Time for another out of this world story from our space. Today on our space, there are three things you should never underestimate. A scorned spouse, a bored neighbor, and a man with remote access to every device in his house. When this guy discovered his wife was cheating on him with the neighbor, he didn't drive home in a rage. He logged in.
Wife slept over with married affair partner while I was on a work trip. I used our smart home to torment them, then expose them to the neighborhood. Life can be so incredible at times. I traveled out of my city for a few days to go and attend to business. This is business that puts food on the table for my wife and I.
Yet, none of that is appreciated. Or maybe it is appreciated, but taken for granted because I'm out there going through it and she's inviting our neighbor over to our house so they can bunk together and screw while I'm off in another city. Do you know how incredible that is to me? I don't even think that I'm angrier any longer. I'm not.
I've blown off some of my steam, but there's so much more that I feel like I need to do, even beyond what I've done already. She's been trying to reach out to me for quite some time now, but there's no reason for me to answer her calls or her messages. I haven't gotten back home since that trip. I should have been home 3 days ago, but instead, I'm shacked up in a hotel because I just don't want to deal with her and her nonsense right now.
I don't even know what she was thinking. I work with a tech company and I have always been technologically minded. She knows that when we were customizing her house, I wasn't shy about automation and all the smart home stuff that I wanted. I even asked her opinion when it came to smart home things for the kitchen, her walk-in closet and certain appliances. She uses the smart home features on a nearly daily basis.
I don't know how she thought she was going to get away with her infidelity. There really wasn't any reason for me to check the cameras in the house when I did. She was supposed to take care of the house while I was gone. It was only a few days, so it isn't like I gave her rocket science. I just wanted to make sure that the security system was armed.
She was supposed to take care of it before she went to bed, and I was looking at it to make sure that she did. At the time I checked, she had armed it, but I saw that it happened a lot later than usual. So, I decided to check her camera footage to see what she had been up to the entire day that led to arm the system much later than she usually would. Again, she knows there are cameras outside and inside the house, so it is hard for me to truly understand what she was thinking.
I felt so uneasy. I wasn't even angry yet because I didn't want to jump to a conclusion. We're not that close to Gerard. We're friendly, but not to the extent where I expect him to show up at our house at 11:00 p.m. when only my wife is at home. I knew that something had to be going on. I hoped that she was going to lead him to some point in the house so he could fix something or capture our rat.
I was even going to be fine if they sat on the couch to watch a movie. I just wanted to be anything but the very worst case scenario. I've been married to Robin for 11 years, so the last thing I wanted was to confirm that she was cheating on me. It didn't take very long for me to know that it was exactly as I expected. I hate how much I didn't want the infidelity to be a real thing.
I should have known that it was going to be, but denial is a powerful force. They went to the bedroom together, and since we don't have cameras there, I wasn't able to see what happened. All I know is that they didn't come out of the bedroom. After they had been there for 30 minutes, I knew that it was exactly what it looked like. I was like a thousand miles away trying to attend to business and keep my head straight.
But there I was looking at my wife cheating on me with my neighbor, who by the way is a married man. I forgot to mention that Gerard is a married man, though his wife works overseas, so she's almost never at home. So, there were two married people, lucky enough to have their spouses abroad and working, who chose to cheat in that convenient window. How many times have Robin and I seen Gerard that she was secretly shooting fme eyes his way?
I've read the stories here and typically it'll be some guy looking for advice on how to get back at a cheating witch or trying to process what has happened. I don't have that chance to do that. I was taken aback by what I was looking at. And even though I needed some time to process what I was looking at by the time the two of them were in that room for 2 hours, I already knew that I couldn't take what was happening lying down.
I was so strongly hurt by it in that moment. I won't say that I'm not still hurt, but hearing and finding out that someone cheated on you is different ball game from seeing it happen. I decided that I wasn't going to let things just end there. I wasn't going to go to sleep without doing something about the situation. I thought about calling her, but I decided that wasn't going to be the best way for me to move.
It wasn't going to be satisfying enough. The first thing that I did was turn on the lights in the bedroom. Remember, we have smart home. Since there's no camera, I couldn't see the reaction to the lights going on, but I'm sure that they went on because a few minutes later, they turned off. A few seconds after that, I turned them back on.
They were turned off about a minute after that, and again, about 10 seconds later, I turned them on yet again. Robin hates the lights at night because she struggles to sleep with them on, so I know it was likely pissing her off. The funniest part is that she called me with a man right there in our bed. She called me, probably to ask me why the lights were tripping on.
