What started as minor complaints escalated into an ultimatum, forcing him to question everything he thought he knew.
The past couple of months, my wife has been complaining about our cats. She’s been claiming that the cats wake her up constantly and that she’s frustrated every night that she “has to get up and open the door for the cats” or “the cats keep making noises” or “the cats keep jumping on her.” It got to the point where she started saying she wants me to get rid of them.
I told her I’ve never seen or heard any of this, but she claims I sleep through it all.
She kept telling me she was getting less and less sleep and kept acting aggressive, blaming lack of sleep from the cats, and that if I didn’t get rid of them, she’d leave me. I legitimately started considering giving the cats to my sister, until I noticed something.
One morning she claimed she had gotten up multiple times throughout the night to help the cats. She listed a bunch of times. I thought it was weird, because I had been up until 4am, and she claimed that she “got up at 1am to open the door for them, and a few times around 3am because they were meowing and jumping on her.” I was in the bedroom the entire time while she slept, and I know none of that happened.
Things weren’t adding up, so I decided to run a test.
I waited until she said she was going to bed, then I let the cats out of our bedroom, lowered my phone brightness, and faked going to sleep. I just laid there in bed for the entire night, bored, but I definately did not fall asleep. I made sure to make timestamps every 30 minutes on my phone through Discord just to be sure.
I marked down every noise my cats made. One cat had jumped down from something and made a little sound at 3:18am, and one ate food relatively quietly by the bedroom door at 4:57am. Other than that, nothing happened.
Sure enough, my wife slept from 11pm until 9am, and that morning she claimed she had woken up “at least 7 times” to open doors and from cat noises and cats jumping on her. At this point I was pissed because she was clearly lying to me. I was exhausted and fed up with the lies, so I just bluntly called her out on it.
I told her, “That’s funny. I stayed up all night to monitor the cats, and they weren’t even in the room at all last night. I have timestamps and everything. So you’ve been ***lying*** to me and trying to convince me to get rid of my cats? Why?” She just sat there quitly shaking and looking pissed, then got up and left without answering.
She came back hours later and ignored me whenever I talked, and when I asked her how **I’m** the bad-guy in this situation, **she finally said that I was treating her like a child by lying about sleeping and staying up all night just to see if she was lying or not** and that making timestamps and everything as if I was an investigator was “going too far” and makes me an obsessive asshole.
I did it because she was threatening to make me get rid of my cats or she’d leave me, and her claims didn’t add up.
So, am I an “obsessive asshole?”
**UPDATE:**
My wife has been Baker Acted. She did not hurt herself, just said something concerning in public.
I got a call from the hospital this morning, asking me to head over for some “family therapy.” Apparently she finally wanted to talk.
I’ll be honest, I’m pretty pissed at the reason why she’s been so hateful towards my cats. It’s absolutely asinine.
It’s nothing that anyone had suggested. *She’s not cheating. She’s not sick physically or mentally. She’s not bored of the relationship and looking for an “out.”*
According to her, ***one of the cats stepped on her laptop and ruined a story she was writing.*** She’s hated both cats ever since. I mean that sucks, but it’s not worth trying to emotionally blackmail me into getting rid of them.
I asked her why she didn’t just tell me the truth and why she’d been lying and refused to talk about it when I’d asked. Her answer was “Because you wouldn’t have gotten rid of them otherwise.” and explained that when she saw I wasn’t willing to abandon them for her, she took offense and made it a “goal” to have me pick her over them.
Sickening. Don’t know why she actually admitted to it all.
The woman with us asked me how I felt about all of it, and I just told the truth. I told her it was a nice run, but I’m ***probably*** going to want a divorce. I was asked why, and I told them. I’ve seen a new hateful, malicious side of her that I want nothing to do with.
She was so set on getting rid of the cats over a *fanfiction* being ruined that she manipulated her husband.
My wife started shouting at me that I’ve betrayed her and that I’m “scum” for choosing animals over her. At least cats don’t give ultimatums like she gave.
It sucks that she’s been Baker Acted and all I guess, but it’s for the best right now. She’ll have time to process it all in a safe environment and hopefully come to terms with it. Bad husband, I know.
I’m almost sure I’m going for divorce. I’m very worried about having her in the same house as my cats. I want my cats safe. I don’t want to worry about them being harmed or “disappearing.” Screw that.
I guess I’ll do what almost all of you suggested: “Keep the cats, rehome the wife.” Not how I *wanted* it to end, but life isn’t always nice.
**If I may, I want to clear up some things from the original post:**
***I did not stare at her all night.*** We have a mute TV with subtitles playing every night. I subtly watched TV while paying attention to the cat sounds.
