Reddit Stories - The enigmatic disappearance of the hobbyist wife unraveling the mystery of her vanishing vocals

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #mystery #disappearance #hobbyistwife #vanishingvocals #unravelingmysterySummary: The enigmatic disappearance of the hobbyist wife has left everyone puzzled. As her loved ones try to unravel the mystery of her vanishing vocals, they delve into a world of secrets and uncertainties, questioning everything they thought they knew about her.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, mystery, disappearance, hobbyistwife, vanishingvocals, unravelingmystery, secrets, uncertainties, lovedones, enigmatic, puzzled, vocals, unravel, world, knew, thoughtBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse mentioned wanting to pursue a new interest for personal satisfaction, but soon began to skip our daughter's activities and return home late. Discovered that her closest companion was in fact. Her affair partner. Well, FAC, I never expected to be writing this crap on Reddit. I'm using a throwaway because some of my friends follow my main account, and this isn't something I want them finding out about yet. My wife Jessica, 34F, and I, 36M, have been married for eight years now. We met at a friend's barbecue back in college.

I was finishing up my engineering degree and she was working as a waitress while figuring out what she wanted to do with her life. We clicked right away and got married two years later. Life was good, like really fucking good. We have this amazing six-year-old daughter. I remember the day she was born, I was so nervous I almost passed out in the delivery room, but Jessica just laughed and told me to man up. I've been working my ass off as an engineer, putting in 60-hour weeks sometimes to make sure we can live comfortably in our suburban house with a white picket fence and all that crap. Jessica's been a stay-at-home mom since Melissa was born. It was actually her idea, she said she wanted to be there for all of Melissa's firsts, and I supported that decision 100%.

We'd saved up enough from both our jobs before Melissa came along, and my salary could cover our expenses. She seemed happy with this setup for years. But about a year ago, things started changing. Jessica began talking about feeling unfulfilled, like being a wife and mother wasn't enough anymore. I tried to understand, I really did, even though it was hard for me to relate. My whole identity is wrapped up in being a dad and husband too, but I actually. actually love that. Maybe it was different for her because I still had my career. Like, even though I work mainly to provide for them, solving engineering problems and leading projects gives me something else to

focus on. Plus I get to interact with other adults all day, while she's stuck at home watching fucking Peppa Pig reruns with Melissa. After a bunch of late-night talks and some arguments, we tried to figure out what would make her happier. I even suggested she could go back to work time, but she said that wasn't what she wanted. She used to paint in college, had this whole artistic side I barely got to see anymore. Back when we were dating, she'd spend hours working on these weird abstract paintings in her tiny apartment. That part of her just disappeared after Melissa was born. We looked at different options, and eventually pottery came up. There was this class at the community center at met three times a week while Melissa was at school.

The timing worked perfectly, and I thought maybe getting back into art would help her find that spark again. The class wasn't cheap, but I figured it was worth it if it made her happy. We signed her up that same week, and I even helped her set up a little workspace in the garage where she could practice. For the first couple months, things were actually pretty great. Our kitchen counter became this display area for all her pottery projects, lots of wonky mugs and these little bowls that weren't quite. round. I still have this coffee mug she made me early on, the handle's kind of crooked and it doesn't hold much coffee, but I used it every morning just to see her smile. She never got much better at making stuff, but that wasn't really the point. The important thing was how much

happier she seemed. She started cooking these fancy dinners again like she used to when we first got married. We even started having sex more often, which was a nice bonus. It felt like we were getting back to being that young couple who couldn't keep their hands off each other. Then this Rebecca person came into the picture. Rebecca wouldn't shut up about her, how funny Rebecca was, how Rebecca had traveled all over Europe, how Rebecca was going through a divorce and was so brave about it. I remember thinking it was good for Jessica to have a friend outside our usual neighborhood mom's circle.

