The Most Embarrassed I Have Ever Been aka The Worst Thing Paul Has Ever Done aka The Time I Almost Murdered My Husband aka The Thing That Happened and Made Me Feel Stuff aka Why Marriage is the Best and Worst Decision I Have Made

When Paul and I decided to get married, we read 2 or 3 books together on preparing for the ups and downs of marriage. Financial woes, losing family members, disagreements on how to raise children, disagreements on every conceivable thing....or so I thought. No amount of praying or bible study or literature could have prepared me for most of the bumps in the road, including but not limited to....

THE MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT OF MY LIFE (probably).

Anyone who has ever lived with me or camped with me or just known me long enough knows I’m pretty comfortable with my body. I’m also a fairly modest dresser. Minus the occasional deep v-neck or low cut shirt, I don’t show a lot of skin or try to attract attention to my body. I know I’m not perfect and I have thick parts and untoned parts and could-be-bigger parts...but I am comfortable with what I have around people I’m close to. I can vividly remember my mom having to have a talk with me during the summer between 3rd and 4th grade because I liked walking around the house naked as the day I was born and she didn’t feel like I was young enough for it to be okay anymore. Basically, being naked in itself is not a horrible thing to me.

I’m not really sure how to say this.... I have no problems with other naked people, naked drawings or paintings (I seriously paint or draw naked women more than anything except trees), naked art in general. As an art major, I have to take an entire course on human anatomy where I’ll be working with nude models, and I look forward to it. I personally feel that photos test a boundary because the line between something being artistic and something being pornographic is microscopically thin. And I also think a nude photo is something that both the subject and receiver should be prepared for and consenting of. You can’t “un-see” something you didn’t want to. As comfortable with myself as I am, I do not want a naked picture of me (on a mediocre iPhone camera, nonetheless) floating around somewhere. 

Several weeks ago, I had been changing in our room and, in no rush to reclothe myself, was talking to Paul. The lamp in our room was at an angle that made my entire silhouette stretch across the wall in a way that was pretty neat. Paul picks up his iPhone and tells me, “Let me take a picture of it (the shadow).” I say, “Fine, but JUST the shadow.” Since Paul is a male and also an enjoyer of pranks in general, he decided to take the picture of JUST me, not a trace of silhouette whatsoever. It should also be noted here that I had recently purchased the phone for Paul as a Valentine’s Day gift and he was still getting used to the settings on it. Some evil idiot at Apple decided that it would be great to make a feature on the iPhone that automatically uploads a picture from your phone to Google +. Worst. Feature. Ever. I spent the next 5 minutes having what I am now positive was some sort of stroke or mild heart attack that has taken at least 3 years off of my life. Paul ensured me that the photo was deleted not only from the Internet, but also from his phone. We spent a good chunk of the evening discussing why taking nude photos on our phones (even as an innocent joke) was a horrible idea. Someone could find the phone and see it, a friend or family member could be curious about the phone and start to play around with it and see it, etc... So many ways for that seemingly innocent fun to go horribly wrong. 

So that happened and was terrible and scary....but that is not even the worst thing that happened with that picture. 

This is where Paul becomes Clark Griswold and I become Ben Stiller in “Meet the Parents”....

We had (Paul’s) family visiting. Some went snowboarding, some went to the zoo. Paul was one who went to the mountains. When everyone reunited in the evening, Paul decided that it would be a great idea to hook his iPhone up to the giant (in my head now, that television is the size of the side of a house) 60ish” tv. My genius, engineer, computer whisperer husband (who swears he deleted the naked picture) did NOT delete it. Not only did he not delete it, but now he has broadcast it on a large screen in front of all immediate family. 

I went into what I now understand to be shock. I don’t remember anything from the time it happened until I walked out of the house. I just know that I somehow grabbed my purse and keys and left. I know that I texted my best friends, I drove and met Ally in Orange (I don't remember that drive at all) and decided I was going home with her to Long Beach. I know I went to BevMo and spent $35 on alcohol because I have a receipt. I know I slept at Ally’s. I know she made me delicious stew. No conversational details. No time frames. I remember thinking frantically, bargaining with myself, God and the devil: “If I just die as I’m driving up to Long Beach, I won’t have to deal with this. If Paul and I get divorced and I move to a different country, I will never have to talk or think about this.” (I wasn’t seriously considering a divorce, btw, that was just the trainwreck of thoughts as my judgment derailed). Even though this happened earlier this week, it is all one, big humiliating blur. Sometime around Tuesday it all hit me and I almost started crying out of embarrassment for myself and anger for my darling, dead-man husband. 


