Don't You Just Hate Xmas!

What an emotional holiday. All these expectations of joyous family time together. Love and harmony. In reality of course we all fail to meet the marketing and social targets.

We spend money on getting everything the kids want when the biggest item on virtually any kids list is a loving environment. But we can't buy that and we can't afford the emotional investment in most cases.

I am so looking forward to my kid's Xmas but dreading my own.

If you can indulge me I just need to off load some of my thoughts and recollections of my actions over the last few days. So do feel free to read no further.

Well we dd have an argument yesterday. It was short and sharp. I left the room by slamming a door ad it was the first time that this has happened in front of kids. Not happy with that but it was a release of emotions following on from the argument.

The actual argument is insignificant now. Something to do with criticsm of how I was going to spend the afternoon looking after the kids whilst my wife tidied the house ready for Xmas. It's important to her, so don't say any more.

So we ended up the kids and me at a temporary ice rink. We are standing next to barriers with the Xmas tunes blaring, happy families laughing together. My wife rings and I just can't stop the tears forming. All I can hear is my oldest saying 'Dad's upset' we retreat into some shadows and they give me a huge hug.

That was so nice, so wonderful. they don't ask why I am I upset they just see that I am upset and that I need a hug.

Things were quite cold at home. But in the end we do have a talk. We understand, I hope, a bit more about where we are each coming from. I believed that we had both committed to working through it. My wife's view is that separation is the way forward. Not quite the same hymn sheet. We resolved that we would both keep to our agreement to talk for about 15 minutes each day. That should mean a solid 15 minutes and not 15 one minute list of things that need to be done. That should help keep things calmer.

So the couple counselling last Wednesday where we both committed to going into with an open mind is not as open as I thought and realistically is what I had expected.

But when asked what we wanted from the counselling, my wife's answer of a resolution was sufficiently all encompassing to keep both sides satisfied that their own belief of where we stood was being met.

Roll on the New Year!

Bah! Humbug! Merry Xmas one and all.