I Watched On Camera My Ex-Husband’s Hookup

He has no idea his Ring doorbell failed him.

Before anyone accuses me of getting click-baitey with my title, it was the best I could do given character restraints. I did not watch my ex-husband bone another woman on camera.

But…I saw stuff.

I blame my Ring doorbell. Or specifically, Joseph’s Ring doorbell.

My ex-husband and I share subscription accounts. It’s not different than our time married; he covered Netflix and Apple TV, I covered Hulu, Disney+, and the Amazon Prime account.

It’s helpful with the kids because their viewing history stays up to date between homes.

When I moved out, I learned the hard part of creating a new smart home while still having the old ones tied to my account. With my Arlo security cameras, I used a different email address and deleted his completely. Cue the part where he practiced some weaponized incompetence and I had to set it up on his phone for him.

Amazon products have been a bitch to manage. I can’t remove his Ecobee while still having my new one because it’s tied to my Amazon account. The same applies to our Alexa devices. I had to dig deep into the nether regions of my Echo devices to disable his units because I kept getting his package delivery notifications.

The Ring doorbell…it’s a whole other beast.

The app allows the setup of two different homes. It sounds good in theory until a software bug one week meant we heard the Ring Chime doorbell when someone rang the other person’s home. I did my best to turn off all notifications for both homes. No, Joseph hasn’t even set up the Ring alarm app on his phone. Right now it’s his expensive doorbell.

Everything seemed fine for weeks. Until I got a new phone.

With a new phone, the Ring app “forgot” many of my settings. When there was a motion on Joseph’s porch, my new phone displayed the notification. With so many apps to log in and reconfigure, changing the Ring app immediately was low on my list.

Well, it was low until a woman showed up on his porch.

It’s 6 pm on Monday. I’m getting the kids’ dinner ready. My phone flashes a small preview of the motion on Joseph’s porch. I ignore it, thinking it’s an Amazon delivery. I was also getting popups of people passing by my house as well since I hadn’t changed my notifications yet.

Fast-forward to 10:30 pm. I’m messing around on my new phone while the kids are snoozing in my bed. A popup with a screenshot of a woman on Joseph’s porch appears. Ring tells me “person detected”. Again, I dismiss it since he has a cousin in town.

Except…the woman in the tiny image has blond hair. His cousin is a brunette.

I click to watch the video in real-time. I see Joseph walking a woman out of his home into the driveway, assumingly to her car.

Waittttt…what? Is this the guy who texted me this weekend about how he missed me? How no other woman has measured up? That he still loves me?

Joseph is entitled to feel those emotions while still dating. I’m not denying that. It’s a whole other shock to see it. And I made sure to watch it all because I went back into the Ring recording history.

Rewind to 6 pm. Ring’s camera records well in daylight. A woman with long blond hair walks up and rings the doorbell. I’m annoyed that she uses her index finger to press it. The button on that model is stiff and warrants a thumb press.

Blonde Lady is wearing leggings, a random top covered by a long, leopard-print buttonless cardigan. She’s carrying a plastic bag of what I assume is dinner. Her purse is an oversized black satchel. As she waits, she tells Siri to set a reminder to call a nearby high school. Blonde Lady keeps tilting her head and brushing her stick-straight dyed hair with her fingers.

She waits patiently. I’m reminded of how awful Joseph is at hearing the doorbell and opening doors. I’m annoyed on her behalf. Dude, open the fucking door already.

Finally, he opens the front door. My curiosity is at peak levels. Will he grab and kiss her? Will I watch a makeout session? Why is this giving me anxiety and relief simultaneously?

Upon opening the door, Blond Lady lets out a laugh and apologizes for the short notice.

Joseph opens his arms for a hug. I forgot he did that hug. It’s the kind of arm-open-for-a-hug that a child does where the arms are raised up, not forward. I don’t see much of the hug itself as she walks into the doorway.

I hear him apologize over something related to a potential eye infection. Leave it to Joseph to show his hypochondriac tendencies on a date. He complained about his health so often that I kept an app on my phone that tallied the frequency of each type of complaint. Usually, it was his shoulder but sometimes it fell under general all-around crumminess. Today, I would add a point to the Eyeball Tally.

The video ends. What the fuck was that? Was this the first time they were meeting? Usually, when dating someone new-ish, there’s still kissing upon seeing each other. Who goes to someone’s house for a first date and why did he let her buy dinner to bring in a plastic bag?

