This Christmas was another shitshow. I say this as if I've previously made any kind of mention of shitshow holidays. Just know that Christmas has always been hit or miss for me, and that did not change once I got married. If anything, it got worse. Christmas 2017 wasn't bad if I'm recalling correctly, but Christmas 2018?
It doesn't help that my marriage is already falling apart, okay? It starts every year, a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Every year we fight over where we are going to spend the holidays. He always wants to stay home, he never wants to travel anywhere. Thanksgiving - the kid was off of school for the entire week. I tried to convince him to drive up to Mississippi to see his folks. He'd be able to stay at his brother's house, and spend all day out in the country without having to worry about me getting bored. He probably sees his mom twice a year, and she's old. I firmly believe in appreciating people when you have them, because tomorrow is not guaranteed. Apparently Willie has a different philosophy, because he opted to stay here. Did nothing all week long. IF he had gone, he'd have spent several days with his family members and with his mom. If he had spent thanksgiving with them, we could have a stress-free Christmas with my family. But that's too much like right.
My mom is big on being with family for Christmas. Now that she has a terminal progressive disease and doesn't know how many more Christmases she'll have, she's ever more determined to have us with her for the holidays. So determined that she paid for our plane tickets to fly in to see her. Initially I told her to just buy tickets for the kid and myself, because Willie had a job interview coming up and if he got the job he'd probably have to work Christmas. Frankly, I was looking forward to getting away from him. He had become a toxic presence and I just didn't want him around me. Then he got all pissy because he wasn't going to spend Christmas with his son, and he felt that I did it out of spite to hurt him. Which is not true at all, and quite ironic seeing that he chose to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning with his family and wasn't there anyway.
So we got to my mom's house after 10 pm, spent Friday with her. Or, the kid and I spent the day with her. Willie spent part of the day closed up in the bedroom watching Narcos on his phone, and part of it out doing whatever (I don't know where or what, he just wasn't around). He wanted to drive down to his mom's Saturday morning, and then return to my mom's house Monday afternoon. So after accepting paid plane tickets, to dip out for the entire weekend and come back Christmas Eve? Where they do that at? Not only using my mom's husband's vehicle, but add to that the additional expenditure of gas (because that damned Jeep got 14 mpg) but also a hotel room because his mom lives in a nursing home. If it wasn't for my mom buying the tickets he wouldn't be there to see his mom. Well I wanted to spend time with my mom, so I told him that we could meet up Saturday afternoon. His folks live about 3 hours south of my mom, but we were planning on doing some shopping Saturday so that worked out fine. Naturally he gets pissy about that, I guess because I wasn't enthusiastic enough? I'm not sure. We tell him to come get me around 2:30 - 3:00, I'd call and let him know where exactly. 2:00 rolls around, I call him and he says he's still an hour away. He claims that he didn't know what our plans were. 😑 (I see you Passive Aggressive/PA) He meets us at my mom's house close to 4, which I'm upset about because now my mom has to drive back to her house by herself in the dark - which is why I specifically wanted to be picked up earlier. But anywhoo...
We ride back down to the nursing home, with a stop by Dollar General and Lee's Chicken for his mom. Take her back to the home, and we go to the hotel room. The next day, Sunday, we only saw his mom for maybe 20 minutes because she had dialysis that morning and wasn't feeling well. We did eat at his aunt's house, and we dropped by his brother's house for a few hours before going back to the hotel. He claims that he only really wants to see his mom, he doesn't really care too much about other folks and really doesn't like his brother (some interfamily mess) so really Sunday was a waste. Then Monday morning we were supposed to meet up with my mom at 0900 for her to take The Kid (TK) and myself back up to her house. Mr PA strikes again, we didn't get there until 10. He stayed down with his folks until Christmas Day, he drove back up to my mom's and ended up going back down to see them again (with TK this time) on Wednesday for a full day (left in the morning and came back at midnight).
Of course my mom had questions, and what could I say? I'm over coming up with vague excuses and reasons for his stupid behavior. We've been together 14 years and still he hides out in the bedroom to avoid being around people? Really? Sir, you are damn near 50 years old. What is the issue? And then he wants to portray the good family guy around his own folks. Get outta here with that bull.
2019 is the year of big changes in my life. Everything has a reason and a season. Some seasons last longer than others. This is the last time I allow someone to ruin Christmas for me.
God has been showing me for some time that this is not fertile ground. Does that make sense? Nothing more can come of this marriage. It's taken me so long to face this because I held so much hope despite the obvious signs being thrown my way. One doesn't get married lightly right? I guess I hoped that I could make it work. It took the literal in-your-face diagnosis for me to get the message, and I have no one to blame but myself for that. I can't help but wonder, if I had listened to my gut the first time would I have 3 kids by now? What would my life look like? Who knows.
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