Reddit Stories - Spouse's closest COMPANION RELOCATED following a split and began utilizing my BELONGINGS, and

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #divorce #movingon #personalboundaries #communicationSummary: Spouse's closest COMPANION RELOCATED following a split and began utilizing my BELONGINGS, and now I'm unsure how to address this breach of personal boundaries. Seeking advice on how to navigate this delicate situation with respect and assertiveness.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, divorce, movingon, personalboundaries, communication, spouse, companion, relocated, split, belongings, breach, respect, assertiveness, adviceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse's closest companion relocated following a split and began utilizing my belongings and strolling around halfway attired. Consequently, when I requested her departure, she fabricated images of me. Cheating and my wife filed for divorce without even checking if it's true. Throw away because my wife uses Reddit sometimes and I don't really know what I'm doing here, this is going to be long and messy. I'm 29M, my wife is 26F, her best friend is 28F, and I swear to God I am not trying to be

the villain of anyone's story. I keep thinking I must be missing something or that I'm overreacting and then I look around my own house and it doesn't feel like my house anymore, it feels like I'm renting a room from two people who both think I'm the problem. So this started. It's funny because when I try to rewind and find the exact moment it broke, my brain keeps stopping on these small dumb things like the blue cap of my shampoo not clicking shut the way I leave it, or the weird static why noise our TV makes when you switch HDMI inputs because someone

else had it on Netflix all night, I know, they're just the tiny pins that keep pricking until you're bleeding and you don't even realize it. Anyway, the official beginning was that my wife's best friend showed up after a breakup with her boyfriend of two years. I've met him a few times. Not my favorite guy but also not like a monster. They were on an awful lot. That night she texted my wife a wall of messages and then she was at our door with one suitcase and a tote bag and my wife hugging her and both of them crying and I'm standing there like okay, yes, obviously, we're not going to let someone we love sleep in a car or whatever. A few days, my wife said to me in the kitchen later, whispering like we were planning a surprise party just a few

days until she figures things out. And I said, sure, a few days, I can do a few days. I want to be clear too, because I can already hear the Internet saying you should have set boundaries. And I did try not on day one because I'm not a monster. She was wrecked and I got it. I made tea and I asked her if she wanted food and she said she wasn't hungry and then ate three slices of pizza and fell asleep sitting up with reality shows playing on the TV. I carried the empty plates to the sink and put a blanket over her. But days turned into a week and then two and then, full honesty, I don't know where the line is between being compassionate and being a doormat because I started feeling like a ghost in my own house. I'd get home from work and the front

door would be unlocked. We don't live in a bad neighborhood, but I still lock it, I'm big on that, grew up that way, and there'd be shoes everywhere and a jacket on the kitchen chair and half a sandwich on a plate with mayonnaise sweating into the bread and I could hear her laughing on the phone in our living room. And then when I'd turn the corner, she sprawled across the whole couch with the blanket and the remote and some reality show about people renovating homes, and she'd be in like. I don't want to be gross here, but basically underwear and one of my wife's thin tank tops, no bra, and a giant glass of white wine sweating all over our coffee table. I'd say hey and she'd smile and say hey and then the volume would go up

another notch. I'm not a prude, but I was uncomfortable. I don't want to be the guy who polices what women wear, I don't. But I also don't want someone who isn't my partner walking around my home half-dressed and leaving their underwear on the bathroom floor and on the kitchen counter. Yes, the counter is where we put food. I brought it up with my wife gently, at first. Like, babe, I know she's going through it, but can we talk about a plan? and my wife's shoulders got tight and she said I was being a dummy about a person in crisis and that it's not like I've never needed help from friends. I said yeah, I have and I cleaned up after myself when I was crashing at people's places

and also I never walked around in underwear in front of their wife. That got me a look like I had personally kicked a puppy. She said, she's like my sister, why are you sexualizing her? Which, God, that one floored me, because I wasn't. I was saying I feel weird and I want a robe to be involved maybe. I even offered to buy her one, my wife called me controlling. I backed off because I didn't want to fight and I thought the friend would stabilize. Meanwhile, the small pricks, my cologne bottle, a gift from my wife, not cheap, getting lighter

by the day, my shampoo going down twice as fast as I use it, a new toothbrush missing from the pack under the sink, my headphones move from the desk. I asked my wife and she said, It's just stuff, she needed it, can you please be kind? And I hear myself telling myself to chill out, like yeah, it's just stuff, but it felt like a pattern of my yes is assumed and my no doesn't matter. I started spending more time in our bedroom because the living room TV was always taken. It became a joke at work that I knew the entire cast of three different reality shows

