A request, accepted and delivered was not well-received by all. I am not entirely surprised, there is no switch in the head that can automatically change state after receiving new data. My desire to reduce the extent of the overall harm, still resulted in harm, but this time to one of the two most important people in my life…shit.

Fake news spreads faster than the truth. Perhaps I am a fool who fails to see the monsters in the wood. The manipulation skills are strong in this one Yoda…Still, I have to believe people can learn, change, improve, heal and take responsibility for their own lives. I know it is damn near impossible to do alone, and yet I may have it within myself to help him to move on (and out)…

The last 24 hours opened the curtains to let in some light. It changes nothing, it runs too deep, but I am beginning to undersand.

This picture is by William Kurelek

Yesterday was one of those days when the stars align. So, I took some legal advice and decided, right, that’s it, I cannot take any more delay (its now been 5 months since I asked him to leave). I wrote a notice to quit. Basically it says you have to leave by 1st May, and I also offered cash even though legally he is entitled to diddly squat.

So, I said, we need to talk (again). Not being a stupid man, he clicks its one of ‘those’ conversations and proceeds to have another meltdown, goes up the shed and spends the next few hours on the phone to his counsellor…or so I thought. It turns out that at the same time, his work has laid him off for 3 weeks with a 50% redundancy threat and so he was also talking to them. I had no idea that this was going on at the same time.

So, I finally get him to talk, I ask if he has changed his view, has his counsellor helped that etc. He comes back with exactly the same, ‘I will change, it will be great, give me a chance’, and I thought, I am not standing for this again, and handed him the notice to quit….that finally got his attention, and he told me about the job…His list of loss is quite distressing if you look at it on the surface. He is losing his partner, home, job, kids and cats. It must be fucking awful. but…like before, I had to scream at him to get him to agree to talk to a lawyer. I don’t want to scream at him, I had to scream at him to get him to even acknowledge that this was serious, I had to scream at him to ring the counsellor. I have had to do this to get him to do anything, it is tiring, and it makes me into a nasty person. It is one of the reasons I have had enough.

So, not a ‘key’ worker then (he is far too clever to actually say it though, just implied) and he had no work today, and it looks like no work tomorrow either…

I had a full working day, a five hour skype ‘revise a document together’ session, which was actually more enjoyable than it sounds (no, really).

The key thing, is that I have not had any cake today. I have cake, it is the orange cake in the cakes section. It was an experimental recipe as most of mine are. I often find that recipes are a bit weak on the amount of flavour/filling front. Not enough chocolate, a mere sprinkling of raisins, or I have to make double the sauce to even come close to having enough for a proper tasty coating. Hence, my orange cake has both oranges and orange essence in the sponge. It has both lemon and orange zest in the buttercream…and…a sticky orange glaze painted between the layers and orange zest on top. For me though, it is still not orangey enough. I think I need to look into making orange sherbert…maybe that will satisfy my desire for orange zing!

He has been largely absent from my world today, keeping his distance around the house. I did take a little legal advice, he has no legal right to stay here…but then I knew that, and as the lawyer said to me, there is a difference between law and ethics…

I wrote this a couple of months ago, at the time I felt a bit sorry for him…

In your chair
 
You can’t keep the promises you want to keep
Even though, the feelings run oh so deep
Good intentions, they just don’t make a life
When it’s easier, to sit in the chair
 
You can’t keep the promises you want to keep
Even though, you said you would make the leap
Good intentions they just don’t change a life
When it’s safer to sit in the chair
 
You play out the promises you want to keep
And you can keep it up, week by week
Good intentions, fall beside day to day life
When, you sit beside me in your chair
 
You can’t keep the promises you want to keep
And I think it’s just the way that you are
Good intentions, they just can’t reflect a life
When its cosy to fit in your chair

It’s not like I don’t believe your words
I know you’re sincere, and it hurts
You tell me, you love me, love me, love me again
Cos you think that’s what I want to hear

But I know you can’t keep it up, can’t keep it up.
And your life will just catch you up, and fuck it up
I’ve gotta get out of my chair.

We’ve been together since around 2006, no seriously, I lost track and can’t be bothered to check the dates. It had its usual honeymoon period as ya do, and then…well, there were so many signs, but after much research, I found out I was in a relationship with a covert narcissist.

This was 5 years ago and he is still here….they are clever and manipulative you see…oh, and he has no friends.

I reached the end, I really did and at the end of October 2019 I told him it was over. He begged, he pleaded, he cried (a lot). So being the soft touch these kinds of people aim for, I agreed to see if ‘I’ could see the error of my ways and that he could make it all ok again.

January 2020 and I tell him, no change, please leave. Nope, more begging and being oh so bloody nice. He even started counselling…all to enable him to better convince me that if I just ‘open my heart’, everything will be ok. It really won’t though, too little too late and to be honest, I am just not interested.

BUT…do you know what? The day before the UK Corona Virus Pandemic lockdown, I had taken legal advice and drafted my notice to quit.

Of course, now everything about him moving out for the time being has stopped. I mean, how can I kick him out of (my) house in the middle of a pandemic? What sort of person would do that? What would that make me look like huh?

Oh, and he’s a lorry driver so now he’s a fucking key worker!

The result is Mr Fucking Happy, so nice, lots of jokes, offering to help.

Whistling! I heard him fucking whistling yesterday!

He is like the cat that got the cream…