AITAH for hating my wife’s creepy “hobby project”?

A Reddit user shares their growing frustration over their wife’s bizarre new “hobby project.” She has created a bulletin board mapping out potential neighborhood affairs, complete with photos and yarn connections, claiming it’s just harmless fun. Tensions hit a breaking point when the husband found himself included on the board. Now he’s questioning whether he overreacted by demanding she get rid of it. Read the full story below to decide if his reaction was fair or if he crossed a line.

‘ AITAH for hating my wife’s creepy “hobby project”?’

The article has the next update & final update at the end.

Okay this sounds insane but I SWEAR my wife is totally normal otherwise– which makes this so strange to me! For context we’re both in our later thirties and live in a pretty typical suburban neighborhood where we all know each other.

My wife has always loved trashy movies and shows about infidelities, and she eats up true crime about spouses killing their cheating partners too. She just says something about it makes her “morbidly fascinated” in her words.
Well, a couple months back we had a scandal in our neighborhood where a married couple in the neighborhood divorced because the husband cheated.

No, there wasn’t a m**der or anything like that, but she became obsessed with learning every detail from every neighbor. No matter the occasion, be it a baby shower or cookout, she would bring it up hoping there would be any new information. A month later is when I stumbled on “the board” in her home office.

I was doing some cleaning and I found a massive buletin board facing away leaned up against the wall. Curiousity got the better of my and I turned it around to find a literal f**king C**SPIRACY BOARD of all our neighbors’ pictures with lines of yarn connecting each other like the f**king pepe silvia meme.

I was totally confused and asked where what this was and she told me it was a hobby she had started recently where she would track rumors or likely candidates for cheating on the board. The yarn represented who was possibly cheating with whom. She had clearly gotten all the images on facebook or some social media and printed them out and even had a few sticky notes with “details.”

I told her this was creepy and insane and she said maybe if I was doing it as a man, but she is just having harmless fun as a hobby and she wouldn’t be crazy and try to oust anyone based on rumors, she just likes feeling like a detective. She told me to view it like a creative art piece.

I was still super weirded out but let it go, or tried. I thought about it a lot. Well every now and then I admit to checking the board when cleaning, but just a couple days ago I looked to see that now I was on the board with a yarn attached to a neighbor’s wife I am casual friends with?? I asked her why she would add me if she thought I was cheating and she said that was a different yarn color for potential “matches” for cheating?

She said if it makes me feel better she was planning on adding herself to the board soon. Well I got pissed and kind of lost my temper about it. I told her to get rid of the board or our marriage will be in trouble. Things have been super rocky since.

Sorry for the long post, I am starting to feel bad and it hit me more than usual this morning. Should I apologize to her? And before you ask, no, I don’t suspect her of cheating. Honestly I wish she was because it would at least make more sense than this. AITAH??

Next update: https://aita.pics/ENKig
Final update: https://aita.pics/HArIU

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

[Reddit User] −  I really couldn’t see it getting weirder until she mentioned adding herself to the board. This is a strange game your wife’s playing and it seems like an unhealthy o**ession with infidelity.

Good_Focus2665 −  NTA. I’m big fan of true crime myself and can be nosy about neighborhood gossip. But I would use my yarn to crochet stuff while I watch or listen to True crime YouTube channels. It’s absolutely creepy for her to print out pictures of her neighbors and then speculating about you and another neighbor. You don’t have to be ok with whatever your spouse does. I would have done the same thing if I were in your shoes. 

Tall-Negotiation6623 −  NTA. O**ession is not healthy and isn’t a hobby. She’s borderline stalking people because of some weird o**ession with the concept of infidelity. She needs therapy. I wouldn’t have stayed for a second if my husband did this creepy s**t.

Dipshitistan −  NTA. Your wife is weird as hell.

Turmeric_Ping −  NTA. That has a borderline stalker feeling. It’s one thing enjoying m**der mysteries and such, but this is unbalanced.

allroadshome −  NTA First of all you should mention to her that you and the people in your social circles are real people not characters to write weird fanfic about. The board is just straight up inappropriate, the thoughts on that board are what we call Inside Thoughts aka shouldn’t be spoken aloud or scrapbooked.

But really reinforce the part where it is absolutely insane to be so obsessed with the people in your lives and speculating everyone is cheating or otherwise a Cinematic Universe of true crime and her lack of shame about it Super Concerning. You also have to evaluate whether you’re okay with being attached to the town gossip (who also leaves obvious, creepy evidence of being the town gossip where it is easily found). Second: She mentioned adding herself to the c**ater board she is basically soft launching the idea.

Third: Since this post is about her making weird c**spiracy theories about real people let me toss one out here (in jest): what if she left it out for you to find and put you on there and said she would put herself on there to try and create some sort of weird true crime storyline in her own life? Like trying to push you to break or something? 99% sure this isn’t the case but also the pepe silva board is unhinged enough that like there is still that 1% chance.

ButtonsSnapZipper −  Change all the pictures to Nicholas Cage.

MkLiam −  I find this hilarious and would totally help her with the project. But no, you are NTA.

KiwiWiwa −  I think this is the result of boredom. But maybe she could write a novel or something 😂

[Reddit User] −  Dude. This isn’t normal like you said. I’d document all this. For real. If any of your friends or family or neighbours ever seen that. Lights out!!!! If my wife did this. I’d be very nervous around her. And I’d find the best divorce attorney I could possible find.

Document this. So she can’t contest anything. You can show everyone why. Don’t. Just make it amicable. Send the divorce bro. That’s my advice. She don’t sound well dude. She needs some serious therapy. Good luck man. I’m creeped out 😂