I didn't bother picking up because I'm not a good enough actor for her to not know that I was on to her. Plus, my anger would have jumped out and I didn't want a confrontation. Not at that point. She sent a message. She told me that the lights were acting funny and she wanted me to tell her how to fix the issue. I read it but didn't respond.
She wasn't a fan of the smart home setup because she said it was over complicating systems that people were already very used to. I love how it ended up being something that I was using to annoy her. And before you tell me that I was tame with it, that's not where things ended. The next thing was me pushing the volume on the smart speaker to the max and blasting some Drake.
She knows I love his music, which was perfect for me. I wanted her to have a suspicion that I had something to do with what was going on. The good part about that move was that the speaker was in the hallway, so she had to run out of the room naked to turn it off. My heart broke seeing that. Gerard never left at any point.
I saw him enter the bedroom and I was certain I hadn't missed anything. I even checked later to see if he left the house at any point. He didn't. So, he was in there with her while she was naked. He wasn't fixing a faucet or assembling furniture. You don't need to tell me that I needed to save all the relevant footage because I did.
She stood and looked at the speaker confused. She looked at the camera, too, and then quickly looked away as if she could see me looking at her. She went back into the room and a minute later, I did the same thing. The song started playing from where she stopped it, set to full blast again. She ran outside, stopped the song, and after standing by for a few seconds, she unplugged the speaker.
When she returned to the room, she called me three times, but I didn't answer any of them. I just let them ring out. Then, she sent me messages saying I should pick up. Some minutes after, she explained the situation to me over text, telling me that the smart home was glitching out. She repeated that the lights had been tripping off, and then the speaker started playing on its own.
She asked me if I was controlling it, but she later deleted that message. She called again after that, and I really considered picking up, but I preferred to leave her stranded and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. While she was calling, I decided to do more. The curtains in the bedroom were closed, which was good since if they were open, the two of them would be a lot more exposed than they'd like to be.
So, I need not say that I chose to open them because of course I did. Then the thermostat came next. She hates it being too cold. We've had vites about that before, so I set it as cold as it would go. It took her some time to notice that the room was getting a lot colder than she'd like. It took 5 minutes before I watched it go back to her preferred temperature.
The curtain was closed almost immediately, too. I kept flicking switches. She kept having to run around to sort things out. She was able to unplug the speaker, but she couldn't unplug the other things because they weren't able to be unplugged. The thermostat, curtains, and lights were all plugged into the mains.
The best part was that those seemed to be enough to piss her off, especially the curtain. Eventually, she walked out of the room, this time closed, then came back to the hallway with a mop. She held it up to the camera for a few seconds, and then she moved away. She did the same thing and turned for all the cameras leading to the front door, including the one outside the house.
At the end of it, she went back to the room. I was almost certain that she had done that because she suspected I knew what was going on, and so she obscured the cameras to make sure that Gerard had a chance to leave the house. The good thing is she covered the CCTV camera in the top corner above the front door outside, but she didn't do the same for the video doorbell.
So that car part of Gerard leaving the house. I made sure to save the footage, too. Even though it didn't have his face, it showed he was wearing the same stuff that he wore when he came into the house and had the time stamp, too, making it obvious that he had been in the house for nearly 2 hours. After that, she went back to the bedroom and she called me.
I know for a fact that she was on edge. You know that feeling when you did something bad and you have that anxiety of thinking that the jig might be up? I know that's how she was feeling in that moment. She called me several times, but I didn't answer. She sent panicked messages wondering where I was, but it was late.
I knew I'd be able to lie that I was sleeping, especially because I had done a presentation that same day, and she knew I had been preparing for it pretty actively. That was the same day that she chose to cheat on me. I mean, I know it really wasn't the day, per se. She must have been cheating on me for a long time. This was just when I was lucky enough to catch her.
Pure luck and a lot of it stupidity on her part. I still don't get why she brought him into the house with all of our cameras. I don't get it. Maybe she's done with our marriage. I haven't spoken to her since that day. I've flown back since my trip is over, but I've been at a hotel and going to work from there.
She tried to show up at my workplace, but I saw her before I exited the building, and I chose not to go out. She knows she's caught. She's sent text messages saying that she wants us to talk about things. I don't. Not yet. When I'm ready, she'll know. But for now, I'm just reeling at how emotionally exhausting it can be being in a relationship with a woman in this day and age.
You can give your all and get nothing in return. That's sad. Update. It was easy enough for me to manage what was going on in my life when I hadn't confronted Robin about her cheating. I don't regret that I did because it was going to have to happen eventually. It's just such a headache now that it has happened.
