"AITA to think my wife is cheating?"

About six months ago I noticed an undershirt folded up in my dresser drawer. The weird thing was that the label wasn’t from any of the brands that I have, and there was only one of that kind. I tried it on, and it clearly didn’t fit me. I assumed that it was an old shirt of mine that somehow got brought out of storage, and tossed it.

Two months later, I find a pair of men’s jeans, clearly not my size, folded on the top of the dresser. This was after I was at a conference for a few days. The conference was in my town, but I was gone from 6am-11pm pretty much every day. I asked my wife about it and family who had visited recently. Nobody had any idea where they came from.

I started to suspect something was up, but decided that it was in the best interest of my relationship to just ask once and then trust my wife’s response. I tossed the jeans and moved on.

This morning, I found a men’s polo shirt hanging in my closet. Not my size, and is has brand from a store that I don’t shop at, and haven’t even stepped foot into for nearly a decade. This, only days after I returned from an out of town work trip. I confronted my wife demanding answers. She claims that she knows nothing. I started by asking her why she thinks I’m upset.

She jumped straight to “you think I’m cheating." I asked her to put herself in my shoes and try to explain how else I could interpret this pattern (me being gone, men’s clothing showing up in my house). She never answered the question. We went back and forth (never screaming or throwing things) for about an hour, with the shirt lying on the table between us.

I kept saying that “I don’t know, is not an acceptable answer” - she ended with “or what?” I said that I needed answers one more time and got straight up from the table and left to go back to work. Historically, I do trust her. But I can see how easily lies come out of her mouth when speaking to her family, over seemingly small things.

She grew up in an overbearing household and she knows how to cover her tracks. During the conversation I asked if I could go through her cell phone - something I have NEVER done before or even tried to do. Of course nothing of note. SOMETHING is happening. The pattern is clear to me. Am I over reacting? How should I proceed?

What do you think? Is she overreacting? This is what top commenters had to say:

Detcord36 said:

Time to skip one of your work conferences, find a spot a couple miles away, then come home about an hour into what would be your conference.

Fenix_Fire66 said:

Some guy in an alternate reality is slowly losing his mind because his clothes are disappearing.

soitgoeskt said:

There’s a dichotomy here.. you say she very capable of covering her tracks but also you keep finding some other dude’s clothes in your house? The obvious answer is she’s cheating but is there a chance she’s messing with you? Gaslighting you into a divorce? What does she stand to gain?

And Thisistoture said:

I wonder if you can ask a neighbor if they have a ring camera and you can see their recordings. Tell them you have some packages that got stolen and want to see who did it.

Edit from OP:

Thanks for the insight folks. I’ve been internalizing all of this and trying to remain objective. It’s easy to jump to a conclusion about cheating, and yes, the evidence does seem damning.

There is some advice in the comments about next steps, and many with differing perspectives on what else could have happened. This has certainly helped me step back and assess the situation more clearly. We had a multiple hour long conversation, she called my in-laws about the clothing, I called my folks with the same questions, I was given her phone to go through again.

I even did some digging with the ISP to get connected devices and websites, texts from Cell, etc. No answers anywhere. At the end of the day, I chose to not blow up my entire life (walk out, lawyer, take the kids and run) and instead chose to “proceed with caution."

If she is cheating, she knows she is going to be heavily scrutinized and will eventually be caught with actual evidence. If not, I avoided destroying my family over nothing. Lots of you will disagree with me I’m sure. But this is my life and there are nuances at play here that haven’t been (and won’t be) shared.

Two days later, he shared this update:

Summary: Three instances of a random dudes clothing in my closet, in my dresser, and on my dresser. I suspected cheating, resulting in a confrontation with my wife and no explanations anywhere.

I left off on Tuesday calm, accepting that there had to be something more to the story. The last thing I wanted to do was blow up my life for no reason.

Lots (about 75%) of folks instantly jumped to cheating, which is understandable given the context. The other 25% either thought it was fake or needed more info because the idea of folding/hanging clothes in the closet of the person you are cheating is so outlandish, which is also understandable.

I was committed to finding answers that proved my wife’s innocence - which we eventually did. Out of all the 7.5 million views and 7k+ comments, the one thing that we all missed was the possibility of clothing being donated to us, which ended up being the case.

My wife is thrifty, and baby clothing is expensive. One of the ways we have curbed the cost is by frequenting social media market places looking for those who are cleaning house. During the process, it seems that folks would include more than just baby clothing in their donations.

It took some digging, but eventually we found the previous owners for both the pants and the polo and confirmed that it did indeed come from them. The last two days have been an emotional roller coaster. The saving grace out of all of this is that we both stayed calm, cool, and collected during the exchanges. Thanks to everyone for all the input and supportive DMs.

Edit: Yes, we really do get all of our child’s infant clothing second hand, most of it hasn’t been worn yet. If you don’t have kids it probably sounds hard to believe. We also get this stuff in bulk (like garbage bags full of baby clothes) so not everything is immediately visible or apparent, and it just gets tossed in with our normal laundry.

For those still in doubt. I was the one who did the digging on the donations and sent pictures of the clothing to the previous owners. Both confirmed it was theirs.

What do you think? Do you buy it?