This has been bugging me for a while now. Around once every six to eight months something breaks down in this house – usually Henry’s laptop or power supply. Since Henry was seven years old it has happened regularly, he will be thirteen in May.
I learned the second time it happened that we should really be strict with how Henry uses his laptop; Paul still hasn’t learned this and is endeavouring yet again to try to afford buying a new power supply for Henry – just so the screaming fits about not having laptop access, stops!
The power supply breaks because Henry is a mindless twiddler, he twiddles on the sofa at the power supply cable mindlessly and ignores us when he is on it. I told Paul that Henry is on the laptop too much every day, so an hour to maybe an hour and a half should be his limits and the power supply should be plugged in when he isn’t using it!
However Paul lets Henry have the laptop every waking second the boy wants it! He is on his laptop more than I use mine! As soon as Henry wakes up in the morning around 7:15am he is on that laptop, spooning his cereal into his mouth whilst playing Roblox until it is required for him to get dressed by 8am to leave the house by 8:20am, often leaving the laptop on to die out whilst he is at school! To me this is and always has been unacceptable, to Paul it’s convenient.
As soon as he comes home from school at 3:25 he raids the kitchen cupboard for several snacks, plonks himself down in front of his laptop again and mindlessly eats until we say stop, or take the food away, usually with huge tantrums in tow! He will struggle to get off the thing to come and sit at the dining table for dinner and will rush his food to be back on it ASAP until bedtime!
The arguments I have had with both Paul and Henry over this and I have exhausted myself, because nobody cares what mama has to say – I’m a nobody here!
Whenever it is the weekend or Henry isn’t at school he is on the laptop from around 9am when he will usually wake up until his bedtime’s which school is usually around 11pm if there isn’t the next day. Again to me, this is highly unacceptable!
But for Paul, it’s convenient, because whilst he is on the laptop he is relatively quiet; whilst he is on the laptop he isn’t making messy robots and Lego designs or doing messy art! Whilst he is on the laptop he is out of the way!
I am always made to feel unreasonable by both Paul and Henry if I were to criticise this routine they have.
I am such an unfair parent who doesn’t want him to have any fun; I just want to take away his freedom and happiness, because I like hurting him apparently. Henry is allowed to say these things to me when Paul listens on, Paul says nothing other than tell me that he is alright, leave him alone, at least he isn’t getting in the way of the ironing or the cooking etc.
So every six to eight months, Henry gets a new laptop replacement from Paul and we get extra credit debt, because of Henry’s carelessness and Paul’s idea of an easy life!
Just before Christmas our oven broke down, Paul went into credit to get another one, it isn’t paid for yet – then the microwave broke down around ten to twelve days later, that hasn’t been replaced and then the washing machine around two week ago, that hasn’t been replaced yet either – but Henry’s power supply breaks down and Paul breaks into savings to get him a new one immediately – because that’s how much Paul values convenience.
You have no idea how hard it is to keep my mouth shut about all of this! Time and again it happens; time and again needful things are kicked under the carpet for that boys addiction to computer games!
What is worse is that recently Henry was weighed by the doctor and the doctor told us that Henry is becoming obese! I saw it, Paul didn’t!
For a year I have been trying to get that boy off his butt to do the exercises he used to love doing – he used to love running in the local field training for marathons and this year he couldn’t be bothered to do his usual annual charity run – which I was disappointed in and he gave up litter picking with the local environmentalists three months ago, purely because he wants more laptop time!
He is even starting to think about giving up his charity clubs that he goes to once every two weeks, because he loses a whole three hours a time away from his precious machine!
Young Carers will do him well in hard times, he needs their support – but still he is considering giving it up, not worth it you see… he hasn’t the time you see, the club interferes with his plans! Paul is OK with the boys obsession, I am livid by it!
I have always wanted an active, social family with strong family bonds – instead I get a bunch of bums who hate spending time with each other and often sit in separate rooms!
I am the only one who lifts a finger to actually tidy and clean anything in this house, but when I live with two people who addicted to their machines and don’t give a rats ass about how sick I am and what efforts I’ve put into the house – its hard to maintain. I spend three hours cleaning one room because it’s excessively messy and dirty, only for the mess to be back all of the next day without any sign I have actually vacuumed the place at all!
You can clearly see my areas in the house, I am very territorial, my areas are spotless and organised the rest of the house is disgusting and sort of represents a junk yard or pack rat house!
