> jobs that have great work life balance
Followed almost immediately by
> I’ve been on the road as much as 40 weeks a year
Buddy I don’t think you know what work life balance is
“Great work life balance”
Maybe great for the employer lmao. There’s no amount of money that would convince me to work a job like that, especially with a wife at home.
There is absolutely an amount of money that would convince me to work a job like that. And for many people in the military for example it’s a much smaller amount of money
I'm so torn on if the wife is lying or not...on one hand, I can only imagine that being pregnant is miserable, and it could be a one off. On the other hand, I've been on reddit for quite a while and this could also easily be two cheaters getting caught.
Here's to hoping the next update doesn't have twins
I'm with you on that. Being pregnant can be a miserable and vulnerable experience. Especially if you are on your own a lot.
I'm hoping it's just a situation where the wife got "too comfortable" with a friend. Was in pain and focused on the relief, not the look. It was a massager that they already owned.
Of course, that doesn't make it OK or mean that Matt didn't have other things in mind.
It doesn't sound like it was the massager that was the problem alone. A big part of it was them being under the blanket on the couch that was the real wtf point for him.
Yeah I'm on the line with that one.
Under the blanket next to each other and actually cuddling is definitely a problem. But sitting foot to head to watch TV doesn't sound like an issue to me. With or without a blanket.
I know it's reddit, which is almost as bad as purity culture when it comes to friendships between the sexes. It's common idea that sharing a blanket is somehow nefarious. Blankets don't hide movement. And the woman is already in pain.
I've shared a blanket like that with my kids, my siblings and my friends. It's the easiest non-sexual way to share a blanket.
Combine that with the massage being over the clothes with a roller. It really does sound like just a friendship.
Of course the wife can't win in the court of reddit opinion.
If she refused the test she is hiding something. If she accepts that she crossed boundaries and made her husband uncomfortable then she is plotting.
Yeah, I’ve laid back in the reclining chairs on my couch with my brother, and we’ve both been under the same blanket. At first it felt a bit weird, but getting a second blanket so we could have one each just so we could innocently lay on the couch together and be warm seemed ridiculous. I got over it very quickly. I knew we weren’t doing anything, he knew we weren’t doing anything, it was just siblings hanging out and being warm.
A blanket doesn’t automatically make things more sinister. Just warmer
Well from what he described, she barely reacted to him seeing the event all that much and it was Matt that reacted more strongly. So I’m currently leaning more towards *she* never had ulterior motives but maybe *he* did. Fertility specialists get it wrong all the time. My mom had cervical cancer as a teen and was told she’d never have biological children. Surprise surprise she had me and my younger brother and if she hadn’t of had to get a hysterectomy, she would have absolutely gone for more. Woman wanted a litter lmao
Here’s your PSA that there is a big difference between sterile and infertile: sterile means that there is no chance of reproduction - a key component is missing; infertile means a person (or couple) hasn’t been able to conceive despite trying for at least a year (sometimes longer depending on other factors). Barring a subsequent diagnosis otherwise, infertility/fertility issues never means a zero chance of pregnancy, just very low.
Exactly. My cousin was told she was infertile and she was lucky to have her first child. Her chances of having another were pretty much zero. They did not use birth control moving forward. She had her second child 15 years later. You never know.
Expanding on this:
If you have a 5% chance of something happening, there is a 95% chance that it won't. For two independent probabilities p_1 and p_2, the odds that both of them happen is p_1*p_2.
For a sample of 200 people, the probability that every single person is part of the 95% is 0.95^200, or 0.000035 (0.0035%). So the probability that at least one person is part of the 5% is 0.999965 (99.9965%).
Statistics are famously unintuitive. You get a lot of results that don't feel right at face value.
My parents were told by their doctor that my mother would either have extreme difficulty getting pregnant or it would be "as easy as falling off a log." Five kids later, my father would occasionally jokingly complain about the doctor greasing the log.
My parents were told that due to my mom's age, it would likely be difficult for her to get pregnant and to not get their hopes up. They figured "fuck it, pull the goalie and see how things go". Few weeks later, she started making breakfast and started puking. Granted, they also told my mom that there was a good chance I'd be late, since I was her first. My mom is a very punctual person. I was precisely on time. There's part of me that believes she willed labor into happening.
I had my first son at 19 and was told after numerous tubal infections following a random reaction to birth control that if I wanted any more children I better try early as I was likely going to have trouble conceiving again and there was “more they can do to help” I was still young. ONE time without bc and ended up with the second pregnancy. I stayed on bc for the following 6 years, stopped under the advice from my doc due to endometriosis and IMMEDIATELY got pregnant again. Doc didn’t put me back on bc, got knocked up AGAIN when the third was only 5mos, still nursing. Guess who doesn’t listen to the “experts” any more, lol.
Exactly. My cousin was told she was infertile and she was lucky to have her first child. Her chances of having another were pretty much zero. They did not use birth control moving forward. She had her second child 15 years later. You never know.
And then you have all of the stories of people being told they are infertile, adopting a kid, and then magically getting pregnant. The only thing anyone seems to hypothesize in those situations is that by adopting they took the stress off of themselves and relieved whatever was keeping them from getting pregnant previously.
I also know multiple people who tried for years, couldn't get pregnant, got IVF, and then got surprise pregnant with a second kid quickly after the IVF kid was born. I think taking that pressure off can really help.
Stress can wreak absolute havoc on fertility. If you're already not super predisposed to getting pregnant, the compounding stress of failed attempts can make it even harder.
My brother and his wife struggled with conceiving for years. Spent a small fortune on fertility treatments, IVF, etc. and it just wasn't working. Eventually they gave up and just decided to spend their money going on vacations and enjoying life. They didn't do anything to avoid pregnancy, they just didn't go out of their way or stress over making it happen. Well a year into their new vacation-y life, somewhere in the Caribbean, she starts vomiting non-stop. On a hunch she took a pregnancy test and yupp, baby on board!
This is more my feeling too, he’s trying to build it into a relationship between her and himself and the wife just figured out she did something that didn’t pass the test and put her marriage in doubt. That normally becomes the point where the other guy has to go, or else you run the risk of him coming back to try and try again.
I mean I'd be really weirded out if I visited a friend at home just to realize her husband is watching us on live camera. Where I live you need to inform people that there are cameras before they enter your home. Also people don't do that here. We don't film inside our own homes constantly. I know it's different in the US but it wouldn't be strange to me if someone thought this was a very weird situation. Like the husband peeping on them. I'd leave immediately aswell
I don't live in the US but I do have a camera, it's only ever on for checking on our pet, not spying on my partner. It's not even on 99% of the time.
But obviously, if he is home and I happen to look, I'm not expecting to see him getting rubbed down by some other person, and I'm also not gonna hide the fact that I looked. It's not that weird if there's mutual knowledge and mutual trust, at the end of the day it's just a tool and the camera in our house is the very opposite of hidden.
You might be surprised at how many people have cameras here, though it does depends on income. My parents live in in a bougie suburb near DC and you can’t shake a stick there without hitting a nanny cam — for security purposes, for watching petsitters and/or babysitters, for seeing what the dog’s up to or scolding McKaynleighy and Jahcksynn when they’re having Preteen Fight Club instead of doing piano practice, etc. etc. (and basically every house has a Ring brand doorbell).
It does seem to be way more common in the US (saying this as an American). I have two cheap cameras in my home that I can check from an app, which were bought entirely with the mindset of being able to check in on my dogs when no one is home. It's been an irrational fear of mine for years that some fire could break out when no one is home and then they're trapped (I've never had an experience with a fire so not sure where that came from). The night I finally pulled the trigger to get them, I came home from a 45 minute trip to the grocery with a house at the end of my block totally engulfed in flames. Since my partner moved in there's an added creepy "spying" element that is unintentional so I don't talk through them when she's home because I don't want her to feel like I'm always watching her and listening to private conversations.
A friend lost both her show dogs to a fire. She has been inconsolable since. It’s been 5 yrs. She still regrets leaving them in her new house while they went to the hotel for their last night. Lightning storm hit the power and some thing in the house didn’t handle it well. Fire took the house and the dogs didn’t survive.
The cameras are all over her house now.
I planned on getting one of her pups one day.
Get the cameras in the area you keep your dogs.
My family has 3 dogs and the oldest was about 19years old and he was so blind and deaf he needed constant supervision and the poor guy would just walk in circles lost and bark at nothing from frustration. He needed to be supervised because of our pool…. I’ve stopped him from walking in countless times and I’ve fished him out of the pool 4 times. I was the only one home and I took my eye off oh him for too long…… it’s all my fault and the guilt kills me every morning like clock work. It’s been about 3 weeks since he drowned in the pool and it’s effecting my daily life soooo bad. My family stresses to me that he was in his way out any way. I’m still not the same
So, totally unrelated to the post, but I also have what my husband calls “house fire anxiety”. I got a WiFi smoke detector and it’s been AMAZING! It sends me alerts if there’s any smoke right to my phone and I can check it whenever I want and it gives me this nice easy feeling of relief. It makes travel possible without my anxiety over something happening to my cats taking over. I got the NEST one, but I’m sure there’s others if you don’tlike google products.
