Author: Jordan

Back to school day, Charlie was more anxious than the children.

Yesterday Charlie started telling the children that they didn’t need to go in on the first day and that they weren’t ready. I didn’t want to re-enforce this bizarre thought line so I stayed out of it and it’s not clear what the issue was. I think some of the children’s supplies needed naming, but that’s not really reason to keep them off school for the day. To avoid getting sucked into it, I said that I would go into the office to work. That meant Charlie would have to look after the children herself if she kept them home. Sure enough later on in the evening she seemed to have changed her tune and was prepared to take them, but she still told the children they could decide whether to go in.

So there was some confusion by the children this morning when they woke and got told they had to go to school like every other child. We eventually got them to school but after the school bell so they were late to class on their first day back. I wasn’t impressed, it’s not hard to get children to school on time.

Charlie also has this thing about Ollie being in the wrong year. I don’t understand the rational for it, he’s in the right one for his age group and is doing well. Charlie’s fixation with this issue dates back four years to a change of class when Ollie was in prep. So on the way to school, Ollie who has 2 years left is being told by Charlie that he has ‘just one more year to go’. It’s just annoying hearing this false nonsense being dished out onto the children that conflicts with what everybody else is telling them. I can’t see how it will help anyone in the future.

Well I had to stop writing notes last night because Charlie’s stalking was becoming increasingly intrusive. She quickly walked down the hall and into the bedroom twice and asked me what I was doing on the computer. She just stood there and watched me until I said I was going to bed. She had made a bed for herself downstairs and told Sam that’s where she would sleep, but now she said she was waiting to sleep in the bedroom. So I said I would sleep downstairs if she wasn’t going to. Charlie refused to commit to any arrangement saying she could go where she liked.

Eventually I went into the office area downstairs as there is only one comfy place to sleep in that room. Charlie came to the room next door and turned the TV up loud for an hour, eventually she slept in the TV room on the sofa. I was so stressed by the whole evening that I couldn’t sleep. Charlie turns everything into a battle and makes out that I am starting the fights and being difficult, but I understand now – it’s not me, it’s Charlie and she just uses anything she can to turn it on me.

This morning, we had planned to go and visit one of Charlie’s friends in a new house. It would probably be a decent day, but there’s no way I can pretend I’m doing OK all day and smile after the way I’ve been treated, I feel abused. When I tell Charlie I have decided not to go, she gets upset again. Ollie is there and asks her not to ‘go off on one’. I’ve thought hard about my excuse and simply say that I am exhausted – it’s none confrontational – but I am taking the rap, when really I just can’t stand the idea of being near Charlie. Charlie says we are all going and walks around the house loudly talking about how we’re all going to get ready. Then she tells the children none of us are going because I have ruined the day. I don’t need to receive all this hostility, so I say I need to do the garden and head out in the sun to do noisy hedge trimming until she finally goes on her way. Finally, I have some time to myself.

Another note, Charlie has deleted the mail forwarding filters on our shared email account again. She forwards all the email to a second address, but sometimes she complains that I have moved or deleted emails from the account. I don’t do this on purpose – in fact I usually wait a month before moving any emails that I think she may be watching. So I got fed up of being accused of that game and set up a second forwarder to my own email address. Charlie has deleted it twice now, so I asked her why she was allowed to forward emails, but I am not. She refused to give a rational answer and said it had been the way it was for years and there was no reason to change it. Basically it’s just another method of control. Later in the evening, I get an alert that she has changed the recovery account phone number on the email address. So she is still fiddling and although she says she is trying to get on with me – she’s clearly not too bothered about us.

, So we’re back from holiday which was mostly bearable except for one bust up in the middle. We spent the whole holiday sleeping in different rooms which was great for getting some space and just being able to wake up without feeling tense in the morning. All the way back, I’ve been doing my best to keep Charlie calm, I even disabled all messaging notifications on my phone so they wouldn’t pop up in sat-nav mode. If one of my closer friends or family messaged me and Charlie saw it, that would set her off.

We get back, Charlie gets out the car picks up the post and opens the house up, puts the post down in the kitchen. I follow with some bags and pick the post up to see what’s for me. I am expecting a small parcel and sure enough it’s there. But apparently that’s not OK. Charlie immediately, grabs the post off me and saying she is sorting it out. Apparently, it’s now totally wrong to get my post and I should have known this. Charlie is ‘sorting the post’.

I’m just so fed up of this, why can’t I just get home and unload without drama. So I tell Charlie I’ve had enough and I want to leave. Charlie then starts trying to turn it all on me, saying I started an argument with her. I ask about whether there is now a rule that I am not allowed to look at my post and apologise for not knowing she was ‘sorting it’. But it’s no joy, Charlie is off on one and she makes it clear it’s all my fault.

She is then checking on me every 5 minutes – what am I doing, who I am talking to. I am totally sick of this. I didn’t do anything wrong. The children are all seeing the tension and they’re upset too. They don’t know who to support as they try to intervene. Ollie is trying to reassure us that everything is OK. I am shaking again from the stress of trying to avoid Charlie – being near her just means I get a tirade of negative remarks about everything and anything she can think of to put me down.

