My Christmas was a mixed bag of emotions....One thing I found out about piecing that it is to some degree getting back on the rollercoaster. And its one where both of you have to ride it , because now you are in this journey TOGETHER. No jumping off this time; though time outs are possible
First of all, the good stuff. H gave me a fantastic gift, probably the most expensive ne he has ever bought for me. A pair of gorgeous diamond earrings! In the morning of the 23rd, he did ask me what I wanted for a gift, and I said not clothes, or purses, I have too many. An inexpensive piece of jewelry would be appreciated, but I knew they (D and him) already had bought me a Juicy necklace, so I said that was enough.
Family came over to visit, H cooked Christmas eve dinner, we went to mass, opened presents, he loved the designer jeans me and D bought. It was nice.
Before Christmas, I was feeling blue.
The 22nd, we had a work party. He came and joined us, but he was distant and did not really interact with me.
The 24th AM, we started talking about finances. He explained a lot to me about our expenses, and we were doing fine, until we started talking about our acounts. He was actually the one who brought up the fact that we have to close all our extraneous accounts, and mentioned his account with a credit union he opened when he was alone here in the US before I arrived. I then had an idea that we should just withdraw all the money in it and went looking for our debit cards. Suddenly, he got angry at me, and started to accuse me of starting to investigate!
This was a sore point with us before, he had always taken the stand that he would never spend on an OW, and I did told him I trusted him and backed off from asking about that particular account of his. I knew he used it for small expenses related to OW during the time he was still in his EA, and for me that is already in the past!
I got mad at him, telling him that we had already settled all of that, that the past is past, and that I already told him I trusted him. I cried and had a minor tantrum.
He still insisted I look at all the accounts, and I did, so that everything would be finally laid to rest. I didn't see much, except expenses for some flowers for OW's birthday and a concert ticket I knew about and that we ended up watching anyway (OW did not show up).
Afterwards, we agreed to close the issue. Then we went about our own thing, buying presents, etc.
The incident made me think of some not so good memories....a few tears fell. then I picked myself up, and started to think how lucky our family is.
I realize that H is really, really serious about this when he was able to recover from the incident, even when I was having a tantrum. He calmly just said for me to stop it, that we should look into it calmly. Then he went and got me my nice gift.
It wasn't a wildly intense time.
But it really was a time of giving.... to each other, of our patience, and committment, and effort.
There are so many lessons to be learned this coming year, as we step into out new M, and close out the old. I am looking forward to it, at the same time, am praying that I will be able to handle it right and not mess up or backlside too much. That I will keep the chages I have made and add more to them.
I have a feeling that next years Christmas will be even better.
Me:49 H:45 D:12 M:14 T:18 Bomb: 6/26/10 EA: 9/3/10, fizzled out slowly, now ??? 11/5/11 Retrouvaille Finally piecing.... Its peaceful at last, but we got a looong way to go