The sensational title for this blog: MY HUSBAND ALL BUT CHEATED ON ME! Real title: Dani is a pain in the ass.

Hi all...before I get started in on what a complete brat I am--a couple of people have asked for me to link my reddit account and email a1/gain. No problem at all--my reddit is: https://www.reddit.com/user/DecentData5441/ and my email is danniynnad@gmail.com

Bubs has taken some well-deserved crap over the past couple of weeks, but I always want to be fair and call out when I do something wrong—and yesterday was a doozey. I’m trying so hard to make my blogs more succinct and readable, but this isn’t going to be the one. I may run it through AI to see if it can clean up some of my grammar and spelling.

One of Bubs and my longest-running fights is over something that happened at Schlitterbahn when we were 15. Those of us from Central Texas like to think Schlitterbahn is a world-famous water park, but now that I've moved around a bit, I'm not so sure anyone outside the San Antonio-Austin-Waco corridor has ever heard of it. What I can say is that Schlitterbahn was a huge part of my summers growing up. It’s actually a really cool place—everyone I knew had season passes. Bubs and I went there on God knows how many dates while we were growing up. I loved it because it was a socially acceptable place for me to show off what I thought was my cute little gymnast body, and I got to see him shirtless in surf trunks.

The second summer we dated, we planned an all day date to Schlitterbahn—our first time going just the two of us. Every time before that, we'd had parents, my older sister, or church chaperones tagging along. I know I spent the entire night before trying on every bikini that me and my sisters owned because I wanted to look hot. And it worked—as soon as we got to our spot and got undressed to enjoy the water, he looked me up and down like the horny little boy he was. I loved the attention. And he looked equally as good.

It was all going great until three of the most gorgeous college-aged girls walked past us and ended up setting up their stuff just in front of us, in clear view. Bubs’ jaw may as well have hit the floor so hard that it could have broken his teeth. I very distinctly remember looking down at my little boobs, then up at one of the girls who was barely contained within a couple of postage stamps worth of fabric, and thinking I may as well drown myself on one of the slides—I could never compete with that. I wasn’t sure what to say to him, so I tried to shake him out of it by asking if I could buy him some Dippin’ Dots.

His answer is one of the reasons that I know I was a little afterthought and one of the reasons we still bicker about this incident 18 years later. He said, “Yeah, that sounds fun. Just a minute.” Not that the little ice cream pellets sounded good, or tasty, or sweet—no, he was so tuned out, checking out the butts and boobs of the girls in front of us, that ice cream sounded “fun.”

I said, “Wait, ice cream sounds fun?” That shook him out of his horniness coma, and he said, “Oh yeah, no, I mean sure, whatever.” Even though he knew I was there, he was still tongue-tied and even put on his sunglasses to hide where he was staring. He still claims he wasn’t as bad as I remember, but I think he stole glances at those girls every time we came back to our spot. I was so unsure of myself that I didn’t know what to say to him, and I must have acted like a raging bitch the entire day. Usually, I would’ve fought tooth and nail to make the day last as long as possible, but I watched the clock all day, counting down the minutes until I could get away from the situation... and from him.

His mom dropped me off, and even though I didn’t want him to, she made him walk me to the door. Again, usually, I’d be a mopey mess trying to sneak in every last touch before he went back to his mom’s car, but that evening I just said, “Well, bye,” and went inside—not even turning around to see the look on his face. Since I share everything with my sisters, I told them what happened, and they basically said that if he called that night to check on me, I should listen to his explanation. If he didn’t, I had to break up with him.

Well, he did call—and while I was being coached by my sisters in the background, we stayed up talking until 3 a.m. about how crappy I felt that he was checking those girls out in front of me. That six-hour phone call was just the beginning—we’ve had that same discussion about a hundred times over the last 18 years. Poor man.

One thing we’ve learned in therapy is that I enjoy being mad at Bubs. It’s part of our codependency—sometimes I see he’s not matching my mood, so I go in and purposefully dredge up something from the past to make sure we’re both surly and moody. And while this hasn’t come up in therapy, I also think that stoking the fires of jealousy really turns me on. I get to tease him about things like being 15 and so entranced with college-aged boobs that he forgot what ice cream was—then he has to fight for his life proving he really does love me. Yeah, I’m kind of a bitch.

We had the Schlitterbahn fight again yesterday—probably no need to say it, but we’re both 34 now, have been married for 11 years, and have three kids and three dogs. We own two houses, and Bubs wants me to start shopping for his surf escape beach condo in San Diego. And still, through my mix of jealousy/foreplay and unwillingness to let things go, I was mad at him for something he did when he was 15.

This didn’t come up out of the blue—and again, I’m probably overreacting—but funnily enough, yesterday’s fight started over a college-aged girl.

Needless to say, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been out of the house to do something fun. Yesterday was a very warm but beautiful day here in Tucson, so Bubs asked if I wanted to pack up the kids, walk around the university, and get lunch at one of the little restaurants near campus. I felt like an uncaged bird... I know, I’m a wild woman!

This was extra exciting because it was Ashley’s first outing of her entire little life, and I was ready to take about a million pictures. We got all the supplies and changes of clothes loaded up and headed into town. Walking around the university was really pretty. Commencement just happened Friday, so there was still an aura of celebration easing into a sense of relief. I’ve been so cooped up that going for a walk with my family felt like I was flying. The two older kids ran around, teased each other, and wrestled on the grass, while Ashley was very good—attentive to the world moving past her and taking little naps here and there. When everyone got hungry, we walked to a little spot just off campus where it seemed like everyone could get something they liked.

