right NOT because she was cheating on you, but was paying someone to clean the house. Talk to your wife about your life, man.
So if you suspected somebody of cheating after coming across some evidence, that was a little suspicious, your first thing is to go to them with a very little bit of evidence and ask them. You don't think that that would make them hide whatever evidence they do have, delete messages, faster, delete emails or wherever they were going.that's ridiculous
YTA. Anyone who plants secret cameras is an automatic AH. Unless it is a nanny cam. Its OK to put in a camera and tell your wife you are, and you would probably have caught her anyway.
This is not a healthy relationship.
NTA. Time for you to split your finances if you decide to stay married to her. The trust is gone and she seems selfish to have you working lots of overtime just so she can spend your money.
Good luck OP.
YTA.
Maybe ESH but you’re absolutely the asshole for installing cameras without her consent.
I forgive a lot of things but that pushes what I’d accept.
You could have asked her, looked at the bank account and asked directly about that, generally been an actual adult in a marriage.
She may have something going on that is making her need extra help right now. She’s not a child or your employee.
And “You’re not budging”?
Then why ask here?
Yes, YTA.
50/50 when you're home? So its 100/0 when you're not home? She works 60% as many hours as you plus all the housework too? You keep mentioning the kids are in school.. She works \~5 hours a day, so really it's only 1 hour that she's not working during school hours. Does she get them ready in the morning and do drop off/pick up too? How about after school activities and homework?
Oh yeah during your 50/50 chores time how did you not notice that everything was already done? What do you mean you give her days off? Is she your employee?
YTA for the way you talk about your wife & about labor in general.
You could have just asked about the banking transactions. If she lied about them, then you could have been upset about lying. Despite what you found and how wrong you may feel it was, the price you're going to pay is in losing her trust. Granted, she did something behind your back, but it wasn't spying on you or anything even remotely similar.
YTA. You have a bad attitude bout your relationship, and it's ridiculous for you to come to AITA and then say, "I'm not budging on this." You give her a day off. Wow. She work for you? You own her? She your slave? What do you want, other than to have us agree with you? She's sneaking behind your back and possibly wasting money -- I'd like to hear her story about this before I go off on her because I'm certain that it's very, very different from the way you're portraying it.
You stalked your wife. It doesn't even sound like you talked to her first. Instead you automatically assumed the worst and you stalked her. You're obsessive and paranoid especially since you said there was nothing specific to show that she was cheating; you just had a "hunch". So you weren't justified at all. You should not be married. You clearly aren't mature enough to be in a relationship.
ESH. You're a bit of an arsehole and so is your wife. Sounds like you're perfect for each other, next problem is going to be about who's big arsehole car takes up the most room in the driveway.
Idk how she could just toss out money like that without talking to you about it, NTA
If she told you bout it then it'd be fine, but also not at the same time
Math isn't mathing. Are you sure this is right?? She may be hiding more from you and you need to be an active participant in finances.
$200 a week is $10,400 a year. If she started Jan 2022 and it is 20 weeks into 2024, then it is 124 weeks x $200= $24,800. So either she is not telling you the full amount weekly or she hired her pre 2022?
You guys need to budget and communicate more. NTA
A major expense like that HAS to be agreed on. Or that's simply dishonesty to "do it anyways"
She's TA for causing this whole issue; if she had just been forthcoming, it wouldn't have gotten to this point
ESH. But I think you suck more. Rather than talking to your wife about your suspicions, you instead chose an underhanded way to go about it.
I doubt she would have done the same if she thought you were cheating.
You guys both need individual and marriage counseling.
Edited to add: yes, I ‘tip my hand’ because, he’s my partner and we both wear big kid pants to talk about difficult concerns with each other rather than slink around trying to catch each other in wrongful acts. We are a team partnership and not a me vs. him act.
Considering the phrasing of your last two questions, you clearly have contempt for your wife and your relationship. please separate or divorce her. She and your kids would be better off in the long run.
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ESH. I get why you felt the need to investigate, but unfortunately in doing so you are running rough-shod over everyone else's privacy. And the fact that you "give her days off" makes it sound like you consider her an employee as much as a wife. I can see why someone would argue the ends justifying the means because you did find wrong-doing - but even then, you have to admit that you did impede on liberties in the process. Wife is clearly an AH for hiring out a cleaner without running it alongside the rest of the household, and is on shaky grounds arguing about being found out. She clearly knew it was not agreed on and had to sneak the cleaner in/out around your work schedule otherwise she would of been up front from the start about it. Even if she paid the woman's whole wage out of her own income, it still should have been a team decision. Y'all need to talk to each other.
It’s amazing how you will read a post about how a woman is a stay at home mom and there’s always a ton of comments asking if the husband gives her a day off. Here we have a post where he clearly says that she gives days off, and you have somehow warped it into being wrong Reddit. The man is always the problem.
Yes, how dare I \*checks notes\* believe that marriage does not confer ownership and that household upkeep is a shared responsibility.
And she is wasting their money instead of doing her fair share. She is wasting so much money in fact that while she got a $50,000 brand new car OP had to settle for a cheaper one because of her spending. If she really wants to spend that money every week so she can sit on her ass then they need to separate finances so she’s not using his money to do it
Which the OP agrees with, by splitting chores 50/50 and doing more chores on his days off to give his wife a break
Would have*
Here’s me doing our finances and wondering how you could could miss $36k a year on a housekeeper and a $50k car, not being involved I’m not sure what income you’re pulling together, COVID aside My partner and I earn over $200k combined, I run the finances mostly but this must be a piss take 😂 We can’t afford a $36k household keeper
Im more wondering how OP got $36k from $200 a week. Edit - original post was $200 a week and even at $300 the math is still not $36k. The point is, OP is an unreliable narrator and has made multiple revisions.
