Xmas aka Atheist Children Get Presents Day aka Happy Newton's Day

Doing the Xmas thing, despite the money worries. I'm a good shopper and luckily my kids only have one "big" present each on their lists. We also got our tree at a 50% discount. I feel positively Scottish.

I've had a few questions about doing Xmas by myself. It's actually much easier. I don't have the scowls or the sulking. Theo had long ago stopped coming to choose a tree. He never helped decorate it except the couple years we got him to put his "special" ornament or two. He didn't shop for the kids, he didn't wrap anything. He wouldn't do lights or anything else. He'd come downstairs to open presents but return back upstairs when that was over. He'd scowl some more. Since packing up his things to sell or store, I've found tons of unused presents from just about everyone.

I'm not sure why he never participated in almost all holidays or other gatherings. Even the non-buying ones. Not 4th of July, not Easter (or Find Osiris' Body Parts Day or Persephone Pomegranate Day), not Halloween, not school functions, not play dates or birthday parties (though he would attend our kids' parties). He did like Thanksgiving because he got to cook, but that was it. He stopped going to the zoo or museums or walks probably eight or nine years ago. I asked him to stop going camping with us because he yelled at everyone all the time. That was probably about six years ago.Looking back on it, he started divorcing himself from our family a long, long time ago. I saw it, but why didn't I see it? I called his mom about my worries, but there wasn't really much she could do. Even the Child Family Investigator from the divorce stuff called him on it.

Dunno. My friend and second cousin twice removed by marriage (or something like that), Matt said something that has provided the best explanation yet for his behavior: He was desperately unhappy about his life and would have left any situation, blaming whatever he left behind. We (friends old and new) have all thought that he would have been happier in a gay relationship, but I think he didn't because he thought he should have a family and marriage. He thought he might get AIDS (when he was actually in those relationships it was the height of the AIDS scare), and he didn't feel like he was attractive enough for the "gay crowd".

Given our lack of a sex life in general, I should have thought about that more. Given that he only seemed to really enjoy mimicking gay sex, I should have thought he wasn't getting what he wanted. Dunno. Whatever he was unhappy about, I have started to believe that it wasn't actually us. We might have been an easy thing to blame, but I don't think the core reason of his leaving was us.

I still ponder and boggle at the whole concept of leaving the kids. I can't even imagine anyone doing it, even though he has. It's like imagining a person turning into a bicycle and performing The Wiz for an audience of carp. It's impossible to wrap my head around abandonment of our children as something that is possible -- even though it's happened.

Working it out. Can't actually work. If not even for the kids then for cleaning up the mess he left behind. Credit cards in his name, titles to the house and car, COBRA and the Dept of Labor, medical appeals, certified letters to banks, CO State Human Services, Medicare and Social Security for the kids, refinancing on the house, calling credit agencies to get my name cleared off the cards he charged up right before he left, lawyers fees to finish up the divorce, a missing person case, redoing all the school and doctor paperwork, and getting counseling appointments set up. UGH. Put that on top of the main job of helping the kids get through it. All have regressed to an earlier age in one way or another. We've had four suicide watch/threat/attempts, a session of anger with me, bed wetting, many questions, stony silence, angry outbursts at any and everyone, uncomfortable talks with "I have no idea" at the center, weird hyperactivity. Only to be expected, but it's still hard -- and impossible to work.