My husband's crush

   It's so natural. I have watched my parents discuss it. I heard my grandparents joke about it. These crushes we get, because when you get married, (as much as I wish we both could and would), you don't go blind to all other attractive people. I think there is some danger in religion that tells you that you must never have any sort of romantic or sexual feelings outside of your marriage. So when it does happen, because let's face it: it happens all the time, good people cheat because they think it means something more than it does. "If I'm not supposed to feel this way and I do, it must be because God's telling me I'm supposed to be with that person, right?"
   At least, that's my theory.
  But growing up with parents and grandparents who so obviously loved each other, who would openly talk about other people they found attractive, softened me towards the idea that no one gets married and stops looking at the sexy barista the same way you always did.
   I copied my nanny and pointed out sexy women to my husband, the way she used to with her husband. I copy my mom and admit there is a level of attraction with my husband's friend. And by talking about it out loud with the man that I love, it never lingers long in my brain, floating away like the silliness that it is.
   It doesn't come as easy to my husband, as most things that have to do with romance and sexuality. But over the years, more and more, he has opened up and embraced his sexual side and talked about his attractions with me.
   One story imparticular amused me to no end. He told me he went to get lunch at a local smoothie place. They are notoriously long with making the food, and he had forgotten to bring his phone in and had nothing to do. So he sat there watching the young pretty girls work in their tight pants and midriff bearing shirts, looking at cute butts. I thought it was adorable, natural, and all too familiar.
   I feel that I have set this precedence. With my open-mindedness, my communicative tendencies, and my desire to propagate healthy relationships with one's sexuality.
   Enter The Flower.
   It started out as half-hearted mentions of her name, always with a "Miss" at the beginning. Expressions of miner annoyances. Then turned into complaints. Oh how obnoxious. She thinks she's so funny. Everyone loves her so much. She wears clothing that's too tight for her job. She's always flirting with the new airman. She's married but spends way too much one on one time with the new guy. Along with the occasional comments on her looks. She was hot.
   A friend saw some people from my husband's office working a booth at a street fair and asked them if they knew him. They gushed about how nice he was, how charming... She didn't catch their names, but said one was older and the other was absolutely gorgeous. I mentioned this to my husband and he said, "That's The Flower."
   These complaints began to really take the form of a crush to me when I went out of town for a month and half. He had mentioned spending some time with her. Casually. In the background of other conversations so it didn't seem sketchy. Because it wasn't sketchy. They're both happily married, plus she's got a fling on the side with a coworker already, so really, she's too busy to pay him any attention, and why do I keep bringing her up anyway?
   A few phone calls over an afternoon, him complain about his loneliness, missing me, missing our daughter. He texted a photo of grilling me with a caption of, "This is what I'm doing this evening!" And nothing else. I finally call as I'm putting our daughter to bed to see if he'd like to say goodnight and as soon as he picks up he says, "Oh, I have the flower and coworker over for dinner." All day he could have told me. The picture of him grilling their dinner, he could have mentioned it. But he chose the moment where I might overhear them on the phone to give me a casual mention of the whole story.
   I tried to dismiss it. I was patient and kind and got off the phone. And obsessed on it for the rest of the evening. 10 came. I called again, thinking the guests would be gone and I could chat with my hubby for a little while. They were still there.
   The obsessing doubled. I opened up about why I was being so quiet to my sister. She was equally perturbed. I texted and asked him to call when they left.
   11 rolled around, no call. 12. Nothing. 1:30 in the morning and I finally called him. THEY WERE STILL THERE. He said on the phone, "It started storming and we're just snuggled up on the couch with the dogs waiting for it to blow over." I hung up on him.
   I was livid. I asked him to text me a picture, proving the coworker was actually there and he wasn't just hanging out with the flower alone. He did. But I could see her knees in ripped jeans were sitting awfully close to MY HUSBAND. I hate those knees. Her jeans are stupid. I hate her stupid feet resting on MY FLOOR with her boney little butt on MY COUCH playing cards with MY HUSBAND.