despite never once choosing to watch them. I tried to schedule a movie night with my wife just to be in the same room other than bedroom, of course, with her without her friend, and she invited her friend to that too because she shouldn't be alone. So the three of us watched a rom-com and I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. The last straw before the last straw was a morning where I stepped out of the shower and almost slipped because there was a bunched-up pair of lace underwear on our bathroom floor right by the mat. I picked them up with a towel like they were biohazard and put them on the doorknob, to the guest room and texted my wife that we needed to talk. She responded with a heart

emoji and said, Be nice please. Be nice. Now I feel gross even typing the last straw. My wife was at work, I had taken a sick day because I'd had this weird headache that wouldn't quit and just needed quiet. I went to the kitchen to make toast and I could hear the TV in the living room and then I heard. Listen, I'm not going to describe it. I heard something that made me realize she wasn't just watching TV. I walked in because my brain didn't fully believe it and I'm an idiot like that, and yes, she was on the couch doing something very private, not clothed, in my living room, in my house, where I sit and eat dinner and fold laundry. I said her name, she screamed, pulled the blanket up, and then she started yelling at me for sneaking around

in my own house, which was insane, and I just went cold. I said, you need to be out by the end of the week, I will help you find a place, I will give you money for a hotel if needed, but you cannot stay here anymore. She started crying, but it was this furious crying, like I had betrayed her. She called my wife. My wife called me and I could hear her in the background feeding her lines like I'm some villain. My wife said I was humiliating her friend and how dare I talk to her that way, she's traumatized, etc. I didn't yell. I said, end of the week.

I said it three times. That night my wife didn't come home until late. When she did, she went directly to the guest room where her friend was and shut the door. I sat in our bedroom like a stranger again. And that was the original thing I came to write about, I guess, like am I crazy? Am I the bad guy for wanting my home back? Update. So, she moved out.

I stuck to the end of week thing and I paid for a week at an extended. it stay place because I didn't want to be the person who made someone sleep in a car. She took it, grudgingly. She called me controlling and abusive for kicking out a woman in crisis, which I don't feel inside my body is true, but I'm also not a judge. My wife was ice-cold to me for days. Like walking past each other, we barely spoke except in little awkward bursts like did you feed the cat. We don't even have a cat, that's how scrambled my brain is. We laughed for one second and then stopped. I thought once the friend was out, we'd kind of find our baseline again. I had this picture in my head of the house being quiet, my wife and I eating dinner,

the couch being just ours again, maybe a dumb movie, holding hands. You know that feeling when you're almost there and then the sidewalk drops out. So, three days after the friend left, my wife comes home with this flat face and says we need to talk. She has photos. On her phone. Photos of me at lunch with my co-worker, 25F. Now, my wife has always been weird about this co-worker, not because of anything I've done but because she is, objectively, attractive and she is single and she laughs at my jokes at staff meetings and my wife told me once that the way

she looks at me makes her feel small and I said, I'm sorry. I'll be conscious of that, and I have been. I keep it professional. Anyway, the photos, it's me and co-workers sitting across from each other at one of those outdoor tables. It's a sunny day. We're both laughing at something. What you can't see in the photos is that two of our male co-workers were inside ordering food at that exact second, and we were waiting for them.

The pictures are cropped so it looks like a date. My wife keeps zooming in and saying, look how you're smiling at her, and I'm saying, yes, because she said something about the way the pigeons were walking like little old men, it was funny, and I know how ridiculous that sounds when someone has already decided what the pictures mean. She says you're sneaking around, I knew it, and I say, how did you even? Where did you get these? And she says, you're kidding, right? And shows me the message that came with them from her best friend, who apparently, by pure luck she wrote, was in the area and caught you cheating. So now I'm the villain for kicking her out and also the villain for cheating, which I didn't do. I explained it was a

group lunch. I texted the group chat right there and both guys said yes, we were inside ordering, and my wife refused to look at the messages like they were made of radiation. She kept saying, I have pictures, like pictures are the law and my words are air. I slept on the couch because I couldn't be in the bed next to that kind of certainty that I was a bad person. She cried in the bathroom. I sat in the dark in the living room where I was trying not to think about the other thing that happened on that couch. I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep, before I got jolted awake. Now I am unable to sleep and thought I would ask for advice again. Update 2, I thought some time would cool everything down, but it did the opposite. My wife completely believes her

friend. I showed her my phone records, my messages. I offered to hand her my phone. I offered to hand her my phone, We called the co-worker on speaker and the co-worker, sounding both scared and pissed, said we all went to lunch, there were four of us, and then my wife said you would say that, and hung up. She says I always smell different when I come home from work, which is just. I don't even know what that means, I wear the same deodorant I've worn for years. Honestly, I smell like the office printer most days. She says her friend saw me texting this coworker late at night when she was living with us. That didn't happen. I'm asleep by 11 most nights, I am not interesting, I promise.

