I Noticed Something Off About My Houseplants. Now, I Want A Divorce

"My sister and her husband and her husband's dad came over this afternoon and they've changed the locks."
Close-up of green Aeonium tabulaeforme with all leaves open
Mario Marco via Getty Images
Close-up of green Aeonium tabulaeforme with all leaves open

In a recent Reddit post shared with r/RelationshipAdvice, site user u/r/ThrowRA_Necessary_22 shared a post about some changes she’d noticed to her houseplants.

“I have many, many houseplants and even some that were quite expensive and were gifts from my sister,” she explained in the post. But in the last six months, “at least a third of my plants have died.”

The poster has kept plants alive all her life and knew that the diseases that killed them didn’t come from over- or under-watering or poor light access.

“They just died very suddenly,” she said. “I tried to not let it upset me too much because plants die and it was not any of the expensive ones, until now.”


Then, a truly treasured plant died

Her sister had recently given her a beautiful (and expensive) five-leaf Monstera Albo plant for her birthday ― which she woke up to find dead days ago.

“I was crying pretty hard about it,” the poster understandably said.

So, to literally get to the root of the issue, she unpotted the plant to see what had caused its death.

“I was looking HARD at this plant and roots to see if its death was pest-related and that’s when I noticed a smell,” she revealed.

“I sniffed my potting mix and I smelled bleach.”


The poster realised her husband must be killing the plants

“The only other adult person in my home with unlimited and unobserved access to my plants is my husband,” the woman shared.

So, she spoke to him about it. And while he denied it at first, he eventually admitted that yes, it was him behind the bleach-based herbicide.

“I started crying,” the poster said. “I asked him why, why would you do this? You know I love these plants why would you destroy them? He didn’t really answer nor did he really apologise.”

She then said that she’d lost all trust in her husband and part of her felt like just ending the relationship. And later, when she sent her husband out of the home and texted him again about this issue, she said “his exact words were that I deserved to be knocked down a peg.”


That wasn’t his only calculated offence

Since finding out about the bleach, she also snuck into his office and found a drawer full of their daughter’s treasured dollhouse toys and furniture.

“She takes such good care of her toys, but something always ends up missing and it’s always my husband who notices,” the poster said.

“He lectures her about keeping track of her things and how he won’t let her play with her dollhouse if she keeps losing things. He keeps going till she starts to sob.”

“My husband won’t be welcome in my home anymore and I need to find a lawyer ASAP on Monday,” she added in the update.

“My sister and her husband and her husband’s dad came over this afternoon and they’ve changed the locks,” she ended.

“I’ve texted him to tell him he isn’t coming back and that he can come on Saturday morning to grab his essential things but that my bro in law and another man would be there to watch.”

People were on the poster’s side

Some commenters were worried about the poster’s safety because of the calculated, prolonged, and frankly creepy nature of the cruel acts.

“Sheesh, I’d worry about what he’s putting in mycoffee,” one commenter said; another commented, “Not only was it calculated but carried out over time over multiple instances. It’s super creepy and he’ll escalate to pets and humans eventually.”

“The cold calculation is the part that gives me the biggest ick... sociopathic to be sure,” yet another said.

What do you think?

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