Reddit Stories - Spouse began BEHAVING oddly and aloof so I reviewed our FINANCIAL STATEMENTS and

Episode Date: November 1, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #marriage #finance #communication #trustSummary: Spouse began behaving oddly and aloof so I reviewed our financial statements and discovered discrepancies. Confronted with evidence, spouse admitted to secret spending habits, causing strain on our marriage and trust.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, marriage, finance, communication, trust, secrets, spending, marriageproblems, financialdiscrepancies, trustissues, maritalstrife, financialtransparency, maritaltrust, financialcommunication, financialinfidelityBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse began behaving oddly and aloof, so I reviewed our financial statements and discovered she was being deceitful about her whereabouts in the evenings, and when I approached her about it she admitted she's been having an emotional affair. We've been married for seven years, and up until recently I would have described our relationship as solid and straightforward. We have one child together, our son is five, a mortgage on a cozy three-bedroom house, and the kind of routine that's probably a little boring to outsiders but has always felt comfortable to us.

I work in IT for a mid-sized company, mostly regular hours, and my wife works in marketing for a local firm. We're not wealthy or anything, but we do okay. Most weeknights after we get our son to bed by eight, we'll clean up from dinner, then she likes to scroll Instagram or read on her Kindle while I maybe play a video game or catch up on emails. Sometimes we'll sit together on the couch and watch our shows, we got hooked on that baking competition recently. It's an ordinary life, and I've always been content with that. One thing to know about me is I'm not the paranoid or controlling type at all. My wife and I have always given each other plenty of trust and personal space.

We each have our own friends and hobbies as well as mutual ones, and we've always respected each other's independence. I'm not the type to snoop or jump to wild conclusions, I've never had reason to doubt her before. Lately, though, I can't ignore that something feels off. It's hard to pinpoint when it started, maybe a couple of months ago. There wasn't some dramatic change or a singular moment, more a series of small things that have been adding up in my mind. Individually, any one of these could be nothing, but together. I don't know. Here you are a few of the things that have been bothering me. Emotional distance. My wife just seems distracted or distant when we're together. She's not as talkative with me, and when I ask about her day,

I get it generic it was fine, busy. She used to share funny stories from work or gossip about friends, but lately it's mostly one-word answers. Sometimes I'll catch her just staring off into space. Phone habits, I know it's a cliche, but she's been keeping her phone glued to her 24-7. She even takes it if she goes to water the plants or into the bathroom. I've caught her subtly tilting the screen away when I walk by. I don't snoop over her shoulder, so maybe it's innocent. But it's definitely a change I've noticed. Going out more, her job does involve occasional networking events, so I didn't find it odd initially. But it's been a bit. happening more frequently in the last few weeks. She'll mention on short notice that she's meeting

a co-worker for coffee or there's an imprompt to girls' night, even on a weeknight, which is unusual for her. A couple of times she's come home far later than I expected from these outings. Changes in appearance. She even started wearing perfume on ordinary days when she usually saves it for special occasions. When I playfully said, wow, you're dressing up for the office, she just shrugged and said she felt like looking nice. Fair enough, it just stood out because we've both been pretty casual for years. Individually, none of these are smoking gun evidence of anything terrible. People are allowed to have private phone conversations or want to look nice.

And she does have friends and legitimate work commitments. I know that, but my gut is telling me there's more to it. And I hate that I'm even entertaining the thought of infidelity. That has never been on my mind in all our years together. We've had the normal ups and downs, arguments about me working late during a crunch last year, or her frustration when I forgot to pay the water bill, but we've never had any serious breaches of trust. To give a bit more context, we both have fairly busy lives juggling work and our son. My wife's marketing job can get stressful around campaign deadlines.

