Sometimes in a marriage or long-term relationship, a couple finds themselves faced with a situation they probably never thought they'd be in. One woman has recently taken to Reddit about her husband's drinking problem, and the solution she came up with to help curb it — hidden cameras.
The woman writes that her husband told her he's only drinking socially these days, but she didn't quite believe him. She says that she even thinks her husband has been drinking at home before she gets home from work, and she wanted to come up with a way to find out if her hunch was right.
"I (40f) recently had been suspecting that my husband (51m) has been drinking a lot. He promised me before that he would keep his drinking to social events and wouldn't drink when he was alone. For the past few months, I've suspected that he's been drinking about a 6 pack before I got home each day."
It's not clear what the concern about her husband's drinking is, but that's not really our business to begin with. A six-pack a day is definitely considered to be a pretty serious drinking habit.
She continues, "I've tried to confront him a bunch of times, but he always made excuses and even blamed it on one of our sons once when I found beer cans in our trash."
Because she couldn't get a straight answer, she decided to take a drastic step next.
"I couldn't handle the uncertainty and suspected lies anymore, so I installed cameras into our pantry and our closet because those are the 2 places that I've caught him drinking in the past. Within 5 days from the installation, I caught him drinking vodka inside our bedroom closet."
Yikes! She decided to confront her husband with the evidence that he's drinking, but he got really, really angry that she installed the cameras in the first place.
"I confronted him with the evidence and he went ballistic at me, calling me a psycho stalker, lunatic [expletive], and told me that I'm the one who makes him drink because I'm so controlling. He refused therapy and refused to buy a breathalyzer, so this was pretty much the nail in the coffin of our marriage."
Obviously, the entire experience has been a game-changer for the couple. The woman says she understands that her husband is upset about the breach of his privacy.
"I understand that he's upset, especially because we also change clothes in our closet. I guess I justified the cameras because I see him change all the time, but I also get that having it on video is different. I've deleted all the footage, except for the short bit of him chugging vodka inside the closet, in case I need it in court."
She also says that she knows she could have just left, but she was hoping to be able to help her husband. She doesn't blame him for his alcoholism.
"My husband understandably doesn't trust me anymore, and a lot of my friend have said that I should have just left if I didn't trust him, but it wasn't that easy because I felt like I was going crazy and he was so adamant that he wasn't drinking. I don't feel like I was overly controlling by not wanting my husband drunk 7 days a week, and I don't blame him because alcoholism is a disease."
After explaining herself, the woman really wanted to know: Was she wrong for installing the hidden cameras in the first place?
One person immediately commented that the woman wasn't wrong, exactly, but that her behavior will probably only hurt her in the end.
"I recently left an alcoholic. I went through the same second-guessing and mania that comes with trying to track down and monitor their drinking. Don't do it. It will do nothing for you and will only bring you more pain. He will not be honest, he will get defensive when confronted. The only thing you can do is set your own boundaries. Please save yourself."
Another person said that, in their experience, having the evidence won't do anything to change her husband's behavior.
"If you needed the proof so that you could show yourself it is OK to leave, then you do what you have to do. If you use it to prove it to him, you can't win that battle. He's adamant he isn't drinking. He's going to stick to that story no matter what. Just save yourself. Good luck."
Another person pointed out that her husband's right to privacy isn't more important here.
"I'm not sure how people can say that somebody's right to privacy is more important than lying to your spouse about something that intensely impacts their health," the commenter noted.
"Like, if a spouse starts being really cagey around their phone and then one day you see a text from a woman you don't know pop up with kissy faces, most people are going to say 'check the phone and see if they are cheating so you can leave.'"
Plenty of people also brought up the fact that unless you've lived with a partner who is battling addiction, it's really hard to know what it's like.
"Nobody who has not been, or loved, an addict can fully comprehend the level of duplicity that goes on, the denial, when somebody will swear until they are blue in the face that they are sober even as you smell the alcohol from their body," wrote one person. "For having to have lived with that, the pain and the doubt and the worry, I think you deserved to know. I think you deserved to get your peace of mind, to have the facts before making your choice."
Ultimately, the woman was acting out of desperation. Her husband had committed to lying to her to hide his addiction, and she had no idea what to do. She added a comment that really explains why she felt she didn't have a lot of options.
"When I decided to put the cameras, I wasn't jumping to divorce, but I was considering the thought of leaving and knew that he'd make it very difficult by telling me that I was making rash decisions based on a feeling," she explained. "He really likes to use the line that 'feelings aren't facts' and 'prove it' so I decided to do just that. I do love him a lot and hope that he gets the help that he needs quickly."
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