While We Were Opening Christmas Gifts, My 5-Year-Old Yelled, ‘Yes! The Other Mom Kept Her Promise!’ – After a Long Pause, My Husband Finally Spoke

Christmas morning shattered when my five-year-old tore open a gift and yelled, “YES! The other mom kept her promise!”
My husband went pale. And in that moment, I knew this wasn’t a misunderstanding.

Mike and I had been together six years. We had one son, Simon. Life felt stable—routine, even. I ignored the small cracks: his distance, his distractions, the babysitter we fired after Mike claimed she had a crush on him. I believed him. I shouldn’t have.

The gift was an expensive collector car we’d agreed not to buy. Simon hugged it and explained happily that “the other mom” promised it if he behaved. He said Dad knew her. That she visited sometimes. That she told him not to worry.

In the kitchen, Mike finally admitted the truth. The babysitter—Megan—had kept visiting Simon behind my back. She’d told him to call her his “other mom,” asked him to keep secrets, and somehow slipped that gift under our tree. While we slept.

Then Simon quietly added something worse: she’d asked him for a key so she could surprise us with Christmas dinner.

We called the police. I went with them to her apartment. She was waiting with cooked dishes and delusions of replacing me.

She was arrested, placed under psychiatric care, and a restraining order protects us now.

But Christmas will never feel the same again.