I remember back in March, she had a big project with her team that required some late nights. She worked closely with a small team on that, including a newer colleague, let's call him John, 30M, who I met briefly at her office holiday party. John seemed nice enough, and my wife talked about how everyone on the team pulled together to get that project done. The project wrapped up successfully and things calmed down for a while. I mentioned this because during that crunch time, we barely saw each other except to collapse into bed. It was a tough few weeks, but we got through it. And after that work returned to normal, until maybe a month or so ago, when this strange behavior started creeping in. Another thing, my wife's best friend,

will call her Sarah, and I are also close, the three of us often hang out on weekends with our kids. Sarah hasn't said anything outright, but I did get a random text from her about two weeks back asking, hey, is everything okay with my wife? She seems kind of out of it. She seems kind of out of it lately. I asked what she meant, and she just said my wife was harder to get a hold of and cancelled a couple of their plans last minute, which isn't like her. I hadn't really noticed the canceling since it didn't affect me directly, but hearing that from Sarah added to my concern. If her best friend thinks she's acting strange, then something's definitely up. The most concrete incident happened just last week. It might not sound like much, but it's what's

really stuck in my head. On Friday, my wife was supposed to have a girl's night with Sarah and a couple of other friends, they do this occasionally, usually dinner and a movie or just hanging at someone's house. So that evening I was on solo duty. No problem, I fed our son, got into bed, and then just chilled at home. Around 9 p.m. I got a text from Sarah asking if my wife was feeling okay. I replied, huh? She's out with you, isn't? she? Immediately Sarah responds that my wife had bailed on girls' night last minute, saying she wasn't feeling well and wanted to stay in. That was news to me, because obviously she hadn't stayed in, she left the house around seven claiming she was heading to Sarah's. I double-checked

my text with my wife to make sure I hadn't misunderstood, and nope, she had explicitly told me that morning she be at Sarah's and to not wait up. So now I'm sitting there wondering where the hell she is. I tried calling her, it rang a few times then went to voicemail. I shot her a text, basically asking if she's okay and why Sarah thinks she's not with them. She got home after 10 p.m. to find me waiting up. She looked startled that I was awake. I calmly mentioned that Sarah had reached out thinking she was sick, and asked why she told me she was going to girls' night if she wasn't. She froze up for a moment, then gave me this nervous half-smile and claimed she'd felt a bit ill and decided to just go out for a solo drive to clear her head. She said she hadn't

told me because she didn't want me to worry or try to stop her. She apologized for not updating me, saying she just needed some space. I didn't push it further right then. Our son was asleep upstairs, and I wasn't going to start a huge fight without more to go on. I just said it worried me not knowing where she was, and asked her to please just keep me in the loop next time. She apologized again, gave me a quick hug, and said she was tired and heading to bed. She seemed eager to end the conversation. Since then, that was a week ago, I've been hyper aware of all these little signs and my mind is going to some dark places. I haven't confronted her directly about my deeper suspicion, that maybe there's someone else, because I feel like

that's a huge accusation to throw out without more evidence. And honestly, part of me is scared of what I'll find if I dig. I did gently ask the next day if something was bothering her, maybe explaining why she needed space. She just said she was fine, chalking it up to feeling cooped up, and apologized again for worrying me. Then she quickly changed the subject. So, yeah, I'm posting here because I can't really talk to anyone in real life about this. I'm anxious and my mind keeps churning out worst-case scenarios. Is this how an affair starts? Am I reading too much into normal behavior?

I always thought if something like this happened, I'd know for sure, like I'd find blatant evidence or get a confession. Instead, it's this slow drip of doubt that's driving me crazy. I miss how we were, and I'm terrified that my marriage might be. be in real trouble without me even fully understanding why. What should I do? Do I sit her down and tell her I'm worried she's hiding something? Do I try to quietly gather more information first? Or do I just trust her and hope I'm wrong? I haven't been sleeping well and I have a constant nod in my stomach. Never imagined I'd be the guy posting on Reddit about his marriage, but here I am. Any advice or perspective would be really appreciated. Update.

