'I am suspicious of my wife and my friend’s behaviour. I want to check her phone. AITA?' UPDATED

"I am suspicious of my wife and my friend’s behaviour. I want to check her phone. AITA?"

My wife (30F) and I (32M) just returned from a long weekend camping trip with two other couples, friends we’ve known for years. We had a great time, but something happened the morning we left that I can’t shake.

We were all packing up, getting ready to head back home. I was loading our car, when I looked up and saw my wife and my friend. There were at the campsite, several feet away. She was bent over to pick something up, and in that split second, I saw him reach out and squeeze her hip, sliding his hand down...

My wife quickly pushed his hand away, but she didn’t look upset. She was smiling at him - almost playfully(?) It all happened so fast, maybe a second or two, but it felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I glanced around, but no one else seemed to have seen it. His wife was busy packing up their car, and the other couple was further away, chatting about the ride back.

The drive home was quiet. My wife tried making conversation, but I couldn’t focus. My mind kept replaying that scene over and over. When she asked why I was so quiet, I lied and said I was just thinking about work. The truth is, I was in shock. I didn’t want to bring it up.

If I mentioned it, she might tell me I was imagining things, that I was being ridiculous. The rest of the day I felt like I was just moving on autopilot. I barely slept last night and can hardly focus at work today. My mind keeps racing, questioning every detail. Aside from what I saw, the rest of the trip was great and nothing seemed out of place.

A part of me is wondering if read the whole situation wrong. But, the look on her face, that smile—it was too friendly, too casual for something that crossed a line like that. I love my wife to death. We’ve been together since freshman year of college, and I’ve never had reason to doubt her. She’s my best friend.

But now, for the first time, there’s this knot in my gut that I can’t untangle. I’ve never been the type to snoop. I’ve always trusted her completely. But right now, I’m sitting here, wondering if I should check her phone.

It's password protected, so even if I wanted to, I don’t know how I’d do it without her finding out. This is eating me up and I know I need to do something about it. WIBTAH to go through her phone? And even if I wanted to, how can I if it is password protected?

Here's what people had to say to OP:

509RhymeAnimal said:

You don’t do a thing right now. You play it cool for a couple of days. You just confirmed your spouse is cheating and there’s a whole lot of emotion running wild. Take a couple of days to process.

Then start moving money, securing assets, gathering proof of funds, proof of the affair and contact a divorce attorney. When the papers are drawn break the news. (This is assuming you want to end the relationship. Even if you don’t want to end it, give yourself some time to process.)

KeyDuckEye said:

When you know, you know. Don't try to talk yourself out of it. I'm sorry for the pain you are about to experience, but it is necessary. DO NOT be a sucker sir. Best of luck to you!

Primary_Garbage6916 said:

Don't bother confronting her or the guy. She will gaslight you, trickle-truth you, and try to keep you hanging on until she can get her ducks in a row. Don't move out of the house. Screenshot/backup all evidence.

Find a good divorce lawyer 1st thing in the morning and do what they say to do. The first your wife should know of your knowledge of this is when you hand her the papers. Sorry brother, been there and it sucks. But trust me, if you don't cut your losses and move on asap it will only be worse.

TNGeek69 said:

NTA, I definitely would look. I don't know how you didn't IMMEDIATELY say something! "HEY, WTF WAS THAT??" and talked it out with everyone, his wife included.

Wait-What-1577 said:

NTA. You are married. The fact that you guys don't have an open book policy and know each other's passwords is weird. What if something happened to either of you? Honestly, cheaters lie, and intuition is real.

Strangr_E said:

Gather evidence. Make multiple copies and place them in different files. I wouldn’t bother confronting your friend. Clearly that friendship is over. I would consider telling his wife after your wife knows that you know. You’d want his wife to tell you if she found out, yes? If you want to divorce, speak with a lawyer before letting on that you know. Play house until you’re secure enough to make a break.

Backwoodsintellect said:

NTA. Keep quiet, gather evidence, & get a lawyer. She should be the “at fault” defendant & that’s hella important for your future bank account.

FIRST UPDATE:

Found her iPAD - it didn’t have a password, so I got in and it is still connected to her phone. She has Telegram on it. They’ve been chatting on there. I am still going through the messages, but she is cheating.

I am not falling apart yet, I’m trying to keep it together to make the correct next move without fucking this up. What do I do? Do I confront her when she gets home? Do I go to his house and confront him? Please help.

SECOND UPDATE:

Thank you all for your advice. I didn't tell her anything. I have locked myself up in my home office under the pretence of needing to catch up on work. She is not suspicious. I kept the IPad with me, she hasn't used in so long she won't even know it's missing.

I took pictures of all their messages using my phone as a safety measure as well. They have been chatting for at last 8 months as far as I can tell. Telegram is their main communication channel it seems. They've sent each other nudes, R-rated messages, and making plans on making their relationship official after leaving me and his wife.

I can't believe she would do this to me. From the messages, I saw she had sent him a suggestive photo of herself on her way to the gym earlier this evening, and when she got back home, she started kissing me, wanting to be physical. I declined saying I needed to get work done.

