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.