21st Feb 2021. I wake up feeling rubbish from last nights trauma. But I can already hear Charlie is not in a good place either. She is ‘sighing’ lots in the other bedroom. Then she’s spitting as she walks around the house before she goes back into the room and completely shuts the door.
She is going to be a big negative drag on all the family today. Seems like last nights chat didn’t help after all.
Charlie is back from an away trip. She’s being very difficult, in the morning she wouldn’t make plans around activities for the day.
At one point we agreed I would stay home until she had been out with Sam and then I would go out. She would not say how long she would be out with Sam but complained I could not say when I would be back with Evan. She was unable to rationalise that my return time was dependent on her return time since I could not go out until she was back. I spent most of the day avoiding Charlie.
She also is not handing over Ollies passport – we need this to complete his renewal. It’s a simple process and I have always sorted the passports before with no drama. Charlie admitted taking all the children’s passports away on her camping trip for some reason that only makes sense to Charlie.
I directly asked her twice for the passport, but she made excuses, she says she has started the passport renewal herself. But I know she hasn’t because you cannot save the renewal process half way through, plus it requires my passport number which I don’t think she knows. I am confident she is just stalling because her mind is so wound up on trying to control things that she can’t accept others even when they are doing the things she wants.
Charlie also follows me around with the children, it’s very hard to talk to them. Charlie is always there, correcting anything she doesn’t like. When I did bedtime chat with Sam, Charlie just sat in the dark in the next room trying to listen.
In the evening, after all the anxiety all day, I just want to stay away and have my space, but Charlie comes into the room and starts saying I should ‘chill’ out with her. She says as ‘husband and wife’, we should spend time together, this is Charlie who refuses to use her husbands name or let her husband have a proper relationship with the children. It’s been two days since she got back, and already she is kicking off.
Sure enough, when I ask her to leave me alone, she starts shouting, waking all the children up. Pacing around. Everything I say about how I feel, she turns around and starts talking about herself. She refuses to accept any point I say, including when I say that she always tries to disagree with me.
Eventually I manage to steer things to calm her down a bit, I explain to her that it’s not fair for her to dump her emotions onto the children and drag them out of bed every time she feels upset. That her actions are affecting others who have done nothing to deserve it. I suggest she gets professional help, but she says she will not do that. We go back around our history of moving around and falling out with different communities and she says all of that was me.
Charlie was the one who wanted to move every time before I did, but I keep that quiet – I’m trying to calm Charlie down. It’s clear that Charlie is re-writing history in her mind, she now says she wants to move again back near her family. She doesn’t accept that we lived near her family once and she didn’t cope with it then.
So Charlie starts talking about her feelings, she says she is overwhelmed. That she can’t cope by herself with 3 children. And we talk about her perhaps trying to be less controlling and let others help. It’s a useful chat, but I also know this is just the latest excuse. Charlie was difficult to handle and lived in a very negative bubble long before the children came along. I talk to her about how she’s been really successful in her career this past year, she is back in work, is slowly moving towards a job she likes and has just 1 module to go on her course. It’s good progress, but it seems like Charlie cannot recognise that and be proud of the journey she has made so far.
I know I need to get myself and the children out of this situation, but it’s so difficult – I’m looking all the time at rental or buying options in this area and there is nothing I can afford, I think Covid may have driven prices up over the past year.
Charlie was away last week for 4 nights. It went really well, the children argued less, there was less rushing around in the mornings and meals were ready earlier in the evening, I even had more time to hang out with the children.
When Charlie came back, within hours the children are bickering again. Charlie just constantly does this passive aggressive behaviour where she remarks about things she is not happy about or corrects words people say including myself. It’s like she has a problem with so many things and want’s you to know.
All this backchat and passive aggression really impacts on those who receive it.
Charlie is away this week, it’s been much better, the children bicker less and it’s easier to make them take responsibility for themselves when I’m not competing with Charlie for their attention.
But I have noticed a few things as I have been around the house. Charlie has written a note in Ollies homework folder saying she authorises him to do no homework for all of 2022. He is 10 now and needs to do some homework, just to start learning how to do self learning.
Charlie has also crossed out our surname in the front of her homework book. And I noticed Charlie has ripped out the front page of all the children’s early reader books – They had a page with ‘This book belongs to’ on it where Sam had written our surname, now all those pages have been torn out. I think she did this in the past month.
So despite all what Charlie comes out with about wanting to make things work, she’s still doing plenty to make it not work when I’m not looking.