Ashley was hungry, so I asked the hostess if there was somewhere I could go to be out of the way. She took me to a quiet booth in the back of the restaurant while Bubs and the kids sat in one of the few open sections. Ashley ate like a champ and passed out in her adorable little milk-drunk coma. I got her settled in her carrier and walked up to the table to find...

The 21-ish-year-old server, dressed in a tied-back, threadbare UofA T-shirt and little more than cut-off booty shorts, giving my husband “fuck me” eyes. It couldn’t have been more obvious if she had mounted him right there at 11 a.m. I could only see the back of Bubs’ head as I approached, but in my deranged imagination, he was licking his lips and writing down his Snapchat handle so they could exchange nudes (he doesn’t even have Snapchat, but like I said, my imagination was running wild). As I slid past her to get Ashley settled in the booth between me and TJ, I swear she gave me a look that said “Challenge accepted, you old hag.” She curtly asked what I wanted to drink.

When she walked away, I asked Bubs if she’d been looking at him like that the entire time. He asked, “Looking at me like what?” These are the moments he’s so cluelessly adorable, but I still don’t know if I totally believe he doesn’t notice. In coded, kid-friendly language, I told him, “Um, she wanted you to glaze her like a donut.” He, of course, gave me a confused look and said she was just being nice. Then he asked if we were going to have one of “those” afternoons. I told him he knows me well enough—what did he think? He said I wasn’t going to let this go, and I said, “At least you know me.”

I take all the blame for days like this. Sometimes I don’t know if Bubs and I are having fun when I tease him about other girls flirting with him or if we’re actually fighting. I think it falls somewhere in between. I love that I’m married to a guy who gets googly eyes from 21-year-old college girls but I’m also insanely jealous, so I examine every single breath he takes, every eye twitch, every foot wiggle, to see if I can spot some planned infidelity. In a weird way, I think the jealousy turns me on. I think he enjoys these little spats too, because it proves I’m the crazy, irrational one while he gets to be the stoic scientist.

We did end up having a nice meal, but after every interaction with the server, I examined him up and down, and he’d get this exasperated look and say, “Dani, I know what you’re doing... I didn’t do anything... she’s just being nice... stop it.” Before we left, I tried feeding Ashley so she’d sleep on the drive home. I got immense satisfaction nursing his baby in front of the waitress that I was convinced was trying to steal my man while watching him hand over our credit card—like, try as hard as you want girl, this is my family.

On the drive home, Ashley and TJ both passed out, and Abby was totally engrossed in her book. I couldn’t help myself and asked, “So, was she as cute as the girls at Schlitterbahn?” I've asked that question so many times I know exactly what he's going to say: “Dani, you’ve got to be kidding me. That was in what year? What year is it now?” We’ve had this exact conversation a hundred times.

I said, “Well, she was cute, right? You can admit that. I won’t mind.”

“I didn’t even notice.”

“Oh my God, her shirt was so threadbare I could see the lace pattern on her bra.”

“I didn’t notice. Maybe you were looking too close.”

“Bubs, give me a break. When I walked up, her smile was ear to ear. I could tell she thought you were cute.”

“Unless something has changed, cute college-aged servers have way more options than a dad-bod nerd with two kids.”

“So you did think she was cute? And nice deflection—you know you don’t have a dad bod. But you do have a wife who’s still a fat waddling whale—she wasn’t that.”

“Can you stop?”

“Am I bugging you?”

“What do you think?”

“Do you think she would bug you as much as I do? Do you think those girls from Schlitterbahn would bug you? Probably not, huh?”

“Oh my God, Dani, those girls from Schlitterbahn could be grandmothers by now. Okay, I’m calling an official Lydia time-out—you need to give me time to process this.”

“What’s to process? Seems easy to me. You’re not being honest with your fat whale of a wife about the cute girl who wanted you to fold her up like a beach chair.”

“Officially in time-out—stop.”

It’s about a 45-minute drive from the university to our house, and I have to give Bubs credit—his time-out worked. I put my head against the window and passed out hard. Before I knew it, we were pulling into the driveway.

Later that evening, the guilt crept in about how unfair I’d been. Even if I was 100% right (which is doubtful) that the server was eyeing my husband like he was the hottest thing ever, he didn’t do anything wrong. I’d been waging a war in my head all afternoon because I can’t disconnect who he was a long time ago from who he is today. And not only that—I was tormenting him because it secretly turned me on. Instead of making it a flirty game we could both enjoy (and I’m not even sure how to do that), I wasn’t playing fair.

When we had a rare free moment, I approached him and said I was sorry for being such a stinker. I’ve talked about it before, but Lydia thinks one of our biggest hurdles is that Bubs never holds me accountable when I’m wrong. He just says he doesn’t need me to apologize and wants to move on. I told him that while I know I started it, I really wanted him to listen. I confessed everything I said above—I enjoy being mad at him, it turns me on that he’s the kind of guy who still gets hit on by girls in threadbare T-shirts, even in front of his kids.

He said none of it mattered and that he loved me, even though I’m a huge pain in his ass. I told him it did matter, and he can’t let me off the hook again. He asked if a boob and butt rub would at least get my mind off it until we could talk to Lydia this week. I said of course I'm going to be obsessing over it—but at the very least, I’d accept his gesture and shut up.

So, this is how spoiled I am—I started a fight with my husband over something he did 18 years ago and a girl looking at him that he had no control over... and I got a massage out of it. I am a very spoiled and lucky girl.

Sorry, Bubs. I love you to death.