They started going for coffee after class, which turned into drinksome evenings. I even encouraged it at first. Fack, I was the one who told her to go ahead and buy that new dress she wanted to wear to their girls' night out. I watched Melissa those nights, ordered pizza, and we'd have daddy-daughter movie nights. It seemed worth it because Jessica would come home all energized and happy, telling stories about their conversations and jokes from the evening. But crap started getting messy real quick. The pottery classes that were supposed to be three times a week somehow turned into almost daily meetups with Rebecca. Jessica started missing important stuff like she forgot about Melissa's parent teacher meeting.

I had to leave work early to cover for her, which pissed off my boss. I was already working overtime to pay for these fucking pottery classes, and now I was having to leave early to handle her responsibilities too. What made me angry was when Melissa's lunch wasn't packed three times in one week. My six-year-old had to eat cafeteria food because her mom was too busy with her new bestie to remember basic crap. I started having to check every morning before work to make sure Melissa had everything she needed. It was like having two kids to take care of instead of one. I kept telling myself this was just temporary, like when Melissa started kindergarten and it took us a few months to figure out our morning routine. Every marriage goes through rough patches, that's what my dad always said.

But this crap was different. Jessica started coming home at 11 p.m., sometimes midnight, reeking of alcohol and whatever fancy cocktails they were drinking. I remember one night she stumbled in at 1 a.m. on a fucking Tuesday. I was still up because I had to finish some work reports, and she could barely walk straight. When I asked where she'd been, she just mumble. something about Rebecca having boyfriend troubles and needing support. It was always some bullshit excuse about Rebecca. The thing that really got to me was how this affected Melissa. That little girl used to wait by the window every afternoon for her mom to pick her up from the bus stop.

Now Jessica was running late so often that I had to arrange with our neighbor to watch Melissa until I could get home from work. Melissa stopped asking for her mom to read her bedtime stories. She'd come straight to my office instead. Last week, Jessica actually showed up for dinner on time, and you should have seen how Melissa's whole face lit up. She started telling Jessica about this art project she made at school, but Jessica was too busy texting on her phone to even look at it.

My kid just stopped mid-sentence and went back to eating her mac and cheese. That crap destroyed me. I tried to handle this like a fucking adult. One night after Melissa went to bed, I sat Jessica down in the kitchen. I kept my voice calm and explained how I was worried about her, about how Melissa was being affected by all this. I even brought up how he hadn't had sex in over a month, hoping that might get through to her. Big fucking mistake.

She went off on me about how I was trying to control her life, how I was jealous of her having friends, how I wanted her to stay trapped in the house forever. She said I should be happy she finally found something that made her feel alive. Alive? What about our family? But according to her, I was just being an unsupportive asshole who couldn't handle her personal growth. Personal growth my ass, since when does personal growth mean abandoning your kid? I lost my crap at that point. I reminded her how I'd supported every single thing she wanted to do.

when she wanted to quit her job to stay home with Melissa. I picked up extra projects at work to cover the lost income. When she wanted these pottery classes, I didn't even blink at the $200 monthly fee. And now she's telling me I don't support her emotionally. I started listing off all the times I'd covered for her with Melissa lately. She just stood there rolling her eyes and said the classic bullshit line about how providing money isn't everything. Then she stormed out saying she needed air. Real mature. Two weeks passed. We barely talked except about Melissa's schedule.

Then one morning over breakfast, Jessica told me about wanting to go on some weekend pottery retreat with Rebecca. Said it was at some fancy art center a few hours away. They'd work on their pottery skills, do some meditation, crap like that. My bullshit detector started going crazy. In eight years of marriage, Jessica had never once mentioned wanting to do any kind of retreat. She hated being away from home. She even skipped her sister's bachelorette weekend last year because she said she'd miss Melissa too much. Now suddenly she wants to spend a whole weekend away at some pottery retreat. I played it cool though.

