The deep agony of being in an unhappy marriage at the happiest time of the year: A mother reveals the chasm that has grown between her and her husband and why she still clings to hope

Merry Christmas, reader, from inside a dying marriage. I know I’m not alone. The first Monday of any year is Divorce Day, when people trying to stay together over Christmas give up, call a lawyer, and start dividing up what’s left: that’s my cushion, that’s your book. ..

This is for women who feel lonely in a marriage at Christmas, when it seems like everyone is happy and enjoying the games of the season. Call it a hug and a friendly ear. I see you.

Happy families are the same, but unhappy families are all different, as Tolstoy writes in Anna Karenina. (He had a very bad marriage. He threw himself in front of a train.)

I’m not going to throw myself under a train: even if I wanted to, I doubt I would find the energy. But being in an unhappy marriage requires a lot of pretense and a lot of fake smiles.

I find it more difficult at this time of year, when it seems like the whole country is singing Christmas carols by the Christmas tree and drinking mulled wine. I hate mulled wine! – and looking for gifts for the people they love.

Happy times are not happy times for unhappy people. They are worse: they are a mockery. Sometimes it’s like shouting in an empty room, and then I pull myself together because anguish is one thing and Gotterdammerung is another.

Happy or not, we are the luckiest generation of women in history: we have vaccines, careers and washing machines.

I think a lot of people live this story, but they don’t talk about it because the British don’t talk. To remember our greatest calamity – the Great War – we literally kept a silence.

I’m not like that, although my husband is. He and I, married for 20 years and with a 12-year-old son, are growing further apart, and the chasms between us sometimes seem so wide that we cannot bridge them even when we want to.

We were robbed for many years and there is a well of sadness between us. Sometimes I think she sits in the room with us, a bad fairy.

As often happens when things fall apart, it started slowly and picked up speed.

We are very different: we loved this and now it baffles us. We are of different religions and different politics. I’m worried about money and he’s not. I’m a workaholic and he’s laconic. He has a sense of humor and I don’t. He is a country mouse and I am a city mouse. He has insomnia: when he sleeps I am awake and vice versa.

I only wanted one child and he wanted a bunch of them, and for us all to live in a converted windmill.

I think he feels this more intensely this time of year and I feel terrible guilt. Then I feel angry because he made me feel guilty. It’s like table tennis with negative emotions. Or the sea; The tide goes out and, each time it does, it moves further away.

Two years ago he had a brief affair because he felt lonely. Even though he told me and said he was sorry (he said he loves us both), we have been living in quicksand ever since.

Although he is kind to me now (there was a time when he wasn’t), I used to trust his love and now I don’t. I miss the way he used to look at me like I was something infinitely precious. I miss him touching me.

We don’t really fight anymore, which is sad in itself. There is life in the fight. While I’m glad we can be at peace (if only for our son’s sake), it still feels like a defeat.

I’m in that place where I don’t want to leave but I don’t want to stay either. Divorced people are poor. I can’t give up on our shared life yet; I don’t want to hurt our son, although I think he knows that. Without consciously knowing it, he knows it.

For our wedding anniversary last month, he bought us a huge card with our wedding photo on it. It cost him all his pocket money. I look at the photo – I’m curled up in my husband’s arms, eyes closed, his chin resting on my hair – and I wish we could go back to that day and start over.

When I tell my husband he looks incredibly sad, like he’s wishing for something I can never have again. But it’s Christmas and we’re trying, because not trying is even sadder than trying and, at the end of the day, we’re still here. If I struggle to clean our beautiful home, the scene of our shared fantasy of happiness, I muster up the courage to do it.

Why should I clean it up for the real estate agent (assuming we let him) and not us? I think of my grandmother’s saying: when in doubt, mop the floor. Any floor. Do it out of self-respect, at least.

And always wear perfume. (I stopped when our son was born, but I just bought a bottle of Chanel No 5. Is this hard, Nana?)

Kindness, my therapist says, be kind to each other. Let’s see what happens, says my sister. He still loves you, my mother says. I have to trust that.

So I’m already prepared for Christmas, at least in my best moments. We got the Christmas tree earlier this year in a mad, excited rush, and I hauled the decorations out of the attic. They make me nostalgic (we put them together), but I try to find joy in their location and the undeniable beauty of the tree. I think it’s our best yet.