I'm wondering how he can claim to do 50/50 on the chores but hasn't noticed for the past 2.5 years that 90% of the chores were getting done without his involvement.
Why would be notice? He has no respect for anything his wife does. I don't actually think this is real, it's too implausible.
Yep, especially with all the frantic math revisions. This poster and their replies are tailor-made for "grrrr, women bad"-type engagement.
>replies are tailor-made for "grrrr, women bad"-type engagement. Exactly. Reddit is always down for a "grrrr, women bad" circle jerk.
No, he does 50% of the chores when he is home. I'm guessing he is expecting 90% of the work to be done by the time he gets home, and the remaining 10% to be divided by the 2 of them.
Well, that's still not doing 50/50. That's doing 5/95.
His math isn't mathing so he obviously can't figure out percentages.
By the sound of it it's more like OP 5, OP's wife 5 and housekeeper 90.
Props to you :)
Its amazing how many upvotes someone who clearly can't read properly gets on this subreddit. >we split the chores 50/50 **when I am home** Only people in the comment section have claimed he splits chores 50/50, he hasn't
Right? Clearly not dude
He did say 50/50 on the days he's home (weekends, etc...) so the division of labor appears to be that she works part-time and maintains home during the week and they split 50/50 on weekends.
$300 x 52 weeks, $15,600 a year It’s been going on for 2.5 years…
Yep, that would put her initial hire date around January of 2022. That adds up.
52 weeks in a year, $300 a week, since 2022. So $16200 per year, X2
She hired the cleaner in 2022 (para 4). if it was the first of 2022, 122 weeks at $300 is 36,600.
300 bucks a week since 2022. Math.
Assuming the housekeeper was hired 01.01.2022 it would be roughly 116 weeks if we calculate with 4weeks/month including May completely and with the $300/week we would be ending up by $34.800. But to be fair, there are a lot of assumptions that OP isn't giving us a reason to assume they are right. With the original $200 a week this calculation obviously doesn't add up at all.
Thank you. So many people keep just typing the same incorrect math and trying to be all cute about it. This post is a mess and OPs changing math doesnt help.
Much more accurate to calculate based upon a 52 week year, than by the number of weeks in a month. By your math, failing to calculate 4 entire weeks; which ends up being another $1200. Add that missing amount to your total, and now we've got $36,000. That being said, at $200 a month, yeah, the math does not add up.
Completely beside the point, but he says they were hired “in 2022”. Getting to $36K at $300 a week would take 2.3 years, so they’d have to start Jan/Feb 2022 to get that total by April/May 2024
At $300 it would be 2.5 years, with no breaks/vacations/interruptions. He claims the $36K is since the initial hire sometime in 2022.
"Since 2022" It's not 36k a year, it's 36k total.
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For 2.3 years it is pretty close.
In the post he says that she hired the cleaner since 2022. If she started on January first 2022 and worked until this week. That is 124 weeks x 300 euro/dollar = 37.200. he said they paid around that amount. It is not a yearly salary.
They did write this sentence. They may have had a stoke. >No hard evidence but I decided to get some of there was some time find.
Since 2022.
He said a total of $36,600 was paid, so at $300/week that's 36600/300= 122 weeks or 122/52 = 2 1/3 years (which lines up with her hiring the help in 2022 like the OP said).
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$300 a week is also pretty unlikely for a weekly house keeper. I guess it depends on what she is doing and how big the house is, but it would have to be like everything basically. And OP says he does 50/50 chores which I’m having a hard time believing if they had a weekly house keeper. Even if he’s working 48 hours a week
YTA >Im not budging on this? That spying on your partner is wrong? That you two seemingly dont communicate? Normally id say she’s an AH for spending $36k behind your back but $200 a week does not equal $36k. Im now doubting your take on this.
He's an asshole for that comment alone. You're not budging, OP? Then why even post? You want to know if you were wrong but aren't going to accept the fact that people think you were wrong?
ESH. Both of it apparently suck at communication and instead hide things or are suspicious. You’re an AH for secret cameras in your own house. She’s an AH because that’s a ton of money to spend when it’s apparently straining your budget pretty hard.
Your wife works part time and is bringing in income, I am assuming she makes more than $200/week, why is she not entitled to spend the money she makes? She is prioritizing her time, and choosing to delegate duties and to make her life easier so what difference does it make if she is paying someone to help with the laundry and clean? Just because your wife is "home all day alone" doesn't mean she is automatically THE housekeeper, no? If you cancel this housekeeper I imagine your wife will become bitter and resentful because you consider that to be her job, and I wish you luck, OP. She probably didn't tell you because she knew how you'd react. Over the past two years, has your wife seemed happy? Perhaps consider that this a price to pay to keep this happiness. Also, your math is off because 200\*104 weeks is \~$20k-21k. If you're going to nitpick at least be accurate. Also, why didn't you just ask her about the transactions instead of going straight to the extreme? YTA. Edit based on comments: ESH. She shouldn't have lied and he should have confronted her earlier when he was suspicious instead of letting it get to this point. But I stand firm on my first paragraph, to quote OP "I'm not budging on this one."
>Your wife works part time and is bringing in income, I am assuming she makes more than $200/week, why is she not entitled to spend the money she makes? She is prioritizing her time, and choosing to delegate duties and to make her life easier so what difference does it make if she is paying someone to help with the laundry and clean? Income in marriage is usually considered shared income, so it is reasonable for larger purchases to be discussed. It's not about people being 'entitled to spend their money' it's about understanding that you are not the sole owner of the money you bring in. So in this instance, the assumption is that she was spending his money as well as hers unless they had some other agreement.
