Search icon

Life

17th Nov 2023

‘Am I wrong for putting a tracker on my wife’s car?’

Trigger warning: This article discusses gambling addiction

Anna Martin

tracker couple

Would you put a tracker on your partner’s car?

One husband did and now he’s turned to Reddit to get people’s opinions about his actions after uncovering a harsh truth.

Explaining the situation he wrote: “Wife and I have been together for 25+ years and she’s always done the bingo thing with her Mom.

“I have no problems with that and they’ve been doing it for years and years. Maybe once or twice a month, again, no problem.

“Her mom has always been a gambling addict and it caused the divorce of her first husband and she wiped out her second husband’s bank account within a couple of years. So I’ve always been a bit leery on the whole gambling thing. I’ve seen it destroy families. (her mom lives with us now.)”

girlfriend
Credit: Getty

His wife seemed to fall into a gambling addiction 15 years ago, confessing her problem to the Redditor when he noticed money was going missing from their shared account.

After years of struggling together, they seemed to work something out as the husband explained: “When we were going over our tax returns it turned out she owned $6k in taxes all from the casino.

“We went over the whole gambling / financial problems again and she shook my hand and promised that she would stop.

“Fast forward a few months I bought a tracker online. One that I could put on my tractor (I let friends borrow it and want to keep track of it in case it gets stolen) and the kid’s car since they’re turning 16 soon I wanted to keep track of them.”

To test it out he put it in his wife’s car and forgot to tell her, so when she said she was going out shopping with her mother, he decided to track her on the app to see did it worked.

This is where things began to go wrong: “I had the tracker for a few weeks and decided to try it out. Well, they went straight to the casino instead. I wasn’t mad but was definitely concerned.

tracker couple
Credit: Getty

“I felt guilty for ‘spying’ on my wife so I took it out and never said anything. However, curiosity killed the cat and I threw it back in her car a few weeks later. This time on purpose and hidden.

“It’s been a couple of months and they’ve been at the casino at least twice a week. Not the bingo hall but the actual casino.”

He confronted her about her gambling and she denied she was going to the casino but he explained he tracked her and now she’s threatening divorce.

Now the man wants to know if he’s in the wrong for spying on her in the first place.

Well, his fellow Redditors seemed to take his side with one commenting: “Marriages and families have been destroyed by far less. I couldn’t deal with even a tenth of what you have been living with.”

Credit: Getty

Another added: “The only shocker is that she was the one who brought up divorce since I doubt she wants to lose her personal ATM. Your wife needs help that you aren’t equipped or trained to give.”

“You didn’t even put it there on purpose the first time, thing is you found out an ugly truth that alone is more important than placing a tracker or not,” penned a third.

READ MORE