Somewhere in the middle of this my wife uses the word gaslighting about me and I feel like I'm in a fun house because that is what is happening to me. She sleeps in the guest room for two nights and then she goes to her parents' place to figure things out. She blocks me for a couple days, unblocks me, and says she's contacted a divorce lawyer to understand her options. I say can we do couples counseling? She says no because you'll just manipulate the therapist.

I say I love you and I didn't cheat. She says you would say that. I want to bite my own tongue off. I'm trying to function at work. I tell my manager a watered down version of what's going on and he is kind, but you can see the quiet way people start looking at you when they think there's a story there. The co-worker, 25F, is weird now, not in a way that I've. blame her for because if someone's spouse was accusing you of sleeping with them. Yeah.

My wife files for legal separation last week. Minor update in the middle of this mess. We literally only speak through her lawyer now, I don't even get good night texts anymore, I get PDFs. I keep looping back to the beginning like if I can find the exact thing I can pull it and the whole thing will knit itself back. I keep thinking, if I hadn't said end of the week, or if I had said it nicer, maybe. If I hadn't walked into my living room that day. If I had laughed off the underwear. None of that feels fair but my brain is trying to take responsibility

because that at least is something I can hold on to. Otherwise it's just free fall. Update 3. My wife filed for divorce and she's asking for half of everything, including the house I bought before I even met her. I don't want to get into legal details because that's not the point and also I don't want to docks myself, but I will say my lawyer says separate property is separate property but that doesn't stop someone from trying to muddy it. And also we live in a place where courts sometimes do weird things. I feel dirty even talking about assets when what I want

is to not be losing my marriage to a lie. The best friend is still doing a world tour if he's a cheater. She tells my wife's friends I've been doing this for years. She tells my wife's aunt that she feels so guilty for not speaking up sooner, which is rich considering there's nothing to speak up about. Somehow this rumor drips into my office. HR calls me in for a touch base because someone, no names, has expressed concerns about inappropriate relationships. My co-worker, 25F, ends up in that meeting too and I feel so bad I could dig a hole and climb inside. She is pissed at the situation, and she says to HR, there has never been anything improper. Ever.

She looks at me like, I don't know, like she's seeing me on fire and she can't put it out. I tell her I'm sorry this touched her life at all. She says I know. She hasn't done anything wrong and she's the one who had to say that on the record. I go home and I cry. Like full body, ugly, can't breathe. My wife's sister also reached out. We're not close close but we've always gotten along.

She says she's not sure about any of this. She points out something I hadn't even let myself say out loud, which is that the timing is. Interesting. Friend got kicked out. Friend immediately catches me cheating. Friend can't wait a day to tell my wife. Sister says she tried talking to my wife, but my wife isn't hearing it. I'm grateful someone else can see it and I'm also sinking because even if someone else sees it, my wife doesn't.

And then, I almost didn't post this, my wife's other friend, not the best friend, a different friend who's been kind of on the sidelines, sends me screenshots. Actual screenshots of texts from the best friend to her. In these texts the best friend is bragging about how she opened my wife's eyes and how my wife is too gullible and needed to learn to stand up for herself and this part made me shake so hard I had to put my phone down that she wanted to break up the controlling marriage. She calls me controlling in a dozen different ways in those texts. Controlling because I wouldn't let her live in peace at our place indefinitely. Controlling because I said by your own toiletries. The texts say he freaked out because I borrowed his stupid expensive shampoo like relaxant soap. Controlling because I suggested she put on a rope.

There's a line where she says once he kicked me out I knew I had to do something or wife would just go back to him like a doormat. There's another line where she says, got the perfect pick of them at lunch, and the friend asks, were they actually alone? And she replies, does it matter? It looks like it. I sent the screenshots to my lawyer. I sat with them for a day because I was honestly afraid to send them to my wife. I had this superstitious feeling like the lie had become so sticky that even truth would slide off. I kept reading those texts and my stomach would drop and then I'd start thinking maybe she'll say the screenshots are faked. Maybe she'll say I made them up. I don't have the skills for that even if I had the desire. Update 4. I sent the

screenshots to my wife with like a five-line message that basically said, I didn't cheat. Your friend lied. I don't know what else to do besides show you this. She didn't respond for six hours, which when you're in that headspace feels like six years. When she finally called, she was crying in a way I've never heard from her. She said, oh my God, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Like she couldn't stop saying it. She asked to come over. I said yes and then immediately texted my lawyer because I am not stupid anymore about documenting things.