I am confused right now and unable to think clearly, so I will follow the advice I am offered here: lawyer, gather evidence. I will work on those. I also saw several comments advising me to separate my finances from hers. We co-own the apartment we live in, and have joint bank accounts.

My parents died in a car crash 2 years ago and left me a large inheritance, which she knows about. She does not have access to the money in that fund, is there anything I need to do to protect myself there if it comes to that point? We don't have kids yet.

THIRD UPDATE:

I work from home sometimes and didn’t have any meetings this morning, so I spent it researching and calling lawyers. I have two consultations lined up for tomorrow, but the majority couldn’t book me in until next week.

I will tell his wife and show her proof as soon as I settle on a lawyer and get myself covered first. Once she’s been informed, I will give her time to get her affairs in order and secure a lawyer if that’s what she wants to do before I decide what to do next, such as confronting my wife.

I don’t understand how I’m feeling. I am not angry for some reason. More numb maybe. Sick and nauseous when I think of the messages I’ve read, especially the inappropriate messages.

I just feel like I am just doing the things that I need to be doing right now, but it’s almost like I am living somebody else’s life. I don’t know how long I can keep up the poker face without her noticing something is up. Thanks for your messages and support.

Later OP took the post down, deleted his account, and left this:

The post has gained a lot more traction than I expected and I am worried about being identified. My wife is not active on these forums, but I don’t know if my friend or his wife are. I will bring back the original post after I confront her.

I have consultations with several lawyers lined up. I will update after I settle on a lawyer and know what my options are.

I originally posted this in the r/infidelity sub. Sharing a brief edited version of it here (to not risk being identified) for those who have been following.

I’ve been keeping it together since I found out last week. But this morning, it finally hit me. What triggered it was something so insignificant, so stupid. I realized everything I was about to lose and that was it. That was my undoing.

All the feelings I have been successfully keeping at bay came at me in full force. The sadness, the anger, the rage. And I just bawled for hours after she left.

I am NOT ok. No, scratch that. I am pretty f^%$^%g depressed. And to top it off, I have to keep it together and maintain my act until she is served, when all I want to do is f*&#$%g scream.

UPDATE 4

Guys, I am humbled by all the messages and advice I received. Not much has happened since yesterday. Just keeping myself busy with work and the gym. The anniversary of my parents passing is coming up in about a month and she obviously knows this so when she asked why I seemed off, I just told her I was thinking about them.

I have consultations with several lawyers lined up - most next week, a few this afternoon. I will update after I settle on a lawyer and know what my options are.

UPDATE 5

I found a hell of a lawyer who managed to draft my divorce papers within days, which were filed this morning. I am in a no-fault jurisdiction, which meant all the evidence of the infidelity which I had gathered, can’t be used in court.

The good news is that my inheritance is safe because I didn’t use the money for marital expenses. Our condo was a wedding gift, bought by both our parents (each side contributed 50% to the down payment) so one of us will have to buy the other out or we both sell it.

I called the OBS on Saturday and asked to meet her for coffee. I chose that day because, ironically, her husband and my wife had gone on an overnight trip together. I found out from their messages on the iPad.

The lies they were going with were: my wife was staying at her sister’s for the weekend to help with the kids while her sister’s husband was away on a business trip and her husband was going away for a work-related project.

The truth was, my wife and my husband were taking a trip out of town together and were staying at a hotel, all paid for by the Casanova himself. I showed her their messages on the Telegram app, pictures included, all of it. She told me she noticed him feeling distant and withdrawn a few months ago, she thought it was just work stress and had no reason to suspect he was cheating.

Finding out that her husband was in fact cheating, and with my wife, who is also HER friend, came as a blow to her. We chatted some more and I gave her my lawyer’s number as she considers her options.

Sunday night, my wife returned from her “sister’s house”. She walked through the door and greeted me with kisses, saying she missed me.. after she had spent the weekend with her lover. Her ability to compartmentalize is almost diabolical.

I sat her down and told her we needed to talk. I had the whole conversation recorded without her knowledge (following lawyer’s advice, I live in a one-party consent state). Here’s how it went:

I asked her to promise to be honest with me (“of course, baby” but she was nervous). Then I asked her a series of questions, do you love me? (“Yes”), are you happy with me? (“Yes, of course, baby”), have I been a good husband to you? Do I treat you right? (“Yes and yes. Wth is going on?”). Please humour me (“okay”).

Have I ever done anything to hurt you, whether physically or emotionally? (“No, of course not. Wtf”), Okay.. so, if you’re happy with me, then why are you cheating on me? She stared at me in shock for a good minute and then immediately started denying it. This went on for a little while and then I just told her to drop the act because I found out the truth.

Eventually, she broke down and admitted to kissing a guy who had been hitting on her at a bar during a night out with her girlfriend a few months ago. I don’t know why but at this point I started laughing because the whole thing was just absurd.

She not only cheated on me, she had taken every opportunity she could find to cheat on me. I asked her if that was the only time she cheated. She swore up and down that it was the only time and that it was a moment of weakness, that she was drunk, and it had meant nothing.

