'I snooped on my wife’s phone,' 'she lied about a work meeting with a male coworker.' AITA?

"I snooped on my wife’s phone and discovered she lied about a work meeting and was likely with a former male coworker"...

I caught my wife lying about having a late meeting after work, and it seems she was instead with a former male coworker. For the last couple months she has been texting with her coworker often. It has mostly been about drama at her previous work, but I still find it suspicious that she stays in such close touch with him — they text almost every day.

He used to give her a ride to work from the train station a few times each week as he lived nearby the train station. A few weeks ago I decided to look through her texts. In one message he asked when she ended her work on Tuesdays, and he told her when his work ended.

They planned a meeting for three days after our wedding. I was extra suspicious, then, so I turned on the Timeline feature of Google Maps on her phone which maintains a map of where she goes. A day before the day they were planning to meet, she told me she would have a late meeting at work and asked if I could take her daughter to an afterschool activity.

The day following their scheduled meeting, I checked her phone when she was in the shower, and sure enough, she was never at her work that evening — she took a train to a nearby town where she used to work and had been there for a few hours. He lives in this town.

I realize I invaded her privacy by looking through her messages, by making her phone track her location, and by checking her location history. But I had a bad feeling, and my intuition was right. She did in fact lie to me about her location and then, based on her conversation, I assume she met with her former coworker. Just three days after we married!

She has always told me she has nothing to hide and that I can use her phone any time. Maybe I am being too controlling. Of course, we are two independent people with individual lives, and we don’t have to give each other details of everywhere we go and everything we do. But...she did tell me she was going to a work meeting, yet she did not go, so to me, that is a lie.

And, assuming she visited her former coworker, this was planned. I mean, if I told her I was going to go work in a cafe, and then I instead took a train to a nearby town then met with a female friend, I would think she would feel insecure if she found out. AITA for snooping? Should I confront her? If so, how? Maybe ask her to show me her location history? I doubt she knows about the Timeline feature.

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

AnonThrowAway072023 said:

NTA. She gave you phone permission previously. 3 days after marrying, What The Actual F. Print out her locations. When her daughter is asleep tell her you 2 need to talk. Ask her where she was that day after work. Say it is time to tell the truth.

If she continues lying lay out the locations and say you are not being truthful, why? Why were you there, was it to be with former co worker? Why, what did you 2 do? Tell her she was cheating 3 days after you made her your damed wife, she was cheating while you were taking care of her daughter.

Don't sweep this under the rug or she will think you are stupid and easy and she can fool your dumbass all the time to mess around on the side. Accountable, consequences. She needs them!

-TheGladiator- said:

NTA. Contact a lawyer and initiate divorce.

Difficult-Bus-6026 said:

NTA. This does not look good. Were the texts leading up to the meeting romantic in nature? Make copies of her messages just in case and then confront her about this. If she has no credible explanation, then you can push for an annulment. I hope you didn't go insane for the wedding...

Throw_RA099 said:

NTA. Get this marriage annulled on the grounds that you were unaware that she was carrying on an affair with another man before you married her.

FSmertz said:

NTA. Lawyer up. You’ve been played. Spare yourself years of pain and sorrow. Act decisively and quickly. Follow your attorney’s advice.

rjsmith21 said:

NTA. She's lying to you. I wouldn't confront her on this one thing. I would keep gathering information because this is an easy gaslight slam dunk for her. You're already doing it to yourself by feeling bad about what you found. Once you have enough information to do what you probably need to do, then pull the trigger.

Ok-Consequence-6619 said:

NTA, but I need to ask and yes I would ask this if your wife posted this too but do you ever act angry over this guy or overly jealous. Because that can sometimes lead to why if it’s platonic she hid it cause sometimes we’re afraid of the reaction.

But to me all this sounds extremely suspicious. And I would confront her. Because of it we’re reversed she would confront you. So yes but make sure you don’t yell or anything sit down and have a conversation. Because if you approach this calmly and she blows up then you have all your answers. NTA.