I jump to the 10:30 pm video. Ring doesn’t do well this late at night. It switches to black and white recording mode.

The door opens and she steps out, then turns around to wait for him. She’s still brushing her hands through her hair with a tilted head. He mentions walking her to her car. Blonde Lady tells him it’s not necessary. Joseph makes a wisecrack about potentially sketchy people in his driveway then laughs at his own jokes.

I hated when he did that.

He closes the door and as he walks her down the porch steps to the driveway, he puts his hand around her waist. It’s a very couple-y thing to do.

Did they have sex? She’s leaving fairly early for a boning session, but then again she stayed for four hours. Blonde Lady doesn’t have the disheveled appearance one has after hot and heavy sex. Then again, Joseph isn’t skilled in the bedroom.

My brain wanders to the house. The house that was once my house. They ate in the kitchen that I designed and oversaw the construction of for months. They made out on the couch that I picked out because the leather fabric was kid-friendly and fit perfectly in the prior home.

Joseph can’t clean to save his soul. Did he have a cleaning person come that week? Did he wipe the gunk off the mirrors and scrub the toilet? Did he vacuum? Or did Blonde Lady walk into the house looking like someone threw a bomb on Toys R Us as he normally keeps it?

I didn’t know Joseph before we dated. I’ve only known him in a romantic capacity. Seeing him get handy with another woman is hard to describe. It doesn’t hurt. It feels like…if I saw my dad put his arm around another woman. It was weird. It looked wrong.

It dawned on me the next day who Blonde Lady reminded me of: Shaina from Love is Blind Season 2.

It turns out, I didn’t have to wonder about the state of the house. As I get my kids ready for school the next day, I see my son’s shoe has a massive hole in it. Of course, Joseph didn’t notice that when he had them all weekend. I keep two sizes up of shoes for my kids but they’re at Joseph’s house since he has more storage space.

I text him to say that I’m swinging by after I drop the kids off to grab the shoeboxes. Joseph says I can use my key to get in because he’ll be at a doctor’s appointment.

My brain rushes to think of all the things I left there that I keep meaning to grab but is too awkward the odd time I’m over. I grab my reusable bags from the car and walk in.

The place is clean. By “clean”, I mean all the piles and piles of hoarding shit are pushed along the walls of every room. The carpet looks vacuumed. I look at the couch, trying to imagine him making out with someone while action figures and Legos are shoved around the fireplace.

Looks like Joseph made the effort to tidy the place. More than he ever did when we were together.

I sprint upstairs, unsure of how much time I have by myself. There’s stuff in my former master closet, which is accessed via the bedroom. I look at the bed, wondering if they fucked in it. The California King bed that I slept in 99.99% by myself after buying it when my second kid was born. He got the bed and I took the rest of the furniture in the room.

In the corner is a basket with some of my stuff, including my childhood stuffed animal. Oh Georgie, I’m sorry for what you may have witnessed. Sadly, I can’t take you with me because I don’t want it to be obvious that I went in and took more of my stuff.

I would be a horrible robber. My nervousness to grab what is unquestionably mine (like a pair of boots or photo albums that I worked on) makes me stumble over things.

With each visit to that house, it feels less and less like it was mine.

When we were stuck living together during the pandemic while divorcing, Joseph moaned and complained how no one else would want him. Not sure why he didn’t see that was a weak argument to get me to stay. He bitched about his hair loss and his car.

I took money from our savings account (which I badly needed to bank up so I could take half upon divorce) so he could get hair transplant surgery. I offered to buy him a new car but thankfully, he didn’t take me up on that.

I bemoaned social distancing and mask-wearing because I couldn’t hire a woman to flirt with Joseph when he went grocery shopping. I believed that if women paid enough attention to him, he’d stop clinging to our marriage as his last chance for love.

Hopefully, faux-Shaina appreciated his new hairline.

Joseph calls later to ask about tickets for a theme park we’re going to this weekend. Why are we going? Because his cousin is in town with her family. The brunette cousin that I originally thought was on camera. My kids begged me to tag along.

“Did you get the shoes and books from the house?” he asks. “I had to go to the doctor because I think I scratched my eye or something. He had to give me drops.”

Yes Joseph, I know your eye is irritated. I heard you talk about it before letting faux-Shaina into the house.

I immediately go into the Ring app and turn off the notifications for his doorbell. While I’m stoked he’s getting out there in the dating world, I don’t think I want to see him dating quite yet.