Told her sure, she could go, but first I wanted to meet this Rebecca. person. After all, she'd been spending half her time with her for months now. Seemed pretty fucking reasonable to want to meet my wife's supposed best friend before they went on a weekend trip together. But holy crap, you should have seen how fast Jessica backpedaled. First it was oh, Rebecca is really shy around new people. Then it was she's going through a lot right now and isn't up for meeting anyone. Every excuse sounded more ridiculous than the last. That's when I knew something was seriously wrong. Eight years of marriage teaches you when your partner is lying, and Jessica was lying her ass off.

I never wanted to be that guy who goes through his wife's phone. For eight years, I respected her privacy completely. Hell, we even used to joke about those couples who shared passwords and tracked each other's locations. But something wasn't adding up with this retreat bullshit. it. Rebecca had started keeping her phone face down all the time, and she'd jump every time it buzzed. The final straw was when I saw her texting in the bathroom at 2 a.m. last week, she said she was just checking Instagram, but who the fuck checks Instagram at 2 a.m.? So yeah, I waited until she was in the garage getting her suitcase, and I grabbed her phone from the kitchen counter.

She'd gotten sloppy with keeping it locked lately, probably too busy planning her fucking retreat. The truth hit me like a ton of bricks. No Rebecca anywhere in her contacts. But there was this contact saved as B with hundreds of messages. I started reading and felt sick to my stomach. This guy Daniel was her pottery instructor. They'd been texting since her third class. The messages started innocent enough, talking about clay types and firing temperatures.

Then they got flirty. then explicit. I saw messages about meetups at his apartment after class. Hotel receipts. Fucking sexy pictures she'd sent him. While I was home making sure Melissa had dinner and did her homework, Jessica was sending this asshole messages about how exciting it was to sneak around. Eight years of marriage thrown away for some Dushabag pottery teacher.

I wasn't about to let her gaslight me later, so I screenshot it everything and emailed it to myself. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the phone. Then I went upstairs where she was packing. She had all her fancy lingerie laid out on our bed. She was standing there holding up different bras like she was planning a fucking fashion show. I couldn't help myself. I said, which one's Daniel's favorite?

Still quiet from the doorway. Her whole body froze. When she turned around and saw her phone in my hand, her face went white. You'd think she'd at least try to deny it or apologize. Nope. This woman, who I'd spent eight years building a life with, who I'd supported through everything, started screaming about her privacy. Like I was the bad guy for finding out about her affair. She went on this whole rant about how I had no right to go through her phone.

Then said she'd been unhappy for years. and nobody in the family cared about her sacrifices. Sacrifices? I wanted to laugh. I'd been killing myself at work, taking care of our kid, covering all her responsibilities while she was out fucking her pottery teacher. But somehow I was the unsupportive one. The audacity of this woman was unreal.

And what really pissed me off was how she tried to rewrite history, claiming I'd complained about everything I have done. That was complete bull. I never said a word until she started missing Melissa's school events and forgetting basic mom stuff. For months I'd watched her pull away from our daughter, and I kept my mouth shut hoping she'd snap out of it. She started getting louder, practically yelling about how she deserved to be happy. I tried to get her to quiet down. It was almost midnight and Melissa's room was right down the hall. That set her off even more. She started screaming about how

everything was always about Melissa, never about her needs. Can you believe that crap? A grown woman jealous of her own six-year-old kid. Then I heard my daughter coming to our room. Melissa stood in the doorway. Daddy? Mommy? Why are you fighting? This was exactly what I didn't want to happen. I ran over and knelt down next to her, trying to act like everything was normal. Told her we were just having a grown-up talk and I'd come read her another story in a few minutes. Jessica just stood there like a statue, didn't even try to comfort her own kid. Melissa looked back and forth between us before heading back to her room. She looked scared. Once Melissa was gone, I turned back to Jessica and kept my voice real low. I asked her to really look at what she was doing to our family.

Our daughter was literally scared to be in her own house because her mom was too busy thinking about her affair to give a crap about anyone else. Jessica just broke down crying, going on about how trapped she felt as a housewife and how she needed to find herself. Said I had my fancy engineering job while she was stuck at home. That's when I lost it. I told her my job wasn't some fun hobby, it was me sacrificing 60 hours a week so she could stay home with our kid like she wanted.

