It's Me, Sara Louise

Since we’re approaching Christmas, I’m going to tell you about the horrific emotional journey my husband took me on in December 2018.

As always, take a deep breath, light a relaxing candle, pour yourself a drink, or do whatever you need to do to center yourself. Prepare to be flummoxed and possibly infuriated.

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In September 2018, we hit another impasse. It had been fifteen months since the Green Card had been approved, and yet, my husband was still not living with me in Texas. There had been one excuse after another…

1. He was waiting for a job transfer to Chicago.
2. He was waiting for a bonus.
3. He got a new job and was sent to Brittany for training for three months.
4. His grandmother had a heart attack and was in a coma, and he couldn’t possibly leave her.

I had had enough.

I told him I was moving on with my life and wouldn’t wait for him to come and be with me anymore. I found an apartment downtown and moved out of my mother’s house.

And then, lo and behold, he showed up.

But, of course, he only showed up for a few days. Off he went again with promises to be back in a couple of weeks for good.

A couple of weeks turned into more than a month. Again. So, I told him not to bother coming back. And I meant it. I was moving on with my life.

I planned a trip to London to go to my friend John’s fabulous Peaky Blinders-themed work Christmas party as his plus one, and off I went. (Trust me, he’s just a friend. More like an annoying little brother, actually.)

Then the messages began – Please, I’m coming back, I promise. I bought a plane ticket. I’m coming. Please…

Fine.

Stupidly, I cut my trip to London short, so I could be back in Texas on the same day that he would be arriving. When he walked into the house, he rolled in one small carry-on bag. That was it.

“Where’s the rest of your stuff?!”  

The answer was an excuse about having to return for some important things or something or other at his mother’s house. (I honestly cannot remember what it was – too many excuses to keep track of) but he promised he would be back on Christmas Eve.

And then, we relaxed into each other again. We spent a really lovely week together, and I was happy. Things felt normal, and I felt hopeful. And off he went back to France, with a kiss goodbye and a promise to be back the following week.

On the night before Christmas Eve, my intuition kicked on. Something wasn’t right. I could feel it.

I messaged my friend John frantically, saying that I didn’t think that my husband was coming back. He wasn’t going to be on the plane. I knew it.

John assured me I was being crazy; of course, he would be on the plane!

I went to bed and, in the morning, woke up to an email from my husband saying he was all checked in for his flight from Paris to London. He even included a photo of a suitcase on a check-in scale. (How weird is that?)

I breathed a sigh of relief. But I could feel the doubt creep back in.

More messages back and forth to John when a Facetime came in. It was from my husband.

How could he be Facetiming me if he was on the plane?!

“What’s going on? Where are you?“

I was greeted with sobs (he deserves an Oscar, really) followed by some BS story about how when he went to board his flight to Austin from London, he discovered that he didn’t have his passport with him; someone must have stolen it, or he had put it down somewhere and lost it. They wouldn’t let him get on the plane.

And that’s when he did what he always did. He made it about him. Poor him couldn’t get on the plane. Poor him was alone sobbing in an airport. Poor him wouldn’t be able to come to the U.S. for Christmas. Poor him.

Lies. All lies.

I spent Christmas in Texas with my mother. And I’m assuming since this was three years after he had met his girlfriend and eighteen months before he “got married,” my husband spent the holiday somewhere with her.

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P.S. An important note for my American friends. My husband has a passport card as well as a passport. An EU passport card lets you travel within the EU. Hence that’s why I found it plausible that he was able to fly to London from Paris without an actual passport.