Just a note. Charlie has calmed down a lot from her previous tense anxiety levels.
I have been thinking the past couple of days have more “normal” and relaxed for the children. But even now, I see little things – like being followed by Charlie around the house. When I sat downstairs to watch a message somebody sent me. I could hear Charlie outside the room quietly, then she went outside and listened outside the window for a moment. She wanted to know what or who I was listening to.
So I guess my “normal”, is still pretty outside most peoples “normal”.
You can never challenge Charlie on any of of her behaviour. There is always a reason or an excuse, but if you watched her, she has been absolutely checking on me for the entire day. She wanted to go to Ikea, not for anything big, just to look at a few things. If I went, I would just be watching the children whilst she looked. So I declined to go. As soon as I said I would stay home, she decided not to go either.
Charlie has been out at work for the day. I come in with the children and a plan to cook tea.
It all starts well, until I get out the salad that Charlie saved in the fridge yesterday. Charlie says she’s wants a new salad and makes another one basically the same as I the one I just got out. She is humming as she does it. I know that is a sign she’s anxious, it’s like a ‘I know I’m being cheeky hum’.
Over tea, Charlie says she doesn’t eat potatoes (she always did until today). and basically ends up going back to the kitchen replacing most things on her plate.
I am feeling offended about her reaction to what I thought would be a nice meal for her after work. After tea, she’s walking around talking loud about the things she’s doing. As soon as I mention sorting Sam next, Charlie goes to find her first and jump in. So I bail out and go and do work outside for nearly an hour to get out of the way. I hope that will move her on.
It doesn’t work, when I come in, I start off downstairs with the kids & TV. Ollie goes to bed and as soon as I go up to say goodnight, Charlie is there with us in the bedroom and starting a fuss about some things he’s put on the wall. I challenge Charlie that she is following me, she strongly denies it. Ollie is almost in tears over us fighting again, but I do not know what to do. Charlie is making it impossible for me to have a relationship with the children.
She leaves the room but hangs around close outside, I can hear her creaking the floorboards. Being stalked feels surreal and creepy.
I finish saying goodnight and try to head to my room, Charlie is still muttering about me and making remarks to Sam. I can’t handle the tension, so I get some bits and go off in the car for an hour. When Charlie is anxious, there are no good conversations, she just wants to offload a ton of emotion and expects me to agree with her distorted views. She’s been questioning Ollie on why he’s not going to year 6 camp. He’s in year 5, but his class is a 5/6 class. Everybody else understands he’s still a year 5 in a composite class. Charlie is determined this means he’s a year 6 now. It’s not fair on Ollie to get these confusing messages.
When I get back, Sam comes out of her room to say goodnight, Charlie is immediately with us telling Sam to go back to bed. I am being followed everywhere and harassed. I try to be clear with Charlie that I want space but she isn’t processing it. She hangs around the room asking different questions, ‘where did I go?’, ‘did I get something?’, ‘ was it about here?’. She won’t give me space to write my diary. Ollie gets woken up by the conversation. Charlie is now walking around the house spitting loudly on the floor and clearly vexed. She want’s reassurance that everything is OK, but I can’t lie to her about that.
She is asking if I had a bad day at work, she clearly has no appreciation of how difficult she has been this evening. How she is constantly disrupting my relationship with the children. I notice she’s repeated her new trick of leaving bloodied sanitary towels visible in the loo. It’s disgusting and all along she is in a bubble where her behaviour is normal and everybody else is out of line.
I eventually escape to sleep in Ollies room. Charlie is pacing around the house as I fake sleep. She is clearly emotional, muttering different provocative things which I am ignoring.
I remind myself that am not here to deal with the level of emotion she has, and how one sided it is. She will not accept how her behaviour impacts on others, and that makes any honest discussion impossible.
Just a note that today Charlie woke up in a completely cheerful mood. Having been impossible all week and constantly harassing me, today it was like nothing had happened and she even suggested I go shopping with Ollie.
It is like she has completely forgotten what she was like the day before. Anyway, I’ll take all the good days I can get.
I still have no clear idea what is making Charlie anxious this week, is it her new job, is it the children back at school, is it me? She’s been making negative remarks about all those things for days.
This morning I go out early for run. When I come back, the door has been locked from the inside. I know it’s Charlie as I heard her locking it as soon as I went out. Fortunately I have a key and can get back in. For all Charlie says about wanting counselling and us being together, she has a pretty crap way of showing it. I also notice the children’s school hats have been thrown outside. I have no idea why – but they weren’t there yesterday when I was trimming the garden, so once I again I know it’s Charlie. Our (my) surname has been crossed out in the hats and replaced with her maiden name. It’s a ridiculous exercise that confuses the children and means if the hats do get lost. We’ll never see them again.
