Woman suspects husband of cheating after finding feminine hygiene products. AITA? UPDATED 2X

"Two tampons may mean my marriage is over."

Here's the original post:

I (29F) have been with my husband (30M) for seven years, married for four. I’ve never had reason to suspect he was unfaithful to me or even remotely dissatisfied with our marriage—he likes to joke that we’re still living the “honeymoon phase” nearly five years and two kids in. I wouldn‘t have questioned that, or him, were it not for a surprise I found in his car last month.

When buckling our daughter into her carseat, I noticed something slotted between the cushions. I pulled it out and saw that it was a tampon. This wouldn’t have been so unusual had I not had an IUD that has stopped my period for the past year, and I didn’t even recognize the wrapper style.

I brought it to my husband’s attention, and he didn’t seem to understand what it was, let alone why I was holding it, until I told him where I’d found it and why I was almost certain it wasn’t mine. He shrugged and said it probably belonged to his coworker, Fiona.

It’s not uncommon for my husband to carpool to lunch with his coworkers, and we’re both fairly close to Fiona and her husband, so I figured it was entirely possible the tampon had slipped out of her purse whenever he had driven with them or offered her a ride. No big deal. I put it out of my mind until we had dinner with Fiona and her husband a couple weeks later.

I had sincerely wanted to believe my husband. I just couldn’t get over the way it had been tucked in the seat and how my husband had seemed not to have any regard for it whatsoever. Maybe playing dumb. I don’t know. I did something that I now feel kind of crazy for doing: I faked an “emergency” and asked Fiona if she had any tampons while we were out together.

She handed me one almost identical to the tampon I’d found in our backseat, and I breathed a sigh of relief. So the tampon there was probably the same tampon here, and in all likelihood, there was an innocent explanation as to why it had been left in the backseat in the first place.

I thought I’d seen the last of the out-of-place feminine hygiene products until I found another tampon this morning. This time in my sock drawer. I feel physically ill at the thought of my husband having an affair and even more nauseated at the thought that the woman might have left these tampons out for me to find.

If it was my husband’s coworker, why would she give herself away by offering me one the other night? In any other situation I would want to talk to my husband about this, but I feel too sick, and embarrassed, to approach him with what I’ve found. What should I do?

What do you think is going on here? This is what top commenters had to say:

Barbie-girl02 said:

OP before you confront your husband get more evidence. I cannot tell you how many times my dad or my brother just chuck my things in a random drawer because they don't know where they belong but they still want to help. If the two previous tampons (car's and fiona's) are not 100% accounted for I would say there is a chance the one you found in your drawer is one of those.

However it IS suspicious, if I were you before planting a camera, that would completely break your husband's trust in the case he is not cheating, I would start becoming more unpredictable with my movements. Come back early from work when you can or go on a girls night but come back way earlier than usual... If he is cheating chances are you will catch him.

panzer22222 said:

How often do you accidentally leave tampons somewhere? Sounds like someone is looking to cause an issue between you and the husband.

ComfortableWish said:

How old is your kid? Just saying my toddler loves to take things (including tampons) out of my bag to play with and does leave them in random places. I found one in the toilet the other day. Could it be the same tampon your kid has picked up in the car and is putting different places?

azlulu said:

In 30+ years of having a period , I've never put a tampon in the sock drawer. Something is up. Trust your gut and set up a camera.

About three weeks after her original post, she shared this first update:

Contemplating every possible source of two tampons has been my personal hell for the past few weeks, but I wanted to share an update.

Shortly after posting on here, I told my sister what happened. The tampon in the backseat and the sock drawer, my husband’s cluelessness, the tampon from Fiona, and all the things I suspected but didn't want to believe. We compared tampons (save for the backseat one I had already discarded), and they were a match, just in different absorbencies.

I hadn't left either in a place where my husband or daughters would have found them and moved them around. My daughters didn't know what they were or where they had come from. My sister was convinced it was Fiona—either fucking my husband, fucking with me, or both.

Direct confrontation of either party still seemed like a bad idea, so she suggested inviting Fiona and her husband over for our Labor Day barbecue. Unfortunately, they already had plans.

My sister and I agreed that it was too soon for cameras without any other evidence, so it was just a waiting game from there. Watching my husband for any changed behavior (there was none), our house for any misplaced/foreign items (there were none), and even the girls for any new "friends" they might have met.

My sister's husband was adamant on this last point, and partly why he was inclined to believe that the tampons were harmless. If anything had been happening in or around our home, he said, it would be nearly impossible to keep it from me and the girls, since my husband was the one taking them to and from daycare and most other activities during the week. I felt a good bit of consolation in that.

It wasn't until my younger daughter (2 y/o) came down with something last week that I felt any differently. I wanted to be the one home taking care of her, but my husband insisted that I stay at work while he stayed home with her.