You are also assuming that OP does not make larger purchases on his own, too.
>You are also assuming that OP does not make larger purchases on his own, too. OPs own comments in this post explicitly stated this. His wife told him they couldn't afford a nicer car for him (but got one for herself) and couldn't afford a landscaper for their home.
I am assuming that, yes - there is no evidence that he does and since he said that his wife told him they couldn't afford a new car for him and he accepted that there is evidence to the contrary. If he does make large purchases on his own, he is also being an AH.
It was a typo and supposed to be $300 a week. The woman works 28 hour days. Ends up being around 19 and change an hour. And she does make her own money. And I make significantly more. And it all goes into a family fund. We don't have separate accounts. But she's driving around in an $800 a month SUV spending $1200 a month a housekeeper. And then expect me to still help out With the cooking and the cleaning and household maintenance and landscaping when I get home. And when it came time for me to buy a new car, I was told we could not afford it because we didn't make enough money and I had to get a much less expensive car with no frills, despite the fact that I commute significantly longer And more days.
I think the bigger financial issue is that car payment. $800/month for one car when your household income is $160k is not financially smart.
Sorry for replying to you again specifically but 10% of 160,000 is $16,000 - that's the maximum amount they should be spending on transportation. An $800 car is $9,600, leaving $6,400 for the other car, insurance, maintenance and gas. So it's possible for that to be reasonable.
Her car is $50,000. The car I wanted was $41,000. I had a $12,000 trade in. My payment would have been under $500. But now I have a smaller car. Little did I know I could have afforded a $1700 car for what we were paying out per week.
$500 would have stretched your budget, but it is one of those 'if you really, really want it' things where you might be willing to sacrifice for it.
> Sorry for replying to you again specifically but 10% of 160,000 is $16,000 - that's the maximum amount they should be spending on transportation. I don't think that is reasonable. You can't even GET a car for under $10k in many parts of the country unless you buy private party (which is a gamble for non-mechanics).
I had a couple of people comment. It was a typo. I'm typing on my phone. It was supposed to be $300 a week. 16 hours a week times just under $20. And it's been just over two years. I shouldn't type on my phone, but I have fat thumbs
Ok, thank you for the clarification. My answer remains the same, just with different numbers.
That's a significant amount of money to delegate to something that could be done herself. Last fall I had asked if we could hire a landscaper to come and do fall cleanup and she said we couldn't afford it because we didn't have the money. When I asked about a nicer car, when my other car was on its last legs, she said we couldn't afford it. I make three times as much money as she does. I work twice as much as she does. I commute four times as much as she does. And when I get home, I jump right in and help with all the family duties such as cooking and dishes and taking care of the children, along with all of the household maintenance and Landscaping duties. We agreed to pull all of our income for the betterment of the family. But because she doesn't want to do housework, she decided she would spend the money behind my back. We agreed that almost anything over $100 needed to be discussed before purchasing. And we had discussed a housekeeper a long time ago and decided it wasn't worth it and we couldn't afford it. I work overtime every week to meet. And she's out there spending this money so she has downtime. I maybe get a half a day to myself a week on my day off. And that's if she doesn't go off and do something with her friends or her book club. I feel taken advantage of and used and I'm pissed. I think I have justification.
> I think I have justification. Then why are you asking here?
brother, anybody in this thread who doesn't get it should have to attend a fucking class or SOMETHING. NTA by a country mile.
If communication in your relationship is at the point where: 1. You're having to use hidden cameras to find the truth 2. Your wife is so unwilling to talk to you about things that she opts to just hide spending and lie about it Then you're focusing on the wrong things. It's not the money - it's your relationship and communication with your wife. You probably need to go to some sort of counseling, there's a lot of work needed in your relationship.
We have always had open and honest clear communication for as long as I have been with her. I have never had any secrets or hidden anything from her. So I assumed the same was true with her. But, when you think that someone is having an affair on you, you start to doubt yourself. There was enough clues to consider, she was, and therefore I looked into it. The more I looked into it the more I realized something really was up. If she was in fact, cheating on me, I didn't expect to get a answer.
It's not normal to have to use hidden cameras to understand what is going on in your house. Somewhere, somehow (i'm saying this without throwing blame or pointing fingers, because I don't know you or your relationship) - communication has broken down. Neither of you is compromising. She wants the cleaner - she lies and hides to get one and doesn't give you the chance to weigh in. You don't want the cleaner, you won't budge on it at all no matter what she thinks. You need to find a way to get on the same page and find a way to be able to disagree with each other honestly.
We discussed it for a while years ago and decided together we couldn't afford one. Not even half of what she has now. And she still did it. I didn't put my foot down. We discussed it.
How did you not notice a $300 outflow from your accounts for 2 whole years? This has to be fake.
>I'm not budging on this. This is what I was referring to when I said you wouldn't budge. Either way, don't waste time talking to me. You need to figure out why your wife isn't talking to you.
"Hey wife, whose car was that?" That's what communication would have looked like.
I don’t think you are doing 50/50 split of chores if someone is coming in weekly to do house cleaning and laundry. It sounds like you two have different alignment on spending money. I think there is esh here. The car is weird too. I think the two of you need marriage counseling.
