I found my husband's blog post that made us reddit "famous"--one year ago today. Here it is (with my comments).

Like so many of my posts--this one deals with sexual assault, please read with caution if that may bother you! This is also a long one--sorry in advance! Today marks the one-year anniversary of my husband making a Reddit post that would change our lives forever. And yes, that’s a dramatic way to start a blog—but it’s not untrue. I’m not “internet famous” in the way someone becomes after a drunken outburst on an airplane or a viral TikTok dance—not even close. But for a wife, mom, and teacher from a smallish Texas town, I went from worrying about summer camps one day… to having tens of thousands of strangers call me a slut and a whore the next. So no, my “fame” didn’t last in the public sphere—but it shaped me in ways that will last forever. Before I dive into the blog that started it all, I want to reflect on where we were then—and where we are now. I think it’s a great example of how sometimes you really do have to walk through fire to come out stronger on the other side. On June 24th, 2024, we were a couple who—after years of familiarity (we’ve been together since we were 13)—had grown distant, combative, and stale. We were basically roommates who had robotic sex every fourth night and shared a deep love for our kids, but not much else. On June 25th, 2025, I would say we are as happy as we’ve ever been. We’ve had hard counseling sessions. We've had spectacular date nights and knock-down, drag-out fights that woke the neighbors. We snipe at each other online like internet trolls. But we have passion again. I get butterflies when he texts me “on my way home” (which he does every day he’s at work) because I know in 26 minutes, he’ll be walking through the door. And that’s just the emotional reality. We also have a 10-week-old baby. We’ve moved across the country, away from our childhood hometown. We’re stepping into a new chapter—together. So… was Bubs posting that blog a good thing? Honestly, I don’t know what else could’ve triggered the change we needed. I didn’t enjoy being the central villain in a viral story, or reading comments from strangers saying I deserved to be r*ped or killed. Oh the comments about my 10 week old baby needing a DNA test seem to kind of mean spirted and not coming from a place of genuine concern. But in a twisted, roundabout way… yes. It was a good thing. Reading his post now, I can see it clearly: it was my husbands long simmering emotions boiling over in a way that allowed his fears to take over. It was a a cry for help. I wish he’d told me what he was feeling instead of putting it out for the world to interpret—but the end result was the same. We are here. Together. Of course, I can’t gloss over the fact that I was sexually assaulted. And the reason my actions seemed suspicious enough to him that he feared I’d cheated… was because I was walking around with the shame and self-doubt of a married mother of two who had trusted someone she shouldn’t have. Do I wish he had handled it differently? Yes, of course. But after reading what was on his mind for the first time in over a year, I’m much more sympathetic to where he was coming from. I don’t want to preface his blog too much—I think it’s more powerful to let it speak for itself—but there are a few things I should explain. For reasons still unclear to us, the Reddit accounts we both used during that week were banned. So I actually found his blog on a YouTube channel that reposts AITA content. I used a transcription tool to convert the audio into text, and there were a lot of minor errors I’ve cleaned up. Bubs has read through it and agrees this is as close to the original as can be found. Without further ado—here is Bubs’ blog post from June 25th, 2024, including the three edits he added as things escalated (with the help of my sister-in-law). I’ll add my commentary throughout.

One thing I want to clarify upfront: I had remembered this post going live while I was still in Mexico. That surprised me. I even went back and checked my flights—and sure enough, I had arrived back in Texas on June 24th. We had our first fight that evening. I don’t know why my memory distorted the timeline that way, but I want to be honest that are regular readers: some of my past blog timelines might be a little off--but the content is still accurate to the best of my knowledge. AITA for suspecting my wife of doing something awful at her friend’s bachelorette week in Mexico? She spent virtually zero money and took no pictures. I am in the middle of probably the biggest crisis of my adult life and I can barely think, so I apologize in advance if this comes across as really weird or rambly. My wife went to Mexico last week for a friend’s bachelorette party. Aside from the plane ticket, the hotel, and the first day’s food and drinks, she didn’t spend a penny all week — I mean, on the credit card. It’s as clear as day that on Monday, staying up until about 9:00 p.m., she was buying dinner stuff at the hotel shop, drinks at the bar, souvenirs — and then at 9:00 p.m., she didn’t spend another cent the entire week, until she was at her layover airport in Dallas. She says it’s because her friend took over and paid for everything. I guess this is plausible, but it still is giving me a funny feeling. So most of this is true. I do think it was a stretch calling it a bachelorette party because it was really just me and two other women, one of whom was getting married at the end of the summer. But it was during that first night that I realized that their and my goals for the trip were very different. They wanted to literally stay in their rooms and sleep. It was the first time I had ever been on vacation away from my kids and I had visions of swim up bars, going on excursions, swimming in the ocean etc.. I think it was because of this difference in expectations that kind of made me an easy target for the man (who was also having issues with his friend group) to sit and talk with me–when they went to bed that night, I felt very alone and like the entire trip was a mistake. What is worse is that my wife is a person who posts her entire life on Instagram and TikTok — mostly Instagram — but if she does anything from getting a latte to picking the kids up at school, she will post it either as a picture or as a story. The last thing she posted on TikTok was that trend of people