   They left shortly after, as my husband told them I was uncomfortable. Thanks, dear. Now I'm a psycho and they KNOW I'm a psycho.
  Because I WANT to be the cool, calm, and collected wife that is confident and chill and knows that her husband isn't up to no good and that realizes there is a perfectly good explaination for everything and that at most it's just a little crush! A crush on a sexy girl from the office that I have nothing to worry about because she's married, and he's married, and I'm fine. Fine. FINE, I TELL YOU.
   But I'm not fine. I'm not cool or collected. I'm an insecure mess because I know I'm not my husband's physical ideal. I'm not really anyone's physical ideal. I used to be chubby-thin but now, I have blossomed into a saggy stretch-marked fat version of a girl who used to be cute in high school. Now I have too many chins to be cute. I'm not unknown anymore. I am the same-old-same, getting older and more stretched out and less ideal every day. There's no excitement because we've been married for 4 years, together for 6, and he's seen a baby explode out of my body in a mess of blood and liquid and I am no longer the pale secretive peach of perfection I once was.
   He apologized. He had a million great reasons and explanations. All of them made perfect logical sense. But my logic wasn't hurt. My emotions were. My pride. My trust. My defenses shot up and I felt as though this was the precursor to a sad ending of my love story. (That would be my flair for the dramatic, I suppose).
   Life went on. We talked every day. One lonely day leading into another until he could drive out and meet me in Cali. He filled his days with anything to distract from being alone in an empty house. He tried Yoga, he told me. I encouraged him and I tried to forget about The Flower.
   He surprised me by showing up a day early and we were thrilled to be around each other again. We visited with my family and then went up to see his. And I tried not to think about her. I tried not to feel like the disgusting creature every insecurity I had was telling me I was. I faked it a lot. But one night I felt it... I felt the pull to investigate.
  So while he was sleeping, I took his phone and I went searching. I searched through everything.
  I do not condone this behavior. If you feel the need to snoop, three things can happen: You find something and it breaks every ounce of trust you have, You don't find anything and feel like an idiot. Or you find something small... and blow it way out of proportion.
   Can you guess which happened to me?
  The small thing was texts from the flower. Asking him if he was going to meet her for Yoga. And going back further, plans for the night she was coming over for dinner with the coworker. And random gossip about someone they worked with. Nothing dating as far back as when I was home. It was clear they had only started texting while I was gone.
  He hadn't mentioned she was the one pushing him to go to Yoga with her. He had also made dinner and game night seem like a last minute impromptu thing.
   I sat there with this information, laying in the dark next to my sleeping husband, trying to figure out what this all meant.
  It was a crush. An innocent, nothing crush. I knew that. The problem comes in... with the sneakiness. And the sneakiness stems from the "It's nothing" mentality in order to ignore the slight guilt that you shouldn't want to spend time with someone who isn't your wife.
   Again. This was all just my theory.
   But there is another spiraling part of me that thinks about the fact that people do cheat. They do. Good people cheat. Bad people cheat. People who get caught up in, "It's not that bad" for so long, they're ignoring it when it turns bad. People in good relationships cheat. People in bad relationships cheat. And I couldn't quite stop myself from wondering, what if I'm in a good relationship... but he's in a bad one?
   I woke him up. And we talked for a long time. He said all the right things. He admitted that I was probably right about a lot of my conclusions. That he had a crush. That his complaints came from a wish that she showed him more attention. That he avoided talking to me about it because there was nothing to tell... Even though there kind of was. But it's just a meaningless crush. He'd never cheat. He'd never leave. He'd never hurt me. He wants me and only me.
   I lost trust that day because I found out instead of being told. Because lying to me was easier than just an uncomfortable conversation. I felt more insecure than ever.