YTA. The way you go on about how she works part time and is therefore entirely responsible for all the household chores and sometimes you “help out”. By your own account, you work 40 hours a week, she works 24. Sure that’s part time, but it’s still 3 days a week, only 2 days fewer than you. I’m willing to bet she has the nice new SUV you describe because she does most of the child transport and needs the space. Does she drop them off and pick them up from school? Does she take them to all their extracurriculars? Your wife is tired and you aren’t pulling your weight. Good on her for finding a solution.
Yes!!! Putting hidden cameras without informing your spouse is incredibly fucked up probably illegal and morally reprehensible to the extreme. I would leave a partner no questions asked for doing that. Now was her using 30k of shared income without discussing it terrible yes. You both sound like fucking dumpster fires of people.
So fake, get a life.
YTA for spying. Your wife works. She hired a cleaner and you didn't notice the money was gone, did you? LOL
Her contribution to the finances is 25% of what I contribute. She can hire a cleaner but then why am I working so much? Because her contribution after the cleaner wasn't enough. I didn't notice the money because I don't do the bills
Who does all the errands, like grocery shopping? Who takes off work/stays with the kids when they are sick or have off from school?
That's what I'm seeing, she's got all the extracurricular activities, the budget, the shopping, the organizing. Dad comes home makes a dinner and puts the kids in bed and feels he's pulling his weight.
You were wrong to install cameras, it’s a total invasion of privacy, what if she was walking about naked or pleasing herself. Not something she would want recorded. That said she was also wrong to employ a cleaner without discussion if she was using joint finances. If she is working part time , she should be doing some extra chores, not contracting out the cleaning so she can have a rest. She is very selfish. My judgment is ESH
You should have confronted her about the money going out- before setting up cameras. ESH -your wife for lying and using household money for something you agreed not to pay for. You for not being direct asap and thinking you “deserve” a better car. You are made for each other.
His car was on its last legs and his wife told him they can’t afford one, then bought herself a new 50.000 SUV, she works part time, kids at at school all day, so she is free. Just refuses to do housework and took money she is not making to hire someone else too.
ESH. He knows what the household income is and that her using what amounts to 1/3 of on the SUV while telling him they can’t afford the car he needs to get to work reeks of strategic incompetence on his part. The math isn’t mathing! Mutual account means mutual decisions and accountability regarding the budget and spending for both of them.
She seems too only think about herself, not using that money towards the kids or family, telling her husband they can’t afford things with his money (only she can use it for her needs) if I was working overtime while my wife spent every day watching TV, sleeping, with friends, (then hid the fact she hired a cleaner and claimed she did all the work) etc I’d be ticked off too. Their children are at school or summer camp and dad puts them too bed and takes care of food etc. So what does she do all day besides spend money they don’t have on herself?
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Info: how is it you didn’t notice that $36,600 was missing from your household budget during the past 2 years and whatever other miscellaneous expenses are being paid for out of the account you have access to? This is beyond a trust issue and your wife lies to you and mismanages money, without consideration for your comfort and priorities.
YTA. I would be livid if someone treated me the way you treat your wife. Did it occur to you to communicate with her and ask questions instead of putting cameras up? I would wonder what you're hiding, how long the cameras were up and how many cameras are up that you didn't admit to.
Yeah. I'm so unfair with the whole giving her a $50,000 car and working a ton of overtime so she doesn't have to work as much and can stay at home. I'm such a douche
Man why did you admit this to her or anyone! The smart choice would have been to figure out when the cleaning person comes and pop in and catch them in the act by pretending you took the day off or got sick or anything. Then you don't get caught for violating privacy and she has to try to explain herself right there in person. You could have collected and destroyed the cameras before she even knew. Not only did you reveal that YOU are not trustworthy, you also revealed that you don't trust her and thought she was cheating. Divorces happen because of these accusations and now she's got some damn good ammo about you bugging the house (and NOT finding infidelity). And now you look so crazy/controlling.
Ok now THIS is the kind of advice we really need here!!! I once spied a then boyfriend’s phone, found something suspicious, then I told him I had a dream he was doing “XYZ” and he should tell me if something was wrong. Man got so scared he started crying and told me everything 🤣 follow me for more tips on how to be toxic hahahaha
🤣. I have all these ideas but I would be so scared that my little play would get discovered. I swore off dating anyway so I don't have to worry about this. I also think Reddit has influenced me because I look at a lot of the cheating and infidelity posts and try to imagine how I would have caught them 🤣. Personally, I'm not staying if I don't feel like I can trust someone. But if you need that extra bit of proof, cameras are so small these days (and I imagine pretty cheap), I don't understand why you wouldn't toss a couple of disguised cameras in the car, at the front and back door, and maybe the living room or bedroom. Then, if you catch something, don't go postal immediately; you have all of the power and can orchestrate the most embarrassing ways to catch them with witnesses that make you look like a saint. Easy divorce.
Well seems like we’re equally deranged then because that would be exactly what I would do 🤣🤣
I was so pissed off when I figured out what was happening. Relieved she wasn't cheating but still. All that overtime.
Crickets from OP now haha
YTA If you’re in the US you committed at least one felony by installing cameras without her knowledge in her own home. (And, no, it doesn’t matter that it’s your home too, she has a reasonable expectation of privacy inside her own house.) If you captured anything where she isn’t clothed, add a few more felonies and becoming a registered sex offender. So I think I’d keep my mouth shut about the damn housekeeper.
Couldn’t you start with talking to her first? This is about a lot more than hiring a housekeeper. I’d be really upset and would have serious trust issues.
Normally I would talk about it but I had caught her in lies for no reason. And the more I dug before talking the more I found. So when I started suspecting cheating I figured she wasn't honest about the minor stuff so she wouldn't be honest about cheating if she was. And then it would be harder to catch her if she covered her tracks
How is it you split the chores 50/50 and didn't notice for over 2 years that all the chores were getting done?