I was OK with that, my sister and her husband figured it was a good sign that he would take the time off at a moment's notice, and at that point, we were all already beginning to put the tampon fiasco behind us. By the third or fourth day, I was just happy to see a near-healthy child and a husband who was helping see her through it. Toward the end of that week, though, I came home to something strange.

The toddler that I'd left that morning in an old PJ set was now dressed in a onesie I'd never seen before, with a tiny clip in her hair. I can't say I have the sharpest memory, but I have a pretty good sense of what my kids wear on a day-to-day basis, and particularly what kinds of clothes they wear.

I'd sworn off the full-length sleep suits with snaps across the front long before we'd ever had our second (the long snaps are just a pain in the ass and a no-go for efficient diaper changes, IMO). It's just not something I would dress her in, and my husband knows as much.

He doesn't plan for, or buy, the girls' clothes, and he certainly doesn't accessorize them, so I was bewildered. And kind of floored at the thought of someone around our sick child without my knowledge.

I didn't think twice, and I went straight to my husband to ask if anyone had been over to see him or the girls. He seemed confused, like before, and asked me why I would think that—it had just been him and the kids all day. I asked him again, if someone had so much as stopped by to say hello, and he denied it. He told me to calm down.

I might've lashed out and come forward with the accusations right then and there, but our older daughter was in the room, and she sensed something was up. In a calmer voice, I asked him a third time if anyone had been around our children, and my husband swore that the girls hadn't been around anyone but him.

He also denied buying new clothes or doing anyone's hair. With our daughter in the room and my emotions all over the place, I decided to leave it. I couldn't make sense of it then, and it hardly seems clearer now, after I've driven myself half-crazy with explanations that aren't adding up.

Well, she finally got her answers. Two weeks later she shared this final update on the situation:

After nearly losing my mind over a hair clip and a onesie, I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere with the accusations and half-baked guesswork. I’d gotten so absorbed in the paranoia and misery of my situation that I wasn’t sleeping, eating, or caring for my kids the way I should have been.

And I wasn't getting any answers. So I decided to pull the trigger on the hidden cameras and have them shipped to my sister’s house, with my BIL agreeing to help with the install/setup over at mine. Before the cameras were ever delivered, though, I got my long-awaited confirmation last week.

A Ring notification had alerted me to motion at the front door while I was at work. Half-expecting to see a delivery person, pet, or lawncare salesman for the fifteenth time, you can imagine my surprise when I saw a clip of a young woman leading my daughter into the house hand-in-hand, with my husband and other daughter close behind them.

The girls were supposed to be in daycare and my husband at work. The woman, as far as I knew, was living two states away with a court order keeping her there.

I immediately called my husband to ask him what the fuck this woman was doing in our house. He didn’t answer, so I texted it to him. Even in his stupidity, he probably realized he had messed up by going through the front door, knew I had gotten the Ring notification, and wanted to delay the inevitable. By the fifth or sixth subsequent call, though, he did pick up.

The woman on the camera was my husband’s sister. As I would come to find out later, she was the likely source of both tampons, the onesie, and the bow. She is also a registered sex offender and a recovering addict. I hadn't seen or heard from her in years, and from the way my husband talked about her, I didn't expect I ever would. But here she was, in our house, with our children.

Suffice to say I was livid. It wasn’t an affair at all and still, somehow, infinitely more disgusting knowing who it was and why all of this had been happening. Apparently my SIL, fresh off another stint in rehab, had wanted to reconnect and make amends with people she'd hurt, and my husband was high on that list.

My husband didn't want me to know or, worse, try and keep "her family" (our children) away from her, so they'd been meeting in secret—often at our house when I was at work. They would enter through the garage, in my husband's car, so the Ring camera at the front door wouldn't tip me off.

She spent the night on a weekend I had been on a business trip and slept in our bed. She babysat our girls on a night my husband told me he had dropped them off at his parents'. She bought the girls clothes and dressed my youngest in the onesie and bow that my husband had promised on his life I had dressed her in myself.

My husband swore this was all in my head. The tampons, the onesie, the bow, and all the rest. He was perfectly content to watch me agonize for weeks over a woman he insisted didn't exist. Shrugging off each progressively more unsettling discovery like it was news to him and telling me I was being irrational. He insinuated that I was experiencing postpartum depression—two years after I'd given birth.

Four years after I'd told him that one of my biggest fears for motherhood was to suffer PPD like my mother had with me, to not be fully present for our babies and be left with a world of guilt and regret as they grew older. He told me I wasn't sleeping enough, that I missed the girls too much, that I needed to take a step back and reevaluate the state of my mental health.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was my husband, and because no other version of events made sense. Now, after a month of this mindfuck, I have nothing to show for my trust but this pathetic situation. And a lot of anger.