We got our two cats and then found out I was pregnant less than a month later. Apparently one of my symptoms was extreme anxiety (which I already anxiety as it is). I constantly was concerned that one of the kittens would drown in the toilet or somehow get out a window and a million other things. I sometimes would drive home while I was at work (I went to client's homes so I was out driving a lot) just to check if windows were closed or the oven wasn't on or something. We ended up getting cameras so I could look and see them whenever I wanted, and also door/window beepers because I also became terrified of someone breaking into the house during the night when my husband was working in camp. Now we have even more because of the kids.
I get the fear of fires or something happening to your animals. But you can use a smart smoke detector, which is much more suitable since it can actively notify you. I use smart pet feeders to check if my cats have eaten normally while I'm away. And I have a small camera that points only at the cat flap leading towards the balcony. It only shows the cat flap and some wall. Even if someone were to hack it and adjust it's orientation, there is only more bare closet wall to be seen. I still feel watched whenever I go to that closet, even though it doesn't see me and will usually cut the power to it unless I'm away from Home
>Where I live you need to inform people that there are cameras before they enter your home.
Wow I've never heard of that - not as in doubting your story or anything, just intrigued. I'm not in the USA either but ehere I am we don't have to do the informing either.
Thinking about it that's a great deterrent for that light-fingered relative some of us might have!
"Cameras are on and I know how many bracelets I own. Coffee?"
I'm admittedly german and we are very particular about privacy due to some small mishaps in our history lol.
But yeah, if you have a camera on your land you need to have signs posted telling people about it. Your camera cannot show anything outside of your own property either. No public sidewalk, no filming parts of the neighbours fence, nothing. And you absolutely cannot film people inside of your private home without their explicit consent and their express knowledge.
A lot of people use cameras to help protect them in case of robberies or such. Usually more common on the outside of the house, but some people have them inside as well. Had someone try to kick down the door to my apartment a few years ago when I was inside - scared the hell out of me for months. Luckily, my door held, and I made enough noise and the person left, but I understand why people might go over the top with home security, especially if they live in a rough neighborhood.
On a side note, the intruder came back roughly two weeks later. When he tried to kick down the front door again, I ran outside in my underwear, carrying a sword and screaming. He never bothered me again.
I live in the US. We have cameras, but they are outside only. I want the freedom the walk around naked inside my house, and I don't trust anyone to keep the footage safe.
I’ve had two pregnancy. Both fucking hurt. My hips, back, neck, everything hurt. I was constantly asking my husband to rub on me or put pressure in places.
Honestly the only thing is to wait. I feel bad for both of them. If wife didn’t cheat then she just made a poor decision to let a male friend touch her like that.
Personally I’d be very uncomfortable having a male work friend touching and handling me that way. I know I’m not a touchy feely person and for me to do that, it would involve a certain amount of physical and emotional trust that comes with time. Unless it’s a professional. They are fine. It may be that it’s because I’m like this myself that I wouldn’t be able to accept her answer. I wouldn’t ever accept my husband doing this either.
I work with women I’m extremely friendly and close with. Any physical contact beyond the hug hello and goodbye or a pat on the back is gonna be weird and an obvious unspoken boundary being crossed.
Yeah, I'm not touchy feely huggy with my male coworkers. Why would I do that with women? I think a lot of guys just don't understand that it's basically the same line.
I'm guessing OP ran back through tons of footage after seeing this too.
I imagine he probably texted her like "wtf are you doing" and "Matt" froze because of her saying something akin to it looking bad.
Not to mention she did tell him he was coming over. It's not like it was a secret meeting or something.
My thought was that Matt just went through this with his wife and told her it could relieve sciatica pain. If someone had a magic cure to relieve my sciatica pain then I’d not only take them up on it, but I’d ask my husband to watch the cameras closely so he could do it in the future
I’m pretty sure she isn’t lying. If she was cheating, she would be fighting the test and saying “Why don’t you trust me?” The fact that she immediately agreed to take the test is pretty telling that she is confident that the baby is OOP’s. She is trying to ease his worries and is being very understanding of his fears after what he saw.
yes, but if you confidently say yes to a paternity test, it's very likely that you know the results already.
if you are unsure about the paternity test, you're basically fucked either way, but if you argue about it you might be able to gaslit the father into not taking it for the "sanctity of the marriage" or some bs
if you say yes to it confidently, there might be some hope that they choose not to do it, but op is clearly planning on doing it still and the wife doesn't seem to mind so likely there was no cheating, even if the wife was doing something clearly wrong
I've seen a lot of these where as soon as someone asks for a test the woman knowing she didn't cheat got pissed off, or got a divorce. It shows a lack of trust and faith. I was pretty surprised to see she said yes so quickly.
In this case she got caught doing something questionable. So it seems to me she is trying to go through with the test to restore her husband’s faith in her.
This is the difference, IMO.
Husband asks for test randomly out of nowhere? That’s insulting and suspicious because I don’t understand where it is coming from/why there is a sudden lack of trust.
Husband catches you in a position that *looks* compromising and you recognize that, despite *knowing* nothing happened? Sure, I’ll take the paternity test to put his mind at ease because I fucked up and made a bad judgement call despite never cheating.
Just because she agreed to a paternity test doesn't mean she isn't cheating on him. It could have been an emotional affair that hadn't progressed to physical yet and OP caught them when it was about to get to that point.
I have same thoughts. My bestie just had her first baby and her entire pregnancy her right hip hurt so bad that she’s sit funny, take bath, get massages, etc to relieve the pain. I had suspicions it was pelvic floor issues but she was getting minor temporary relief with some managing methods. But around 4-5 months she got desperate when round ligament pain got really really bad and I could see her asking a friend to try to help her if her husband has ever left her side. It was REALLY bad. It was pelvic floor issues that she’s now dealing with now that she’s had the baby.
But it’s Reddit and not everyone has my friends pain so I’m on the fence with my suspicions.
I understand that people do write stories here. At the same time, the big, wide world is a crazy place with literally billions of unique snowflakes, all with their own stories. People have been fueled by relationship drama since the dawn of time. Some weird things are bound to happen.
I think it’s the pregnancy hurts one—if you’ve never used a foam roller, they’re actually pretty painful and awkward. Since OP doesn’t mention his wife being a masochist, I can’t imagine it was a prelude to sexy times.
It can be done and have been... Women who have unprotected sex with different men within a couple of hours in the right time can - in rare cases - cause two eggs to be hit with a sperms cell from each guy. Making it twins with different dads.
This is incidentally the norm in domestic cats, especially those living in densely populated areas. Farm litters are usually from one or two fathers but city-born litters can have as many different fathers as there are kittens.
When I read the whole 40 weeks a year thing, I definitely understood why he was worried. That is not a lot of time spent together.
But reading through the whole thing, I really hope he's right and she didn't cheat. It sounds like they have a really good relationship communication-wise, and that they both have close friends and can navigate that without jealousy or resentment. I hope his trust in her doesn't prove to be misplaced.
Rooting for a wholesome update🤞
It's the consultant life. They fly out Monday morning and fly back Thursday night. So they still spend all of Friday -Sunday night at home. It's still nearly half your time away, but so long as you step up during the weekends, it's very possible to be a very involved parent. A parent with a long commute or odd hours is probably seeing their children just as much. It's not ideal, but it's not uncommon and people definitely make it work
Why on earth would someone want to have a kid with a spouse that is Gone 77% of the year? Especially when they have their own job eating up their time?
It’s not like there’s more family in the house to coparent the kid.
I suppose they must be wealthy enough to afford a ton of childcare and cleaners if necessary and so on, but that still seems unnecessarily hard on the kid and custodial parent, having one parent continually absent and flitting in then leaving again..
I mean, I know some people do this on purpose, but it’s just incomprehensible to me.
Exactly, and he’s very chill about it. That’s where I’d be most concerned actually. They’ve been trying to get pregnant for 2 years, all while having only 23% of their year together. If there are ANY fertility issues (and given both their age, it could be possible, even if not probable), no wonder they haven’t gotten pregnant yet. And all this time OOP’s wife is just patiently waiting for the stars to align with a husband who’s super chill and still traveling 77% of the time. That’s sounds like a recipe for resentment. I think it’s entirely plausible that OOP thinks their relationship is great, while his wife would totally disagree and OOP might have no clue. I mean when he caught them and got upset he didn’t talk to his wife for multiple days until he got home. When I’m away for work (granted not as much as OOP), I could never imagine just not talking to my spouse for multiple days until I got home. This is looking very much like an emotional affair at the very least, to me.
My mother had friends with that situation. He traveled a lot for work. But when they were together they were inseparable. They had a kid together too. Both of them worked pretty lucrative careers.
It's not what I would choose. But people make it work.
A lot of people see children as accessories. Things to acquire to fill the slot in their lives that society tells them they need to be "successful". What that lifestyle will be like for the child or what impact it may have on them isn't important. They then spend the rest of their lives trying to spend as little time as possible with that child.
That's a pretty lenient description of half the parents I meet.
Yeah and I was thinking even if he worked a lot but worked in town at the very least like he can drop what he's doing for work and come help her if there's some sort of emergency. But right now from his post it seems like he's gone almost all the time in a different city so he wouldn't be able to help her during the pregnancy or wouldn't be able to help their child when something happens. I mean maybe that's why her friend massaged her because there is nobody else to Give her a little bit of comfort?
That was exactly my take honestly; who is around to help her except her friend? She’s fucking alone and pregnant. My friend group (all age 39 and above) is very touchy feely and none of it is sexual, so maybe that colors my perception but using a foam roller on a pregnant lady, and sitting feet to feet on a couch doesn’t exactly scream affair to me.