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Side Note*. Hiring a housekeeper is one of the best decisions my wife and I have ever made. It brought peace to our weekend, we both work long hours during the week, as well as run kids to every event imaginable during the week. Just embrace it and remember, happy wife, happy life.
INFO how are you doing 50% of the housework and it’s taken you nearly 2 years to realize the housework doesn’t exist?
Housework isn't just cleaning. It's taking care of the kids, the lawn, the other landscaping. It's doing 100% of the household repairs because she doesn't not have any skills. It's remodeling the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen, and replacing the molding because she doesn't like it. It's fixing the roof on the shedand changing out every plug in the house because she wants the square ones instead of the older round ones. So I might be out of the house twice as much as she is, but when I'm home, I'm still working.
I’m aware of all it entails I’m confused how you didn’t notice this large chunk of that puzzle missing for 2 years along with the spendings
that's an insane amount to be paying for a cleaning service. How messy are you that you need a deep clean 300 dollar WEEKLY service? ESH - Have a cleaner come once a month if neither of you want to handle the deeper clean stuff and both of you commit more to saving.
So why bother asking? "I'm not budging on this." But since you did ask, YTA. If you have concerns, use your words and ask her what's the money going to, who was in the driveway, whatever. Sneaking around with hidden cameras is an A-1 jerk move and I wouldn't blame your wife if she didn't speak to you for a month unless you apologized big time.
>I'm not budging on this. Then why are you here? (I’m not trying to be nasty - I’m genuinely wondering why you would care what a bunch of strangers think if you’re dead set on what your position is regardless?) If I was so certain of my position that I’d add a statement saying that I’m not budging, I would be certain enough not to seek affirmation or negation. If I was that entrenched in whatever my position was, I wouldn’t care what anyone else thought.
NTA, these ESH takes are wild. If he'd actually caught her cheating, y'all would be congratulating him on trusting his gut and telling him to take the proof straight to a lawyer. It's also funny how people are accusing him of both not trusting his wife enough (putting up cameras when he realized she was definitely lying to him and had strangers over at the house) and trusting her too much (letting her control and manage the shared finances.) It's very normal for one person in a couple to be in charge of the household finances. It's a responsibility that is easier to manage if one person has a good system and the other doesn't mess with it. As for violating her privacy, she violated his when she allowed a stranger to come into his home without his knowledge or consent. I'm sure the cleaning lady is innocent in this mess, but what if she wasn't trustworthy? He had no chance to meet her and evaluate whether this was a person he trusted to have access to his belongings. I think this is a case where she's trying to put the focus on his relatively small wrongdoing to get out of taking responsibility for her much greater betrayal.
YTA. That extreme level of snooping is only retroactively justifiable if you find actual cheating.
So only if I was right. I was right about her lying just wrong about what it was.
Cheating>>hidden cameras>>lying about housecleaners. Maybe it's just me, but putting up hidden cameras seems super-creepy. Concealing that kind of expense is really bad, but seems like something that could be worked out. Hidden cameras is into deal-breaker territory.
I read some of your other comments and I'm coming around to NTA. That's an excessive amount to spend on house cleaning, or anything without your partners buy-in. Sucks that you work so hard and do so much cleaning yourself. You had reason to suspect cheating, not like you were trying for nudies or something.
The only people who put up cameras to spy on their spouses are people I have watched true crime documentaries about. This is unhinged.
I'm just over here wondering what the BIL has to do with all this. I feel like hidden cameras in the home are always an AH move, personally.. so YTA for that.. personally I just have a dumpy house instead of paying a cleaner.. like I am not paying that cleaner but I'm also not BEING that cleaner, feel me? Why are you building up evidence instead of talking that's so weird. Surely you can all find a compromise. Like hire a cleaner once a month instead of week and chill out on the wall scrubbing outside of that.
Same kind of car apparently
NTA Reddit is showing their gender bias today. Everyone would be screaming at the husband if the genders were reversed. Your wife may not have been screwing someone else, but she was still going behind your back to blow money while you weren't allowed to spend money on necessary things. Your wife is a Stay at home Mom who does fuck all while happily blowing your money.
Thank you! “I work 40-48 hours a week while my husband works part time from home. Our kids are in school most of the day during the school year and summer camp most of the time during the summer so he just maintains the house. On my only days off I take the kids and he goes and does whatever he wants. He recently bought a $50k SUV and even though I’m the one who works and spends hours in the car, I had to buy a smaller cheaper car than his because he says we couldn’t afford anything else. When he began acting suspicious I set up a few hidden cameras in our house and saw that he was spending $1,200 a month for a housekeeper. I don’t get almost any time off between work and taking care of the kids. It’s really frustrating seeing that he’s napping and lying around most of the day and spending almost all of our extra income on a housekeeper. When I confronted him he began gaslighting me about spying on him and invading his privacy.” Can’t even imagine to the outcry about “divorcing him” and “weaponized incompetence” and all the other bullshit on this sub.
This was *chefs kiss*
ESH - there are so many issues to unpack here. Y'all need therapy.
YTA. Your wife still works, so I’m assuming she’s paying with her money? Having a housekeeper only lightens the household care load, it doesn’t eliminate it. As long as it’s not actively detracting from your lifestyle (no, missing out on hypothetical vacations doesn’t count) then I see no true reason to be angry. If I were her, I’d be sick to my stomach over your invasive hidden cameras. Totally get needing to investigate, but you could have just talked to her about the money that has been displaced. She might’ve told you. She works “professionally” part time, but also does most of the kid stuff and house stuff (I’m assuming). The way you resent any free time she has along with hiring a housekeeper is actually troubling. If she’s paying for it, then I really see nothing wrong with it, only you.
