Reddit Stories - BETRAYAL UNVEILED_ The Spouse Who VANISHED into Shadows_

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayal #relationships #mystery #disappearance #shadowsSummary:Discover the chilling tale of a spouse who mysteriously vanished into shadows, leaving behind a trail of betrayal and unanswered questions. Dive into this gripping story of love turned sinister, as secrets unravel and trust is shattered.Tags:redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayal, relationships, mystery, disappearance, shadowsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse resigns from his position to launch a fresh venture but remains idle all day. Upon initiating divorce proceedings, he alienated my own relatives and embezzled $25,000. From them. So I am in a bit of trouble with my parents right now and they are blaming me for everything that has happened. But I really just don't understand why they are doing that. This all started during my divorce, a couple of weeks ago. Gary, 29M, my husband, and I, 33F, got married two years ago.

We had been together for almost three years before that and I thought that he was my soulmate, that is literally how sure I was of him. He and I had met at a bar and he was the one who asked me out. He was a nice guy, sweet and everything. He was also pretty good looking and I fell for him, I fell hard. He was working a corporate job at the time, your typical nine to five and he would come constantly tell me that he was not happy about it. He said that he wanted to start his own event management business and for that, he needed capital and support. Apparently, his parents

were not very keen on the idea of him starting his own business because they thought that it was too much of a responsibility to take on by himself and he was much better off working where he was. I'm a high school history teacher by profession and so I did not exactly have the kind of money that he needed to start his own business, but I told him that whenever he wanted to quit his job and start working for himself, I would always be there to support him. That was a huge mistake because about three weeks after we got married, he came up to me and told me that he had quit his job. No prior discussion. I was obviously kind of put off by that because we had to take a lot of things into consideration at that point in time.

We had been living together before that, for almost a year, but marriage was a different ballgame. I couldn't even say anything to him with regards to his decision to quit his job, since I was the one who had told him that I would stand by him any time that he wanted to start working on his business. We had bought a new house together and we still hadn't finished paying for it, which was the biggest of my worries at the time. So when he told me that he had quit his job, that was my first question to him, what were we going to do about the house?

Since I would definitely not be able to handle all the bills and also pay off the cost of the house on my salary balloon, it was very unlikely that he would be able to contribute since he had quit his job and did not have another lined up. Even if he started his business that day itself, it would still take a couple of months for him to start making money off of it, and until then, he would have to rely on his savings. But even if that would prevent him from investing in his business, it was a very difficult situation.

I would only be able to take care of the bills with great difficulty, and we would really have to start living frugally. Because when he quit his job, he did not even have a business plan. It was already really risky and on top of that, he did not have any idea how to go about the whole thing. He just made that decision and sent his resignation in the heat of the moment one day. I tried not to fight with him over this and be supportive of him, but it was very difficult because the choice that he had made did not seem to be a very well-informed one and it was clearly not something that he had thought through.

I was very worried, but he kept telling me that he would look for a way to fix things, which did not help, but at least it gave me a sense of relief because I knew. knew that whatever it was, I could get through it with him. This was just three weeks into our marriage, so we were still in our honeymoon phase, which explains why I was being so stupid. I was really ready to believe that I could get through everything, just because he was with me. Love solves everything, was basically my state of mind. Or maybe it was just something that I told myself to prevent myself from having a complete nervous breakdown because I was so stressed out. The issue with the house was solved relatively quickly, even though it came at the cost

of having a relationship with my in-laws. After Gary quit his job, the next step was to tell our families about it because we needed their help and support to get through the next couple of months. And the support was going to be both moral and financial. My parents were pretty cool with it and said that they would try to help me out with money whenever I needed it. Both my parents are dentists, so money is not a problem for them. However, my in-laws were not happy about what Gary had done. The day that we went over to their house to tell them that he had quit his job and was going to start a business of his own, they got into a huge fight.

His father was a lawyer and his mom was a moderately successful artist, so they were also reasonably well off, but they believed that Gary was being hasty and did not support his decision. For them, it was not a financial issue, but it seemed to me that they just did not have faith in him. Right now, I can see why, but at that time, I felt like they were being really hard on him. They were pissed, and rightfully so, since the company that he had been working for belonged to a friend of my father-in-law and he was the one who got him the job there in the first place. He was upset because he thought that Gary was being irresponsible and also believed that he should have saved some more money

before he quit, and I agreed with it, but I didn't say it at the time, because I wanted to take my husband's side. Anyway, their whole fight was based on the fact that he had quit his job without any notice and that was really insulting for him and his friend since he got the job as a favor to his father. He wasn't exactly qualified for it because it was an upper management position and he did not have the kind of experience that it required, but he still got the job because of his connections. So for his age, he was doing exceptionally well and he had thrown all of it away, without a second thought. I can kind of see why his father was pissed off at him. But at the time, even Gary had a point, he said that he wanted to start a business of his own,