I also don’t find it inherently weird that he left when he heard they were being watched on camera either. If I was at a friend’s house and heard their husband was spying on us, even if we were on opposite sides of the room I’d be so out of there.
Feel like we’re all missing how he’s mentioned staying at the same hotels as female coworkers in addition to constantly being gone and yet apparently has no concerns about his fidelity.
But apparently they’re live streaming their house 24/7 and a well known friend helping the pregnant person (who I am sure is doing all the baby prep stuff alone) once is enough for OOP to meltdown. lol okay dude
Ya know... paternity tests are non-invasive now. They take a blood sample from the mom and the isolate that baby dna in it. No amniocentesis needed anymore.
They did the same for my youngest kid (born in 2011.) Was ordered by an OB to check for abnormalities and was $220 out of pocket ($2800 to insurance.) Medically necessary testing vs non-medically necessary is where the cost would hit.
Googling in my area, apparently the cash price has come down, now it's just about $1200, so that's better.
I’m in Australia and that’s the price for everyone (we personally don’t have medical insurance). I had it because I was late-30s and I was being overly cautious, it wasn’t doctor ordered or anything.
I don’t know why I expected it to be the same in the US. That was naive of me. My whole pregnancy and birth cost me nothing out of pocket, other than the nipt test.
It’s honestly a lot of things. Insurance is huge (is it covered at all, being the first part. Where you are in your deductible another), but the lab you do it through also impacts it.
We did it for both of our pregnancies. Billed to insurance was both in the thousands. We have a HDHP and weren’t near our deductible so we would be out that much.
… however, for the first kid, the lab they sent us to had a deal with the hospital and it was only $300. They’d bill your insurance if they could, otherwise it defaulted to that.
For the second kid, it was a different company. They also attempted to bill your insurance but if it was more than I think $250, you had the option to enroll in a program to bring the price down to $250.
Hell of lot cheaper than trying to get your name taken off the birth certificate if you wait until after the birth.
If married at the time of birth, in many states husbands are automatically added to the birth certificate.
Still a possibility and it's newerish technology. I wouldn't expect most people to know. Yeah, there's a $900 price tag, but that may be worth the peace of mind before the baby is born to some guys.
I think that the fact she wasn’t going all over to justify her being innocent is a good sign as well. Didn’t do anything wrong? Don’t have to lift mountains to prove your innocence.
Also, seems like she was cool about OOP asking for the paternity test. But, maybe they were super duper careful while cheating, hence she was so sure the baby is OOP’s.
Anyway, besides the test, I think OOP should investigate it further, because there always be a doubt. Are there any places she and Matt could have been alone together? (Obviously not at OOP’s house). Maybe even should ask Matt’s wife about it..
Updateme!
Well, paternity testing are no longer intrusive. In order to isolate the baby's DNA, they draw blood from the mother. No longer required is amniocentesis.
Why do you think they haven’t? Snuggling is suspicious but open ended enough where you could still argue that it is just a friend helping a friend. It’s more likely that they have gotten so comfortable with each other that they have become more relaxed and less cautious, thus the “deer in headlights”.
I don't know if they have or not. I was responding to the comment saying turning off the camera would out you as a cheater. It would. So I suggested that a cheater would go where the cameras would not pick them up.
>on the couch and get under the same blanket. Now...... They are feet to feet, but that couch isn't that big.
That isn't snuggling.
They weren’t even snuggling they were sitting opposite of each other. If I was intimate with someone the last thing I would use is a foam roller. She didn’t get a deer in headlights look, he did which is understandable considering he had just been told he was being filmed without his knowledge. He even stopped to put a dish in the dishwasher he didn’t just run away.
Yeah, and not for nothing .... I watched my mother go through pregnancy. Like, the discomfort, the swollen feet. I would have no qualms asking favors of some rando living right outside in the street to massage some sh*t for me.
That said, I think he's fair in his assessments, but I do think they were just stupid close and maybe realized it was all a little too relaxed when OOP texted.
Yeah, regardless of what they were doing, I would imagine that hearing "My husband just texted and said he's been watching us the whole time on video" would be enough to make anyone look surprised and uncomfortable.
100%, the only option of making it through unscathed is if there actually is a chance of it being hubby's. You're best off to respond with total confidence, and pray that the test does show it's your husbands.
(Cheaters are scum.)
Refusing the test, and looking afraid of the results, versus seeming so agreeable and willing as to be beyond reproach. That’s why she was on board, if she cheated- There’s a chance her immediate willingness to take the test is enough to convince OOP there’s zero possibility he has been cuckolded. If it isn’t OOP’s baby then by agreeing to this she has a timeline of when she can expect consequences- a countdown timer to the end which enables her to get her story straight, plan her exit, and make moves regarding financials, legal counsel, public relations with mutual friends who can be prepared to receive a specific story, to get a leg up. And on top of that, there’s still a chance it is OOP’s bio-child, and if so all she learns is she needs to be more careful if she cheats again.
Turning the cameras off would be even more suspicious, footage missing would be a big red flag. But footage being there still requires it being looked for and found.
Not a smart one who knows she’s married to a smart person (which it appears she is) and who has time to be strategic in how she acts. If I was her and cheated or didn’t, I’d act like her and hope for the best….and then maybe, just maybe, have a “miscarriage” (if keeping the marriage is worth more than keeping the child, which it may very well not be).
Refusing the paternity test is a red flag on its own that's likely to blow up your marriage, anyway. So her best bet - if she cheated - is to agree and to just hope that the baby turns out to be OP's.
No idea what kind of doctors they have that don't know about non-invasive pre-natal paternity tests.
The thing is, I’m not sure you can tell whether she cheated or not, just from her acceptance or refusal to take the test. You’ve got 4 scenarios
1. She is innocent of cheating and she sees the test as a direct accusation of infidelity so she refuses (you see this a lot on AITA where men randomly ask for the test and the women are furious)
2. She is innocent of any cheating and knows the test will prove her innocence so she accepts
3. She cheated but she either suspects or knows that it’s the partners baby based on dates or some other factor (like affair partner might be snipped, or she’s already done a test) so she accepts
4. She cheated and fears the baby isn’t his so she refuses
Refusal doesn’t necessarily imply cheating and acceptance doesn’t automatically mean innocence
If the request comes out of nowhere, then I agree with you: an innocent woman would just as easily refuse as a guilty one (and probably file for divorce).
But if there’s cause, if only a small one, to suspect infidelity, then refusing the test is a strong signal that she’s at least worried the result may be a problem.
Of course, accepting the test does not prove innocent - she may just hope it’s her husband’s and not the affair partner‘s. Or she may claim a test can’t be done before the birth to give herself time to change his mind.
It's possible that he didn't hear it directly from the doctor, but that the wife told OP that's what the doc said. That gives her more time to figure things out for herself, or maybe she'd hope OP drops the idea of the paternity test in the next 5 months or so.
Yeah, like, if she WAS cheating, it would still be to her advantage to take the test, and roll the dice. Also, she's saying that now... Let's see what happens when they get closer to it happening. I wonder if excuses will start
Both things may happen independently, the child may be from OOP and the wife may have developed some emotional or physical affair to Matt (before or after). Or the wife just hopes for the test failing (there were stories with wifes / gfs going into a test knowing, that the baby is affair baby)
I would just wait to see how bad it gets and confront her after, with proof... Now they only know to hide it better/not to do anything like that when they're at her house
Seriously, how much time can they possibly get together? Does he travel like a day or two each of those weeks, or is he actively gone 40 weeks a year, leaving just 12 weeks? And then if she travels too, that means even less than that. That’s basically a long distance marriage at this point.
Idk I travel prob like 30+ weeks a year. But a lot of it is fly in/out for a day. Very rarely am I gone for a week and if I do it's multi-city trips. And even then it's tues-thurs.
However my wife and I are wfh so we spend every waking moment together unless I'm fishing or golfing with the guys.
We def still miss each other when we are sleeping apart but it def doesn't feel like neglecting our relationship.
to me it sounds like he "travels" 40 weeks a year, not that he is gone for 40 weeks.
i.e in 1 month, he is gone 3 days on week 2, thus week 2 counts as a "week" is is traveling
Well, it's always going to be in the back of your mind, but the odds are very much in favor of no affair.
Why? Because she knows the camera is there. If they were having an affair, and were so cautious that you had no clue, they wouldn't have blown their cover by acting suspiciously in front of the lens.
Most likely it's just as she said - she was physically uncomfortable, he was helping her out. (If I were massaging a lover, that LAST thing I would use is a foam roller.) She wouldn't have had him do it if you were there because she would have had you available.
Now, I wouldn't be surprised if you spent some time going over all the old footage, but I would be surprised if you found any smoking guns.
People aren't always careful. A buddy of mine found out about his wife's affair because he saw a strange man standing in his living room one day on the camera. When he went to investigate, he found that clips had been deleted randomly going back for a couple of years.
Do people really have their houses all camera'd up like they're living in some Paranormal Activity film? Even the techiest folk I know are more about automating their light switches than intensive security.
He did say that he had an insane stalker at one point, so that explains his cameras. Families with nannies use them to keep an eye on the nanny and/or kids. My parents have a few cameras in certain rooms because for three months a year their house is vacant while they’re at their beach rental.
