When We Were Opening Christmas Gifts, My 5-Year-Old Shouted, “Yes! The Other Mom Kept Her Promise!”

January 11, 2026 by ucef

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Looking back, that’s what scares me most.

There were signs. Small ones. The kind you dismiss because life is busy and marriage is complicated. Mike sometimes seemed distracted, emotionally somewhere else. He worked long hours. I told myself stress explained everything.

I should have listened more closely to the quiet discomfort I kept pushing aside.

Especially after what I now think of as the babysitter situation earlier that year.

We had been feeling distant, so we tried to fix it the way responsible adults do. We scheduled weekly date nights. One of Mike’s coworkers recommended a babysitter, a college-aged woman named Megan. At first, everything seemed fine.

Simon liked her.

Our evenings out helped.

For a while, things felt lighter.

Then one afternoon, Mike told me we needed to let her go.