December was one of the hardest times of my entire life. A voice in the back of my head knew something was wrong, but the voices of the three small children excited for Christmas were louder. I pushed the dark thoughts to the back and focused on figuring out how to make it through Christmas. I acquired & wrapped gifts, planned and carried out trips to tree lightings and baking & decorating Christmas cookies.
There is literally no other answer for how I pulled it off other than God.
My PPD/PPA made taking all three by myself to large gatherings completely overwhelming, but thank goodness for friends to meet you there and keep an extra eye on things. At one point, I texted his business partner’s wife to commiserate over having husbands who were out of town the third week in December. She thought I sent the text by mistake because her husband wasn’t out of town. She said she had heard something about him going without her husband but didn’t know when that would be. Needless to say, my questioning how he could carry out an event (the requires setting up very large pieces of production equipment) by himself was not well-received.
His "event out of town" was a week at "their home" with her, then staying an extra day or two after she went home since I guess he didn't factor that most high schoolers can't run away for a week to play house.
The plan was for my mom to drive down and spend Christmas with us, but a massive freeze came through the state and made travel too treacherous to make the trip. With the last minute changes, I tried to get input on what we should have for our holiday meals since I would no longer have another set of hands in the kitchen. With no answers by the morning of Christmas Eve, I had no choice but to load up all three and brave the grocery store solo. Christmas Eve grocery trip with three kids will never be on my bingo card again. I made it through the “you sure have your hands full”, got home to unload all of the groceries, argued with nap avoiders, and waited for him to get home so we could go to church. He texted to say he would be late, so another stressful trip for the day was in order. The middle one fell out of her chair in the service, the baby got passed down the row to be held while I comforted Lottie (the middle), and by the end I was sweaty and exhausted. Thank goodness for camera self-timers.
Once we were home, it was time to eat, bathe, and put on Christmas PJs.
He eventually got home, watched a little TV the other the older two and laid down with our son. They both fell asleep, so once I finished giving the baby her bedtime bottle and got her down, I went to work being Santa. He came into our room as I was putting the last few stocking stuffers in place and asked what he needed to do.
I finally fell asleep as he apparently continued to text her until the wee hours of the morning, daydreaming of their future holidays with my kids and lying to her about "being Santa" and making Christmas cookies with the kids. At this point, it was clear that he was not being truthful with a single person in his life. He sent her pictures of the Christmas treats I made with the kids while he was "out of town" (with her) and claimed to be making them with the kids himself.
I awoke Christmas morning and the kids quickly began distributing gifts and tearing through them. He opened the gift from me as well as the handprint painting I had made him every year from the kids since our oldest was born. I glanced down, and I saw a small item wrapped in tissue paper - it was a bottle of lotion from his mom.
My mom called soon after so the kids could tell her what they got and she could find out how Matt liked the gift I got him. When she asked what I got and I responded “lotion from his mom” and said nothing after that, her voice broke as she tried to tell me her plans for the day. She knew. She could hear in her daughter’s voice the hurt she was feeling.
Later that afternoon, while the kids were napping, I asked him if maybe a heads up that we weren’t exchanging gifts for the first time in sixteen years had crossed his mind. He snapped back that we didn’t need to spend money on gifts for each other.
Nevertheless, in his bankruptcy hearing a few months later (more to come on that), he testified that he spent at least $2,000 on her for Christmas. It included what every high school girl needs (& I have NEVER owned nor asked for): a pair of Christian Louboutins & jewelry with hearts on it.
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