'AITA for faking sleeping all night to catch my wife lying about our cats?' UPDATED

"AITA for faking sleeping all night to see if my wife is lying?"

Content warning: Mental health

The past couple of months, my wife has been complaining about our cats. She’s been claiming that the cats wake her up constantly and that she’s frustrated every night that she “has to get up and open the door for thecats” or “the cats keep making noises” or “the cats keep jumping on her.” It got to the point where she started saying she wants me to get rid of them.

I told her I’ve never seen or heard any of this, but she claims I sleep through it all. She kept telling me she was getting less and less sleep and kept acting aggressive, blaming lack of sleep from the cats, and that if I didn’t get rid of them, she’d leave me. I legitimately started considering giving the cats to my sister, until I noticed something.

One morning she claimed she had gotten up multiple times throughout the night to help the cats. She listed a bunch of times. I thought it was weird, because I had been up until 4am, and she claimed that she “got up at 1am to open the door for them, and a few times around 3am because they were meowing and jumping on her.”

I was in the bedroom the entire time while she slept, and I know none of that happened. Things weren’t adding up, so I decided to run a test. I waited until she said she was going to bed, then I let the cats out of our bedroom, lowered my phone brightness, and faked going to sleep. I just laid there in bed for the entire night, bored, but I definately did not fall asleep.

I made sure to make timestamps every 30 minutes on my phone through Discord just to be sure. I marked down every noise my cats made. One cat had jumped down from something and made a little sound at 3:18am, and one ate food relatively quietly by the bedroom door at 4:57am. Other than that, nothing happened.

Sure enough, my wife slept from 11pm until 9am, and that morning she claimed she had woken up “at least 7 times” to open doors and from cat noises and cats jumping on her. At this point I was pissed because she was clearly lying to me. I was exhausted and fed up with the lies, so I just bluntly called her out on it.

I told her, “That’s funny. I stayed up all night to monitor the cats, and they weren’t even in the room at all last night. I have timestamps and everything. So you’ve been lying to me and trying to convince me to get rid of my cats? Why?” She just sat there quitly shaking and looking pissed, then got up and left without answering.

She came back hours later and ignored me whenever I talked, and when I asked her how I’m the bad-guy in this situation, she finally said that I was treating her like a child by lying about sleeping and staying up all night just to see if she was lying or not and that making timestamps and everything as if I was an investigator was “going too far” and makes me an obsessive a-hole.

I did it because she was threatening to make me get rid of my cats or she’d leave me, and her claims didn’t add up. So, am I an “obsessive a-hole?”

What do you think? Did he do anything wrong? This is what top commenters had to say:

KrymsinTyde said:

NTA. That was gaslighting and manipulative, and if she had issues with your cats she should have said so directly

Samwise3214 said:

NTA but you've kinda called her bluff about her leaving you now you've removed the cats excuse from the equation. Wishing you all the best

Noodles_R said:

NTA in my opinion - you had to test her. She’s trying to get you to get rid of your pets, and essentially blackmailing your relationship over it. What’s your next move?

APotatoPancake said:

NTA. Your wife is gaslighting you. You are not an obsessives a-hole she is.

He later shared this update on the situation:

My wife has been Baker Acted. She did not hurt herself, just said something concerning in public. I got a call from the hospital this morning, asking me to head over for some “family therapy.” Apparently she finally wanted to talk. I’ll be honest, I’m pretty pissed at the reason why she’s been so hateful towards my cats. It’s absolutely asinine.

It’s nothing that anyone had suggested. She’s not cheating. She’s not sick physically or mentally. She’s not bored of the relationship and looking for an “out.” According to her, one of the cats stepped on her laptop and ruined a story she was writing. She’s hated both cats ever since. I mean that sucks, but it’s not worth trying to emotionally blackmail me into getting rid of them.

I asked her why she didn’t just tell me the truth and why she’d been lying and refused to talk about it when I’d asked. Her answer was “Because you wouldn’t have gotten rid of them otherwise.” and explained that when she saw I wasn’t willing to abandon them for her, she took offense and made it a “goal” to have me pick her over them. Sickening. Don’t know why she actually admitted to it all.

The woman with us asked me how I felt about all of it, and I just told the truth. I told her it was a nice run, but I’m probably going to want a divorce. I was asked why, and I told them. I’ve seen a new hateful, malicious side of her that I want nothing to do with. She was so set on getting rid of the cats over a fanfiction being ruined that she manipulated her husband.

My wife started shouting at me that I’ve betrayed her and that I’m “scum” for choosing animals over her. At least cats don’t give ultimatums like she gave. It sucks that she’s been Baker Acted and all I guess, but it’s for the best right now. She’ll have time to process it all in a safe environment and hopefully come to terms with it. Bad husband, I know.

I’m almost sure I’m going for divorce. I’m very worried about having her in the same house as my cats. I want my cats safe. I don’t want to worry about them being harmed or “disappearing.” Screw that. I guess I’ll do what almost all of you suggested: “Keep the cats, rehome the wife.” Not how I wanted it to end, but life isn’t always nice. If I may, I want to clear up some things from the original post:

I did not stare at her all night. We have a mute TV with subtitles playing every night. I subtly watched TV while paying attention to the cat sounds.

I’m not allowed to install cat doors, and she won’t let me keep the doors open. Apartment rules.

Why did I instantly assume she was lying? I’m unfamiliar with mental health/diseases. I know about some diseases, but ones that make you think your dreams happened? Tumors that make you see/hear/remember nonexistent things? Sorry that I wasn’t aware of those possibilities. So when someone tells me events happened when they literally didn’t, I generally assume they’re lying. Shame on me.

He then shared this second update in the comments:

Well she’s gone for now. By that, I mean I kicked her out of the house. Why? Because she’s been in the bedroom for hours now, watching youtube, refusing to talk to me about what’s happened. A few minutes ago, one of the cats started meowing and scratching to get into the room.

Within seconds of him doing that, she ran over to the door and kicked it really hard and screamed “This is all your fault. Fuck off.” It scared the shit out of the cat and he hid under the couch. I opened the door and asked her what her deal was, that it could have hurt the cat, and she said “Good. Screw the cat.”

So I told her to get out of the house and go find somewhere to stay for a while. She tried to cry her way out of the situation, but I told her I had enough. I’m done. She had every opportunity to talk to me, and now she’s screaming at the cats and kicking doors and scaring them. I tried to listen and offered help, but she wanted none of it. Too late.

As she was leaving I told her she can call me when she’s calmed down and willing to talk. I’m just so drained at this point. I tried. I gave her a chance to talk before all of this, and she insisted there was nothing to talk about. I may not have handled it the most mature/healthy way, sure, but I tried. Maybe this can be fixed, maybe not. I had hope a few hours ago, now I just...whatever. I’m so sorry.

I think I’m done replying for now. Just so much going on. So much to think about. Too many trollish comments and messages, too many people coming up with conspiracy theories, too many people who can’t read or bother to check my comments. It’s all so tiresome. Life is fun, though.