'AITA for calling the police on my fianceé when she didn't come home all night?' UPDATED 2X

"AITA for calling the police on my fiancée?"

Last night my (35M) Fiance (38F) left in the evening to give a friend's son a ride back to his home. She implied she'd be home before 9. She left at around 7:45. 10:15 rolled around and she still wasn't home. I texted and she apologized to me, saying that her friend's son was actually in the next town over (maybe 30 minutes away) and she was coming home now.

11:45 rolled around and she still hadn't come home, so I called her to no answer. Texted her to no response. I was getting very upset

12.30 rolled around and still no response and no answer to my phone calls. I was extremely angry.

1:30 rolled around and my anger had completely transformed into worry. Not answering my calls and texts not read.

Around 1:45 I called the police.

I have always heard that the first 24 hours of someone being missing is the most important, so I didnt want to delay. I asked them to let me know if there had been any traffic accidents involving her car, and the operator told me that they would put out the word and send some cops to check along the route she would travel.

I called all the hospitals in the area to check if she has been checked in and I waited outside watching the road for her car for three hours, partially because I didn't want the kids to hear me on the phone with hospitals, and secondly because I was sick with worry.

At 7:00am she came home. She apologized for being out and said she had no excuse. She was driving home and felt tired like she was falling asleep at the wheel, so she pulled over to the side of the road to sleep. When she did that, she found that her brand new phone had stopped working.

She says she napped anyway because it was the responsible thing to do, and then came home at 7am to bring the kids to school and get to work on time. I immediately called the police and told them that she had come home safely and gave them the case number and told them to stop searching, which they did.

My fjance brought the kids to school and left for work. I set out to start cleaning (cleaning destresses me sometimes), and I got a call from a policeman asking where she worked. I told him, and asked why, and I was informed that it was their policy to check on the person's wellness after a missing person is found. I asked them to not go by her work but to give her a call instead. He said he couldn't promise.

My fiance is relatively new to her job. A police officer showed up and asked to speak with her. She is now enraged at me for calling the police and 'sending a cop to her work' and making her look bad. She is saying I overreacted and that she wasn't missing and that I was punishing her for doing the responsible thing and not driving while drowsy.

She is saying that she is never going to leave the house again except for work, because she is afraid I'm going to call the cops on her again.

So did I overreact? Should I have waited two days like she suggests?

What do you think? AITA? Should he have waited before reporting her as missing? This is what top commenters had to say:

Kezibythelake said:

NTA...but you know she's lying, right?

MinerReddit said:

NTA - I don't believe her story one bit. Driving a kid home and disappearing for the entire night is a massive red flag. How does she not even know where he lives when she started the drive? How old is this kid? Pulling over and sleeping on the side of a road for a 30-minute drive is nuts. She is now turning this around to say she is the victim of your actions.

madelinegumbo said:

NTA. But you know that isn't the truth, right?

fading__blue said:

NTA. She said she was on her way home at 10:15 pm and then disappeared until 7 am. Of COURSE you were going to call the police and have them go looking for her. If she’d been in an accident or worse, she would’ve been dead if you’d waited two days to call.

That being said, she’s definitely lying about what happened. It honestly sounds more like she fell asleep at her affair partner’s place and concocted that bogus excuse to cover her ass.

Tim-oBedlam said:

NTA. Something is up. That excuse doesn't fly. It just doesn't make sense that she'd sleep all night in her car to avoid a 30-minute drive home. I don't blame you for calling the cops, and her reaction is out of line. I think she's hiding something. If her friend's son was 30 minutes away then she should have been back by 9. I'm 95% sure she's lying to you about where she was. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Due-External8607 said:

NTA. But even if that phone was dropped in a toilet... It was working when she got home..... It is policy for them to check in person because they have to see that the person is alive and well, because anyone could make a phone call and say it. But dude.

Thirty minutes away, stops to sleep on the side? If you reported her missing her car would also be noted. If she was on the side sleeping somewhere, wouldn't they have seen the car and well woken her up? Her story reeks. Don't fall for it dude. She's still only a fiance. Don't make her a wife before this is cleared up with legitimate reasons. Because none of hers seem right.

Commenters overwhelmingly agreed, NTA. They also agreed that his fiancée is most likely lying about what happened that night.

Three days after his original post, OP dropped this bomb of an update:

First of all, thank you to those of you who offered kind words and solid advice. This update is likely to disappoint some of you, as it does me. My fiance and I have been fighting solidly since before I posted my last thread. It's been exhausting. I called her out on her obvious lie and she fumed at how awful I was for calling her a liar.

From then on it was as if she was falling down a smooth well, desperately clawing and grabbing at anything she could to blame me for as she went deeper and deeper. I'm not a perfect man, but in this particular situation, I was an angel, so she had nothing to grab on to.

I did a lot of soul searching, and I made a call that most of you will hate. I decided to bury the hatchet. I love her very very dearly. I had no proof of a lie, and I wasn't too concerned about what she was REALLY up to anyway. Our relationship is open, so even if she screwed around, I didn't care much.

She still fought with me though. The fight continued to the point where she 'broke up with me' (but not really), which was a common tactic she had used before. I called her on it and she fought with me still. I asked for space for a night so I could sleep off the exhaustion and she got upset and told me I was neglectful and selfish for not going to her and making up in person.

I am stupid. I am aware of it. Even through all of this, I was apparently able to believe that what she said in emotion wasn't really her talking. Today I was having lunch. Money has been tight lately, for some reason (wierd….), so I flipped through my wallet to find my credit card, which was missing.

Well you see where this goes. She had stolen it. She cited our desire to join lives together and merge finances and that when I lent her my wallet once, she took it so she wouldn't have to bother me by asking again. This credit card is mine, under my name and for emergencies only.

She was using it for the last month and a half. While she has been decent enough to pay back some of it, there was still a $1500 balance on it that hasn't been paid. She says that it's here just as much as mine and resents me calling her a thief. A lot of the uses were spent at ATMs for cash withdrawals and some interesting ones at… The Casino.

Those of you who guessed gambling were probably right on the money. At that point, I admit I lost it. I am a very calm person, but there was only so much denial of reality that I could take. It's still blurry, but I said a lot of horrible things to her and am in the process of evicting her from my life.

I am cancelling everything that is in my name that she is a part of (including the new phone/line), cancelling her car insurance and reclaiming my car that I gave her (and she has trashed). Apparently I can handle lies, cheating and secrets, but who knew theft was my line? Learning experience.

Now thinking back, I can identify lots of sketchy sh!t that my love-goggles blinded me to… but there's a pretty strict character limit…