From my last post, you know that I never went home after Robin took our neighbor home. I eventually had to because living in a hotel is expensive. Plus, I was running out of clothes. I wasn't going to bankrupt myself for her. She was shocked to see me when I got there and she tried to act concerned.
I told her that she was concerned as she claimed she would have reported me missing. She knew I was gone by choice. She asked why I had just disappeared. I chose not to beat her on the bush. I told her it's because she was effing our neighbor in our bed. To her credit, she didn't deny it.
She said nothing, but that's not a denial at the very least. It would have gotten messy if she claimed that she didn't know what I was talking about. I asked her to explain herself, and she just stared at me. She looked scared. I wasn't even raising my voice.
I asked her again to explain herself, and she looked like she was searching for words, but she didn't have the guts to say anything. Now, I asked her whether she was admitting she had slept with Gerard, our neighbor. She nodded very slightly. I told her that we were done.
I just cut to the chase like that. There was no point in the two of us dancing around the fact that she was a cheater. She cheated on me when I left the house to go and put food on the table for our family. And as bad as all cheating was, I found that to be particularly dishonorable from her.
With our neighbor, too, a man she knows has a wife. A wife she herself knows and smiles with. All of it came together to exemplify a person who was disloyal, unfaithful, and simply can't be trusted. I told her that I couldn't be with her any longer. She didn't fight, but tears started pouring and her lip was quivering.
She was trying to hold herself from crying. I'm not one of the people who thinks that cheating can't exist alongside love for your partner. I really do think you can love someone and still cheat on them. I do think that Robin loved me and probably still does, but that doesn't change anything.
She messed up herself and she's going to have to pay for it. It's crazy because I loved her too. I showed in the ways that I was her husband, but at the end of the day, you can do it all and it ultimately won't matter if it doesn't matter. I suppose it was out of my control, and I accept that.
Anyway, I told her to grab her bags, pack them, and get out of the house. She tried to beg weakly, but I act like I couldn't hear her. I wore an unwavering look, and I think she saw that. She eventually gave up and just walked off to the bedroom. She looked pathetic when she came out, dragging her suitcase behind her, but I had nothing to say to her.
I watched as she walked out the door, probably hoping I would tell her to come back. Seeing as the two people cheating were well known to the neighborhood and had a lot of married friends within it, I decided to go do a public service. I went to the Facebook page for the neighborhood and wrote a very long post explaining everything.
I told them how these two married people had chosen to cheat on their partners and how other married people in the neighborhood had to be wary in case they tried to prey on their partners. I included all the proof I had so I wouldn't seem like a paranoid soon to be ex. Needless to say, the post got a lot of traction.
The worst part was that I forgot to tell Gerard's wife. I owed that to her, but it slipped my mind amidst all the chaos. I hate that that's how she had to find out since she's a really nice lady, but oh well. I didn't have a cushion and a back massage when I found out. Learning that someone is cheating on you is never a great experience.
I know the people of the neighborhood are going to go treat them like paras, and that's what they deserve. Cheating is horrible, and it deserves to be replied in horrible ways. I know that my little act messing around with the smart home must have driven Robin crazy. And knowing that I knew about her affair, but refused to actually confront her, I knew it had to have been eating her up from inside for all those days.
She had no confirmation, but she must have known I knew. It makes me happy that she had to sit there and bask in it. And now, even though I hope to keep the house in the divorce, she'll be known as an unfaithful woman in the entire neighborhood along with her affair partner. We live in an upscale neighborhood.
So, I know word will get around because no one likes to gossip more than rich housewives. That's it for me, though. I've done my part. The divorce is all that's left, and I don't think that will be particularly exciting. I'm just glad I'm on the road to being done with her. That's what matters most.
The thing I keep coming back to is that she wasn't lonely while you were gone. She wasn't abandoned. You weren't out partying or disappearing for weeks. You were literally away working. That's the part that would eat at me. And I know everyone is focused on the smart home revenge, but honestly, all I can picture is you sitting in that hotel room staring at your phone thinking, "There's no way I'm actually watching this happen."
The lights and music almost feel like the reaction of someone whose brain can't quite process what they're seeing. I don't blame you for being done. Trust is one of those things that's hard enough to build once. When somebody breaks it that casually, especially with a neighbor you've known for years, I don't know how you ever look at them the same way again.
The whole story is brutal. But if there's one thing I took away from it, it's that she threw away an 11-year marriage for something that wasn't worth a fraction of what she lost. If you caught your spouse cheating the way OP did, would you have confronted them immediately, or would you have started turning the lights on and off, too?