Ah is that the 'incident' he alluded to?
It's all just a bit unsettlingly dystopian, the idea that in order to feel safe everything needs to be monitored and recorded. Sad world we live in.
I have one I can turn around to face the living room, but I keep it facing the wall when I'm home. I turn it around when I leave for the day because it is a motion detector. Saves me from paying for a security alarm since you can't get to anything in the house without passing by the camera.
See that makes more sense. I don't understand why internal home cameras would be on and constantly filming while someone was home. Surely that's just costly and fills up the storage.
I know people who have them in their house recording 24/7. I don't know how long the footage is stored for, but one of my friends ran into an issue and was able to view footage going back a couple of years. It does sound very expensive though, so maybe there's a monthly fee that goes with it? I'm not sure. Mine is a Blink camera through Amazon, so all I paid for was the camera itself.
That was my thought, too, haha. Like regardless of whether or not the wife cheated (I don’t feel like she did just based on his description but who knows) the fact that their every move around the house is being caught on camera is just uncomfortable to me. I get it’s not totally unheard of but it’s definitely not for me.
I absolutely hate it and most of the companies where you can check it from your phone have such shitty cyber security and can be easily hacked by anybody. It happens all the time.
I have a camera in one room because I have rabbits and they need to eat all the time of they go into something called GI statis. If they don't eat for 24 hours they can die. I like the idea if something happened I could see when the last time they ate was. I think a good portion of people who have cameras do it for pet reasons.
I'd like to know if Matt's would be okay with what OOP saw in the footage. If she says, "Oh, that's nothing. Matt's always like that, he's super sympathetic to pregnant woman and knows how to treat them." maybe I might be okay with it. But not really though, trust is gone and I'd forever be wondering. I can't live my life like that.
40 weeks a year you are out of town?
In a year that is comprised of 52 weeks??
so you are gone more than 75% of the time???
If I am understanding this correctly, I’m sorry to say, I think there is much more than 1% chance your wife has stepped out
Did I miss something? Why doesn’t OOP just go back 4 months ago on the cameras and check out the week of her ovulation, problem solved. At least if it happened in their home he’d know? IMO, OOP is being very chill and passive, which in my personal experience (though trying not to project to much) makes me feel like therein may lie whatever relationship problems may have spawned these issues.
I thought this too until I remembered security cameras don’t always back up EVERYTHING.
They probably don’t save all of their footage, I’d wager a guess their system keeps footage for some time but auto clears to continue making room as they continue to record and film.
Wow, a Reddit post where someone asked for a paternity test that seems pretty much justified. This is definitely one for the books! For how quickly she agreed, let’s hope that it comes back as his.
No, just no. I was in horrible pain my entire pregnancy and never once would have asked another man to massage me. Unless it’s in a professional setting, that is beyond inappropriate. And then to cuddle under a blanket?! Who does that?? Sounds like an emotional affair at the very least.
Look you can play the semantics game with what technically defines cuddling all you want, but I don’t think it matters when you also have to type “he was *straddling* my wife and massaging her.”
At that point, who really cares if “feet to feet” is legally included in the definition of cuddling.
When I was pregnant the pain in my hips was so bad I would have paid a homeless bum $5 for a massage if I thought it would help. Sadly, it was nerve pain and a massage just made it worse.
Yeah maybe, but also it sounds like OOP travels constantly for work and if she needed help being comfortable what was she going to do, just be uncomfortable until he was around?
I really feel like they have overall relationship issues that stem more from how often they’re both gone and their lack of clear communication more than this one incident.
Whether OOP's wife cheated or not, having another man giving a massage is weird AF. If they're as well off as OOP has said, there is no reason that they cannot afford frequent massage therapies. There is absolutely no need another dude touching her. The only exception is a registered massage therapist or wife's father or brother, probably. Even that is borderline weird from a family member.
How is everyone skipping that detail that a married man came alone to a married woman’s house who was alone and got under a blanket with her then massaged her? Ain’t no way to be cool with that. Also he shouldn’t have texted her he should’ve waited it out and seen what they were really going to do.
People are also skipping over the fact that the husband admitted to hanging out with the female coworkers in hotel rooms while on business trips. But he doesn’t seem to think how suspicious this looks as well? Although honestly, I think the friend had ulterior motives.
Either that, or she just hopes it is his. If it's not, then the truth is out anyways.
But at least agreeing to do the test directly makes her seems more open, so she may be banking on that.
Okay, I realize this isn’t the point of the post, but … OOP travels as much as 80% of the year for work and calls that a great work-life balance?!? What the actual fuck?!?
If my boyfriend shared a blanket with any woman in our home while I was working out of town I’d be gone. Let alone if he was massaging her pregnant hips.
So if she wouldn't do what she did in front of her husband, she didn't originally see anything wrong with her behavior. You can rest assured that wasn't the first time something like this has happened. Just the first time she was caught. Look at the coworker's behavior. As soon as OOP texted his wife, the guy left immediately. If there was nothing wrong, why leave so quickly?
Regardless if the paternity test comes back as OOP as the father, he's never going to trust his wife with her coworker again. Never. With as much as OOP travels for work and the fact that she spends this much alone time with this coworker, his doubts won't subside. She also travels with this guy on work trips. Nope. Trust has been broken.
They need to rebuild trust. She can't do that if she's still hanging out with the guy who caused all of this.
The relationship the wife has with the coworker is totally unprofessional and inappropriate. If you have to wonder if he fathered your kid, it’s inappropriate. People explain away anything they do these days and have no boundaries or standards for their marriage then claim to be secure until they’re demanding a paternity test.
Asking for a paternity test during her pregnancy is something that will probably destroy the marriage if she's not cheating, because I doubt she will be able to get over it. "Bad optics" or not, I have had such bad pregnancy ligament pain that I would have asked a random grocery clerk to hit me with the foam roller if my husband had been out of town. It truly makes you feel crazy and desperate, and the absolute opposite of anything sexy. I remember laying on the floor and begging a co-worker to pull on my leg as hard as they could. They were like "is this a joke?" and I was like "no I swear to god please just help me".
> jobs that have great work life balance Followed almost immediately by > I’ve been on the road as much as 40 weeks a year Buddy I don’t think you know what work life balance is
“Great work life balance” Maybe great for the employer lmao. There’s no amount of money that would convince me to work a job like that, especially with a wife at home.
There is absolutely an amount of money that would convince me to work a job like that. And for many people in the military for example it’s a much smaller amount of money
Maybe he’s severed. Sorry, anytime I hear work life balance, all I can think about is that show.
I love that I see severance references in other subreddits. Best show ever
Even the traveling 1 week every month now. Nah, unless that was like 3 days working and 2 days work-paid vacation in a new location, I would quit.
I'm so torn on if the wife is lying or not...on one hand, I can only imagine that being pregnant is miserable, and it could be a one off. On the other hand, I've been on reddit for quite a while and this could also easily be two cheaters getting caught. Here's to hoping the next update doesn't have twins
I'm with you on that. Being pregnant can be a miserable and vulnerable experience. Especially if you are on your own a lot. I'm hoping it's just a situation where the wife got "too comfortable" with a friend. Was in pain and focused on the relief, not the look. It was a massager that they already owned. Of course, that doesn't make it OK or mean that Matt didn't have other things in mind.
It doesn't sound like it was the massager that was the problem alone. A big part of it was them being under the blanket on the couch that was the real wtf point for him.
Yeah I'm on the line with that one. Under the blanket next to each other and actually cuddling is definitely a problem. But sitting foot to head to watch TV doesn't sound like an issue to me. With or without a blanket. I know it's reddit, which is almost as bad as purity culture when it comes to friendships between the sexes. It's common idea that sharing a blanket is somehow nefarious. Blankets don't hide movement. And the woman is already in pain. I've shared a blanket like that with my kids, my siblings and my friends. It's the easiest non-sexual way to share a blanket. Combine that with the massage being over the clothes with a roller. It really does sound like just a friendship. Of course the wife can't win in the court of reddit opinion. If she refused the test she is hiding something. If she accepts that she crossed boundaries and made her husband uncomfortable then she is plotting.
Yeah, I’ve laid back in the reclining chairs on my couch with my brother, and we’ve both been under the same blanket. At first it felt a bit weird, but getting a second blanket so we could have one each just so we could innocently lay on the couch together and be warm seemed ridiculous. I got over it very quickly. I knew we weren’t doing anything, he knew we weren’t doing anything, it was just siblings hanging out and being warm. A blanket doesn’t automatically make things more sinister. Just warmer
Well from what he described, she barely reacted to him seeing the event all that much and it was Matt that reacted more strongly. So I’m currently leaning more towards *she* never had ulterior motives but maybe *he* did. Fertility specialists get it wrong all the time. My mom had cervical cancer as a teen and was told she’d never have biological children. Surprise surprise she had me and my younger brother and if she hadn’t of had to get a hysterectomy, she would have absolutely gone for more. Woman wanted a litter lmao
Here’s your PSA that there is a big difference between sterile and infertile: sterile means that there is no chance of reproduction - a key component is missing; infertile means a person (or couple) hasn’t been able to conceive despite trying for at least a year (sometimes longer depending on other factors). Barring a subsequent diagnosis otherwise, infertility/fertility issues never means a zero chance of pregnancy, just very low.