jumping into their vacation from the airport, and after that, her social media is blank. I was kind of keeping an eye on it because I was excited for her to go on the trip, and again, I guess it’s plausible, but it gives me a funny feeling. So this is one of the things that so many commenters keyed in on when this post first went live–and I don’t want to call Bubs a liar here but I was not nearly as social media addicted as this paragraph makes it sound. I did make that trend video that was popular last year where the Elvis song plays and people “jump from” the airport to their destination and I did post it–only it was terrible because there were 3 of us in the San Antonio airport and one of me “landing” on the beach in Mexico. I think it was up for a week and then I removed it because it was sad. But no, I never was the type that posted “every latte” and “every pickup.” When she got home, I said, “I can’t wait to see all the pics she took,” and she really blew me off and said that she just didn’t feel like taking pics that week. So while I love my husband–this is not at all what we talked about when I got home. We had a horrendously silent ride from the airport to home where I panicked about telling him that I had been sexually assaulted. In my brain, I literally played over every scenario of how he would react and how I would explain it when he did react. We drove in silence for about an hour–and he knows–I an not a silent person so it was really bothering me that he never once said “hey you are quiet, you ok?” So what is true is that by the time we got home I was charged up and ready for a brawl. After we got the kids fed and it was just he and I at the table what he did ask me was “hey can I see your receipts from the trip?” Of course now I know this was code for “it’s suspicious that you didn’t spend any money on the entire trip.” What I was thinking is “holy shit, I have just been through one of the most traumatic things I’ve ever been through and you’re worried bout your Quicken entries?” I absolutely did blow up at him–it was kind of continuation of a fight we’d had at the airport as I was leaving and I absolutely told him I didn’t ever want to hear about receipts again She has also been incredibly distant, and last night, she said she just felt like sleeping on the couch because the AC hits better. I swear I heard her talking on the phone in the middle of the night. When I got up to check on her, I accidentally tripped over the dog and made a huge racket. When I got downstairs, she appeared to be asleep. Again this is accurate–I did sleep on the couch that night, I know in the middle of all the reddit drama, he was convinced I was talking to the guy from Mexico–I was actually was talking to my friend Ashley who was helping me figure out how I was going to tell him what had happened to me. I brought all of this up this morning and said, “I’m not accusing you of anything, but all this put together is making me feel uneasy.” I wasn’t trying to bait her or fight with her — just get my feelings on the table. She said, “You are a major [expletive] for bringing this up on her first day back at work.” I said I wasn’t trying to pry, just communicating with her. She said, “Your communication is prying and I am not discussing this with you ever again.” She then took the kids to summer camp and left. So this fight I don’t remember–I’ve asked Bubs about it and he says it happened more or less this way, I remember most of this conversation taking place the night prior and I left mad in the morning but not yelling at him or calling him an asshole. It’s very possible that his memory is better here but I’m not sure. Edit: So, I realized that her texts probably sync to her iPad, so I just checked. It took me a while to figure out the passcode, but I did. There was an iMessage at 9:15 the night she got to the resort from a number with no contact info that said, “Okay, I’ll meet you in the lobby.” “Is the app you said Signal?” I looked up Signal, and it’s kind of like WhatsApp. The iPad doesn’t have Signal on it. So again this is Bubs version of events but for the most part they seem accurate. Well I’m not sure why the dramatic flair over figuring out my passcode–I have had the same passcode on all my devices since I’ve had a fliphone and we use each other's stuff all the time. I’m not sure why he felt like he had to be a detective. I would have shown him whatever he wanted and if he felt like I wasn’t going to, he could have unlocked my phone when I was in the shower. But I do think it’s important to go deeper here because the Signal thing is something that people still use as confirmation of my guilt. I met the now infamous man while my friends and I were at the bar–he acted like some sort of authority on the resort as a whole. He asked for all of our numbers and told us that texting is sometimes unreliable, but we could download an app called Signal which will work as long as we are on the hotel wifi in case we wanted to get in touch with him. After my friends left, I went up to my room and I actually called Bubs–and spoke with him. We were both still agitated about the way he dropped me off in San Antonio but I wanted to hear his voice and let him know I’d arrived safely. Had he been willing I would have stayed on the phone with him all night because I missed him. This is when he gave his now infamous line of “look, it’s your vacation, it’s ok if we don’t talk this week.” His tone was far more “leave me alone” than “I’m so happy you get to spread your wings!” So after I hung up with Bubs I texted the man “hey I’m headed back to the bar, is the App Signal?” Edit two: If you have been following my comments, you’ve seen that my sister is coming over. She’s an insane internet sleuth and is relentless when it comes to this cheating stuff. She also scares me a bit, so I’m hoping this isn’t a mistake. I’m going to probably stop responding for a while so we can talk and she can do her thing. I am numb, but she can do this. Thanks for everyone in the nice comments and the reality check. It’s not looking good. So this is again true–and something I’ve had to reconcile with Bub’s sister, Addie, because in the end, she is one of my best friends in the entire world. She did get to the bottom of MOST of everything. In less than an hour she had created a catfish account of me, sent the man messages, found out his name, got him to say flirty things