and that had always been the goal. However, the job that he had kept him so busy, that he barely had any time to work on his ideas and so, he had to quit to get ahead and he did not say anything wrong with it. Because it was all business, it was not personal, and it was not his fault that they were mixing the two. Both of them had pretty strong arguments, so I didn't say anything but I knew that I had to support my husband, no matter what. So after we left that day, I knew that I could not change his mind, so the best thing to do in this situation would be to support him in his dreams and have

faith in him because I thought that it would help him. After that fight with his parents, they pretty much stopped speaking to him because they believed that he did not value them and their opinions, which is why he just always did whatever he wanted to and expected them to support him, even if they did not agree with what he was doing. They believed that he was very self-centered and everything had to be about him. Even after he got married, he did not change and he didn't even think about the kind of pressure that he would be putting me under by quitting his job.

His parents were actually the only people who were sympathetic to me and tried to think about my point of view at the time, instead of just him. So a couple of days after that fight, they reached out to me and told me that they were going to pay off the cost of the house so that I would not have to worry about it.

They knew that this was the biggest of my concerns at the time and they were willing to help us out, most specifically, help me out. During that conversation, they told me that they knew that Gary had been put in a very difficult spot and I wanted to support him but I also had to be practical and think about the real life consequences of what he was doing. Because I knew that he did not have a business plan, he did not have any investors, he did not even have any friends who were going to join him, so he had to start from scratch and all his time, money and resources were going to go into

building his business. It was very unlikely that he would be able to cover the cost of of living since he did not have enough money saved to make a decision like the one that he had made and I did not earn enough to support him, so they wanted to help me and pay off the cost of the house. And I was genuinely more than happy to accept their help. Because I did not have any shame in admitting that I needed the help and I could really do with the money. So I let his parents pay for the house, even though he was not happy about it and he did not even hide it. He tried his best to convince me not to take their help but I was not going to be an idiot. I told him that this was the only way that we would be able to get through the next couple of months

and that we had to accept their help, whether we liked it or not. Because he had quit his job and had put me in an impossible position by doing so, and now, if his parents wanted to help us then I had every right to accept that help because he did not consult me before quitting his job, so I did not have to consult him before doing this. I thought I was being more than fair and after a while, he decided not to argue with me because I had made it very clear that this was my final decision and I was not going to entertain any more arguments about it. I did not have any idea how that was going to backfire because I really did not have any time to worry about any of that. I got so busy after that. Gary started working on a business

model and I had to go out to work every day because now, the pressure of earning more was on me. When both of U.S. were earning, at the time that both of U.S. were earning, we used to split everything equally between us, because I did not want to rely on a man, even if it was my own boyfriend or husband. That was something that was very important to me, and it was non-negotiable. I was well aware of the fact that he made almost twice the amount that I earned, but I did not care because I wanted the satisfaction of knowing that I was paying for myself and I was not a burden on him. He also never offered to contribute more instead of me. I'm not complaining, but I just thought that I would mention it since we were talking about this. But at a lot of it. But I just thought,

after he quit his job, I had to work twice as hard and I even took up a tutoring job to make some extra cash on the side so that I would not have to rely on my parents or ask somebody else for money. I wanted to be able to do it all on my own because even the thought of having to ask somebody for money made me uneasy. So I did my best to keep everything running but I had this feeling that he was not doing the same. Every time that I would come back home from school and get ready to conduct online classes for my tutoring job, I would only see him either scrolling on his phone or watching something on TV. Earlier, I would just assume that maybe he got his work done when I was at school but months passed and there was no progress, so I started to suspect that maybe

he was not doing anything at home and just lazing around while I worked as hard as I could to bring home some money, so that we would not have to rely on anybody else. I was honestly very unhappy about the way things were going, but I never said anything for the first couple of months because I knew that he needed somebody to have faith in him and I wanted to be that person for him. But then there is only so much one can do without seeing any results, and I started getting really agitated after one point of time because he kept telling me that he was getting ahead but he still did not have any investors and he didn't have anything to show for what he was doing at home all day. On the weekends, I could not observe what he was doing because he told me that the weekends were his days off and I couldn't even

question it because any time that I tried to talk to him about the progress that he had made so far, he would get really upset and accuse me of trying to rush him and acting just like his parents. I thought that it was very unfair and I was getting really frustrated so I decided that I would spy on him one day because that was the only way that I could get to the bottom of this and figure out why he was not an established businessman yet. So a couple of weeks ago before I filed for the divorce, I decided to act like I was leaving for work but then I didn't go anywhere and just lurked around the house to see what he would do. To my surprise, as soon as I had walked out of the door, He tossed his laptop aside and laid down on the couch with his phone.