I haven't been able to reply to everyone, but I did read all of it. A lot of you said variations of trust your gut and start looking for concrete evidence. That really struck a chord with me because I've been in this weird limbo of doubting myself. Some also suggested it could be stress or depression on her part, and I considered that too. But after that girl's night lie, my gut feeling of something shady going on only got stronger. It's been a few days since I posted and I've quietly done a bit of digging, within legal and ethical limits, I think. I still feel conflicted about snooping, but I decided to at least verify what I could. The first thing I did was check our bank and credit card statements. We have a joint account for

household expenses, though we each also have a personal credit card. The joint account's debit card is what we usually use for groceries, restaurants, etc. Sure enough, on that Friday night there was a $76 charge at a trendy tapas bar in town around 9.30 p.m. If she was just driving around to clear her head, why would she stop and have a pricey dinner, and drinks, by herself? It doesn't prove she was with someone, but it's suspicious as hell. I also went through our phone bill online. We're on a family plan, and the bill shows how many texts and calls each of us makes, not content, just metadata. In the past few weeks, her text message count was through the roof.

I have a strong hunch it might be related to John. I decided I needed to talk to my wife seriously. I wasn't going to fly off the handle. I just wanted to present what I found and see if she could explain it. Honestly, I was hoping there was some innocent explanation I hadn't thought of. So last night, after our son was asleep, I told her we needed to talk. I calmly told her I'd been worried about how distant she's been, and that the girl's night incident really shook me.

I said I wanted to understand what's going on because I love her and I'm concerned about our marriage. I tried to keep my tone gentle, though I was definitely upset. She didn't say much at first, just that she was sorry for worrying me and that she's been feeling a lot of pressure lately. I asked her to elaborate on the pressure, was at work? Something with me? She said it was everything, work, home, feeling overwhelmed. Okay, fair, she does have a lot on her plate.

I listened, but then I steered the conversation to the specific incidents. I brought up the fact that she told me she was going to Sarah's but then didn't. I told her I checked our bank statement and saw the restaurant charge. As soon as I mentioned that, her face kind of fell. She didn't get angry about me checking, she just looked caught. She admitted that yes, she did go to that restaurant on Friday night. At that point my heart was pounding because I knew I was about to hear something I really didn't want to. Her explanation was that she felt guilty for lying about girls' night,

so she went to have dinner alone to clear her head. While there, she bumped into John, the coworker, who was there with friends, and she ended up hanging out with them for a bit. She claimed it was pure coincidence and that after a little bar hopping with them, she headed home. I asked her flat out if something was going on with John. She swore up and down it was nothing like that, were just friends, and even mentioned he has a girlfriend, which she had told me before. When I pressed about all the texting, she claimed it was mostly a group chat with colleagues from the project, exchanging memes and venting about work, nothing personal one-on-one. I was getting increasingly frustrated because

I felt like she was giving me half-truths. I said, I feel like you're not telling me everything. You lied about where you were. You're texting him all the time, clearly. If you needed someone to talk to, why not me, or why not Sarah? Why John, and why hide it? I did raise my voice at that point, not yelling, but I was definitely upset. Eventually she broke down crying and admitted she's been feeling depressed and unappreciated, like she's on autopilot as mom and wife and lost a bit of herself. She said John was just someone who listened and gave her attention at a vulnerable time, but that it never got physical and she isn't in love with him. Seeing her cry, I felt a mix of anger and a bit of sympathy.

She reached out and took my hand, saying how much she loves me and that she desperately wants to fix this. She promised to cut off any non-work contact with John and do whatever it takes because she doesn't want to lose me. I told her that even if it never got physical, what she did was a major breach of trust, the lying, the sneaking around, confiding in someone else behind my back. She said she understood and didn't expect me to forgive her overnight. By the end of the night, we were both emotionally spent. We didn't really come to a neat resolution. What we did agree on was, she will stop all non-essential contact with John. She actually deleted his number and

their message thread in front of me, though if they work together, that's not a complete solution. We're going to look into marriage counseling. She brought that up first, saying she wants us to find a way to reconnect and communicate better with a professional's help. I said I'm willing to try, but I made no promises about forgiving her quickly. In the meantime, she'll be transparent about where she is and who she's with. She volunteered that I can call or text her any time and she'll answer, and she'll keep me updated about her schedule so I don't have to wonder. We ended up sleeping separately, I stayed on the couch to have space. I barely slept. I'm still reeling, but hopeful that we might be able to work through this. Then again, maybe too much damage is already

done, I honestly don't know yet. I'm glad I trusted my instincts enough to confront her, because if I hadn't, who knows how long it would have continued. As painful as this is, at least now it's out in the open, assuming she's truthful about it never being physical. We're going to take it one day at a time. I'll update again if there are any significant developments. Right now I'm going to try to stay level-headed and give this a chance, for the sake of our family and because I do still love her. I'm not ready to throw seven years away without at least trying. But I'm also keeping my guard up, which I think is understandable.

