Rising Phoenix: My Favorite Season

This post is part of an ongoing series written by “Rising Phoenix,” a woman giving an honest account of how she’s learning to rise out of the pain and destruction of betrayal. Read all her posts by clicking the Rising Phoenix link above. To read all her posts chronologically, start with her first post and then click the “Read Rising Phoenix’s Next Post” link that appears at the bottom of each article.

Christmas Has Always Been My Favorite

Christmas has always been my favorite season. Since I was a kid, the soft lights, the crowded kitchen, the smell of home filled me with a kind of magic I thought would last forever. My gramma had this way of making everything beautiful. She held Christmas together with warmth, love, and intention. I grew up believing that Christmas was safety, connection, and comfort. And for a long time, it was — until it wasn’t.

Reflections on the Last three Christmases

When I look back at the last three Christmas seasons, they feel like mirrors held up to everything we were navigating. Each one a reflection of what was broken, what was shifting, and what was slowly being rebuilt. The pain was deep — deeper than anything I had ever experienced — but so was the healing that began to grow beneath it. The timeline of our Christmases became a quiet map of survival, heartbreak, and transformation.

The First Three Christmases After Discovery — A Slow Unlearning, A Slow Rebuilding

The first Christmas after discovery didn’t feel like Christmas at all. It hit just weeks after everything collapsed, when we were barely breathing through the shock of it all. We weren’t living so much as floating — suspended in a fog where the days blurred into each other, heavy and hollow. The house felt suffocating in a way I still struggle to put into words. Grief sat in the air like dust you couldn’t wipe away. Even the silence felt weighted.

We took a short trip during that time, and I remember seeing small flashes of softness in you — compassion, presence, something warm I hadn’t felt in a long time. It didn’t dissolve the heaviness, but it reminded me that you were still in there somewhere. Still capable of reaching toward me, even if only in brief moments. But when we came home, the ache came home with us. Nothing had changed.

That year, I didn’t want decorations. I didn’t want a tree. Holidays in my childhood were filled with magic — lights, music, warmth — and the idea of trying to force any of that into the wreckage we were standing in felt almost painful. But we did put up a tree, and for the first time in years, you helped me decorate it. It was quiet and fragile, two people trying to hang a strand of hope in a season that had gone dark. It wasn’t Christmas as I had known it growing up — but it was a spark, however faint.

The second Christmas carried a different kind of weight. I was off work becaus of my physical and emotional breakdown, still wading through the emotional debris, still unsure of what any of your changes meant or whether they would hold. Our marriage had a long history of you disappearing when things got hard, of me hurting alone while you distracted yourself from the parts of me that needed you. That wound was as real as the betrayal.

But that second year, you didn’t run. You stayed. You stepped in where you used to step away. You brought the TV to the bedroom so I could rest. You cooked. You drew baths. You checked on me without being asked. You showed up in ways I had always needed but had rarely received. And slowly, that steadiness shifted something between us. It wasn’t healing, not yet — but it was the first sign that healing might someday be possible.

And then came the third Christmas — a mixture of tension and healing, progress and old fears still echoing in the background. By then I had found more of my own footing. We had survived the second D-day, and while it left its mark, we were also doing the work. There were moments when I shut down, moments when I wasn’t sure which version of our story would unfold next.

But you kept showing up. You didn’t disappear into avoidance, and I didn’t disappear into pretending. There was effort, intention, tenderness — imperfect, yes, but real.

And for the first time since everything broke, I felt something like the holiday joy I remembered from childhood. Not the forced kind, not the performative kind, but a quiet, fragile version — a new understanding of what Christmas could look like when it’s built from truth instead of illusion. These years didn’t just change our marriage; they rewrote my idea of the holidays altogether. They stripped away the expectations I inherited from childhood — the shiny, automatic kind of magic — and replaced it with something rawer, something earned, something honest.

Not the Christmases I once knew, but the first ones that were real.

The Fourth Christmas: Excitement and Presence

This Christmas, our fourth after everything, feels different in a way I can actually feel in my bones. It might not look like the magical Christmas of my childhood, but it doesnt feel like a broken, panic-filled Christmases of the first three years after discovery. It feels like a bridge. A point between what was and what could be. The lights feel softer again, and my body isn’t bracing for emotional impact every hour. There is still tenderness in me and echoes of the past, but there’s also a new sense of steadiness and breath.