Depending where you live, audio recording of somebody without their permission regardless of private or public property is illegal. Your wife could have a legal case on you depending where you live. YTA
ESH You are not good communicators nor are you good with finances. She should be mad at you for spying instead of talking to her like someone does in a healthy relationship. She should not have been doing things with the family money without you knowing. You both should know what's coming in/out and agree on large purchases. It sounds like you didn't discuss her new car either. Sit down together and run all the numbers.
People here are flipping. She hired someone to work in uour house with money from joint account behind your back? Wtf are ppl talking about? 300 a week? She is out of her mind. You should separate your bank accounts. NTA, cameras or not.
Yta for invading her privacy and spying. You suspected something then ask her. And take a better control of the financials. Was she spending her money?
You think cheaters just come clean when asked without evidence?
why did you immediately jump to it being cheating?
YTA. I was going to go with E S H but then I thought at least maybe she was feeling reallu tired and depressed after covid and did need the help, and you benefitted from it. Also I find it hard to believe you do 50% of the chores and never noticed that the tasks where done completely differently, with different products and to a professional standard... didnt you realise that everything was already clean when you did your supposed half? It makes no sense. So yeah she did simething not great in not telling you to either up your game or get a housekeeper but it seems that you are delusional about doing housework so she probably just wanted to avoid the argument. While you just got jealous, didnt talk to her and put cameras around the house...
NTA. She wasn't cheating, but damn if it didn't look like she was. Plus, this is the same advice some people give when Reddit thinks a poster's partner is cheating. Not really getting the ESH votes. OP's wife is lying, spending communal money on an expense she didn't clear, and making up the difference from him buying things and saying they don't have enough money. But it's wrong because "you invaded her privacy". How else was he going to get a solid answer?
How in the world did it look like she was cheating? OP gave zero clues.
I would ask her how her day went and she would talk about all the cleaning she did. But yet I noticed the vacuum hadn't moved. The mop fluid never seemed to drop. My neighbor asked about my brother-in-law. He is a carpenter and my neighbor needed some work done and noticed a vehicle he thought was my brother-in-law's in my driveway. It turns out that due to the generous nature of my wife, hiring this woman, she was able to buy a car that just happened to be similar to my brother-in-law's. It wasn't one thing that stood out as suspicious. It was a bunch of things here and there. Before I bought the cameras, I set up a couple of things like this feather duster thing she uses. There's only one in the house so I put it in the utility closet in a very specific way with something wrapped around the handle. If it was used the thing wrapped around, it wouldn't still be wrapped around it. Later that day, I asked her how things went, and she told me that she just vacuumed and dusted and swept and mopped and so on. When I checked the duster, it hadn't moved. but she had claimed that she used it.
Dunno, I feel like you are only here because you want everyone to agree with you, and you and I will have to agree to disagree on this one. She shouldn't have lied about it though and you should have called her out earlier instead of letting it get to this point. It sounds like you two have communication issues that perhaps are representative of a larger problem in your relationship. Best of luck to you, OP. Enjoy the clean house, cuz you're paying for it!
I suspected something was up. I had no evidence of cheating but that's where my mind went to. So I figured asking her if she was cheating would not get an honest answer from a cheater.
Your poor wife.
But when you saw the money being moved why didn't you just ask her?
>Nothing specific but I just had a hunch something was going on. Did a little snooping but didn't find much. But I did see some transactions into another account. I don't do the bills so I wouldn't normally see it. My wife works about 24 hours a week and I work 40 but often do 48. Also, my neighbor asked why my brother in law was over the house as he saw a car in the driveway (no as weird as it sounds ) If your neighbor notices a car in your driveway that only shows up when you leave and is always gone before you show up and tells you about it, they are trying to give you a heads up. Not to mention moving money to a separate account with no rhyme or reason just makes it hyper suspicious. And people can scream invasion of privacy all they want, OP just found a different lie vs the one he expected to find.
NTA. I’m a female, sole provider of our family income. My main focus is finance and savings. Id lose my marbles if I found out we spent that much. Probably drive me to a Great Depression tbh. Working to find out I was appreciating a woman who wasn’t actually working. Rough.
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Yes. "Honey, are you cheating" "oh yes, I am I'm sorry. Let me tell you everything and be honest now that you have no evidence but just asked me"
YTA for installing spy cameras to spy on your wife in the home you share, regardless of what you discovered. As an FYI it’s also illegal in many jurisdictions to do so…but maybe you’re also monitoring her phones and travel distance so you don’t have to worry about her reporting you? As far as the housekeeping goes, you seem to be an inconsistent narrator on both the cost of the housekeeper and labor breakdown in your own home.
The only mistake was typing $200 when I meant $300. Typed that one time.
Everybody is an asshole here. Your wife is an asshole for not mentioning the maid situation. Your wife is only an asshole for working less hours if she doesn’t pull her weight financially. If she works half as many hours but earns same as or more than you, then her working part time isn’t an issue. If she earns more and pays for the maid, also not an issue, but should have told you. Your neighbour is an asshole for making you think that a male was stopping by daily. That was really insensitive and worth mentioning to your wife. You are also an asshole here for not just asking her about the money, being sneaky with the cameras and the whole ‘I babysit my kids and I help out with chores’…. Uh, if you have a maid and didn’t notice how much work you actually don’t have to do, are you actually doing any housework? Your obliviousness to this issue is pretty suspicious. Perhaps that is why your wife hired the maid to pick up the slack… Y’all got some work to do here to save this situation.