We’ve been listening to Christmas music, religiously, since December 1st. My favorite holiday song is Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, because Judy Garland, who had a lot of problems of her own, sings it with hope: Hang a bright star over the highest bough. And I do it.

Gifts are complicated, in part because I worry a lot about money. He doesn’t buy me clothes because the first time he bought me a dress, shortly after we got married, it was three sizes too small and I cried from shame.

Even now, I don’t think he realizes that I was angry with myself, not him, when I looked at the tiny, pretty dress: I wasn’t worthy of his gift. Maybe that’s why I look so bad: he’s too scared to buy me clothes and I’m too scared to buy clothes anywhere other than Sainsbury’s, where a dress costs £25 tops.

It asks me what I want, like an Amazon page, and buys it from me, like a transaction. I really can’t complain. I get what I wanted, but it’s not really what I wanted.

I buy him clothes, like a mother: good sweaters, pants, warm pajamas. (We sleep in separate rooms now. I hate this, although he says sleeping together makes his insomnia worse.)

I feel like I can’t afford to give him what he really wants, but maybe I’m being too hard on myself. He wants an Aston Martin. Don’t we all do it? (When we were happy, I bought him a Playmobil one. In my worst moments I’m glad he only has a toy Aston Martin.)

Last week I found myself looking at socks in a department store. He asked for socks and crime novels about people dying. It’s the British way of deflecting your pain. (I know he suffers too).

That was good: I read him a list of the best of the year and he chose what he wanted. But socks are a problem. The only pair in his size is boring and red. I hear Nana’s voice again: red socks don’t say love, dear. It seems that our distrust has transferred to our purchases: we do not trust the surprises of others and we do not trust our ability to charm each other. Our presents are a little scared.

I’ll look for a surprise gift but I’m still scared. I’m worried that nothing I’ve bought him will make him happy. As you can hear, the places between us are tender and hurt. But I want a merry Christmas or, rather, in my craziest moments I think: maybe we can be happy and at the same time be unhappy. Does that make sense?

When it comes to food, we compromise like adults: my favorite beef rib last year, your favorite Beef Wellington this year. I actually hate Beef Wellington, but it’s not worth fighting over. That’s a forever life plan, huh?

When you’re in an unhappy marriage, you always learn what’s worth fighting for. She made Christmas cake with our son and we all made cakes for the local food bank. Remember: there are desperate people who can’t afford a family home, much less homes for two divorced people. And they certainly can’t afford to miss Christmas.

Now our son has left school and we are busy. I have promised something every day: a Christmas market; It’s a wonderful life in the movies; Midnight mass; joking with his friends; football, but not with me. (When he shoots the ball at me, I usually shout ‘doctor’. I’m a terrible coward.)

On Christmas Eve we go to Marks & Spencer before it closes, to see if it’s true that all the food is heavily discounted with half an hour left. Oh joy!

I want to spend time with our lovely son. I couldn’t wish for a better one and most of all I’m so sorry this happened to you.

This year only my mother is coming for Christmas (I think she’s coming for our son, although she’s too tactful to say so) and I’m relieved.

Although I really like his family (they are kind and calm people), there are fewer people to pretend to. Sometimes when I’m with them, I overcompensate and insist on holding their hand, and then I wonder if I’m angry. They probably think the same. I can’t ask them. They wouldn’t say it.

We will get up early to open presents because our son can never wait past 7am. His main gift is a battery, so if we fight, he can drown it. I want it to make noise in life.

My husband will prepare lunch; He is a wonderful cook; I fell in love with it for a lamb shoulder and I will clean it.

We’ll walk the dog while mom sleeps by the fire. At least the dog will be happy because he will be full of Beef Wellington. But of course, he has never been in love.

Then the King’s speech (he’s had a terrible year too, poor thing) and Christmas television of all kinds.

Then comes Boxing Day, which is supposed to be depressing (sort of like a national hangover day), New Year’s Eve, and 2025.

I really can’t say I’m in a position to advise anyone on how to have a happy Christmas in an unhappy marriage.

I know many married people who feel lonely or heartbroken and don’t know if they will be able to make it through next Christmas. But isn’t it worth trying, especially with a child? The bet that spring brings something new? So you can get back what you lost?

I know I’m happier when I don’t allow myself to get angry and I know it’s a choice; when I get on with my own day and my own projects and don’t sink into sentimental self-harm.

Maybe I’ll just read a book and listen to Christmas carols while wearing Chanel No 5. I just hope Silent Night doesn’t kill me.