This year is definitely different. I feel different. I feel lighter, more present, more like myself. I feel excited instead of nervous, hopeful instead of anxious. 

There’s a sense of anticipation rather than dread. I look forward to the moments, to the dinners, to the laughter without the tightness in my chest that used to signal fear or triggers. I hope to put up all the decorations. Healing still carries its work, but this year, I feel it in a way that allows joy to coexist with memory. I can actually sit in the moment, feel it, and trust that we are okay.

Mixed Emotions and the Difficulty of the Season

Even with all of that, this season can still be difficult when it's tied so close to my favorite holiday. It can also be tough if you’re in the first year of discovery. The emotions are mixed, the unknown is heavy, and the weight of triggers or past pain can still surface at any moment. You may feel joy one minute and grief the next, excitement one moment and fear the next. I understand that completely. The holidays can be overwhelming, and it’s okay to feel everything at once.

The best way through it is to take it day by day and one moment at a time. Breathe. Notice your body. Name what you feel. Ask for support when you need it. Protect yourself when necessary. And remind yourself that even the small moments—a laugh, a hug, a shared meal—are victories in themselves.

Family Gatherings Feel Different

Family gatherings during those first few holiday seasons carried a strange, almost dissonant energy. My parents were the only ones who knew the truth, and I walked into every family event with that knowledge tucked tightly against my chest, holding it quietly while pretending everything was the same. It made the room feel slightly distorted, like there was an invisible pressure only I could feel—a silent weight that sat between conversations and inside the pauses where my mind wandered back to what had happened.

At the same time, your entire side of the family knew, not because we ever chose to share, not because we opened the door for that vulnerability, but because pieces of the truth slipped out on their own, spreading in ways we couldn’t stop or manage. And that created its own kind of heaviness, a loss of control over our own story. I still remember the moment I learned that your sister-in-law knew. It was in her hug — not a normal one, not the casual kind exchanged a dozen times before, but one that felt weighted with awareness. It was soft, a little too lingering, and I could feel the difference the second her arms wrapped around me. It wasn’t hello. It was I’m so sorry.

Ever since then, their gatherings have held a different tone. It’s not dramatic or spoken aloud, but it lives there—a subtle shift, an undercurrent that runs beneath the laughter and small talk. It’s a reminder that what happened between us didn’t stay contained to our marriage; the impact stretched outward, touching people we never intended to involve.

Healing, I’ve learned, doesn’t happen in isolation. It sends ripples through every room, every family dynamic, every holiday tradition, whether we’re ready for it or not.

Triggers and Growth

Triggers still show up. Sometimes out of nowhere. A tone. A glance at your phone. A moment of silence. The holidays themselves—they hold memories, good and bad, and sometimes those memories collide. But triggers don’t own me the way they used to. They don’t drown me. Instead, I can name them and feel them without being overtaken. I can talk about them. I can ask for support instead of collapsing into fear. And the difference now is that you meet me there. You don’t pull away. You don’t avoid. You stay.

Love Looks Different Now

Here we are. Still standing. Still moving forward. Still rebuilding.

Love looks different now—not dreamy or idealized, but intentional and grounded. It looks like presence instead of avoidance, transparency instead of secrets, accountability instead of excuses. It looks like you choosing to stay, day after day, even when the work is uncomfortable. It looks like both of us learning a new way to love, one that doesn’t repeat old patterns or hide from hard truths.

We’re not who we were four Christmases ago. We’re not even who we were last Christmas. And maybe that’s the real gift: not perfection, not pretending, not forgetting… but becoming. Becoming steadier. Becoming more honest. Becoming more whole. Becoming something new together, even if the process is messy and nonlinear. 

This Christmas, the ache of the past is still there, but it’s softened—just a faint pulse instead of the crushing weight it used to be. And in its place, there’s this overwhelming warmth from everything we’ve fought for and grown into. The grief of what we lost lingers, yes, but it’s overshadowed now by the hope rising from what we’re creating together. And for the first time in so many years, I can hold both the pain and the promise without breaking under the weight of either.