Update 2. It's been about two weeks since the confrontation and my last update. I wish I could say everything's been smooth, but of course it hasn't. On the plus side, we did start seeing a marriage counselor last week, virtually, for now. We've only had one session so far, so it's hard to judge, but it felt like a small step in the right direction. My wife has been trying hard to show me she's committed to fixing things, she's been very attentive, checking in on how I'm feeling, and as far as I can tell, she really did cut off the personal chats with John. She even told me that she requested to be moved to a different project so she wouldn't have to interact with him much. Their office is mid-size, so she still sees him around, but she said they're keeping it strictly professional, however, despite all these efforts, trust is a tricky thing.

I find myself swinging between hope and suspicion. One day I'll wake up and she's making me coffee and being sweet and I think, okay, maybe we really will get through this. The next day I'll see her on her phone and my mind immediately wonders if it's him, even though logically I know she's been openly showing me her phone and I haven't seen anything fishy. It's like my brain won't let its guard down, and I honestly don't know when or if it ever will completely.

Then I stupidly snooped on our laptop and thought, found an old email chain with John that contained some borderline flirty banter from about a month ago. There was nothing overtly sexual, but reading it made my stomach drop. It basically confirmed that she had been at least flirting with him, even if she had downplayed their chats. I brought it up in our next counseling session and it derailed things. She apologized and acknowledged it looked bad, but insisted it was just joking around. I was pretty harsh, pointing out that she still hadn't been fully. transparent. After the session, we had another argument at home. She was upset that I snooped,

saying she thought we were trying to move forward and I was digging for reasons to be upset. I felt justified, if she'd been totally honest, I wouldn't be finding new secrets. It got heated. She ended up in tears, yelling that she didn't know how else to prove she told me everything, and I was yelling back that I didn't know how to trust anything, she says. It was ugly. I ended up going for a drive to cool off. I think we both realized that night that as much as we want to reconcile, this is going to be a long, painful process, and there's no guarantee it'll work. Love isn't the issue, we do love each other. But the betrayal really broke something in me.

Right now we're basically in a tentative ceasefire mode. We're continuing counseling. We're being polite, even kind to each other day today. No one has mentioned separation or divorce outright, but it has crossed my mind and I'm sure it's crossed hers during our worst moments. We haven't been intimate at all since this whole thing blew up, which is understandable. I sleep in the guest room with a couch by my own choice half the time, because I just can't relax next to her on the nights when my mind is racing. One thing I'm struggling with is how to act normal for our son. He's only five, but he's perceptive in his own way.

The other night he asked me, Daddy, why do you sleep in the other room or the couch now? I told him sometimes I fall asleep watching TV, which does happen occasionally. I hate lying to him, but I also don't want him to know anything is wrong. My wife and I have agreed to keep any serious talks or arguments far away from him. We try to keep things light and routine when he's around. It's hard. Some mornings I'm packing his lunch and my wife is humming while making calls. and it feels like this weird charade that we're a happy normal family.

When underneath I'm still deeply hurt and she's anxious and guilt-ridden. I'm not sure what the next steps are. Part of me wonders if a short-term separation would help clear my head, like one of us temporarily moving out, but I worry that would just be the beginning of the end. Another part of me wants to take a trip by myself for a few days to just think that might be more feasible since I have some vacation time. I haven't made any big decisions for now the plan is to keep going to counseling and see if things improve or if I feel differently with time. I told myself and her that I'll reassess in a few months.