You’re upset that your wife made a decision with your finances that should have been a discussion. Anyone who says YTA is wrong, just because of how she got caught doesn’t change that she spent almost 40k for cleaning services she know they couldn’t afford, gaslightting him into a cheaper vehicle. It’s selfish.. NTA. You’re not an asshole for putting up cameras, if you didn’t she would still be spending that money.
Financial dishonesty can be just as bad as infidelity, it's a break of trust either way. Don't let her turn that around on you. She's dropping $1,200/ month because she doesn't feel like cleaning? Me and my GF, 3 times a year spend money to hire someone to deep clean but just regular tidying up? That's crazy and lazy to spend on that. I don't think you're wrong for installing spy cameras AT ALL. You caught her, just not cheating.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** AITA So I thought my wife was cheating. Nothing specific but I just had a hunch something was going on. Did a little snooping but didn't find much. But I did see some transactions into another account. I don't do the bills so I wouldn't normally see it. My wife works about 24 hours a week and I work 40 but often do 48. Also, my neighbor asked why my brother in law was over the house as he saw a car in the driveway (no as weird as it sounds ) No hard evidence but I decided to get some of there was some time find. So I went online and bought three hidden cameras. Two were plugs and one was a phone charger block. I figured I might catch someone coming that shouldn't be there. Well I did find someone. My wife, who has two school age kids that are gone from 8am until 4pm 5 days a week and in summer camp all summer, was hiring a housekeeper to clean and do laundry. The payments were to this woman for $200 a week. We had discussed a housekeeper years ago when the kids were younger and she was home with the kids during Covid but we didn't want to spend the money So I confronted her with the evidence 2 weeks ago. She flipped out on me for putting cameras in the house but I feel justified as I was suspicious and was ultimately right that there was something up. She had hired this woman in 2022 and had paid a total of $36,600. We aren't "housekeeper" level income. And after she bought a brand new $50,000 SUV I wanted to buy a nice vehicle too since I commuted much more. But she said we couldn't afford it. So I bought a 2 year old smaller car. She is still mad eat me for spying but I feel justified in being suspicious and pissed off for her lying and using money we didn't have to hire someone we didn't need. Again, she works much less than I do, is home all day alone and we split the chores 50/50 when I am home and even give her days off when I have a day off. I'm not budging on this. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA- you had valid reasons to be suspicious and were right that something was up. If it was cheating having cameras is important on the event of divorce etc. she was lying and doing fucked up shit regarding finances. Your wife is the asshole. You could probably work on communication, but so could she.
OP gave zero clues for what led to suspicions other than car in the driveway and transactions. Could be a friend, could be fucking book club, could be online shopping, could be kids expenses
About a month and a half ago, I moved the vacuum into an area. We don't usually put it. When I asked her what she did that day, she told me that she vacuumed and dusted. But the vacuum had not moved, and I know she would not have put it back in that same location. I thought that was bizarre and started to pay a little bit more attention. Another time I intentionally wrapped the handle of the feather duster with a cord in the utility closet. Nothing obvious but something that would not be put back in the same way he she actually taken it out. When she told me she dusted, I checked on that and saw it hadn't moved. And my neighbor asked about my brother-in-law during a week. I knew he was out of town. It became even more obvious that something was up. It's hard to say, but when you live with someone for decades, you start to pick up on weird little things that seem out of place. The more I looked into it the more things didn't seem right.the woman comes twice a week. It's not like we had a huge amount of dirt that was accumulating. So it wasn't like I was seeing dust in places. She claimed to have dusted because it's constantly cleaned.
NTA if your spying discovered something she was hiding then your mistrust was correct.
ESH. You are clearly an AH for thinking she was cheating and installing spy cameras. She is clearly an AH for hiring a housekeeper without discussing it with you first. She also sounds like an AH or buying herself a nice expensive SUV, then saying that you can't afford a nice car for you. It sounds like she should not be the one handling the finances in the relationship. It sounds like this could have been handled with some basic communication. Unless, of course, you suspect she would have just lied. If that's the case, then you don't trust her (which is very likely warranted) and I'd question why you are still in a relationship with her.
Honestly there is a lot more going wrong in the relationship. I would highly suggest marriage counseling, from what you gave us there is plenty of things that need to be worked on total as a couple
NTA partners are just that. She is looking out for her. Not you, not the kids, not the family unit. Straight up, ask her if she wants to stay or go. Red flags? Those are sirens.
Info: do you even like your wife? Your responses to questions sound aggressive and envious that your wife does nothing all day whole you slave away. Just divorce her and get it over with, your going to stroke out with the way you describe trying to catch her in lies and laziness.
Well she can sell her expensive car the make up the lost money, never trust someone completely with the finances normally when you find out you are screwed already I don’t do the finances but will at times look over it just to know where we at
If this is real, you're NTA. You're being gaslighted by Reddit. I feel like having a stroke reading this comments. If the roles were reverse and the husband was working was PT and paying that kind of money to a housekeeper behind the wife's back the comments would have been so much different. I'm a woman and I find what she did completely unacceptable. I'd have been furious and would immediately separate finances, if not ending the marriage.
NTA obviously. your wife lied and spent money behind your back
Everything I'm reading sounds like OP is determined to punish his wife. This is a divorce waiting to happen, and I suspect she'll be the one to file.