Later on, Charlie is in the shower. I pop out to empty the recycling box into the bin. When I come back in, the door latch clicks loudly behind me and Charlie come rushing out the shower with towels on shouting ‘where the f*** is he going now?’ She see’s me on the stairs and I can see she’s a bit shocked. I explain I’ve just put the rubbish out and Charlie stars making excuses about how it’s really cold in the house isn’t it and goes off to adjust the air con.

It’s scary, really scary – all I do is normal things and I get this huge reaction and treated like I’m some kind of criminal or up to no good. Charlie continues to follow me for the rest of the entire evening, she’s always just outside the door or in the next room listening to whatever I am doing and then looking busy when I move between rooms.

We’re off on holiday tomorrow. Charlie is always a bit twitchy before any holiday, she likes a lot of time to pack.

On the 16th, I took all the children out for 8 hours so Charlie could pack and get ready. But she’s not ready. On the 17th it’s a Sunday and we had planned that Charlie would take the children out the church in the morning so I could have some time to get organised – it’s so much easier to clean the house when Charlie is not fussing.

Charlie changes her mind and does home church, before it even starts she is none-stop harassing the children, especially. Ollie over different little things. But she keeps barking different instructions until Ollie flips and just starts shouting at Charlie to leave him alone. During church, they do craft and make a big mess which they need to help clear up. I try to stay out the way, but now Charlie is on Sam’s case. It’s always quite hard to get Sam to help and you need to be simple and specific with her. Charlie isn’t she’s just shouting at Sam and getting more cross, I dare not intervene because I already know Charlie won’t back off. Charlie is very angry now, shouting and slamming doors. I wish she would just step back. Eventually Sam comes upstairs, I make her take 5 minutes time out, then we have a chat and she agrees to help clean. All is good, but Charlie is just so fussing it makes it hard for anyone around her to get things done. She doesn’t see the needs of the children.

I had to give up adding diary notes yesterday evening. Charlie was just too agitated, following me around, making provocative statements and trying to see what I was writing.

She always wants to know who I am talking to and what I am saying. She was watching TV when I was downstairs with Sam, so I moved upstairs when Sam went to bed. Charlie stopped watching TV and spent 20 minutes just walking back and forth between upstairs rooms and being noisy.

She is obviously very distressed and was making remarks about wanting to go back to her parents in the UK and how it would be better. The UK is in tier 4 Covid lockdown right now, her parents are not seeing any of their other children and generally people are stuck at home during the latest surge in virus cases. I’m not sure how any of that is better than the freedom we have right now. But Charlie won’t think about any of that, she’s not happy and only a major disruption to everybody else’s lives will make her feel in control again. I give up trying to do anything at all and pretend to go to sleep in Ollies room. Soon after I hear the bowl of nuts being thrown off the dining table.

In the morning, the nuts have been badly cleared up and are all over the floor. If one of our children had done this, we would make them clear it all up. So over breakfast I ask ‘who knocked the nuts on the floor?’, the children all adamantly insist they are not getting the blame whilst Charlie stays quiet and lets it seem like it is the children again. She never bothers to clear them up and it’s left to me.

Charlie’s moody negative state continued into today. I am not sure what is triggering it but we had a grumpy day out at a nearby theme park.

Charlie was focused on her phone most of the way there and slow to get organised when we arrived. Eventually we got on a few rides and Charlie mentioned a ride she had been very disappointed not to get on last time so we headed over.

She was going to go on with Sam, but then Sam changed her mind and swapped with Ollie. Charlie was major anxious about the switch and started making out that Sam had wanted to go on the ride and how Charlie had only waited because of Sam. It was very uncomfortable and others in the queue could see Charlie being very obvious about her displeasure.

Sam & I snuck off to get some space and find other rides whilst Charlie went on the ride. But Charlie spent the rest of the day walking around making negative remarks which the children could hear.

By the time we got home, Charlie was in full negative swing. She has been in the room to “check” on me three times whilst I write this entry. She does various shuffling of clothes activities to make it look like she has a legitimate reason to drop by. Whilst in the room, she makes a lot of remarks about her past and things wrong with us and now. Then Charlie starts on suggestions that I don’t help enough. Of course I help loads, Charlie is provoking me.

It feels uncomfortable and I know she just wants a response from somebody so she can explode. Fortunately, the children keep quiet this time, they’re not interested in Mum either. I am shaking in fear, I really don’t need a Charlie outrage right now. It has been a good day and Charlie is just not happy that the focus hasn’t been on her for once.

Here she is again, back in the room to see what I’m doing. She insists she needs to be in the bedroom so I head downstairs, within 30 seconds she has followed me again.

Charlie has been mostly calm over Christmas. We have caught up with a few friends old & new. I have been very careful to keep away from topics that bother her, but it’s still hard to have any productive conversations.