Paul tried to ask what he could do to make things better. 
"No one will ever talk about it, I promise." He said.
"That's so awkward, that's worse than talking about it!"
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No! Talking about it is the worst. EVERY SCENARIO IS THE WORST CASE SCENARIO. Every option is equally the worst."

I have a sort of goal for myself that no matter how angry I get, I will never stay the night away because I am upset. We’ve been married for 20 months, and there have been a couple nights where someone has slept on the couch (married people fight, the first year is the hardest - engaged or wanting to get married couples, seriously, do not take these facts lightly. I can not stress enough how much you need to consider that the person you want to marry is going to make you lose your shit all the time.), but no one has ever left and not come home. This week I broke my own goal/rule. I am not proud of it, but it felt necessary to cool down before I attempted to communicate. Usually when I get really upset with him, I picture one of us suddenly dying and what I would want our last words/interaction to be. For the first time ever, that did not do anything for me. I could not speak to Paul, I could not look at him, I could not bring myself to physically be under the same roof as him, I literally felt sick to my stomach every time I thought about confronting him. In the last 8 years that we have been in each other’s lives, this is hands down the WORST thing he has ever done. I know it could be worse, he could empty our bank accounts in Vegas, he could be unfaithful, he could be a bad person in general. But to me, LITERALLY exposing me in front of people I’m not nudity-level comfortable with AND that I have to see and have a relationship with for the rest of my life....that. Was. The. Worst.

Since my traumatized state left me seeking answers from peers (Paul seemed surprised that I talked to so many people right away, but I can guarantee you that the conversations I was having in my head were much more embarrassing than the ones I had aloud with other people), I spent a lot of time asking people what the hell I was supposed to do now, how I was supposed to act, will someone please Kevorkian me. I love my friends to pieces, and I got some amazing answers from them...

Some people shared equally humiliating stories with me, and I can not thank them enough for convincing me you really do make it through it without dying of self-induced spontaneous combustion.


"That's it? A nude photo? That's not so bad." It's pretty bad. 

“Well at least you’re hot.” Was said several times. Hot does not equal not completely mortified though.

“What were you doing? You were just standing there? Oh, that’s good you could have been doing something really bad. Or in the act of...” Hahahaha... Why are you even messing with your phones or cameras in the act of anything? 

My friend Mark changed my contact name in his phone which made me laugh for the first time since the incident. 

And several people pointed out that I’m lucky to have a husband who loves me and my body and might have possibly fibbed about deleting a photo of it just so he could keep it. (That most definitely does not get him off the hook, but it’s strangely sweet to think about)

I've tried my best to have a sense of humor about this, because let's face it - that's my only option at this point. Ironically, this whole ordeal happened over my spring break, which makes me feel like some sort of unwilling Girl Gone Wild (or Girl with Low Self-Esteem for any AD fans out there). I decided as reparations that I am getting a new Disneyland annual passport. I think it's what Walt would have done...? I don't know what my reasoning is except I need to go somewhere and have fun.

I mostly felt like this all week:

This week I lost 3 pounds, I’m calling it “The Shame Diet”. It took me 2 and a half days to not want to murder my husband. I never thought “this is it, I’m never coming home, we’re through”. We are married, I took the til death part to heart. We promised through good times and bad, and now I’m starting to see just how broad that statement is. And this morning as I snuck back through our door, crawled into our bed around 5 and felt a large, freckled arm drape over me, I could sense the frustration and anger and resentment start to leave my body and I realized that I had started to miss him more than I was angry at him. 

Two morals of this story: 

-Do not take nude pictures unless you are totally fine with every person in the present and future seeing them. Even as a joke. Even ones you will secretly keep because you fancy someone. Accidents and mistakes happen and then next thing you know you’re sitting in your in-laws kitchen one day while your business is displayed on a 60” flat screen and you're wondering how you can will your heart to stop beating or disappear or explode or instantly drop dead. 

-The weirdest shit will happen to you and your spouse. Problems you couldn’t imagine. Ones that no one can control, ones that are 100% preventable. Make sure you marry someone you’re willing to put up with. Make sure their bullshit is outweighed by their awesomeness. 

I love you, P. Stew. Even when you monumentally mess up. To the moon and back.