Man Says His Wife Threw Away the Only Video Tapes of His Late Wife — Then He Found Out the Box Hadn’t Been Where She Thought

A man on Reddit said his daughter’s 18th birthday was supposed to include something he had saved for nearly her entire life: old video tapes of her mother, who died when the girl was only 2 years old. He said he and his late wife, Cloé, had been together since college, married, and recorded little tapes during her pregnancy with their daughter, Eleanore. Some were sweet little moments at lunch. Some were them joking around. Some were just the two of them talking to their unborn baby. The plan had always been to show Eleanore the tapes when she turned 18.

Cloé died in a car crash caused by a drunk driver when Eleanore was still a toddler. The man said he went into a deep depression afterward and struggled with the idea of dating again because it felt like betraying her. Years later, when Eleanore was 13, he met Wendy at his sister’s birthday gathering. Wendy had two children of her own and had recently gone through a divorce, and the two eventually married.

As Eleanore’s 18th birthday got closer, he told Wendy he was excited to finally show his daughter the tapes. He said Wendy’s expression changed when he brought it up. According to him, she had always been uncomfortable when Cloé came up. He said he never compared the two women or told Wendy she should be more like Cloé, but he did talk about Cloé so Eleanore could have some idea of who her mother had been.

Wendy had told him before that hearing about Cloé made her feel like she could never measure up. Cloé had been a model and later worked in fashion, and Wendy had described herself as out of shape after having children. The man said he tried to reassure her that he loved her as she was, and after one emotional conversation, Wendy apologized the next day. She asked where the tapes were, and he showed her the box in his closet.

Then, when he went to get the tapes so he could put them in a nicer box for Eleanore’s birthday, the box was gone. He searched everywhere before going downstairs and asking Wendy where it was. He said she was lying on the couch watching TV and told him, with a neutral expression, that she had thrown them away.

He said his heart dropped. Wendy told him he talked about Cloé too much and needed to move on, so she had thrown away the tapes as a “head start.” The argument that followed was brutal. He said he was furious because Wendy had not only thrown away the last videos he had of Cloé, but also the birthday surprise he had been saving for his daughter. Wendy started apologizing once she saw how upset he was, but he locked himself in their bedroom and couldn’t even look at her.

He spent the next morning in his office searching through his computer for any old files or videos of Cloé he could still give Eleanore. He said his daughter sometimes cried because she never really got to know her mother, and he had thought the tapes would help her feel closer to Cloé. Meanwhile, Wendy kept texting him apologies, and some mutual friends told him to accept the apology and move on because Cloé had died more than a decade earlier.

But the story took a turn. The tapes were not actually gone. He later said they were at his mother’s house because the family planned to go there after Eleanore’s birthday dinner. The dinner went well, and he was able to give his daughter the tapes after all.

When he and Eleanore came home, though, the house was destroyed. He said furniture had been damaged, pictures were torn up, and the place looked like children had gone wild inside. Wendy and her children were gone, along with Wendy’s car. He immediately suspected Wendy, and he said he had proof because there were security cameras in the home.

Police were called, and Wendy was arrested, though he said she got out after three days. In the later update, he said he was almost done with the divorce process. The tapes Wendy thought she had destroyed had survived, Eleanore still got the birthday gift meant for her, and the marriage that had already been cracking under jealousy and grief appeared to be over for good.

Original Reddit thread here.