If by then I still feel like I'm looking over my shoulder and miserable, we might have to talk about more drastic steps. So that's where we are, trying to make it work, stumbling a lot, but not giving up yet. I'll update again down the line if anything big changes. It's been about a month since my last update, and roughly two months since I first found out about my wife's improprieties, for lack of a better word. A lot has happened, yet in many ways I'm still in the thick of it. The short version is, we ultimately decided to separate, at least for now. It was a painful decision, and it's been a messy process.

We're not divorced, yet, or maybe ever, that's still up in the air, but we are living apart currently. Here's how it went down, about three weeks ago, we hit another breaking point. Despite counseling and her efforts, I just wasn't healing. Every day I'd wake up with that pit in my stomach, and every night I'd go to bed with a head full of uneasy thoughts. I could tell she was trying, but ironically her very effort sometimes just reminded me of the breach. If she was overly affectionate or constantly checking in on me, instead of feeling reassured I'd think, she's only doing this because she betrayed me and feels guilty. Nothing felt natural or normal anymore.

One evening, we had a really honest talk, probably the hardest one yet. I told her that I was grateful for how hard she's been working to fix this, but that I still didn't feel right inside. I love her, but something in me was fundamentally broken and I couldn't pretend everything was okay. I admitted that I'd thought about getting my own place for a while to just have space where I didn't have to put on a fake smile for our son every day. To my surprise, she actually agreed that maybe some space would be good. She started crying and said, I hate what I've done to us. I wish I could go back in time. But I understand you might need time apart. It was heartbreaking. We mutually decided I would be

the one to move out for now, mainly to keep stability for our son by leaving him in the house with her. We gently told our son that I got an apartment closer to work, but that I'll see him all the time. Being five, he accepted it pretty okayishly. We're trying to keep his routine intact. I still see him every day, sometimes I come by for dinner at the house. We're keeping things civil for him, other days I pick him up from school for a bit and then bring him home. We alternate weekends. The first night in my new apartment, a small two-bedroom number,

not far from our house, after I was finally alone, I just sat on the floor and bawled. My wife and I are cordial, I'd say. Possibly too cordial. It's like we're afraid to upset each other further, so our interactions are polite and somewhat distant. She often looks like she wants to say something more, but holds back. I do the same. We mostly discuss our son's schedule, household bills, I still contribute, of course, and logistic. Counseling is on pause since we're separated.

Our therapists suggested we both do individual therapy for a while, which I have started. It's helping a bit, or at least it gives me an outlet separate from all this. I'm not really concerned about John at this point. She told me he actually quit the company not long ago, but I didn't ask for details. I've detached from caring about him. I'm more focused on what's between me and my wife, or soon. to be X. She's been giving me space as we agreed, but when I moved out she gave me a long handwritten letter. She basically poured her heart out, apologizing again, telling me how much

she loves me and that she'll do anything to be worthy of my trust again. It was heavy. I read it alone in my apartment and it made me sob. Update 4. It's been a few weeks since we started living apart. Right now, I'm focusing on my son and myself. I make sure I'm present for him, and I've been trying to take better care of my own health. Turns out I lost about 10 pounds in the last couple months from stress. I go for runs, I cook instead of getting takeout, and I try to keep my mind occupied. As for my wife and me, I honestly don't know what's going to happen. We might slowly find our way back to each other after some time in healing.

Or we might realize that too much damage was done and decide to make the split permanent. If you asked me today, I'd say I'm about 70% leaning toward divorce, 30% holding out hope. But that ratio changes with my mood. We haven't filed any papers. Neither of us has even said the word divorce out loud. It's this awkward limbo, I think we're both avoiding that final step until we're sure. We've agreed to check in with each other about where things stand after a few months. There's no rush, since we're co-parenting okay and finances.

are manageable if one of us wanted to date someone else, I guess that would force the issue, but neither of us is remotely in that headspace. I know she isn't, given how remorseful she's been. And I definitely am nowhere near ready to even think about anyone else. It's not exactly a satisfying ending, I know. I wish I had a clear end to give, like we reconciled and it's all great or we divorced and I'm moving on, but life isn't tying things up neatly for me at the moment. It's just Day by day, trying to figure out what happiness looks like for me and for my son, and whether my marriage fits into that picture or not.