The back garden is definitely a junk yard, old washing machines dumped out there with a rotten old sofa and computer desk because we can’t afford to get a skip and the junk man rarely comes this way anymore!
I find the whole thing, the whole house and the attitude of the family very humiliating, I am ashamed of the lot of it and Paul knows, because I’ve broken down in tears during my worst days telling him what I need in order to feel sort of normal again. But he whines like a kid and chants “I know, I know” it’s not like talking to another adult at all and to be totally honest – I don’t think he really does know what I am on about!
The other day, when I had my bout of suicidal thoughts and dark poems, it was such a day! I told Paul again about how I can’t hack it anymore how I am trying and he snapped at me and said to me – “I do my fair share around the house, I do the cooking, the washing and the ironing” and I said that’s all you actually do though, that and cleaning the rabbit, you do nothing else, the house rots around you and you often forget to check on me or talk to me anymore! He snapped and swore, he rarely swears “he said fuck it, I won’t do the laundry then, I won’t do anything anymore – I’ve had enough”! So this is what happens when I ask for help – I get threats like this, that fewer things will get done.
I am afraid these days to ask anything extra of him anymore, because of these big outbursts!
I didn’t ask him to do anything other than to check on me from time to time, as he just doesn’t bother. Even when I go downstairs to sit there, he will actively ignore me whilst he plays solitaire or a Facebook game.
I was angry that day because I slept so long – I slept for thirteen hours solid, which is weird for me! I didn’t wake up until 3:55pm, which is disgusting – but he didn’t once come and check on me to see if I was OK – his excuse was, he was busy hand washing the laundry all day and couldn’t spare the two minutes to check on me as he passed my room on the way to the only toilet in the house that he uses an average of once an hour because he drinks copious amounts of tea all day!
When I used to be very badly sick and bedbound, I was often afraid I’d die in bed and he wouldn’t find out until dinner or bedtime, the only two times per day I can actually guarantee he’ll look for me!
I once rose a concern to Paul how if I ever became paralysed or had a stroke, I’d die of neglect – the horrible thing about it is, he sincerely agreed as he wasn’t sure he could care for me either!
This was a huge wakeup call and this is why whilst I sat in bed several months ago I tried looking for bedbound to fit exercises on YouTube to try and help myself out of it. But I had to do it in secret, because Paul doesn’t like knowing, I am doing anything out of the ordinary!
This is why my depression has been really bad since September.
I am well enough now to spend around an hour a day cleaning, sometimes more – but you see I can’t! Because either Paul gets in the way, or both Paul and Henry kind of leaves a trail of their mess behind me as I move to clean the next thing.
When Paul suddenly knows I am cleaning a lot, he will (I believe) deliberately stop buying cleaning products to slow me down, as all of a sudden, he can’t find them in store or he had an unexpected bill so the bleach has to wait a week!
Yes, this house can go a whole disgusting week without bleach!
Paul claims he was never like this before I moved in – when I moved in I came with so much extra stuff, so that is why he can’t clean. But you see it’s a lie, he was a pack rat before I moved in, I remember one of the first things I did when I moved in was to pull up all the carpets because of how thick the grime was in it that the whole carpet was hard like black gum and hundreds of silver fish crawled out as we pulled it up!
I wanted to go back to live with my mother so bad, but I grinned and bared it because I saw freedom and was intoxicated by it!
It took me nearly two years to get this house into a liveable state and remember I got pregnant within the first six weeks of living here, so it was no easy feat!
You have to also take into account, both gardens were severely overgrown and I levelled it all, by myself.
I was so proud by what I had accomplished and within six months of being ill – it’s like I never touched the place!
This is why I struggle to see the Brightside of anything these days, living in poverty with two pure bums.
I can’t really remember what true happiness feels like anymore, true relaxation or comfort, or even love… but then again, did I ever really know what love was? I kind of had it once… funnily enough with another Paul – not this one, there was another Paul once… but that one let me down.
I kind of new love once I guess!
No doubt I will get an earful if Paul reads this, that’s another thing – he is becoming very watchful of all my online activities lately, which is making me wonder if he is actually jealousy looking for anyone who might show an interest with me. It’s weird because there was a guy who liked me a few weeks back, but they reckoned someone warned him off.
Didn’t know who, they didn’t either.
Anyway, just a heads up and thanks for reading!
tardycreative.com 