Invasion of privacy is more than just crossing personal lines; it can also break trust and even cause extreme fear. Recently, a wife had a similar experience when she found an intruder’s phone in her closet. She rushed to her husband for help because she was so scared, but he didn’t respond in a caring way. In order to get help, she wrote a heartfelt letter online and asked for advice on how to handle this tough situation.

“Hi,

My husband Eric (38M) and I have been married for a year and are very happy together. During his last marriage, he had a teenage son. I met him a month ago when he moved in with us for the summer. I hadn’t met his son before because he had been living with his mom in another state for two years.

To set the scene, I always change in my walk-in closet. I went to my closet to get a dress yesterday after taking a shower. It dropped to the ground because it was slippery. When I bent down to pick it up, I was shocked to see a phone lying among my shoes on the bottom shelf of the closet. I was shocked when I saw that it had been recording for more than 18 minutes. As I walked into the closet after taking a shower, it was clear that someone had put the device there with care while I was in the bathroom. I rushed to find my husband because I was scared.

My husband thought it might belong to our gardener because it didn’t look like any of the things we owned. Our gardener is the only other person who can get into our property. When we told the gardener about it, he didn’t seem to know anything about it.

I had the idea to listen to the recording while we were discussing what to do next. I ignored my fear and went with the idea. When I watched the video again, it showed my stepson going into my closet, putting the phone between my shoes, and then carefully adjusting them to hide it (luckily, not too well). He even moved one of my jackets out of the way to make sure he could see clearly. It was clear that he wanted a perfect recording.

When my husband confronted him, he started to shake, and he told my husband in a tearful voice that he did it because he needed money and wanted to know where I kept my wallet. He said that he did it on his extra phone. I was shocked when my husband just told him to calm down and sent him to his room.

I told my husband I didn’t want his son to ever come back to our house again because I felt deeply upset. But he defended him by saying that his son had a mental illness after they split up that made him steal things from stores all the time. He was trying to explain away his son’s bad behavior by saying it was because he was emotionally unstable. I begged him to get his son some counseling and suggested that he go back to live with his mom until he gets the right help. He didn’t seem to care about my worries, though, and insisted that his son stay with us for the whole summer as planned.

It breaks my heart to think about living with someone I can’t trust. When I finally lost it, I told my husband that it was either me or his son in the house, and then I stomped off to bed. My husband had already left for work when I woke up this morning, but his son was still asleep in his room and didn’t seem to be fussed.

Because he didn’t care about how I felt, I started to wonder if I was overreacting or if I really did feel unsafe in my own home. I don’t know what to do when my husband gets home from work. I would really appreciate any advice you could give.

Sincerely,
Iris”