Friday 24th of January 2003 – Why can’t we get along?
Wish I never had to see your father again. For your sake I have to. Although I think he’s not a good influence on you either. What do I do? Need to get away from him as far as possible, but then you’ll always hate me, won’t you? Don’t want to poison your mind against him, want you to make your own mind up. Today he went too far again. Like the time when we were talking, then it turned into an argument (don’t even remember what about), then he threw a lighter at me. He missed. I never threw things back at him, but this was at the end and I’d had enough. I picked the lighter up and, quick as a flash, without thinking, hurled it back at him with all my strength. I didn’t even aim, but divine intervention directed it to his eyebrow. And there he was, bleeding, he had jumped on top of me (we were next door and I was sat on the bed) and had his fist to my face giving me that horrible mad look of his. He didn’t even realise his eyebrow was bleeding at that point… I was dreading the minute he saw himself in the mirror. You were in the living room and missed it all, thankfully. I was just there, lying, immobilised telling him to ‘Come on then, finish me off, end my fucking miserable life with you’, hoping he would do the opposite, which he did.
He always managed to convince me it was my fault that he exploded like that. I knew it wasn’t, I had been in other long term relationships before and it had never been like that. Somehow he got me under his spell and I started to believe I was actually a nagging bitch, and that everything I said was complete and utter rubbish, and everything I felt was worthless and stupid. Because I never experienced anything like that before I guess I just couldn’t believe it was actually happening. I refused to believe I had fallen for someone so fucked up, someone who thought so little of me. I ended up thinking very little of myself too because of what I let him do to me.
I can’t remember whether I’ve written all this down before or not, but I need to do it today, so it makes sense in my own head. It all started very early in the relationship, we’d been together for no more than a couple of months. One night we got drunk and he was getting in a funny mood (he does that a lot) and I just left the pub to go home. He had left before me. As I walked home I found him sat against the Chinese restaurant’s wall, looking lost. So I stopped and asked him if he was ok and asked him to come home with me. Next thing I remember he was calling me ‘used goods’ (a line Phill had said to Cath in Eastenders only a couple of nights before). Very bizarre. I started to walk away and he grabbed me, then lost his balance and hit his head on the floor. So I helped him get up and we went home together. Should have told him to get lost then but I was in lust (not love, I don’t seriously believe I ever loved him). When we got home things seemed to go completely mad. I ended up pushing him down the stairs because he was being so abusive and I thought he was running up the stairs to hurt me. So I pushed him back down with my leg.
He got up, ran upstairs and was about to throw a chair out of the window when I asked him to stop, I begged him to stop. It was the craziest night of my life. I believed it was all my fault because earlier I had thrown his bag out of the window and told him to leave, because he was behaving insanely, but he just went mad instead, and started throwing things around. How dare I threw his bag out of the window because HE insulted me for absolutely no reason and I wanted him out of MY HOUSE.
Somehow we went to sleep and woke up the next day feeling absolutely ashamed and lost. He said he still wanted to see me. I said I still did too. (Think I was a bit of a mess at the time because of my father had just died, or just generally confused.) I mean, it couldn’t get any worse than that, right? He apologised profusely, but, there were buts, he said I did wind him up and it was my fault too… And I believed him. How naive of me.
Before that happened we had a massive party at my house. Reuben was still living there. I was seeing him before I started going out with Ray for about a year, and he still lived in the house, it was all amicable. Just before the party started I had news that my father had died. Although I hadn’t seen him for years it really shook me. I had just come back from my 2 months in Brazil, and while I had been there, my aunt kept telling me to get in touch with my father, ring him, go to Brasilia. I never did, because he knew where I lived and never wrote to me. Turned out he died in August, while I was in Rio! If I had gone to see him I would have seen him just before he died. So that was playing up in my mind that night. I wasn’t in a party mood. I stayed in my room for most of the night and friends would come up and stay with me. I would come out every now and then, because, as it turns out, that was the best party we ever had in that house. It was packed, and overflowing into the street. It was mid September so it was warm. People were doing coke on car bonnets… At one point I bumped into Reuben on the stairs, who said he was really sorry about my father and gave me a hug, and asked if I was ok. Something R. hadn’t even done!