I was outside the house and peeking in through the living room windows like a thief, but I was crouched in such a position that he could not see me. However, I could see everything that he was doing and I thought that maybe he would be on his phone for a little while and then get back to work, but I think I must have been sitting on the ground outside our house, observing him and he did not move a muscle for almost an hour. Now before anybody comes at me saying that I could have installed cameras and stuff, I did not want to do any of that because it was a lot of effort and I already had some sort of idea that he was not actually doing anything while I was not at home.

So I was not going to waste my time, energy, and money trying to install cameras secretly and stuff when I already knew the truth. I just had to see it with my own two eyes to be able to prove it. As soon as almost 45 minutes had elapsed and I had been sitting there, watching him do nothing, I decided that I had seen enough and I went in to confront him. I was furious and I was also in a lot of pain from sitting in an awkward position for that amount of time so as soon as that was in there, I walked up to him and in a fit of anger, I snatched his phone and smashed it to the ground. I should not have done that, but I was just so angry that I couldn't help it and I had to let it out somehow so that's what I did. He was too shocked to use anything and after I had thrown

his phone, I started yelling at him and really let everything out of my system because I was so frustrated that he was doing this to me for months without any remorse. Just to remind you guys, I had been working two jobs to be able to sustain our lifestyle without having to borrow money and here he was, promising me that he was getting ahead and making progress, but it was all rubbish because he was just doing nothing sitting at home. The least he could have done was at least do the household chores but he didn't even do that and the responsibility of keeping the house clean and stuff also came to me. I don't think I can explain in words how angry I was feeling at that moment. All the anger and resentment bubbled up to the surface and I just couldn't stop

screaming at him until I had let it all out. After I was done talking, he had the audacity to ask me if I had been spying on him and told me that it was a violation of his privacy just to show how much I did not trust him. Then he tried to lie to me again and said that he was just taking a much-needed day off from work and so I told him that if this was one day off from work and I had had caught him on that day. Then surely he would have something to show for all the other times that he had been working and I demanded that he show me at least something and then he started fumbling so I knew that he had been lying. I told him to get out because I didn't even want to see him and he started coming up with excuses for his behavior, saying that he was just really

struggling with work and so he had been trying to relax a little, hoping that it would help him recoup. But honestly, I did not care about his struggles at the time because he had not cared about mine and I was just so pissed off that I didn't even want to speak to him. After that fight, he left to live with his friend and I stayed and filed for a divorce the very next day. And I think that was the point where everything started going wrong because he did not take my decision well and started spreading very nasty rumors about me.

He started telling people that the reason I did not want to be with him anymore was because I was a gold digger and as soon as I had realized that he did not have money anymore, I was out. Apparently, I had only married him when he was working in a good position, but when he quit that job, I was not happy about it and did not want to support him, which was obviously untrue, and yet people chose to believe it, showing me their true colors. And the only reason that I had stayed with him after he quit his job was because I was hoping that I would stand to gain a lot from when he actually started his business, but he was not able

to do so because I made him pay all the bills. Even though he had no source of money and was essentially unemployed. He was spreading all these lies about me and people were actually buying it. I couldn't even prove that he would sit at home and do nothing all day because I didn't record it and I kind of regret it now but at the time, it didn't seem that important. And I was obviously not going to post or send people proof of the fact that I was paying all the bills because that was overkill. However, the worst part was that a couple of weeks ago, my parents contacted me and told me

that they were very disappointed in me because they had not expected such things from me. I had told them about the divorce before and at the time, they had believed me but after listening to Gary, they had chosen to believe him instead of me, their own daughter. I was dumbstruck by the way they had just decided to flip over to the other side and I was so hurt that I didn't even bother to try and fix my relationship. The second that they told me that they were disappointed in me and were believing him over me, I was done with them because I had nothing more to say. I learned from a couple of people that they had even gone to the extent of letting him live

with them because they did not think it was appropriate for him to live with his friend when, according to them, it was my fault that he was suffering like this. I cut them out of my life after that because they had really let me down. I always knew that they had a soft corner for Gary because he was the son that they never had but this was taking things way too far and I couldn't believe it. I had half a mind to be really petty and get back in touch with my in-laws, but that would just be childish and unnecessary trouble for all of us, so I didn't do that. But I stopped speaking to my parents and I decided that the most appropriate punishment for them would be to let them live with Gary and find out for themselves exactly why I had filed for a divorce from the guy.