She'd blown up our entire family because she was bored. because pottery class and screwing the instructor made her feel alive. She'd traumatized our daughter because Daniel made her feel special. There was no coming back from this crap. She'd nuked our marriage, and for what? Some middle-aged guy who taught pottery to board housewives. Jessica went into full damage control mode. She started promising all kinds of crap between her sobs.

She'd blocked Daniel's number right now. She'd find us a marriage counselor first thing tomorrow. She'd quit the pottery class and be a better mom to Melissa. She even offered to get a job so I wouldn't have to work so much. But watching her cry there on our bed, all I could think about was how she'd sent dirty texts to Daniel from that same spot while I was reading bedtime stories to our daughter. The trust was gone.

Completely fucking gone. I left her crying in our room and called my brother David. He's always had my back, he said to bring Melissa over right away. When I told Jessica I was taking Melissa to David's for the night, she tried to stop me. She'd saying crap about how I couldn't take her daughter away. I shut that down real quick. Told her if she tried to stop me, I'd call her parents right now and tell them exactly why their perfect daughter's marriage was falling apart.

That got her attention. Jessica's parents are old-school Catholics, they disown her if they knew she was cheating. Maybe it was a low blow, but I didn't give a fuck anymore. I just needed to get Melissa somewhere stable for the night. I might update this in the morning when I know what to do next. Day one, the next morning, after barely sleeping on David's couch, things were clearer. David's wife Tiffany made us breakfast, and watching more than, Melissa laugh at her uncle's stupid jokes made me realize what needed to happen.

She deserved better than this crap show. I called Jessica around 10 a.m. after I dropped Melissa at school. Told her we needed to talk about separation. She started crying again, begging me to come home so we could work things out. Said she'd made a horrible mistake, but she still loved me. Still loved me? That's rich coming from someone who'd been fucking their pottery teeth. for months. I am sorry for bringing the fucking pottery teacher again and again, but cheating

on me with a fucking pottery teacher just shows how fuck my life is. I agreed to bring Melissa by to see her later, kids shouldn't suffer just because her mom's a cheater. But I made it clear we were done. Marriage is built on trust, and she'd taken eight years of trust and thrown it in the garbage for some quick thrills with Daniel. She tried every trick in the book. Crying about how she'd do anything to fix it. Promising she'd never talk to Daniel again. Swearing she'd be a better wife and mother. But you can't unfack your pottery teacher.

You can't unsend those messages about how exciting it was to cheat on your husband. Some bells just can't be unwrung. When we got to the house, Melissa ran straight to Jessica and hugged her tight. That image fucked me up inside. My little girl had no idea her mom. had chosen some random dude over our family. Jessica was crying and hugging Melissa like she was the victim in all this. I sent Melissa upstairs to grab some toys she wanted to take back to Uncle David's.

Once she was out of earshot, I told Jessica straight up that I was filing for divorce. The look on her face was like she couldn't believe this was actually happening. Like somehow she thought tears and promises would make me forget about Daniel. She tried every manipulation tactic in the book. First came the your overreacting bullshit, like finding out your wife is banging her pottery teacher is no big deal. Then she pulled out this crap about how she was just trying to find herself. I nearly lost it at that point. Since when does finding yourself mean destroying your family?

I'd supported her through every phase, the yoga phase, the organic cooking phase, even that time she wanted to start a moment. mommy blog. But apparently cheating on your husband and neglecting your kid was just part of her journey of self-discovery. Fact that noise. I met with this divorce lawyer David recommended who specialized in cases involving infidelity. He looked at the screenshots I'd saved and said I had a pretty good case for both the affair and child neglect told me to document everything. I went through my phone and found dozens of texts from Melissa's teachers about Jessica missing meetings. Had screenshots of her Instagram posts at bars when she was supposed to be at pottery class. Even had receipts from all the times I'd had to buy Melissa's school supplies last minute because Jessica forgot.

