A husband has opened up about how he was left gobsmacked and feeling queasy after stumbling upon a secret folder of images on his wife's tablet.
Gutted by his discovery and left confused about how to tackle it with his other half, he took to social media looking for advice.
The man, 36, explained that he'd met his wife Bailey* nine years back through some mates and they clicked straight away. Sharing all, he said: "I fell absolutely head over heels with this woman, she was everything I was looking for.
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"I had just gotten out of a toxic, abusive, long-term relationship right before that with a woman Bailey had been acquainted with, but not friends with. I had her blocked on everything and had no contact with her since breaking up."
After dating for several years, the pair tied the knot in 2021, bought a house together, and recently had their first child. He gushed: "I'm having a blast being a dad, it's kind of a dream come true. I finally got my happy life with my perfect wife. My perfect wife! Until last Monday."
Delving into the nitty-gritty, he explained that his laptop had broken so he borrowed his wife's tablet to finish his task. He wrote: "She wasn't home, it was just me and the baby, but we've never asked permission to use each other's devices, we've always been open like that. There's nothing for us to hide. That's what I thought.
"When I opened up the internet I noticed she had the 'incognito' tab open. Never in a million years did I expect to discover what I did. My wife has a secret Google account with a photo album saved called 'XX'. So I clicked on it. Did I discover an affair? Nudes? Nope.
"In this Google album were over 300 photos (348 actually) of MY ex. The woman I was with right before I met Bailey. The woman who tormented me and made me feel worthless. The album said it was started back right around the time Bailey and I started dating, and was updated as recently as two weeks ago.
"The photos range from candid shots with family, to pictures at her work functions. There were even pictures from her YEARBOOK, I don't know how Bailey could have found her high school yearbook photos. Photos from vacations, ID photos from work, pictures of her in crowds, screenshots of videos, and screen recordings of videos. Just her. The other people in the photos would be scribbled out, or the photo would be cropped and zoomed in just on my ex."
In a chilling twist, it emerged that Bailey had been eerily mimicking the ex-girlfriend's style, right down to her hair and clothes. He revealed: "Bailey had recently started wearing her hair differently and my ex had a very identifiable hair type. There were also different links to the exact outfits she was wearing, like very specific blouses and trousers you'd have to really go looking for to find, a specific water bottle I remembered her purchasing, and identical hiking boots and sandals."
The man was deeply disturbed upon realising the extent of his partner's secret obsession with his ex, stating: "Basically, my partner of almost a decade has been secretly stalking my ex to the point of buying her exact clothes and changing her hair, and now I'm starting to realise Bailey's new interests over the years were just my ex's. Bailey has turned herself into my ex."
Expressing his sense of betrayal and shock, he added: "Everything feels like a lie. I threw up and had a panic attack. I looked at our daughter and felt betrayed. I haven't confronted her yet. I don't know if I want to. I want to run away with our daughter. I want to print out all her pictures, leave them on the table, and disappear. I don't know what to do."
The dramatic tale left Reddit users shocked, with one saying "Holy cow. That definitely is alarming. The best thing to do is address it now to see what'll change if she no longer has someone to replicate. The toxic side of me would slowly start mentioning things like, 'You know, you really do remind me of someone'. And nonchalantly bite into an apple and walk away."
*Names have been changed for privacy purposes.
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