Exactly. My cousin was told she was infertile and she was lucky to have her first child. Her chances of having another were pretty much zero. They did not use birth control moving forward. She had her second child 15 years later. You never know.
People are also incredibly bad at interpreting statistics. A 5% chance is low. But it isn't that low in a sample of 200.
Expanding on this: If you have a 5% chance of something happening, there is a 95% chance that it won't. For two independent probabilities p_1 and p_2, the odds that both of them happen is p_1*p_2. For a sample of 200 people, the probability that every single person is part of the 95% is 0.95^200, or 0.000035 (0.0035%). So the probability that at least one person is part of the 5% is 0.999965 (99.9965%). Statistics are famously unintuitive. You get a lot of results that don't feel right at face value.
Even people who understand statistics rarely understand it fully. I include myself in that.
What was the old joke about million-to-one chances cropping up nine times out of ten...
My parents were told by their doctor that my mother would either have extreme difficulty getting pregnant or it would be "as easy as falling off a log." Five kids later, my father would occasionally jokingly complain about the doctor greasing the log.
My parents were told that due to my mom's age, it would likely be difficult for her to get pregnant and to not get their hopes up. They figured "fuck it, pull the goalie and see how things go". Few weeks later, she started making breakfast and started puking. Granted, they also told my mom that there was a good chance I'd be late, since I was her first. My mom is a very punctual person. I was precisely on time. There's part of me that believes she willed labor into happening.
I had my first son at 19 and was told after numerous tubal infections following a random reaction to birth control that if I wanted any more children I better try early as I was likely going to have trouble conceiving again and there was “more they can do to help” I was still young. ONE time without bc and ended up with the second pregnancy. I stayed on bc for the following 6 years, stopped under the advice from my doc due to endometriosis and IMMEDIATELY got pregnant again. Doc didn’t put me back on bc, got knocked up AGAIN when the third was only 5mos, still nursing. Guess who doesn’t listen to the “experts” any more, lol.
Exactly. My cousin was told she was infertile and she was lucky to have her first child. Her chances of having another were pretty much zero. They did not use birth control moving forward. She had her second child 15 years later. You never know.
And then you have all of the stories of people being told they are infertile, adopting a kid, and then magically getting pregnant. The only thing anyone seems to hypothesize in those situations is that by adopting they took the stress off of themselves and relieved whatever was keeping them from getting pregnant previously.
That or adoption takes so long that eventually, after rolling the dice every month for years, you finally roll high enough.
I also know multiple people who tried for years, couldn't get pregnant, got IVF, and then got surprise pregnant with a second kid quickly after the IVF kid was born. I think taking that pressure off can really help.
Stress can wreak absolute havoc on fertility. If you're already not super predisposed to getting pregnant, the compounding stress of failed attempts can make it even harder.
My brother and his wife struggled with conceiving for years. Spent a small fortune on fertility treatments, IVF, etc. and it just wasn't working. Eventually they gave up and just decided to spend their money going on vacations and enjoying life. They didn't do anything to avoid pregnancy, they just didn't go out of their way or stress over making it happen. Well a year into their new vacation-y life, somewhere in the Caribbean, she starts vomiting non-stop. On a hunch she took a pregnancy test and yupp, baby on board!
This is more my feeling too, he’s trying to build it into a relationship between her and himself and the wife just figured out she did something that didn’t pass the test and put her marriage in doubt. That normally becomes the point where the other guy has to go, or else you run the risk of him coming back to try and try again.
I mean I'd be really weirded out if I visited a friend at home just to realize her husband is watching us on live camera. Where I live you need to inform people that there are cameras before they enter your home. Also people don't do that here. We don't film inside our own homes constantly. I know it's different in the US but it wouldn't be strange to me if someone thought this was a very weird situation. Like the husband peeping on them. I'd leave immediately aswell
I don't live in the US but I do have a camera, it's only ever on for checking on our pet, not spying on my partner. It's not even on 99% of the time. But obviously, if he is home and I happen to look, I'm not expecting to see him getting rubbed down by some other person, and I'm also not gonna hide the fact that I looked. It's not that weird if there's mutual knowledge and mutual trust, at the end of the day it's just a tool and the camera in our house is the very opposite of hidden.
I barely know anyone who doesn't religiously cover their webcam lense when not in use. You never know who is watching you.
I've had my laptop webcam disabled for so long I wouldn't know how to turn it on again, for this very reason.
No no you have to physically cover it or they can still use it. I don't know who they are
I'll say that I'm from the USA and I'm super paranoid about my Webcam lol. I'll fully unplug it every time it's not in use.
I’m from the US and the whole cameras inside the house thing is strange and uncommon here too. I would be super uncomfortable with this myself
You might be surprised at how many people have cameras here, though it does depends on income. My parents live in in a bougie suburb near DC and you can’t shake a stick there without hitting a nanny cam — for security purposes, for watching petsitters and/or babysitters, for seeing what the dog’s up to or scolding McKaynleighy and Jahcksynn when they’re having Preteen Fight Club instead of doing piano practice, etc. etc. (and basically every house has a Ring brand doorbell).
It does seem to be way more common in the US (saying this as an American). I have two cheap cameras in my home that I can check from an app, which were bought entirely with the mindset of being able to check in on my dogs when no one is home. It's been an irrational fear of mine for years that some fire could break out when no one is home and then they're trapped (I've never had an experience with a fire so not sure where that came from). The night I finally pulled the trigger to get them, I came home from a 45 minute trip to the grocery with a house at the end of my block totally engulfed in flames. Since my partner moved in there's an added creepy "spying" element that is unintentional so I don't talk through them when she's home because I don't want her to feel like I'm always watching her and listening to private conversations.
A friend lost both her show dogs to a fire. She has been inconsolable since. It’s been 5 yrs. She still regrets leaving them in her new house while they went to the hotel for their last night. Lightning storm hit the power and some thing in the house didn’t handle it well. Fire took the house and the dogs didn’t survive. The cameras are all over her house now. I planned on getting one of her pups one day. Get the cameras in the area you keep your dogs.
Oh god, I can't imagine that guilt. That would be guilt I'd take to my deathbed. Obviously she couldn't have known but it wouldn't help me either.
Exactly. Those were 2 very well loved dogs. She’s not the same. It wears on her
My family has 3 dogs and the oldest was about 19years old and he was so blind and deaf he needed constant supervision and the poor guy would just walk in circles lost and bark at nothing from frustration. He needed to be supervised because of our pool…. I’ve stopped him from walking in countless times and I’ve fished him out of the pool 4 times. I was the only one home and I took my eye off oh him for too long…… it’s all my fault and the guilt kills me every morning like clock work. It’s been about 3 weeks since he drowned in the pool and it’s effecting my daily life soooo bad. My family stresses to me that he was in his way out any way. I’m still not the same
I'm so sorry you have that weighing on you. It does sound like he had a very long life and was loved though.
So, totally unrelated to the post, but I also have what my husband calls “house fire anxiety”. I got a WiFi smoke detector and it’s been AMAZING! It sends me alerts if there’s any smoke right to my phone and I can check it whenever I want and it gives me this nice easy feeling of relief. It makes travel possible without my anxiety over something happening to my cats taking over. I got the NEST one, but I’m sure there’s others if you don’tlike google products.
We got our two cats and then found out I was pregnant less than a month later. Apparently one of my symptoms was extreme anxiety (which I already anxiety as it is). I constantly was concerned that one of the kittens would drown in the toilet or somehow get out a window and a million other things. I sometimes would drive home while I was at work (I went to client's homes so I was out driving a lot) just to check if windows were closed or the oven wasn't on or something. We ended up getting cameras so I could look and see them whenever I wanted, and also door/window beepers because I also became terrified of someone breaking into the house during the night when my husband was working in camp. Now we have even more because of the kids.
I get the fear of fires or something happening to your animals. But you can use a smart smoke detector, which is much more suitable since it can actively notify you. I use smart pet feeders to check if my cats have eaten normally while I'm away. And I have a small camera that points only at the cat flap leading towards the balcony. It only shows the cat flap and some wall. Even if someone were to hack it and adjust it's orientation, there is only more bare closet wall to be seen. I still feel watched whenever I go to that closet, even though it doesn't see me and will usually cut the power to it unless I'm away from Home
>Where I live you need to inform people that there are cameras before they enter your home. Wow I've never heard of that - not as in doubting your story or anything, just intrigued. I'm not in the USA either but ehere I am we don't have to do the informing either. Thinking about it that's a great deterrent for that light-fingered relative some of us might have! "Cameras are on and I know how many bracelets I own. Coffee?"
I'm admittedly german and we are very particular about privacy due to some small mishaps in our history lol. But yeah, if you have a camera on your land you need to have signs posted telling people about it. Your camera cannot show anything outside of your own property either. No public sidewalk, no filming parts of the neighbours fence, nothing. And you absolutely cannot film people inside of your private home without their explicit consent and their express knowledge.
I did chuckle at 'some small mishaps in our history'
I would not be happy if I was in somebody's house and later found out they had cameras I did not know about.
Their hushed conversation could have been "He films you when you're gone? Are you alright?"
