"I assume if we had stayed together I could have looked forward to the other two being parsed out over the next few years. There were also some of the kids' chocolate Santas sprinkled in my stocking, a DVD of You've Got Mail with the price still on it, dollar store mini gloves, a few pairs of white tube socks taken from a bulk pack of socks. He was already wearing one of the other pairs with his pajamas on Christmas morning."
"He tried, is what I told myself on Christmas morning. At least he's trying. Which is kind of funny to me now because every item in that sad little stocking was tinged with how little he tried to be thoughtful or wanted to be thoughtful or, worst of all, thought he should have to be thoughtful. And of course he benefited from the impossibility of my potential complaint."
A final Christmas stocking contained cheap, minimal items that felt like evidence of emotional distance rather than care. The narrator interpreted the stocking as symptomatic of a broader pattern: a partner who performed minimal gestures, who seemed unwilling or unable to consider personal, thoughtful gifts, and who benefited from the narrator's reluctance to complain. Daily life had become a cycle of chores and checklists, leaving the narrator feeling taken for granted while the partner felt exhausted by demands. Over time the narrator assumed responsibility for domestic tasks, and that dynamic contributed to separation.
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