Charlie continues on full anxiety mode all morning, I have had to move twice just writing this diary because she’s following me and offloading loads of negativity onto me. She is trying to provoke me with multiple irrational claims and I just don’t want to react. Plus what a way for the children to start the weekend. I’d like to sort Sam’s party and help the children chill out from the first week back at school, but if Charlie just disrupts everything, that’s going to be impossible.
Later I notice Charlie has emptied the bins. She never does this, so I have a look in the bin outside. Sure enough, Charlie has torn up a load of wedding cards we had from guests. This is the same person that constantly reminds me I made promises on our wedding day and accuses me of wanting to break them.
My entire day was been spent tip-toeing around Charlie who continued to drop provocative remarks and make negative comments whilst the children were around. I’m very worried how her behaviour affects the children and basically my whole day has been about trying bring Charlie back from her anxious state.
In the afternoon, I was getting changed. As per the new rule Charlie wanted a couple of months ago, I shut the door and made Charlie wait until I had finished changing. Charlie came up with this rule and said I couldn’t come in the bedroom when she was changing. I have been ignoring the fact that some of her changing sessions take half an hour. One time, she spent a whole day ranting at me for walking in on her and how it wasn’t right. Today though, she stated that I made up the rule and it was a ridiculous rule for a married couple to have. She has no recollection that she introduced it or even gave me such a hard time about it two months ago. It’s probably the clearest example in a while of how Charlie can completely appear to forget something she has said or done, and then come up with an alternate version of events. But these little moments happen all the time with Charlie and it’s impossible to suggest otherwise to her.
Charlie is still anxious. I thought the weekend might calm her down but no.
We were talking about different things and Charlie’s new job. She starts saying how we could move house to be nearer her new job. I’m not keen to rush into that thought line since Charlie isn’t great at staying in one role and it’s not even a month since she started. I remind her that I’m keen to look into having separate houses and maybe this could work.
I am desperate to move out and it would be much easier if Charlie was on board rather than letting her be unpredictable. Charlie starts saying we’re married and can’t do live in separate houses. She argues that we should move to be near her family because mothers & daughters have a special bond that I don’t have with my family because I am a son. Basically she states that she should get preferential treatment over me because she is a daughter. She starts being more upset and anxious and works herself up. Every time I try to suggest that I disagree with anything, she over-reacts and says that I am ‘blaming her for everything’. She denies wanting to buy our current house which is so not true – she really liked it – we both did which is why we put an offer in on the day we saw it.
The children are hearing the whole thing and getting sucked into our tension again. I wish Charlie would control her emotions better and not lose it every time she doesn’t like something.
Charlie was still twitchy today when she came home from work, it’s always a big thing for her that she’s been to work. I had made sure things were under control.
The children are all home and I sort out dinner whilst she has some time out. At bedtime, Charlie is pretty clingy around the children which is kinda OK, but it blocks me out. Until Sam is goes to bed last, as Sam goes upstairs, she asks Charlie not to follow her.
Sam gets overwhelmed easily, so having somebody in your face is a worst possible scenario. Charlie doesn’t take the hint and decides tonight would actually be a great night to make extra sure Sam cleans her teeth. So Charlie follows Sam all the way to the bathroom and sure enough. Sam starts protesting wildly, Charlie refuses to concede anything and starts going on about how important teeth brushing is. It goes on between them for over 20 minutes, twice Charlie walks out the bathroom slamming the door and saying she’s had enough. Only to turn around and walk back in seconds later.
Eventually Sam is totally distraught, like you would be if somebody started getting on your case as you’re trying to do your teeth. I decide I can’t ignore the harassment of a child and venture to the bathroom where I really calmly suggest Charlie takes a break for a bit. Charlie is having none of it, accuses me of criticising her, even though I chose the softest words I could. Every time I suggest maybe a break would help, Charlie knocks me back, insisting everything is fine between her and Sam. Charlie starts digging up times when I have errored as a parent too. I’m not here to start another fight so I back off and head away. Fortunately the hint does get taken and Charlie is able to change her tune with Sam, letting her clean her teeth under supervision. Eventually Sam gets to bed. It’s so tough hearing the children being treated this way by somebody who is unable to see their own issues or the damage they are causing. Although Charlie has good intentions, she is so tactless that it just causes pain.