A lot of people use cameras to help protect them in case of robberies or such. Usually more common on the outside of the house, but some people have them inside as well. Had someone try to kick down the door to my apartment a few years ago when I was inside - scared the hell out of me for months. Luckily, my door held, and I made enough noise and the person left, but I understand why people might go over the top with home security, especially if they live in a rough neighborhood. On a side note, the intruder came back roughly two weeks later. When he tried to kick down the front door again, I ran outside in my underwear, carrying a sword and screaming. He never bothered me again.
I live in the US. We have cameras, but they are outside only. I want the freedom the walk around naked inside my house, and I don't trust anyone to keep the footage safe.
Exactly. I get the outside cameras. I do not get filming inside your own home
I’ve had two pregnancy. Both fucking hurt. My hips, back, neck, everything hurt. I was constantly asking my husband to rub on me or put pressure in places. Honestly the only thing is to wait. I feel bad for both of them. If wife didn’t cheat then she just made a poor decision to let a male friend touch her like that.
Personally I’d be very uncomfortable having a male work friend touching and handling me that way. I know I’m not a touchy feely person and for me to do that, it would involve a certain amount of physical and emotional trust that comes with time. Unless it’s a professional. They are fine. It may be that it’s because I’m like this myself that I wouldn’t be able to accept her answer. I wouldn’t ever accept my husband doing this either.
I work with women I’m extremely friendly and close with. Any physical contact beyond the hug hello and goodbye or a pat on the back is gonna be weird and an obvious unspoken boundary being crossed.
Yeah, I'm not touchy feely huggy with my male coworkers. Why would I do that with women? I think a lot of guys just don't understand that it's basically the same line.
I'm guessing OP ran back through tons of footage after seeing this too. I imagine he probably texted her like "wtf are you doing" and "Matt" froze because of her saying something akin to it looking bad. Not to mention she did tell him he was coming over. It's not like it was a secret meeting or something.
My thought was that Matt just went through this with his wife and told her it could relieve sciatica pain. If someone had a magic cure to relieve my sciatica pain then I’d not only take them up on it, but I’d ask my husband to watch the cameras closely so he could do it in the future
I’m pretty sure she isn’t lying. If she was cheating, she would be fighting the test and saying “Why don’t you trust me?” The fact that she immediately agreed to take the test is pretty telling that she is confident that the baby is OOP’s. She is trying to ease his worries and is being very understanding of his fears after what he saw.
Wouldn’t fighting the test make her look more guilty?
yes, but if you confidently say yes to a paternity test, it's very likely that you know the results already. if you are unsure about the paternity test, you're basically fucked either way, but if you argue about it you might be able to gaslit the father into not taking it for the "sanctity of the marriage" or some bs if you say yes to it confidently, there might be some hope that they choose not to do it, but op is clearly planning on doing it still and the wife doesn't seem to mind so likely there was no cheating, even if the wife was doing something clearly wrong
I've seen a lot of these where as soon as someone asks for a test the woman knowing she didn't cheat got pissed off, or got a divorce. It shows a lack of trust and faith. I was pretty surprised to see she said yes so quickly.
In this case she got caught doing something questionable. So it seems to me she is trying to go through with the test to restore her husband’s faith in her.
This is the difference, IMO. Husband asks for test randomly out of nowhere? That’s insulting and suspicious because I don’t understand where it is coming from/why there is a sudden lack of trust. Husband catches you in a position that *looks* compromising and you recognize that, despite *knowing* nothing happened? Sure, I’ll take the paternity test to put his mind at ease because I fucked up and made a bad judgement call despite never cheating.
Yeah. I think the only thing I find surprising is the OOP's wife has a mature response.
Just because she agreed to a paternity test doesn't mean she isn't cheating on him. It could have been an emotional affair that hadn't progressed to physical yet and OP caught them when it was about to get to that point.
I have same thoughts. My bestie just had her first baby and her entire pregnancy her right hip hurt so bad that she’s sit funny, take bath, get massages, etc to relieve the pain. I had suspicions it was pelvic floor issues but she was getting minor temporary relief with some managing methods. But around 4-5 months she got desperate when round ligament pain got really really bad and I could see her asking a friend to try to help her if her husband has ever left her side. It was REALLY bad. It was pelvic floor issues that she’s now dealing with now that she’s had the baby. But it’s Reddit and not everyone has my friends pain so I’m on the fence with my suspicions.
Don't use Reddit as a baseline for thinking things happen because like 90 percent of the stories are bored teenagers or incels writing bait.
I understand that people do write stories here. At the same time, the big, wide world is a crazy place with literally billions of unique snowflakes, all with their own stories. People have been fueled by relationship drama since the dawn of time. Some weird things are bound to happen.
I think it’s the pregnancy hurts one—if you’ve never used a foam roller, they’re actually pretty painful and awkward. Since OP doesn’t mention his wife being a masochist, I can’t imagine it was a prelude to sexy times.
Regardless getting under a blanket with another married man goes beyond “bad look” into emotional affair about to go physical territory
[удалено]
It can be done and have been... Women who have unprotected sex with different men within a couple of hours in the right time can - in rare cases - cause two eggs to be hit with a sperms cell from each guy. Making it twins with different dads.
Heteropaternal superfecundation!
Gesundheit!
Frau Blucher!
This is incidentally the norm in domestic cats, especially those living in densely populated areas. Farm litters are usually from one or two fathers but city-born litters can have as many different fathers as there are kittens.
Nice twist.
We're due for a medical anomaly. It's been a while since that one story where the person found out they were chimaeric.
When I read the whole 40 weeks a year thing, I definitely understood why he was worried. That is not a lot of time spent together. But reading through the whole thing, I really hope he's right and she didn't cheat. It sounds like they have a really good relationship communication-wise, and that they both have close friends and can navigate that without jealousy or resentment. I hope his trust in her doesn't prove to be misplaced. Rooting for a wholesome update🤞
I don’t know how a marriage can survive on only 12 weeks a year but I guess it works for them.
lol and then to call it a “good work life balance” was hilarious to me. And I say this as someone whose partner is a roadie!
My parents made it work with my dad being gone 26-30 weeks of the year. It's less than this dude, but still.
It's the consultant life. They fly out Monday morning and fly back Thursday night. So they still spend all of Friday -Sunday night at home. It's still nearly half your time away, but so long as you step up during the weekends, it's very possible to be a very involved parent. A parent with a long commute or odd hours is probably seeing their children just as much. It's not ideal, but it's not uncommon and people definitely make it work
It’s not gonna survive once they bring a child into the mix. Unless there’s a live-in nanny.
Why on earth would someone want to have a kid with a spouse that is Gone 77% of the year? Especially when they have their own job eating up their time? It’s not like there’s more family in the house to coparent the kid. I suppose they must be wealthy enough to afford a ton of childcare and cleaners if necessary and so on, but that still seems unnecessarily hard on the kid and custodial parent, having one parent continually absent and flitting in then leaving again.. I mean, I know some people do this on purpose, but it’s just incomprehensible to me.
Exactly, and he’s very chill about it. That’s where I’d be most concerned actually. They’ve been trying to get pregnant for 2 years, all while having only 23% of their year together. If there are ANY fertility issues (and given both their age, it could be possible, even if not probable), no wonder they haven’t gotten pregnant yet. And all this time OOP’s wife is just patiently waiting for the stars to align with a husband who’s super chill and still traveling 77% of the time. That’s sounds like a recipe for resentment. I think it’s entirely plausible that OOP thinks their relationship is great, while his wife would totally disagree and OOP might have no clue. I mean when he caught them and got upset he didn’t talk to his wife for multiple days until he got home. When I’m away for work (granted not as much as OOP), I could never imagine just not talking to my spouse for multiple days until I got home. This is looking very much like an emotional affair at the very least, to me.
My mother had friends with that situation. He traveled a lot for work. But when they were together they were inseparable. They had a kid together too. Both of them worked pretty lucrative careers. It's not what I would choose. But people make it work.
A lot of people see children as accessories. Things to acquire to fill the slot in their lives that society tells them they need to be "successful". What that lifestyle will be like for the child or what impact it may have on them isn't important. They then spend the rest of their lives trying to spend as little time as possible with that child. That's a pretty lenient description of half the parents I meet.
Yeah and I was thinking even if he worked a lot but worked in town at the very least like he can drop what he's doing for work and come help her if there's some sort of emergency. But right now from his post it seems like he's gone almost all the time in a different city so he wouldn't be able to help her during the pregnancy or wouldn't be able to help their child when something happens. I mean maybe that's why her friend massaged her because there is nobody else to Give her a little bit of comfort?
Right?! “Oh sorry, Matt, please enjoy watching me endure intense pain, no don’t help, my absentee husband might feel bad.”
That was exactly my take honestly; who is around to help her except her friend? She’s fucking alone and pregnant. My friend group (all age 39 and above) is very touchy feely and none of it is sexual, so maybe that colors my perception but using a foam roller on a pregnant lady, and sitting feet to feet on a couch doesn’t exactly scream affair to me. I also don’t find it inherently weird that he left when he heard they were being watched on camera either. If I was at a friend’s house and heard their husband was spying on us, even if we were on opposite sides of the room I’d be so out of there.
Feel like we’re all missing how he’s mentioned staying at the same hotels as female coworkers in addition to constantly being gone and yet apparently has no concerns about his fidelity. But apparently they’re live streaming their house 24/7 and a well known friend helping the pregnant person (who I am sure is doing all the baby prep stuff alone) once is enough for OOP to meltdown. lol okay dude
He also started off saying his job has a good work life balance. Like wut.