When she walked in, she sat at the far edge of the couch. She kept saying, I'm sorry. and then words that didn't strain into sentences. And finally, I destroyed us. I broke our home. I didn't even check. I just believed her because I've always believed her. She told me she cut contact with the best friend, blocked her on everything.

Her parents, who had seen the photos and called me a scumbag to my face a few months ago, called me to separately crying and apologizing and saying they should have asked questions instead of marching to the conclusion. I'm glad they see it. I'm also exhausted in my bones. My wife said she'd call her lawyer to stop the divorce proceedings and asked, begged for counseling. She said she will do whatever I want.

I believe that she means it in that moment. The way a person means it when they're standing in the wreckage. I asked her why she didn't even try to verify anything before nuking us. She said she doesn't know. and maybe that's the worst answer and the truest one she said her friend has always been her person like since middle school and she has this awful realization that she hates being alone and maybe she let that person think for her i said i asked you to think with me she cried harder here's the thing i don't know how to say without sounding like an asshole i don't know if i can do it

I don't know if I can unsee the last few months the way she looked at me like a stranger in our bedroom the way she told her lawyer I was manipulative the way she refused therapy when I begged for it and then came back with apologies only when the lie blew up I don't know if I can ever look at a photo of myself at lunch again without my heartbeat going up I feel like I've been living underwater and I only just came up

and learned that the sky is still there and I'm supposed to willingly go back and hope nobody holds me down. She came over twice more after that first conversation. The second time she brought a box of things I'd given her over the years and tried to give them back, like that would make it easier for me to punish her or something. I told her to keep them. I'm not going to launder our history. We sat in the kitchen and we held hands and both of us cried and none of that tells me what to do.

She asked me if there's any path. I said I don't know. I meant it and I also maybe, deep in some hidden place, mean no, but I didn't have the courage yet to make it fully real. I hate that. Edit, I've had a bunch of people message me to take my wife back because she was manipulated. I've had others say run and never look back. Both feel so loud. I don't know what to do.

Small update, two years later because people keep Deng Me and I don't know how to do this tidily so I'll just say. say it. I went through with the divorce. I tried counseling with her for a while. I really did. It was months of us in that little room with the tissue box. Some sessions were. Okay, there were moments where I thought maybe. Because she said hard honest things like I chose the comfort of someone telling me what to think over the discomfort of sitting with uncertainty with my husband. And I said hard honest things like I felt like an object you returned to the store on a rumor. We learned how to fight nicer. We learned how I could text her at lunch to say where I am even if I shouldn't have to.

And then I kept tripping over the reality that she had the chance to slow down and instead she put her foot on the gas. It's not that I can't forgive that she believed something that wasn't true. Humans are gullible sometimes. It's that she refused to look me in the eye long enough to hear my no. She set fire to our life with industrial strength accelerant and only came me. back with water when her friend accidentally texted the wrong person. We split. It was, in the end, mostly clean. The house stayed with me because it was premarital and my lawyer is good and also because maybe the universe gets one or two small things right in an ocean of wrong.

She took the couch. I let her. I bought a new one. It's ugly. Her parents sent a note I didn't answer because I didn't know what to do with it. I have my weekends and my quiet. I have my locked door that clicks the way I like it. I started running again and not in the metaphorical way but actually, like feet on pavement, and I can feel my lungs burning in a good way. I'm not with the coworker, for anyone who's going to ask. We're polite. We became friendly again. She got a boyfriend, he's a nice guy, they got a dog that looks like it's permanently confused and it makes me smile. I met a woman at the coffee shop who also thought the pigeons walk like little old men and that felt like some cosmic callback but we're just grabbing coffee sometimes.

I'm not rushing anything. I'm not trying to make this into a redemption arc. It's just life and it keeps going whether or not my heart signed off. I wish I had a grand takeaway except maybe this. Listen when someone tells you who they are but also notice when someone tells you who they think you are. And if the second one wins too easily, that's a map. I loved my wife and I think she loved me, and I also think she loved having her best friend approve of her more than she loved the feeling of stopping and saying, wait, this doesn't add up. That's not evil, it's human, but it's not a thing I can live with.

I hope she's okay. I hope I'm okay. I'm not writing this to recruit a team. I'm just setting down the pile of rocks I've been carrying because I'm tired and it turns out you can put things down and the world doesn't end.