And I was pretty sure that he would show his true colors in no time, and I was right. A couple of days ago, I received a call from my mother and she was hysterical. She was crying like somebody had died and I could hear my father screaming in the background. I waited for them to calm down so they could tell me exactly what the problem was because they had called me after a really long time and I was sure that something had gone wrong because of the way that they were acting. So about three minutes into the phone call, my mother finally stopped crying and told me that Gary had made a fool out of them and had stolen $25,000 from them and made a run for it and now they could not track him down and there was no way

to contact him because he had blocked them in every possible way. I couldn't even fathom how that could happen so I told them to tell me the entire story because nothing made sense and that kind of money was a huge amount. So it was crazy that he had even been able to steal that because as far as I knew, he was not technically proficient enough to do it digitally so it must have been a cash transaction and I don't know why my parents would have that kind of cash just lying around in the house for him to get his hands on. So then, my father told me that about a week ago, Gary had requested them to let him borrow some money that he would return within a month because he needed to clear some debts and it was sort of an emergency. And they

gave him the money because they wanted to compensate for everything that I was putting him through. We were going through a divorce and he had to pay for a lawyer as well and he was losing out on a lot of money for that, so my parents felt obliged to make up for it and they gave him the money. I really can't imagine how two grown-up people could be so stupid but yeah, that's how he got the money and he left in the middle of the night without any explanation. And even after that, my parents were still holding out hope that he would contact them but it started seeming less and less likely after he blocked them when they tried to reach out to him about when he would be back. They told me that he was nowhere to be found and I was the only person

who could help them because they knew that I was going to meet him soon enough. I didn't know what to say to them because this was their own fault and I couldn't do anything to help it. I knew that I would be meeting him this week for our mediation sessions but I was not going to talk to him about this because technically it was not even stealing if you consider the fact that they had willingly given him the money to help him out and he had just chosen to run away with it. They did not even have any contract that said that he was obliged to return the money to them, so legally, they could not claim anything, and the money was gone. It was their own stupidity that had led them here and I was not going to waste my time trying to fix their mistakes. So I told them that tough luck,

but this situation cannot be helped and they just had to deal with the fact that it was gone. And then they started getting mad at me and told me that this was my fault for not warning them about Gary because clearly, he had been lying about everything and my version was what was real. I was so annoyed that I hung up without entertaining more of that conversation because it is so stupid to imply that I should have warned them when in reality, they were the ones who shouldn't even have doubted me in the first place. Because I am literally their daughter and I don't know why they would ever choose to believe my soon-to-be ex-husband over me, under any circumstances. They have been texting me every day since then and telling me that I need to fix this somehow and

I don't even know how I'm going to do that because it's not like Gary and I even speak to each other outside of our meetings with our mediator. I did contact him yesterday to ask him why he would do this thing because it was so unethical and immoral, it felt out of character even for him. And he told me that I had taken money from his parents for the house so I could treat this as payback, which doesn't even make sense because both of us lived in that house but that money was just for him. So I gave up trying to talk to him because he would do anything it took to make me look bad. I feel like like a horrible daughter, but I don't know what to do anymore. I'd offer not trying to talk to my parents after they chose to believe my soon-to-be ex-husband's side of the story over mine?

Update 1. Hi, Everybody. After going through the comments on my original post, I have decided to block my parents for the time being because every text that I receive from them makes me feel very guilty and I know that I shouldn't feel that way because they did this to themselves and I was not responsible for it. But I am a human being and I still do feel things even though I'm not supposed to. So I think it's best to just block them right now and deal with it later when I have the bandwidth to manage the situation. Thank you so much for all the advice and support. I really needed that to get through this week because I had to meet the jackal of a man yesterday and it was all I could do not to punch him in the face because he looked so smug and pleased

with himself. I don't even know how he lives with himself after the things that he has done or how I even fell in love with this guy update to, Hello, People. A lot of time has passed and I am no longer in touch with my parents. Even though I tried to fix my relationship with them and talk to them a couple of weeks after I had blocked them, they were not open to it and told me to get lost when I visited them. So that was pretty heartbreaking for me, but that's how it is and I can't help it. At least things are better for me on the divorce front because I got to keep the house and everything else and I'm just waiting for the divorce to be officially finalized so that I can breathe. Things have been very difficult for me for the past few months and I can't wait for this to be over.

Update 3, I'm officially a divorced woman now and I could not be happier about it. I decided to sell the house and move into a smaller apartment so it would be easier for me. I am no longer in touch with anybody from my old life, be it Gary or my parents or even any of the common friends that we had because they showed me that I could not trust them, since they believe the rumors that Gary had been spreading about me. So now, it's just me and a couple of people that I can actually trust and rely on and you know what? I'm happy with this life because it's much better than before now. Forward slash forward slash.