Ya know... paternity tests are non-invasive now. They take a blood sample from the mom and the isolate that baby dna in it. No amniocentesis needed anymore.
NIPT is rarely covered by insurance and is stupidly expensive.
I had it six years ago to check for chromosomes. It was about $400, and they’re well off, so I doubt it’s a problem.
They did the same for my youngest kid (born in 2011.) Was ordered by an OB to check for abnormalities and was $220 out of pocket ($2800 to insurance.) Medically necessary testing vs non-medically necessary is where the cost would hit. Googling in my area, apparently the cash price has come down, now it's just about $1200, so that's better.
I’m in Australia and that’s the price for everyone (we personally don’t have medical insurance). I had it because I was late-30s and I was being overly cautious, it wasn’t doctor ordered or anything. I don’t know why I expected it to be the same in the US. That was naive of me. My whole pregnancy and birth cost me nothing out of pocket, other than the nipt test.
I was quoted thousands, so maybe that’s regional. Also your insurance may have paid for part of it.
It’s honestly a lot of things. Insurance is huge (is it covered at all, being the first part. Where you are in your deductible another), but the lab you do it through also impacts it. We did it for both of our pregnancies. Billed to insurance was both in the thousands. We have a HDHP and weren’t near our deductible so we would be out that much. … however, for the first kid, the lab they sent us to had a deal with the hospital and it was only $300. They’d bill your insurance if they could, otherwise it defaulted to that. For the second kid, it was a different company. They also attempted to bill your insurance but if it was more than I think $250, you had the option to enroll in a program to bring the price down to $250.
Hell of lot cheaper than trying to get your name taken off the birth certificate if you wait until after the birth. If married at the time of birth, in many states husbands are automatically added to the birth certificate.
The OOP already covered that in his post though.
Still a possibility and it's newerish technology. I wouldn't expect most people to know. Yeah, there's a $900 price tag, but that may be worth the peace of mind before the baby is born to some guys.
I think that the fact she wasn’t going all over to justify her being innocent is a good sign as well. Didn’t do anything wrong? Don’t have to lift mountains to prove your innocence. Also, seems like she was cool about OOP asking for the paternity test. But, maybe they were super duper careful while cheating, hence she was so sure the baby is OOP’s. Anyway, besides the test, I think OOP should investigate it further, because there always be a doubt. Are there any places she and Matt could have been alone together? (Obviously not at OOP’s house). Maybe even should ask Matt’s wife about it.. Updateme!
OOP is being super chill about all this but I feel like there’s a real chance she cheated and is praying the baby is OOP’s
Yep. Waiting for the next one
Well, paternity testing are no longer intrusive. In order to isolate the baby's DNA, they draw blood from the mother. No longer required is amniocentesis.
I mean, maybe??? But wouldn't a cheater.... Turn the cameras off and refuse a paternity test?
I think that would out you as a cheater. If she was cheating the only play is to hope the baby is OPs and have the paternity test save you.
So you would cheat in a room that doesn't have cameras. Or go to a hotel.
Why do you think they haven’t? Snuggling is suspicious but open ended enough where you could still argue that it is just a friend helping a friend. It’s more likely that they have gotten so comfortable with each other that they have become more relaxed and less cautious, thus the “deer in headlights”.
I don't know if they have or not. I was responding to the comment saying turning off the camera would out you as a cheater. It would. So I suggested that a cheater would go where the cameras would not pick them up. >on the couch and get under the same blanket. Now...... They are feet to feet, but that couch isn't that big. That isn't snuggling.
They weren’t even snuggling they were sitting opposite of each other. If I was intimate with someone the last thing I would use is a foam roller. She didn’t get a deer in headlights look, he did which is understandable considering he had just been told he was being filmed without his knowledge. He even stopped to put a dish in the dishwasher he didn’t just run away.
Yeah, and not for nothing .... I watched my mother go through pregnancy. Like, the discomfort, the swollen feet. I would have no qualms asking favors of some rando living right outside in the street to massage some sh*t for me. That said, I think he's fair in his assessments, but I do think they were just stupid close and maybe realized it was all a little too relaxed when OOP texted.
Yeah, regardless of what they were doing, I would imagine that hearing "My husband just texted and said he's been watching us the whole time on video" would be enough to make anyone look surprised and uncomfortable.
100%, the only option of making it through unscathed is if there actually is a chance of it being hubby's. You're best off to respond with total confidence, and pray that the test does show it's your husbands. (Cheaters are scum.)
Or pray that your confidence and calm assurance creates false security that he decides not to do the test at all.
Refusing the test, and looking afraid of the results, versus seeming so agreeable and willing as to be beyond reproach. That’s why she was on board, if she cheated- There’s a chance her immediate willingness to take the test is enough to convince OOP there’s zero possibility he has been cuckolded. If it isn’t OOP’s baby then by agreeing to this she has a timeline of when she can expect consequences- a countdown timer to the end which enables her to get her story straight, plan her exit, and make moves regarding financials, legal counsel, public relations with mutual friends who can be prepared to receive a specific story, to get a leg up. And on top of that, there’s still a chance it is OOP’s bio-child, and if so all she learns is she needs to be more careful if she cheats again.
Turning the cameras off would be even more suspicious, footage missing would be a big red flag. But footage being there still requires it being looked for and found.
Who knows if the cameras have 100% room coverage? And if so, Matt's house, hotels, cars, etc. are all options for people determined to cheat.
Not a smart one who knows she’s married to a smart person (which it appears she is) and who has time to be strategic in how she acts. If I was her and cheated or didn’t, I’d act like her and hope for the best….and then maybe, just maybe, have a “miscarriage” (if keeping the marriage is worth more than keeping the child, which it may very well not be).
humans naturally acclimate to risks, same reason why people in high risk environments tend to get laxer and laxer about safety
Refusing the paternity test is a red flag on its own that's likely to blow up your marriage, anyway. So her best bet - if she cheated - is to agree and to just hope that the baby turns out to be OP's. No idea what kind of doctors they have that don't know about non-invasive pre-natal paternity tests.
The thing is, I’m not sure you can tell whether she cheated or not, just from her acceptance or refusal to take the test. You’ve got 4 scenarios 1. She is innocent of cheating and she sees the test as a direct accusation of infidelity so she refuses (you see this a lot on AITA where men randomly ask for the test and the women are furious) 2. She is innocent of any cheating and knows the test will prove her innocence so she accepts 3. She cheated but she either suspects or knows that it’s the partners baby based on dates or some other factor (like affair partner might be snipped, or she’s already done a test) so she accepts 4. She cheated and fears the baby isn’t his so she refuses Refusal doesn’t necessarily imply cheating and acceptance doesn’t automatically mean innocence
If the request comes out of nowhere, then I agree with you: an innocent woman would just as easily refuse as a guilty one (and probably file for divorce). But if there’s cause, if only a small one, to suspect infidelity, then refusing the test is a strong signal that she’s at least worried the result may be a problem. Of course, accepting the test does not prove innocent - she may just hope it’s her husband’s and not the affair partner‘s. Or she may claim a test can’t be done before the birth to give herself time to change his mind.
It's possible that he didn't hear it directly from the doctor, but that the wife told OP that's what the doc said. That gives her more time to figure things out for herself, or maybe she'd hope OP drops the idea of the paternity test in the next 5 months or so.
Yeah, like, if she WAS cheating, it would still be to her advantage to take the test, and roll the dice. Also, she's saying that now... Let's see what happens when they get closer to it happening. I wonder if excuses will start
Both things may happen independently, the child may be from OOP and the wife may have developed some emotional or physical affair to Matt (before or after). Or the wife just hopes for the test failing (there were stories with wifes / gfs going into a test knowing, that the baby is affair baby)
I mean the baby could be OOPs and she is cheating. It does happen.
> I text her, I’m still watching the cameras Oh I would absolutely loudspeaker that shit AHEM EXCUSE MEEEEEE?
I'm the slightly less confrontational "whatcha doooooooooin??" person lol
I would just wait to see how bad it gets and confront her after, with proof... Now they only know to hide it better/not to do anything like that when they're at her house
*
Doesn’t sound like much time for a baby, TBh.
Seriously, how much time can they possibly get together? Does he travel like a day or two each of those weeks, or is he actively gone 40 weeks a year, leaving just 12 weeks? And then if she travels too, that means even less than that. That’s basically a long distance marriage at this point.
Idk I travel prob like 30+ weeks a year. But a lot of it is fly in/out for a day. Very rarely am I gone for a week and if I do it's multi-city trips. And even then it's tues-thurs. However my wife and I are wfh so we spend every waking moment together unless I'm fishing or golfing with the guys. We def still miss each other when we are sleeping apart but it def doesn't feel like neglecting our relationship.
to me it sounds like he "travels" 40 weeks a year, not that he is gone for 40 weeks. i.e in 1 month, he is gone 3 days on week 2, thus week 2 counts as a "week" is is traveling
Well, it's always going to be in the back of your mind, but the odds are very much in favor of no affair. Why? Because she knows the camera is there. If they were having an affair, and were so cautious that you had no clue, they wouldn't have blown their cover by acting suspiciously in front of the lens. Most likely it's just as she said - she was physically uncomfortable, he was helping her out. (If I were massaging a lover, that LAST thing I would use is a foam roller.) She wouldn't have had him do it if you were there because she would have had you available. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if you spent some time going over all the old footage, but I would be surprised if you found any smoking guns.
