I have been happily married to my husband James (37M) for a year. He has a teenage son from a previous marriage, whom I only met a month ago when he moved in with us for the summer. His son had been living with his mom in another state for the past two years, which is why I hadn’t met him before. Now, to provide context, I always change in my walk-in closet. Yesterday, after my shower, I headed to my closet to grab a dress. It slipped from my hands and tumbled to the floor. As I bent down to pick it up, I was startled to find a random phone sitting on a lower shelf, especially when I saw it had been recording for over 19 minutes. Since I had only just stepped into the closet after my shower, it was clear that someone had carefully placed the device there while I was in the bathroom. In a panicked state,
I rushed to find my husband.
The device didn’t look like any we owned, so my husband thought it might belong to our gardener, who’s the only other person with access to our property. When we confronted the gardener about it, heseemed completely clueless. While we were figuring out what to do next, the thought occurred to me to check the recording. Holding back my fear, I acted on the idea. Playing back the video, it revealed my stepson entering my closet, placing the phone among my shoes, and discreetly adjusting them to conceal the device (luckily, not well enough). He even repositioned one of my jackets to ensure an unobstructed view, clearly aiming for a flawless recording. As my husband confronted him, he started shaking, and in a tearful voice, he confessed to doing it because he needed money and wanted to find out where I kept my wallet. He admitted to using his spare phone for it. To my surprise, my husband simply asked him to calm down and sent him to his room.