and, if I recall, even invited "me" for another vacation. I don’t know his motivations for having that conversation with “me,” but my guess is that if “I” was contacting him he felt like he was off the hook for what he did to me in his hotel room. Maybe it was a huge relief to him that I wasn’t going to go to the police or worse. I honestly don't know but that’s what the Signal messages between he and Addie (again “me”) read like. Now I say Addie got to the bottom of MOST of everything. Of course the man didn’t say anything like “hey when I pinned you down and pulled your bikini bottoms to the side…” So she was having the conversation still going on Bub’s impression that I had cheated. Now the conversations on his part never indicated that there had been any physical consummation of any type--it was more or less a run down of the things we actually had done–the parasailing and the ATV trip as well as the hour one afternoon where we sat on the beach of this little lagoon together. He did of take a creepy shot of me walking to the water which I didn’t know about–and he seemed oddly proud of it when he was texting with Addie (as me). No doubt that added fuel to Bubs fire. When Addie found out the truth of what actually happened, she was pretty horrified that she had been a party to it and that Bubs had misrepresented things to her as well. Edit three: She cheated. My sister was able to get lots of info from the real estate guy. My wife denied it at first but then admitted it.Sorry it took so long to update, but I’m numb. I have literally zero idea what to do now. She didn’t even deny it — just stated she’ll never discuss it again. So this is surely the edit that sealed my fate as being a forever reddit “whore.” And again, I love my husband with my whole heart but the truth of this is this wasn’t just a “she cheated, she admitted” situation–this was about two days worth of conversations where I had divorce and financial separation papers shoved in my face and told I had to sign them or I would never see the kids again. I was so numb by what happened to me that I didn’t know whether I was coming or going and the person I needed the most at the time was on a detective mission to prove what he should have known would never be in my character to do. Instead of just asking me “hey you are really quiet, what’s going on?” He and his sister created fake accounts and engaged in whole conversations with a man that quite literally assaulted me. Unfortunately, this edit doesn't have a date on it but I think it was two days after his original post–and there was a period of time where I felt so much shame and so much guilt and was being bombarded with life changes happening at light speed–I honestly felt like I had cheated–I guess maybe in the purest sense of “no other man should ever touch me,” I had. I don’t remember actually telling him “I cheated, I admit it.” I do remember posting on a reddit infidelity group that I felt like I cheated–but I was so desperate for anyone to open the gate and let me tell my story, I felt like that was some sort of entre to find some common ground on this new world of reddit that I was just discovering. Maybe he saw that post and that’s where he got his “confirmation” to make this edit. I do know that he went out of town less than two or three days after I got back–and it was with that distance that we finally started to find some common ground. Addie had taken our kids to get them away from the fighting and my sisters and mom had taken my dad to Houston to see a heart doctor. I remember sitting in our relatively large house and it felt like a cold empty cavern and I just had to talk to my husband. I felt like such an idiot because he must have had 100 missed calls from me, every time his voice mail would pick up it shattered me a little bit more. I killed the time by posting on reddit, fighting for my life in some instances and finding little pockets of support in others. While he was away, Bubs found his own group of redditors who were willing to peel back a few of the layers and lay it on the line that his version of events weren't making a lot of sense and maybe he needed to revisit some things. I know he called me from his trip shortly after. And that’s when I told him the details of what actually happened. I actually don’t want to talk about his reaction because that’s his story to tell but I do know that I finally felt there was a little bit of a breakthrough and he was showing me that he cared. While we were definitely on the road to recovery, it was still pretty tense when he got back. I think I needed him to treat me normally and he approached me like a delicate piece of porcelain who was already chipped and any more would cause me to fracture. His behavior caused me to question whether or not he truly believed me–and all this with an undercurrent of how distant we had become over the previous year. I think even with everything Bubs had learned he was still 50/50 if we were staying together or not. Perhaps again ironically, it was the meetings with the divorce mediator that helped us break the log jam. I believe those meetings were two hours long and the forced businesslike atmosphere required us to speak to each other without emotion. She talked very matter of fact that we were effectively financially separated and we needed to figure out who was going to move out of the house and by the time that meeting ended we needed to have a tentative custody arrangement. I know those words hit me like a shot and I assume they did him too because out of the blue he told the mediator that he needed a pause and asked me if we could back off from the brink. I told him that can’t possibly imagine ever being apart from him. I know the mediator told us that maybe we should take a break that day and made sure we scheduled the counseling portion of the mediation package we had paid for. I really wish I remembered what we did after that appointment–I wished I could say we went home and made passionate love and expressed our undying need for each other. But in reality I think we went to Wendys because we were both starving and then went to pick up the kids from Addie’s place. It all seemed so normal–and perfect.

I don't know quite how to end this particular blog...other than this is what started it all and we are still here. I little older, a few more bags under the eyes but we are still together. As we always should be.