***I’m not allowed to install cat doors, and she won’t let me keep the doors open.*** Apartment rules.
***Why did I instantly assume she was lying?*** I’m unfamiliar with mental health/diseases. I know about some diseases, but ones that make you think your dreams happened? Tumors that make you see/hear/remember nonexistent things? Sorry that I wasn’t aware of those possibilities.
So when someone tells me events happened when they literally didn’t, I generally assume they’re lying. Shame on me.
***If you want even more context/questions answered, simply go through my comment history.***
Conclusion
In a shocking turn of events, the wife’s irrational hatred for the cats stemmed from a destroyed fanfiction, leading to a marital breakdown.
The husband, prioritizing his pets’ safety, is now considering divorce, proving that sometimes, it’s the most unexpected reasons that shatter relationships.
Here’s how people reacted:
Wishing you all the best
Well she’s gone for now.
By that, I mean I kicked her out of the house.
Why? Because she’s been in the bedroom for hours now, watching youtube, refusing to talk to me about what’s happened. A few minutes ago, one of the cats started meowing and scratching to get into the room. Within seconds of him doing that, she ran over to the door and kicked it really hard and screamed “This is all your fault. Fuck off.”
It scared the shit out of the cat and he hid under the couch. I opened the door and asked her what her deal was, that it could have hurt the cat, and she said “Good. Fuck the cat.”
So I told her to get out of the house and go find somewhere to stay for a while. She tried to cry her way out of the situation, but I told her I had enough. I’m done. She had every opportunity to talk to me, and now she’s screaming at the cats and kicking doors and scaring them. I tried to listen and offered help, but she wanted none of it. Too late.
As she was leaving I told her she can call me when she’s calmed down and willing to talk. I’m just so drained at this point. I tried.
I gave her a chance to talk before all of this, and she insisted there was nothing to talk about. I may not have handled it the most mature/healthy way, sure, but I tried. Maybe this can be fixed, maybe not. I had hope a few hours ago, now I just…whatever.
I’m so sorry.
I think I’m done replying for now. Just so much going on. So much to think about. Too many trollish comments and messages, too many people coming up with conspiracy theories, too many people who can’t read or bother to check my comments. It’s all so tiresome.
Life is fun, though.
Get a lawyer, because you are about to need one.
But, unlike some other redditors, I’m not going to say get rid of the wife. My first thought here was whether your wife might have a problem sleeping and staying asleep. I know you said that she slept all night, but what looks like sleep may not be it.
For the longest time I thought it was my cats that were waking me up at night. However, once the last of them had passed over the rainbow bridge and I was still having this issue I knew it was something different. I *thought* I was sleeping all night, however, I actually wasn’t. I tried all sorts of sleep tests, etc. I figured out what was my issue (my mattress was so old and with the arthritis I’ve developed I kept waking up from the pain without realizing I was waking up.)
Next time ask your wife if you can observe her *sleeping*. See if she has sleep apnea, or some other sleeping problem that could possibly be disturbing her sleep. Sometimes small almost imperceptible gasps could be her breathing has stopped during her sleep and that can disturb the sleep cycle. See about getting a sleep study done to rule out any problems or issues. Yeah, I know she says she physically gets up to let the cats our or something, but that may be some sort of sleep/dream/barely awake state. I’ve had moments where I felt like someone was staring at me. It felt very real but obviously wasn’t.
Also, this whole “sneaking around” to prove one’s wife is lying seems to be really prevalent. I don’t understand why spouses just can’t be honest and say, “Fine. I’ll stay up to see what’s going on” rather than sneaking around like this. It feels like a lie and I’ve seen this before many times on this sub. Still think NTA, but actions like this just reek of dishonesty. That’s why your wife is responding the way she is, because this really feels really dishonest and like you’ve tricked her. Instead of talking through what the problem might be you tricked her. She’s lost some trust in you. Hell, I would too. My husband and I don’t do things like this. We believe each other and then investigate to see what’s really going on.
Unless she’s looking for an excuse to leave you but wants you to be the one to initiate the break up? Or she just doesn’t like the cats. Those are the only 2 reasons I can think of.
She’s a manipulative liar who is trying to make you get rid of your cats. Pets are not accessories, when you adopt them, it’s a lifetime commitment. Do not traumatize your cats by giving them up for this awful woman.
shes lying to manipulate you, has she ever talked to you about not liking the cats? That would not excuse it but im just …. i dont get why shes doing this. I would have done what you did do, pets are family and you are just trying to do whats best for yours before making a major choice.