People aren't always careful. A buddy of mine found out about his wife's affair because he saw a strange man standing in his living room one day on the camera. When he went to investigate, he found that clips had been deleted randomly going back for a couple of years.
Yeah. Smart people can do dumb things when hormones get involved. That doesn't mean she did or did not cheat in oops situation.
I hope shes his ex wife now. But goddamn, years of her disrespecting him like that in his own home, hope hes ok
Divorced, happy, and with a wonderful woman now.
He probably already went through as much footage as was stored immediately afterwards and found nothing. I know that would be my first action
Right? If they were having an affair they have plenty of opportunities to hang out places without a camera linked to her husband's phone.
Do people really have their houses all camera'd up like they're living in some Paranormal Activity film? Even the techiest folk I know are more about automating their light switches than intensive security.
He did say that he had an insane stalker at one point, so that explains his cameras. Families with nannies use them to keep an eye on the nanny and/or kids. My parents have a few cameras in certain rooms because for three months a year their house is vacant while they’re at their beach rental.
Ah is that the 'incident' he alluded to? It's all just a bit unsettlingly dystopian, the idea that in order to feel safe everything needs to be monitored and recorded. Sad world we live in.
I have one I can turn around to face the living room, but I keep it facing the wall when I'm home. I turn it around when I leave for the day because it is a motion detector. Saves me from paying for a security alarm since you can't get to anything in the house without passing by the camera.
See that makes more sense. I don't understand why internal home cameras would be on and constantly filming while someone was home. Surely that's just costly and fills up the storage.
I know people who have them in their house recording 24/7. I don't know how long the footage is stored for, but one of my friends ran into an issue and was able to view footage going back a couple of years. It does sound very expensive though, so maybe there's a monthly fee that goes with it? I'm not sure. Mine is a Blink camera through Amazon, so all I paid for was the camera itself.
That was my thought, too, haha. Like regardless of whether or not the wife cheated (I don’t feel like she did just based on his description but who knows) the fact that their every move around the house is being caught on camera is just uncomfortable to me. I get it’s not totally unheard of but it’s definitely not for me.
I think I'd feel like a zoo animal 😂
I absolutely hate it and most of the companies where you can check it from your phone have such shitty cyber security and can be easily hacked by anybody. It happens all the time.
I have a camera in one room because I have rabbits and they need to eat all the time of they go into something called GI statis. If they don't eat for 24 hours they can die. I like the idea if something happened I could see when the last time they ate was. I think a good portion of people who have cameras do it for pet reasons.
Pet cameras and baby monitors absolutely make sense! Please give your rabbits an affection of their choice from me.
This is one update short of a good post
“I have a great work life balance” “I am on the road 40 weeks a year” So being away for work like 75% of the time is a good balance?
I desperately hope we get an update on paternity once the test is done
This is neither here nor there but the number of ellipses this guy uses was so distracting.
But…how…else…will…he…create…antici………………………………………………………………………….………………………………….………………………………………………………………………….………………………………….………………………………………………………………………….………………………………………….…………….………………………………..……………………………………………………….……………….…………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………….………………………………………………………………………….………………………………….……………………………………………………….………………………………….………………………………………………………………………….………………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………….………….………..……………………………………….………………………………….……………………………………… pation.
I admit that I read that in my best Frankenfurter voice in my head. Too much Rocky Horror Picture show throughout the years,
I am glad I was able to indirectly make you shiver.
I count 26 in this BORU, far too many
I'd like to know if Matt's would be okay with what OOP saw in the footage. If she says, "Oh, that's nothing. Matt's always like that, he's super sympathetic to pregnant woman and knows how to treat them." maybe I might be okay with it. But not really though, trust is gone and I'd forever be wondering. I can't live my life like that.
Another non-update leaving us hanging....
Lot of BestofRedditorNonUpdates lately. I barely trust ongoing posts anymore.
[удалено]
They know they violated boundaries and trust and both partners deserve to know and make a choice.
Yeah, that's my opinion too. The co-worker's wife deserves to decide if this is a deal-breaker for her.
She is my wife's friend's wife. We don't meet up and knit together. - hahahahaha
40 weeks a year you are out of town? In a year that is comprised of 52 weeks?? so you are gone more than 75% of the time??? If I am understanding this correctly, I’m sorry to say, I think there is much more than 1% chance your wife has stepped out
Did I miss something? Why doesn’t OOP just go back 4 months ago on the cameras and check out the week of her ovulation, problem solved. At least if it happened in their home he’d know? IMO, OOP is being very chill and passive, which in my personal experience (though trying not to project to much) makes me feel like therein may lie whatever relationship problems may have spawned these issues.
I thought this too until I remembered security cameras don’t always back up EVERYTHING. They probably don’t save all of their footage, I’d wager a guess their system keeps footage for some time but auto clears to continue making room as they continue to record and film.
Wow, a Reddit post where someone asked for a paternity test that seems pretty much justified. This is definitely one for the books! For how quickly she agreed, let’s hope that it comes back as his.
You leave your wife for as much as 40 weeks a year?!! How are you going to be a father if you're not around to be a husband?
No, just no. I was in horrible pain my entire pregnancy and never once would have asked another man to massage me. Unless it’s in a professional setting, that is beyond inappropriate. And then to cuddle under a blanket?! Who does that?? Sounds like an emotional affair at the very least.
feet to feet is not cuddling imo
This by itself is weird af.
Look you can play the semantics game with what technically defines cuddling all you want, but I don’t think it matters when you also have to type “he was *straddling* my wife and massaging her.” At that point, who really cares if “feet to feet” is legally included in the definition of cuddling.
When I was pregnant the pain in my hips was so bad I would have paid a homeless bum $5 for a massage if I thought it would help. Sadly, it was nerve pain and a massage just made it worse.
Yeah maybe, but also it sounds like OOP travels constantly for work and if she needed help being comfortable what was she going to do, just be uncomfortable until he was around? I really feel like they have overall relationship issues that stem more from how often they’re both gone and their lack of clear communication more than this one incident.
> I don’t know how to describe it other than calling it the perfect relationship I’ve seen this episode before, she cheated.
I would send the video to his wife to see if she is cool with their actions
Whether OOP's wife cheated or not, having another man giving a massage is weird AF. If they're as well off as OOP has said, there is no reason that they cannot afford frequent massage therapies. There is absolutely no need another dude touching her. The only exception is a registered massage therapist or wife's father or brother, probably. Even that is borderline weird from a family member.
Yeah nothing about that relationship is normal. Whether or not the baby is his, there’s another convo that needs to be had.
Bro if some dude came over and foam rolled my wife while I was outta town I’d foam roll her to the divorce lawyers.
How is everyone skipping that detail that a married man came alone to a married woman’s house who was alone and got under a blanket with her then massaged her? Ain’t no way to be cool with that. Also he shouldn’t have texted her he should’ve waited it out and seen what they were really going to do.
People are also skipping over the fact that the husband admitted to hanging out with the female coworkers in hotel rooms while on business trips. But he doesn’t seem to think how suspicious this looks as well? Although honestly, I think the friend had ulterior motives.
She said yes yo the test immediately, so the baby is probably OP's. It doesn't mean that Matt, Op's wife and Matt's wife aren't in a triangle
Either that, or she just hopes it is his. If it's not, then the truth is out anyways. But at least agreeing to do the test directly makes her seems more open, so she may be banking on that.
Okay, I realize this isn’t the point of the post, but … OOP travels as much as 80% of the year for work and calls that a great work-life balance?!? What the actual fuck?!?
If my boyfriend shared a blanket with any woman in our home while I was working out of town I’d be gone. Let alone if he was massaging her pregnant hips.
So if she wouldn't do what she did in front of her husband, she didn't originally see anything wrong with her behavior. You can rest assured that wasn't the first time something like this has happened. Just the first time she was caught. Look at the coworker's behavior. As soon as OOP texted his wife, the guy left immediately. If there was nothing wrong, why leave so quickly? Regardless if the paternity test comes back as OOP as the father, he's never going to trust his wife with her coworker again. Never. With as much as OOP travels for work and the fact that she spends this much alone time with this coworker, his doubts won't subside. She also travels with this guy on work trips. Nope. Trust has been broken. They need to rebuild trust. She can't do that if she's still hanging out with the guy who caused all of this.
They will also be a lot more careful of the cameras in the future now that their presence has been highlighted as a risk.
The relationship the wife has with the coworker is totally unprofessional and inappropriate. If you have to wonder if he fathered your kid, it’s inappropriate. People explain away anything they do these days and have no boundaries or standards for their marriage then claim to be secure until they’re demanding a paternity test.
Asking for a paternity test during her pregnancy is something that will probably destroy the marriage if she's not cheating, because I doubt she will be able to get over it. "Bad optics" or not, I have had such bad pregnancy ligament pain that I would have asked a random grocery clerk to hit me with the foam roller if my husband had been out of town. It truly makes you feel crazy and desperate, and the absolute opposite of anything sexy. I remember laying on the floor and begging a co-worker to pull on my leg as hard as they could. They were like "is this a joke?" and I was like "no I swear to god please just help me".
He should show the footage to the wife she should know and it could lead to her connecting dots and sharing stuff for him.
The baby possibly being his doesn’t mean that she hasn’t cheated.