Today, in the morning I was tidying up. Charlie’s office space was filthy with food trodden into the carpet and paper everywhere. I don’t know what was going on upstairs, but something about a game of Risk between Charlie & Ollie. I don’t normally play board or card games with Charlie because she is a sore loser, even when the children are present. When I finished tidying, I sat down to watch a few movie clips on TV. Ollie soon joined me of his own accord.

The next thing we hear is Charlie having a tantrum upstairs. There is lots of muttering and I hear the Risk game being thrown off the table. Ollie can hear it too. Eventually, Charlie comes down and sits with us watching TV with a face like thunder. I protest and ask what could I have done this time. Charlie replies that it’s Ollie who she feels has messed her around by not playing Risk with her anymore.

So OK, that has not gone well, but as a parent this is not the way for her to deal with her child. We’re constantly struggling with the children not handling their emotions, but when Charlie has angry outbursts and starts chuntering and then letting off steam at people, it sets a poor example for them to follow.

Yet again, I am not sure why Charlie being anxious today.

She has done three days training for a new job this week. Although she does like to make a fuss about how hard she works for three days versus my five days.

We have all been out today so everybody is a bit tired, I offer to cook tea, but Charlie insists on doing it. I clear off with the children and spend an hour tidying up the TV room which is filthy. It turns out when the children did it last, all the rubbish got shoved under the sofas. When Charlie calls tea, I don’t know what happened, but as the children went up, Ollie saw it was fake pasta (looks like pasta, but it’s made from rice) and immediately said he hated it. Not very polite, but it broke whatever was niggling inside Charlie. She threw his tea in the bin and took hers to the bedroom.

When I got there, I had actually asked her not to make me tea as I was going to eat up some left-overs in the fridge and I had talked about that with Charlie before she started cooking (I’m not a fan of the fake pasta either). But there’s a plate of food for me, Charlie is watching to see how I react, so I try to just sit and eat it. Everything I say even she is listening and trying to interpret as me being negative. So I shut up. Charlie sits on the sofa and starts complaining at the children about how unappreciated she is. How hard it is to go to work and cook food. I cooked the previous two days when we’ve both been at work and not complained, but I do not remind Charlie of this. She is clearly trying to offload her emotions onto Ollie. At first he responds, but I manage to signal to him to keep his mouth shut and he understands.

For the rest of the evening, Charlie is following me again, I really want to talk to Ollie and tell him what a great job he did of managing his emotions and not giving in to Charlie’s provoking words. But I can’t, even when Ollie comes into my room and is just resting behind me. Charlie comes in and tries to encourage him away. He’s not interested, of course his not interested. He knows Charlie is emotionally unpredictable and he doesn’t fall for it. He’s tired too and a ten year old should not be a dumping ground for an adults insecure feelings.

Charlie is being passive aggressive again. I have no clue why this time.

I am heading into the city for work today, all the children are up and calm. As I’m about to get changed, I shut the bedroom door as per our agreed privacy arrangements. Charlie always insists on changing in private.

Charlie knocks and I say it’s OK to come in as I’m not changing yet, I assume she just needs to get something. No big deal. But Charlie comes in, fusses around a bit and sits on the bed. I stall for a minute, but Charlie seems to think she’s staying. I tell her that I was about to get changed, maybe it wasn’t obvious by the closed door and me getting clothes out. Charlie starts arguing about who is getting changed, says I let her in. So I leave and get changed in Sam’s room, but I let her know that I will have my own house soon.

All this hostility is just nonsense on her part. So Charlie starts getting angry at me.. I have just called her out on trying to bully me. The children all hear and come running. I ignore Charlie and go to kitchen to pack lunch. Charlie follows. Funny she has not changed at all. As I head downstairs to say goodbyes to the children, she follows me down there as well. It’s ridiculous behaviour. It’s impossible to talk to Charlie about it, she always puts it back on me or other people, I hate leaving the children with somebody in this mental state.

I get home, a bit later than normal because I’ve been fearing Charlie’s mood since this morning. She is so hard to be around.

Charlie has a whole load of suitcases packed everywhere. She tells me she is taking ‘her children’ to a friends to stay. I can’t cope, I have no idea what to say. I talk to Charlie a little but she is twisting her stories and suggesting her issues are my fault.

She keeps saying that I threatened her and she didn’t like me filming her behaviour this morning as though that is the reason we argued. I try to say that actually, the arguing and filming happened at the end of a lot of her messing everybody around and being irrational so it can’t be the reason she was angry.

But Charlie is not taking it in, she has made up her mind that I need to be the bad guy and there’s no stopping her trying to enforce that revision of events.

Charlie changes the subject and keeps asking what we’re doing for tea and says it’s too late to cook pizza dough. It feels like somehow it’s my fault she didn’t cook what she had planned to cook. How am I supposed to know about tea? I have just walked in the door and had to deal with Charlie threatening to leave. I can’t stand around while she’s in this state and I am unable to reason with her. So I get some things in a bag and head on out. At least if I am away, she might decide to stay and deal with things rather than just offloading randomly onto me.