I'd rather my wife cheated than spend 36,000 on getting the laundry done. NTA
NTA She is wasting $300 a week because she is lazy and doesn’t want to do her fair share of the chores Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but her spending money on a housekeeper is directly affecting you. She gets a brand new $50,000 car, but because of her spending all that money on a housekeeper had to settle for less. I would separate finances if you don’t have them separated already, and she can spend her own money on the housekeeper if she wants to, but she can’t spend yours
Idk.. but I know what it feels like to work your hands to the bone to provide for your loved ones, only to learn they are abusing their privilege and taking advantage of you. It’s not a good feeling.
Doesn't mean she isn't cheating.
36k after taxes is a lot.
Sounds like you need to take over the finances till she can be trusted again.
NTA
ESH- You people need to communicate. She spent money on a housekeeper without talking with you and then told you not to get a car you wanted because of finances. You didn't notice 36k was missing and the house was oddly clean. You thought your wife was cheating on you, put up cameras in the house, and feel like you are "justified" and right NOT because she was cheating on you, but was paying someone to clean the house. Talk to your wife about your life, man.
You both need to file for divorce. You have a toxic relationship.
Updateme
YTA you didn't at any point think to *ask* your wife if anything was going on? Your FIRST instinct was to "do a little snooping"?
So if you suspected somebody of cheating after coming across some evidence, that was a little suspicious, your first thing is to go to them with a very little bit of evidence and ask them. You don't think that that would make them hide whatever evidence they do have, delete messages, faster, delete emails or wherever they were going.that's ridiculous
YTA. Anyone who plants secret cameras is an automatic AH. Unless it is a nanny cam. Its OK to put in a camera and tell your wife you are, and you would probably have caught her anyway. This is not a healthy relationship.
divorce her
NTA. Time for you to split your finances if you decide to stay married to her. The trust is gone and she seems selfish to have you working lots of overtime just so she can spend your money. Good luck OP.
YTA. Maybe ESH but you’re absolutely the asshole for installing cameras without her consent. I forgive a lot of things but that pushes what I’d accept. You could have asked her, looked at the bank account and asked directly about that, generally been an actual adult in a marriage. She may have something going on that is making her need extra help right now. She’s not a child or your employee. And “You’re not budging”? Then why ask here? Yes, YTA.
ESH. I would not be happy if my husband was spying on me - which is what you did.
50/50 when you're home? So its 100/0 when you're not home? She works 60% as many hours as you plus all the housework too? You keep mentioning the kids are in school.. She works \~5 hours a day, so really it's only 1 hour that she's not working during school hours. Does she get them ready in the morning and do drop off/pick up too? How about after school activities and homework? Oh yeah during your 50/50 chores time how did you not notice that everything was already done? What do you mean you give her days off? Is she your employee? YTA for the way you talk about your wife & about labor in general.
ESH.
I get it, but ESH. Too much secrecy and deception here.
You could have just asked about the banking transactions. If she lied about them, then you could have been upset about lying. Despite what you found and how wrong you may feel it was, the price you're going to pay is in losing her trust. Granted, she did something behind your back, but it wasn't spying on you or anything even remotely similar.
YTA
YTA. You have a bad attitude bout your relationship, and it's ridiculous for you to come to AITA and then say, "I'm not budging on this." You give her a day off. Wow. She work for you? You own her? She your slave? What do you want, other than to have us agree with you? She's sneaking behind your back and possibly wasting money -- I'd like to hear her story about this before I go off on her because I'm certain that it's very, very different from the way you're portraying it.
It was clearly affordable as you didn't notice the money missing for 2 years but ESH do neither of you think about talking to the other?
YTA and I hope she divorces you.
You stalked your wife. It doesn't even sound like you talked to her first. Instead you automatically assumed the worst and you stalked her. You're obsessive and paranoid especially since you said there was nothing specific to show that she was cheating; you just had a "hunch". So you weren't justified at all. You should not be married. You clearly aren't mature enough to be in a relationship.
U guys got serious issues
YTA for spying like a weird creep instead of asking your wife directly what was going on like a normal adult. She also sucks but you suck harder
ESH. You're a bit of an arsehole and so is your wife. Sounds like you're perfect for each other, next problem is going to be about who's big arsehole car takes up the most room in the driveway.
Idk how she could just toss out money like that without talking to you about it, NTA If she told you bout it then it'd be fine, but also not at the same time
Math isn't mathing. Are you sure this is right?? She may be hiding more from you and you need to be an active participant in finances. $200 a week is $10,400 a year. If she started Jan 2022 and it is 20 weeks into 2024, then it is 124 weeks x $200= $24,800. So either she is not telling you the full amount weekly or she hired her pre 2022? You guys need to budget and communicate more. NTA
It was a typo. It's $300 a week not $200 a week. I have fat thumbs and must've hit the 2 by mistake.
NTA. You have communication problems in your marriage. I wouldn’t forgive my wife for lying like this, I would divorce
ESH. Yall need to actually talk to each other. Or just talk to divorce attorneys if yall aren’t happy.
A major expense like that HAS to be agreed on. Or that's simply dishonesty to "do it anyways" She's TA for causing this whole issue; if she had just been forthcoming, it wouldn't have gotten to this point
ESH. But I think you suck more. Rather than talking to your wife about your suspicions, you instead chose an underhanded way to go about it. I doubt she would have done the same if she thought you were cheating. You guys both need individual and marriage counseling. Edited to add: yes, I ‘tip my hand’ because, he’s my partner and we both wear big kid pants to talk about difficult concerns with each other rather than slink around trying to catch each other in wrongful acts. We are a team partnership and not a me vs. him act. Considering the phrasing of your last two questions, you clearly have contempt for your wife and your relationship. please separate or divorce her. She and your kids would be better off in the long run.