Friend Update

Christmas Eve: Friend calls the morn of christmas eve while on her way to a shopping center. She decides at the last minute that she's going to buy hubby a few christmas presents. Her original plan was to say screw him; i'm not buying him jack; he doesn't deserve anything. I made light of her sudden, yet not unexpected, change of heart. All of friend's last minute shopping needed to be completed in less than 2 hours before she was scheduled to work and pick the baby up from the sitter. I had to suffer through at least 10 mini phone conservations about this item or that item that she was going to buy for him and offer my opinion. At the end of her shopping excursion she tells me that she won't be wrapping the gifts or putting them out in plain sight until she sees what hubby has purchased for her. Chuckle..hehehehe!!!

Christmas Morning: Friend calls to wish me a Merry Christmas then launches into her tirade about hubby. Apparently he left out of the house fairly early, like 6:30 am-ish, and from the looks of things he didn't have a present for her. I can't remember if I shared this already but friend was already on edge because hubby had shared with her on dec 23, I think, that he had run out of money and couldn't afford to buy her anything...this, of couse, is after he's bought gifts for their daughter, his other child, and most of his relatives - distant or close. He explained to her something about their account being frozen because of a stop payment she had issued recently. Whatever the reason, she wasn't having it. Friend tells me that all his gifts are going back to the stores. She went over her original budget of $90 and that fact really had her upset. She spent about 250 on him and thought of receiving nothing really had her peeved. She went on and on and on....and on about his lack of thoughtfulness. All I wanted was a Digital Camera. How hard is that Shawn? I tried to encourage her to at least give him the $15 Borders giftcard but she wasn't having it.

Christmas Night: Friend calls me around 8:15 pm but I don't answer because I am still out visiting and I know if she's calling me at that late hour (she's east coast; i'm west coast) something must be going on because hubby is usually home at that time of night.

26th: I leave 2 voice mail messages early in the morning and send 3 text messages throughout the day but don't hear back from her....her cell phone is automatically forwarding to VM. I wait for her to get off work then call again but get forwarded to VM yet again. Later that evening I get reply to one of my text messages and she explains that she has a new cell phone, a Sidekick II, that she needs to let charge then she'll call with all the details.

27th: Friend calls bright and early sounding awfully perky. Hi Shawn pronounced She-in! Immediately I quiz, How the crap did you end up with Sidekick II? You just got a new replacement phone 2 weeks ago? She chuckles. You're gonna love this one! She says.

Christmas night friend and hubby get into it. Friend goes through hubby's pockets looking for a lost receipt. Instead of a receipt she finds $600 dollars. When she questions hubby about the money he gets an attitude and tells her that the money was going to be used to purchase a Christmas present for her - a Dell Laptop. He tells her she won't be getting the present now that she's gone through his stuff. He tells her he doesn't appreciate her habit of looking through his belongings. They argue for a quick minute then he calls his mom to get her advice.

After the call, hubby wants to pick up the argument up where they left off. Friend is no longer in the mood to fight so she starts ignoring him (with much attitude I am sure) scrolling through the phone book on her cell phone. Hubby is livid. He grabs friend's cell phone and throughs it against the wall; it smashes into pieces. Friend then says When are you leaving? He replies Right now if that's what you want.

Friend sits on the couch and begins channel surfing while hubby packs his belongings. When hubby's done gathering his things he tells friend he's getting ready to leave But I don't want to go. He apologizes for breaking friend's phone and tells her he'll replace it (that's how she got the Sidekick II). Friend and hubby then have a long discussion about marriage and what's not working. She tells him she'd like him to explain what marriage means to him. He can't! He doesn't really have a definition. He also tells her that if his definition is not what she wants to hear then he'll be penalized in her eyes. Friend explains what she wants their marriage to look like. She then tells him about her frustrations in the marriage like providing 90% of the care for their child and never having time for herself like he gets. He apologizes for a few of his shortcomings then tells her she should be a bit more sympathetic to his situation. He works for full time and he's a full time student so his hands are tied when it comes to his time.

According to friend, they talked until they were too tired to talk any longer. They went to bed with everything laid on the table but nothing necessarily resolved.

In my estimate, everything is well in friendhubbyland for the moment. But believe me, there will be more episodes of this soap opera...it never ends!