The next few weeks were brutal. Jessica's mood swings gave me whiplash. One day she'd send these long apologetic texts about how sorry she was and how she'd do anything to fix things. The next day she'd be calling me a controlling asshole who never let her be herself. The worst was when she started using Melissa as a weapon. She'd say crap like a good father would keep the family together or think about what this will do to Melissa. Real rich coming from someone who'd missed her own kid's school play to hook up with her side piece. I shut that manipulation down real quick.

Reminded her that she was the one who blew up our family when she decided to fact Daniel instead of being a mother to her daughter. The divorce proceedings lasted four months. My lawyer went for the jugular with the custody battle. We had a mountain of evidence showing Jessica's negligence. The custody hearing was rough. My lawyer painted a picture of Jessica as an unstable mother who'd chosen an affair over her child's well-being. I sat there watching them tear apart her character, and honestly, I felt nothing.

Every bad thing they said about her was true. The judge awarded me full custody with Jessica getting three days of visitation per week. She cried in court when they announced it. Telling Melissa about everything was the hardest part. She'd ask these innocent questions. Is Mommy coming home soon? Did I do something wrong? Why can't we all live together anymore?

I'd sit with her in her bedroom, surrounded by her stuffed animals and princess posters, trying to explain things in a way a six-year-old could understand. I told her that sometimes grown-ups make choices that hurt the people they love, but none of it was her fault. That mom and dad both still loved her very much, even if we couldn't live together anymore. Jessica went full victim mode on social media after the divorce. Started posting these vague quotes about narcissistic abuse and finding yourself.

Made these long Facebook posts about how she was here. healing from trauma and rediscovering her worth. The comments were full of people who only knew her side of the story saying crap like stay strong mama and you deserve better. But that backfired when I sent screenshots of her texts with Daniel to her parents. They were old school Catholics who'd been married 40 years, they were fucking devastated. Her dad couldn't even look at her. Our whole friend group sided with me too.

They'd seen how she'd changed, how she'd been. blown off playdates and family gatherings to spend time with her pottery class. The financial settlement was the final nail in her coffin. My lawyer made sure she got fucked in a division of assets. I kept our house, the one I'd been paying the mortgage on while she was screwing Daniel. Got to keep my car too, while she got stuck with her old Honda Civic. The judge gave her some pathetic amount of alimony, like $800 a month, but with her affair on record, she couldn't argue for more.

She got maybe a quarter of our savings, but that wouldn't last long with rent and bills to pay. She had no job, no real skills, she'd been out of the workforce for six years. Last I heard she was living in some shitty apartment across town and trying to find work as a receptionist. Karma's a bitch. I heard through mutual friends that Daniel ghosted Jessica right after the divorce was finalized. Apparently he'd been seeing two other women from different pottery classes the whole time. Jessica tried calling him for weeks, but he wouldn't pick up.

She even showed up at his apartment once, but he pretended he wasn't home. Serves her right, she torched her whole life for a guy who was just using her as one of his side pieces. I never confronted him about any of it. What would be the point? Though sometimes I imagine running into him at the grocery store, or something. I'm not usually a violent person, but I can't guarantee I wouldn't knock his teeth out if I saw him smirking at me across the produce section. Life's different now, but we're making it work. I talked to my boss and switched to a four-day work week.

The pay cut sucks, but being there for Melissa is worth it. I've learned how to French braid hair, thank God for YouTube tutorials, and I can make a decent school lunch now. Jessica gets her three days of visitation, Wednesdays after school and every other weekend. I make sure Melissa's ready on time with her overnight bagpacked, even though Jessica's been late for pickup twice this month already. I keep my mouth shut about it though. Melissa lights up when she sees her mom, and I won't take that away from her just because I want to tell Jessica what a crap parent she is.

We do this weird dance at pick up and drop off, pretending to be civil while barely. looking at each other. Jessica tries to make small talk sometimes, asks about Melissa's school or activities. I keep my answers short and stick to the facts. No point in giving her any opening to try to manipulate her way back in.