Ex-wife arrested after trying to retrieve affair evidence from former husband’s home. AITA?+ UPDATE
"AITA for refusing to get rid of the evidence of my ex's infidelity?"
I (52m) used to be married to my ex "Candi" (52f) and I loved her very much. We met in our teens when she moved into the neighborhood right before high school and I instantly had a crush on her but didn't actually make a move until our senior year.
We got married shortly after she graduate college and had three children together "Laura" (26f), "Tom" (23m), and "Marie" (21f). Our marriage wasn't perfect but I thought Candi was happy with the family and life we created. However, I was wrong. Candi was bored with me and wanted more excitement, but instead of confessing her feelings and thoughts to me she went looking elsewhere.
According to her, it all started when Candi and her friends went on a Girl's Trip to Vegas for a weekend where she got drunk and had some fun with two male strippers. Candi said that while nothing happened beyond second based it awakened something in her and she regretted not going further.
A year after that she started going to bars and clubs for excitement and eventually started hooking up with other men and at least two of her girlfriends would cover for her. I was never the wiser and probably would still be married to Candi if one of her lovers hadn't secretly documented their moments together.
He was mad that she had another guy on the side and mailed the evidence to me as revenge. I was sick at seeing all the things that I did and didn't respond well. I filed for divorce and my lawyer used some of the evidence that I was given in court but not all of it because it wasn't necessary. I still have all the evidence that I was given and just kept it in the attic.
Recently my youngest made some not so great choices with an ex boyfriend and I ended up having to get a lawyer for her. I am amazed at how much the laws have changed but and I'm glad my daughter is protected.
After it was over I had a serious sit down with her and told her to be more mindful and that she should always be prepared for this to hang over her head even if the law is on her side because some guys just don't care.
This was a long and deep conversation and I admitted to Marie about how I found out her mom cheated and let it slip that I still had the evidence. Two days later Candi was banging at my door demanding that I give her everything I had and yelled at me for keeping it.
I reminded her that those things were given to me and it was made before the law prohibited it so as long as I don't upload and share it anywhere, or sell it to anyone, I'm legally in the clear.
Candi went crying to our adult children, Marie is fully on her side which is expected but Tom and Laura are a little different. When asked why, I told my children that I keep it as a reminder of why I should never care about their mother.
Tom feels that since I've never done anything with it before and so long as I don't, that it's okay, while Laura says that she prefers I trash it she won't cut me off like Marie threatened so I'm asking AITA?
Edit: The amount of people here who keep asking me the same question as if I didn't already answer in the post is annoying. You can keep asking me "why do I still have it" but just know that going further I will ignore it. You not liking the answer or not understanding it isn't my problem.
I'd also like to thank the people who rightfully pointed it out that I should hang on to it for legal purposes since it is technically evidence was a good idea and I have since explained it to my oldest two who will pass it along to my ex wife and my youngest.
Also, please stop insulting my youngest daughter or saying that she's just like her mom and deserved what she went through. My ex was recorded doing something she shouldn't with someone she should not have, that was her choice and what came out from it is on her.
Marie never sent anything to her ex, he recorded her when she was with him without her knowing and only told her when she tried to break up with him as a way to keep her in the relationship. Marie is understandably very sensitive to this issue so I'm giving her space and I don't believe that she'd actually cut me off.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's initial post:
just say you disposed of it, put it on the other corner of the attic.
honestly this, no one will be non the wiser.
"Never underestimate the power of a scorned lover with a mailbox and a grudge. Sorry Candi, your actions have consequences and those consequences may include your ex-husband keeping some souvenirs."
If you have a will, have your lawyer keep the evidence, sealed, with the signed and witnessed original of the will. If you don't have a will, get one drawn up. Leave instructions in your will that the evidence be destroyed upon settlement of your estate (so if for some reason your ex was to challenge your estate it would still exist).
If your ex predeceases you, you can instruct your lawyer to destroy it earlier. This way, the evidence is not in your hands, but it is also not destroyed, and there is the assurance that it will be destroyed in the future and won't accidentally wind up online.
