Since it wasn't my weekend with my D this past week, I spent most of the weekend wrapping presents.
So I put on the Christmas music and was drinking eggnog and trying to enjoy myself but as I'm doing it, I kept having memories/flashbacks of all the crappy Christmases with my ex. This time of year was always a nightmare. He HATED Christmas.
His "logic" was that he never got anything for Christmas. He came from poor family...lots of kids and the only thing he ever got was things like "socks." (He used to say this repeatedly every year). I never understood what his cruddy experience had to do with our children. In fact, you'd think someone that had a bad experience would want to have a lovely one with their own kids but my ex was very self-focused.
I, on the other hand, used to love Christmas as a kid. We always made lists for Santa, got a lot of things under the tree and had a big family dinner with grandparents. As a kid, I remember feeling that Christmas was a magical time. I wanted to repeat this experience for my own children.
As such...I admit, I always buy a lot at Christmas. I always stay within a budget that I save up through the year because I buy a lot of things they need anyway....coats, clothing, shoes, etc. I like to save those things for Christmas so there's more boxes under the tree. Its way more fun to unwrap a scarf than it is to just go buy one at the mall.
It used to drive my ex nuts. He'd leave me articles about "mass consumerism" and just complain and bitch constantly. He'd tell me that I was teaching bad values to our children. I never asked him to purchase anything (I had no problem using my own working income), to go shop, to wrap anything, to cook or clean anything, etc. I'd do it all myself and stay up late helping the kids leave cookies for santa, stuffing the stockings, and leaving talcum powder boot-prints on the wood floor.
The last years of our marriage, Christmas was literally a nightmare. I barely held it together...it was just a miserable, awful time of year for me. I hated it even though I'd try so hard to make it nice for the kids.
Anyway (sorry for the long story) but does anyone else have problems with almost PTSD-type symptoms at certain times? I'm planning to really have a lovely Christmas with my girls and partner's family this year and its a bummer to be having bad memories and feelings about the past. Almost all of this stuff went away when I moved out so its surprising that I'm still dealing with some of this aftermath. Just wondering what other's have experienced.
So I put on the Christmas music and was drinking eggnog and trying to enjoy myself but as I'm doing it, I kept having memories/flashbacks of all the crappy Christmases with my ex. This time of year was always a nightmare. He HATED Christmas.
His "logic" was that he never got anything for Christmas. He came from poor family...lots of kids and the only thing he ever got was things like "socks." (He used to say this repeatedly every year). I never understood what his cruddy experience had to do with our children. In fact, you'd think someone that had a bad experience would want to have a lovely one with their own kids but my ex was very self-focused.
I, on the other hand, used to love Christmas as a kid. We always made lists for Santa, got a lot of things under the tree and had a big family dinner with grandparents. As a kid, I remember feeling that Christmas was a magical time. I wanted to repeat this experience for my own children.
As such...I admit, I always buy a lot at Christmas. I always stay within a budget that I save up through the year because I buy a lot of things they need anyway....coats, clothing, shoes, etc. I like to save those things for Christmas so there's more boxes under the tree. Its way more fun to unwrap a scarf than it is to just go buy one at the mall.
It used to drive my ex nuts. He'd leave me articles about "mass consumerism" and just complain and bitch constantly. He'd tell me that I was teaching bad values to our children. I never asked him to purchase anything (I had no problem using my own working income), to go shop, to wrap anything, to cook or clean anything, etc. I'd do it all myself and stay up late helping the kids leave cookies for santa, stuffing the stockings, and leaving talcum powder boot-prints on the wood floor.
The last years of our marriage, Christmas was literally a nightmare. I barely held it together...it was just a miserable, awful time of year for me. I hated it even though I'd try so hard to make it nice for the kids.
Anyway (sorry for the long story) but does anyone else have problems with almost PTSD-type symptoms at certain times? I'm planning to really have a lovely Christmas with my girls and partner's family this year and its a bummer to be having bad memories and feelings about the past. Almost all of this stuff went away when I moved out so its surprising that I'm still dealing with some of this aftermath. Just wondering what other's have experienced.
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