I went back to my room and later on R. came up accusing me of snogging Reuben on the stairs: ‘I saw you’ he said, ‘On the stairs’. Of course that infuriated me, my father had died and he didn’t give a flying fuck. All he cared about is that fact that he thought he saw me kissing someone else. Which never happened anyway. It was a commiseration hug. I wasn’t impressed by that and didn’t talk to him for the rest of the night. Instead I smoked a few spliffs with Val and had a really good laugh, she really helped me that night. We just locked ourselves in my room and only let people in who knew the secret password (i.e. who does this room belong to?). That was a mad party, went to sleep at 7 and it was still going!
During pregnancy I was very clingy, I hated it when R. went out and used to call him a lot if he was out, asking him to come home as soon as possible. He always dismissed my hormonal surges and never came home when I asked. He never soothed me or made me feel truly loved. He stayed out and then got annoyed if I got upset. He just expected me to go with him. Of course I never did, I wasn’t drinking, I was pregnant and I wasn’t about to take my body into a pub and fill it up with drink and second hand smoke. Just didn’t want to. Same with spliffs, never touched a single one while I was pregnant.
I think the most drink I had was on my birthday, when I had two glasses of wine and felt lightheaded. I hadn’t had a drink for ages by then. So I felt a bit unsupported during pregnancy although it couldn’t have been all that bad and I still thought I loved Ray. He looked after me in his own away, ok, he wasn’t very loving but he said he loved me. But he never showed he loved me. Once I became pregnant ‘fat’ he didn’t seem to want to touch me at all. Not even just being tender.
Many times when I was writing this diary for you I would say we had an argument but never put much detail into it. I was trying to protect you. Didn’t want to shatter your illusions, give you a one-sided view of our relationship. But what other view is there? This is my diary to you so you’ll get my opinion. R. used to complain about it and I told him to go and write his own diary… Some arguments weren’t too bad, just arguments. Other times I would get so wound up with the perceived injustice of how he treated me, that I would follow him from room to room trying to convince him of my point, of what I was trying to say, as I felt so strongly about it. Things like breastfeeding you, not leaving you crying on your own, washing up… It could be anything, really. He couldn’t stand my voice or anything I had to say. He couldn’t stand it when I was right, when my argument made sense and there was nothing he could do to be right himself. That’s when he exploded. Whatever was around would get it. I would get pushed. Something would be thrown at me.
One time he was feeding your dinner, I was talking (not shouting, just talking out of desperation) and bam, your plate of food got thrown at my face. I was in such shock that I started shaking. No one had never done anything like that to me before. I remember not being able to stop crying and trying to talk and not making any sense and just feeling so pathetic. He didn’t even apologise, he didn’t feel sorry, just cold as ice. You were only about 1 year old. What killed me more in all of this was that you witnessed some of it. Not the really bad stuff, but enough. When you were older, and could talk, we got back from the supermarket and R. was stressed (lack of nicotine). You were trying to help to put the shopping away (I always let you do that) and he was getting annoyed because you were getting in the way. That annoyed me. You were only trying to help and he was telling you off. He was going the right way to destroy an innocent child’s self-confidence.
So I told him to stop and let you help and started lecturing him. I just felt so hopeless because I was telling him things over and over again about how to make a child feel good about himself. How shouting all the time is BAD, how he needed to be patient.
He just doesn’t have it in him. He can’t give love or patience or time. So, as I was ‘lecturing’ him on the virtues of letting you help him put the shopping away, and how it is actually fun and builds your confidence, he just hurls a plate with bread, bacon, etc, he was making across the kitchen… Just like that. You kept mentioning it for months afterwards :’Why did daddy throw that plate? That is wrong isn’t it?’. But deep down, when a child sees his father doing shit like that, well, it can’t be really wrong can it? I’ll never forgive myself if you end up like him, that’s why I always make a point of making sure you know it’s wrong. You at least know now that if you do stuff like that you will end up having to leave whatever house you’re in. At least I managed to teach you that.
Anyway, this morning… R. comes in, says good morning, I say good morning. I’m choosing something to wear when I hear him saying to you that you were going to his home tonight. He never told me anything, and I had arranged with my mum to stay with you. Your nana hadn’t seen you all week and was missing you terribly, she wanted to take you to Hampstead Heath tomorrow too and I said that would be fine. So I said that to him. He was adamant that he told me he was staying with you on Friday like he always does. What???? He always makes things up and exaggerates, he stayed with you on Friday no more than 4 times, I think even less… and somehow he’s turned it into a regular thing. My mum has stayed with you on most Fridays, so I pointed that out to him.
He was adamant I should read my AOL log files and I would find it there. Like I save every single one. The thing is, if he had said that he would have you, I would have remembered, given the rarity of it. It’s usually me asking him to stay with you.
