5 weeks now, locked into a house. My freelance contract finished on 31st March and so I’m ‘at-home’ rather than ‘working from home’. As she and I have been getting on reasonably well over the last few years, the atmosphere has been fine. She has been going to exercise classes regularly over the last couple of years and so we go out walking every other day and all is pleasant.
In fact, before the lockdown started towards the end of March 2020, she had been working as a freelance herself for about 3 weeks. And the assignment had clearly gone well – she had enjoyed her time and her colleagues, judging by the leaving card comments, clearly appreciated her work. All good to see.
It was ironic, though, that previously she had, without telling me, thrown away cards my friends/colleagues had presented me with. Her own card she displayed proudly on a shelf in the kitchen!!!
So, all good really but …. as she herself if very fond of pontificating to friends and relations on the phone, ‘a person’s character cannot change.’
I was reading this article which has a very nice paragraph: ‘One place to start is with vigilant attention to what we allow as normal. Do not permit small expressions of contempt. Anger, frustration, sadness, blame – yes, but never contempt. Keep contempt out of your home and you’ll have a difference in the kind – not just degree – of your fights and the curdled sprawls that ruin families. Don’t just take it in your stride when people speak to you in ways you don’t like – act surprised. Surprise marks clear edges around what we expect of our relationships, and communicating that “this isn’t normal” is often an effective way of communicating “it shouldn’t be”.’
As I have always done, I do my fair share of the cooking and cleaning – now that our cleaner cannot come, I do the bathrooms, she does the kitchen floor for example. I cook decently but am always told off for not using a recipe – though the outcome is usually ok. I prepare our son’s meals eight times out of ten. She wasn’t feeling very well and so I made the pizzas one lunchtime – and was told off for not using the ‘right’ passata. I am of course not competent enough to load the dishwashes ‘correctly’. I do ‘act surprised’ and make a jokey comment or two but do not react.
(But when one has been told in the past, ‘And you don’t exactly do great work. Aren’t you ashamed that you’ve not had a pay rise for five years? Anyone doing a proper job would not have so much time for friends. People go to work not for friends. Don’t kid yourself that you are in a serious job.’ - these are minor issues! Entry 61)
I am more concerned now about her behaviour with our son. It is much improved from before but whereas he leans into for a hug with me, he shies away from her. Generally, her conversations with him are instructions – ‘you haven’t’ done this or that or the other – or, worse, harangues. That is difficult for anyone to handle, let alone a 14-year-old. Particularly annoying is she herself is a procrastinator and a half-finisher of things which leaves papers and clothes strewn all over the place – the very things she accuses him of. I try and tread the line between being a parent and being fair to both, but I fear for the effect it may have on him – as I have pointed out to her. Entry 157 and Entry 149.
Overall, though, the environment has not been so bad and I pray that that continues. I ask him, ‘ who’s my baby?’, ‘who’s my hero?’ – I am, I am. But fights will happen and possibly they will affect me more than either of them – perhaps I am just being a snowflake.