I said nothing, I gave her my lawyer’s business card and said I filed for divorce (I hadn’t yet, I wanted to talk to her just once first to see if there was anything left of our marriage to salvage) and that if she wanted to reach me she should call my lawyer.

She cried, begged, apologised and then when I started packing a suitcase, she shifted to gaslighting me, saying I was throwing away everything we had over a mistake.

And the worst part of what she said was I had no one else in the world, why would I leave the only family I had left. This stung because I told her she was my only remaining family after my parents died and there was no one else I could depend on. Only for her to throw those very words back in my face. I left that night to a hotel where I am staying until I find a new apartment. Yesterday, I officially filed for divorce.

Edit: my responses to some of the comments:

I didn’t tell her that I knew about the affair after she said she kissed some random guy at the bar. She ended up finding out from her. The OBS confronted him and called her up as well and gave her shit. The OBS was really upset when I told her and couldn’t keep it in. I don’t blame her. He really did her dirty.

Her mom is sick and she has been going out of town a lot to be with her and instead of supporting her, he had been using that time to get with my wife.

I didn’t because I was blindsided by her telling me she kissed a random guy at a bar. It may sound insignificant compared to the double life she has been leading with my friend, but in that moment I think I started realizing how badly she wanted to cheat on me and it came as a shock.

I was too angry to say anything to her without blowing up in her face. So, I just left. It’s hard to explain, why. It just made more sense to leave than to try and find out why she’d been sleeping with my friend after I heard that from her.

When I left the house she kept calling me that night and leaving me messages. When the OBS called her the next day and also confronted her husband, she stopped trying to reach me. It’s been crickets from her since. And him too. I put two and two together because around the time OBS messaged to tell me she confronted him and called her, I stopped getting calls from my wife.

9 days later OP came back with this update:

Some updates from the last time I posted. 
 My wife was served the divorce papers last week. I am still at the hotel and close to finding a new apartment.

Last week when I left I forgot to take iPad with me. I picked it up when I went back a couple days later to grab clothes and other stuff.

Apparently, my wife had a fallout with her friend who was with her at the bar, accusing her of being the one who told me about her kiss that “hot guy”. Her friend is no longer speaking with her it seems.

After everything went down, his wife threw him out, and he’s been staying at his sister’s place. She and I have been talking, she found a lawyer and is filing for divorce. She has informed our few common friends about what’s been going on and they’ve all cut off contact with them.

Also, the a%$#$le came by MY place and spent the night with my wife TWICE last week.

She has also been messaging her sister, who, it turns out, knew about the affair. My wife found a lawyer apparently and was complaining to her sister that her lawyer explained the asset division and confirmed she has no claim on my inheritance and that she thought that was “unfair”.

Now, here’s the gut punch..

All those conversations about finding an apartment together and becoming official have significantly cooled since my wife’s visit to her lawyer which I found odd. A few days ago I got a message from her asking if we could put a pause on the divorce proceedings.

She said she loves me, thinks we’re being crazy about this, and that everyone deserves a second chance. She even hit me with I can’t live without you BS.

If I didn’t have the iPad, I might have thought she was genuinely remorseful. But knowing what she’s been up to all week, I knew this only came after she realized she won’t be entitled to a cent of my inheritance. Honestly, that fucking hurt. I am following my lawyer’s advice, who told me not to respond.

The more I think about it, the more disgusted I am by her, my friend and her sister. The fact that her “change of heart” seems to stem entirely from her discovery that she won’t touch my inheritance is beyond disturbing. I always intended to use that money for a trust fund if we had kids, something I told her countless times.

I didn’t touch it because it reminded me of the trauma of losing my parents. The level of disrespect she has shown not only me, but also now my parents, who loved her and treated her like a daughter.. I’m just glad they’re not here to see this.

I met up with his wife over the weekend, she’s my friend too, and she’s been going through a rough time, especially with her mom’s health issues on top of this whole mess. I told her about the messages. Long story short, she had been reconsidering the divorce after her husband tried to reconcile with her.

But once I showed her the messages about my inheritance and pointed out how their messages have cooled, she saw things differently. She also shared something that struck me. Apparently, a few months after my parents passed, her husband had made a comment about how I was a “lucky son of a b&^%h” for inheriting their money.

She confronted him then, shocked he would call me “lucky” after losing them, and he backtracked, claiming he didn’t mean it that way. At the time, she brushed it off, but now she is second guessing his motives. It seems far fetched, but it’s starting to sound like she thought she would get her sum after divorcing me and start a new life with him? Either way, their behaviour is despicable.

I have been trying to look after myself. I started therapy, I’ve been going to the gym almost obsessively, and trying to stay away from alcohol. I am trying so hard to put on a strong exterior, some of my friends have said it’s a little scary how “cold” I’ve been, but it’s the only way I can go about my day to day without losing my mind.

The nights are very rough, I struggle with sleep, I sometimes drink to help me through it - I’m not proud, and sometimes, I cry myself to sleep.

Edit: I won’t be posting any further updates in the near future (unless something unexpected happens or in need of support which I would use a different sub for). I will only post another update once the divorce has been finalised, which won’t be for months. Thank you all for the advice and support.