Anyway, he’s done it before, think he told me something and hadn’t, and he’s admitted it himself. I’ve got much better memory than he does for things like that. Basically he never told me he would stay with you on Friday but wouldn’t admit it. He starts calling me a “sicko” . He never used that word before, how strange too, I thought, and telling me to put a belt on my trousers (huh?). He was in a bizarre mood. His eyes looked crazier than ever. So, we’re just bickering away. Then R. says: ’I feel sorry for J, for having to deal with you’.
Before that he kept asking if I was ok, how I should stop taking out my frustrations on him. He was insinuating that things might be bad between J and I, or that I had been dumped… I said that the only person that pissed me off lately was him, by making things and dates up. So when he said that about J I naturally retorted: ‘You feel sorry for J??? I wonder how long it’s going to be before you start throwing things at poor Clare, being a bully. And I’m pretty sure it was her who finished it off with you before, not the other way around, as you pretended it was’. I’ve always had a big mouth, but that’s not a crime where I come from… He had walked next door to have a cigarette (I don’t think he had any), I followed to get my keys and stuff and leave for work. I said he needed to sort himself out, as he was losing it for very little, he then grabbed me by my scarf and pulled it up straight (as if it was hanging from the ceiling). Stared into my eyes while he pulled it really tight: ’Don’t you fucking dare talk about Clare or my personal life’.
Even though I was choking a bit and I was trying to stop myself from punching him (the urge was immense) I just said: ’Ah, but it’s ok for you to talk about mine, that’s you R., through and through. Mr. Double standards, you fucking hypocrite’. He let go. I put my finger on the side of his forehead and told him he had finally lost the plot, that he was mad. He said that should teach me not to talk about Clare. Erm, no, that just taught me I can’t trust you at all, I thought we could be friends but I was so so wrong. It has all become so clear, more than ever. I am ok, I wasn’t a nagging bitch, a pain in the arse, a mad woman.
No, I am absolutely fine. I am not usually aggressive. I became aggressive with him as a natural reaction to his aggressiveness because I’m not a victim, not because I am a “nasty bitch”. I felt free from your dad forever! Still, there I was shaking with fury, again! I thought that would never happen with R. anymore, and crying, and telling you all the shouting R. was doing was wrong, because he was shouting now, he had lost his icy cool exterior and his true self was out there. You were upset but not crying. I just wanted to kill him just to shut him up. Didn’t want to leave you there with him. But he sat down and calmed himself. I left crying. Katie heard most of it and gave me a hug as I was leaving. She asked me if there was anything she could do, I asked her to make sure R. didn’t shout at you.
Later on (while I finally relaxed at the pub at lunch) I remembered that I had actually asked him to look after you on the 24th about 2 weeks ago… Still all he had to say was that I had asked him (instead of calling me a sicko and telling me to wear a belt on my trousers…), when all the time he implied that he was the one who wanted to do it. I should have known he would never actually want to look after you without me asking… Because he never does… And he’s done it so many times, think he’s told me something and not told me anything at all, that I just assumed he did it again. And he kept smirking, after he insulted me, like he was trying to wind me up. Then he has the audacity to tell me I’m winding him up! I should do what Val said and contact Citizens Advice Bureau…
Every couple of months things get so bad between us. Should I stop him from seeing you? That seems so wrong. If he’s like that to me I’m sure he will be like that to you too – he has lost it a bit with you, never on the scale that he does with me, but what will happen when you become more and more argumentative? I mean, you like to argue your case already now, you’ll only get more passionate about your beliefs (if you’re anything like me, R. or your nana). God, I’ve made such a mess of everything. But if he wasn’t your dad then you wouldn’t be you. I really wanted to just take the day off work and stay with you, R. was practically throwing me out of MY own house. How dare he get J involved in an argument and then flip out when I mention Clare’s name?
What the hell is going on inside his head? J has been off work for the last couple of days, so I haven’t seen him. I miss him… Ended up telling him what happened over the phone, I needed to tell someone, I’m sick of feeling ashamed, like it’s my fault. My mum says it’s my fault, the way I talk to R., but for a long time now I’ve been watching myself, keeping my voice tone down, being rational. It seems the calmer and more sensible I am the more wound up he gets. He just wants a fight.
Once again, another day spent in a daze wondering what to do, what have I done wrong. I can feel it my bones though, things will get better, our life is going to change. This year is for me and you! I really hope you’re not despairing today, I promise I will make things better. I’m lucky, things always work out fine and they will once more darling. Trust me on this one.