I'm of two minds on this. I'm assuming that the laws you are referring to are revenge porn laws where it is illegal to disseminate sexually explicit media without the consent of everyone involved. And, it sounds like your youngest daughter just went through an intense falling out where she had her ex boyfriend break those laws, which was very upsetting to her.
Obviously, my heart goes out to your daughter as she certainly felt victimized and vulnerable from her naked pictures being distributed without her consent. I can understand why she is being empathetic towards her mother's situation, as they do resemble each other. Her mom doesn't want you to have those videos and she's in them.
However, there are some meaningful differences between the two situations. The media you have is evidence of infidelity, and you have not distributed the media in any way, nor plan to. But, there's always the chance that you could, even if you never would, and that possibility is the real issue here. I think you're NTA as of right now.
Three weeks later, the OP returned with an update.
I wasn't sure if I was going to do this but since someone messaged me I thought I'd share. Don't know if I'll give another update after this one though. Long story short, my ex got arrested and my ex is facing charges. For details please continue reading.
Context: I had a security to which my children know the security code to, but for unimportant reasons I there was a switch in the company and when I upgraded I was given a new code and security pad to put it in.
Also, at the advice of the people installing the new I moved it to another spot. I told my oldest two kids what the new code was in-person, as I don't like texting that type of stuff in fear of phone hacking and since my youngest daughter wasn't talking to me and didn't want to hear from me, she didn't know about the change in codes. Now on the what happened.
I left town for a trip I'd scheduled a while back that my youngest daughter was aware of. This trip was going to be about 7 days long so my neighbors knew to keep their eyes pealed for anything suspicious.
Two days into my trip I get an alert that my house was being broken into. The company calls and I tell them that I did NOT enter my home and wasn't expecting anyone. My neighbors also called the authorities. I could tell by the security cam that it was my ex-wife and she had someone else there but I didn't recognize them.
The authorities had detained my ex who insisted that it was all a simple "misunderstanding" and I told them over the phone that it wasn't and I wanted to press charges and then laughed when the call was over.
I laughed a lot. Hard and to the point where I was in tears and struggling to breathe. There was something about my trashy ex getting punished by the law that felt so liberating to me, but my joy took a pause when I started getting calls from my youngest.
Turns out she gave the (old) security code to her mom with the intent to search my home for the tapes while I was gone and get them. My ex went on a different day than what was planned (don't know why) and that's how everything happened.
My daughter asked me not to press charges but I went forward with it. My daughter was angry with me and we got into an argument where she blamed me for still having the tapes and telling her that I had the tapes.
We haven't really spoken since but my other daughter convinced me to go to therapy and after a couple of sessions I discovered that one of the reasons why I held on to the tapes was because I never felt as if my ex was punished enough for what she did.
She never apologized, never showed remorse, made excuses, and that has always pissed me off and it's also why I'm refusing to drop the charges. I'm still processing what all this means but that's how it is right now.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's update:
NTA.
RUIN HER!
I like the the assertion that you must keep videos/pictures of your ex-wife having sex with someone else for the rest of your life as "evidence". What do would someone need the evidence for? I'm not sure, but you must keep it forever as evidence.
Knowing you have the potential to significantly harm someone goes a long way into satisfying ego issues, so I can understand why he would keep it. Subconsciously knowing he can nuke her life from space probably does something for him.
OP: You can keep asking me "why do I still have it" but just know that going further I will ignore it. You not liking the answer or not understanding it isn't my problem.
Also OP: I discovered that one of the reasons why I held on to the tapes was because I never felt as if my ex was punished enough for what she did.
Man, I don't get why no OP on an update sub includes the comment on how OOP doesn't just have the revenge porn-turned-evidence still in storage, but how he has actually watched it for a purpose other than "I need to verify this actually is my wife"...
(Don't know how to format a quote on mobile, so just a direct copy-paste of the comment:)
"I don’t “view it every Tuesday” I view it whenever I feel the need to. Haven’t in about a couple years, also how is it controlling?
Also how am I teaching my son to be the type of man that women are scared of? Also why should anyone want to be with someone who is afraid that if caught cheating the evidence of their deceit will be kept by the ones who betrayed them?" I'd assume his family doesn't know about those times he viewed it, but that also implies he has lied to me in an attempt for a favourable decision about him.