   You know what's really difficult about being married to someone you're completely in love with? You are totally vulnerable. And I think that vulnerability is kind of beautiful. It's kind of sad. It can make you stronger or make you weaker. I am stronger than the day we got married. But I am also so much weaker. There are pieces of my self-esteem that he had annihilated, and pieces he has built up to be stronger than ever. I'm forever being changed and chipped and built back up. And I'm sure I do the same for him. I have hurt him. And I have helped heal him.
   It's been a while since that late night conversation. I have brought her up in vengeful ways. I have needled and picked at him. I have annoyed myself with my inability to keep my mouth shut as I come out with biting comments.
   He rarely has a comeback. And he never answers my scorn with his own. But he doesn't try to sooth me either. I don't know if he knows how. I don't know if I would let him, even if he did.
   But now there's a night out coming up with the people from his office. And he has told me that she wants to meet me. She thinks I don't like her. I've only ever seen her knees through ripped jeans in a photo... so the only reason she could possibly have come to the conclusion that I don't like her is from things he's said. And I hate that. I hate the idea that he has spoken to her about me. It might just have been about things he said that night. The night of the dinner, I mean. But she's hung on to them as much as I have, apparently.
   And for some reason, her nagging him to get me to come to the Speakeasy seems to be winning over my desire to stay home with my baby. And he keeps telling me to find someone to babysit that night.
  I don't want this. I don't want any of it. I don't want to think about it or worry over it or blow it up to be bigger than it is. But I already have. I don't want to look at her or meet her. I don't want her to try to be my friend. My husband thinks she's hot. That's enough reason for me to want nothing to do with her. I just want to leave this base. Leave the crush behind. And not have to share him anymore.
  Not that I'm sharing. He doesn't text her. He doesn't text anyone really. He doesn't mention her. He doesn't act happier certain days or name drop ever. I'm just tense, and broken and vulnerable and insecure and I hate it.

Best Thing Ever

There is no such thing as "clean".
There is only tidy for a little while.
10 minute naps or the luxury of 2 hours, I bustle.
Putting away.
Sweeping.
The occasional mopping.
Dishes thrown into the dishwasher.
But soon she's up again.
Toys recently put away are flung hither and yon.
Not played with exactly, just flung about like abstract art installations.
Much more fascinating to her are the drawers.
Drawers filled with baking tools,
Utensils,
Pots and Pans.
Cabinets with lids and Tupperware.
Opened and spread like peanut butter on toast
These are the things that hold her interest.
And soon, my tidy house is chaos again.
"I think we're disorganized" he says.
"Why are there hair ties all over the floor?"
These questions feel like judgements.
The house
And the child
And the dogs
And the meals
And the cleaning
And the cats are my "one" job.
Why can't I do it "right"?
I know he doesn't mean it.
I know it's my own insecurities.
But a whole day of deep cleaning and after dinner, I feel I have nothing to show for it.
There are toys all of the living room.
The couch and pillows and throw blankets are in disarray.
Laundry all fluffy and warm and clean sits in baskets waiting to be folded and put away.
The bathroom is soaked from a boisterous bath.
Dishes from dinner fill the sink and leftovers need to be put away.
All the work that took me all day seems undone and my soul just feels crushed.
He got home at 5:30, happy to compliment my hard work,
Quick to notice all my chores that got done.
But he leaves again at 7 to go for a run,
So I eat alone with our daughter,
Feed the dogs.
And give her a bath.
But he gets home and volunteers to get her ready for bed.
One weight feels like it's been lifted away.
He suggests I take a bath.
Another floats skyward.
Lounging in my liquid lava, I hear dishes being done
And tension in my neck disappears.
I get out once the water turns Normal Human Warm (too cold for me)
The bed has been made with sheets fresh from the dryer.
Every muscle in my body is loose.
"I folded all the laundry..." He says from behind of his comic book.
I am completely jelly.
I cannot believe it.
It's like a dream has come true.
I go and look and see that there is not a dish to be found.
The food is stored in the fridge.
Piles of our daughter's laundry is stacked on the couch.
The dogs are put to bed.
And he's about to get the night. of. his. LIFE.
Best. Thing. EVER.