I actually wrote a really long entry about today but decided to keep it private because it was way more personal that I intended. Let's just say today was bad. There's a war brewing in the house between my husband and the oldest daughter because of her behavior and attitude. It's going to end with her leaving and taking our grandson and never speaking to us again.
The only way to keep the peace is to just ignore everything that she does that annoys the heck out of me and do everything for her so there's no excuse for them to fight. I don't see any other way. Any time they're in a room together, they fight. He badgers her about doing chores and being an adult, and she throws a fit because she's realizing how expensive it is to get an apartment while having a kid. I think reality is crashing down on her.
I think she should start paying rent or at least contributing to the food and water bill (she raises our water bill to like $300 every other month--when she moved out briefly it was only $200 each time).
We said she could live with us after she had to baby to save up. She pays her car insurance and buys diapers. She has food stamps that she uses for food for the baby and snacks for herself (they both also eat the food we buy/cook). My dad pays for her phone which broke months ago so he's paying for a brick but she hasn't made much effort to do anything about it. She's on our health insurance. I have no idea if she actually has any money saved up. She keeps buying clothes online, art supplies, stuff for the baby. But if anyone talks about her contributing to the house, she has a fit and says she doesn't have money for that. She doesn't pay rent and doesn't clean up after herself.
Her clean, folded laundry is sitting in a basket in the hall care of me. I got sick of it all over the dryer and folding table in the laundry room so I folded it. That was over a week ago. She has only dug through it, knocking stuff on the floor that she left for me to pick up. Then freaked out because it fell on the floor near the litter box so it was contaminated and now needed to be washed again (did I mention the $300 water bill?).
She's driving everyone crazy. She harps on the other kids about doing chores and stuff because things aren't to her liking. Tonight, she got on the 10yo's case about showering because his feet were dirty. Then she argued with me when I told her to leave him alone because it's none of her business. She's not his mother--she needs to worry about her own kid.
I'm so stressed out now. There were at least three screaming fits from her today about cleaning up after herself and finding her own place and something else. I'm sure the whole freaking neighborhood could hear her. Every day is a little worse because neither her nor my husband will change or give even a little. She won't pay rent or do chores. He won't backtrack. He told her to stop complaining and do something around the house or move out. She can't stop complaining about anything and won't do chores so... she has to leave but can't actually afford to get an apartment around here (studios are like $900/month and she makes barely above minimum wage and has a toddler).
There's nothing I can do. Nothing I say will change either of them. All I can do is all the chores and keep things the way she wants them (so they're not "contaminated") so there's nothing to fight about. I don't know what else to do.
She's actually a really good mom. I was afraid, she'd get bored with the whole parenting thing and just ditch him whenever she could, but she spends all day with him most of the time and just adores him.
She also has severe mental illness--anxiety bordering on OCD (it turned into OCD while she was pregnant) and most likely bipolar. She refuses all help and treatment, though. Instead she complains about it and uses it as an excuse to not do things. I get that she's probably fatigued from whatever mental illness as well, but I still try to do stuff. I clean up after myself even on the most fatigued days. And I've gotten back on meds (was off them because they stopped working then we lost our insurance for a time and then the stupid pandemic canceled my appointments). I'm thinking of restarting therapy to deal with this crap. Normally I hate therapy, but the meds aren't enough so far (blah). She won't take meds because they'll change who she is or some nonsense and won't do therapy because she doesn't have time or money or doesn't want to face her issues. We've been dealing with this since she was like 12. The bipolar started showing up in her early teens (which was the same time I was diagnosed myself--I was 36, though).
The only ones that care if the house is a mess are the 14yo and 17yo. They're the only ones that will look at the mess and think, "gee, I should clean that up." The rest of them couldn't care less. If I left for a week, the only thing that would bother them is not having meals cooked every day but they'd just eat cereal and sandwiches the whole time (they all know how to cook basic food but are too lazy to do it).
And out of the 20 years I've had kids, I've had 1 week to myself. That was when my mother-in-law died. Our truck at the time only fit 6 people, but there are 7 of us. It was a 2000-mile drive so we couldn't all go. And our cat had just had kittens (went into labor the day before they left which was very inconvenient as I was trying to organize a cross-country drive and make sure the kids packed everything they needed including funeral clothes) so someone had to stay to keep an eye on them anyway. I got a whole week to myself... sort of. Having a brand new litter of kittens and a neurotic mother cat wasn't exactly relaxing. Otherwise, the only time I've not been with my family is when I was in the hospital having another baby or when I had my gall bladder out. Fun times. There's no money for vacations and I have nowhere to go. I don't have friends offline (I just don't relate to people at all) and the only family I have nearby is my brother who lives like an hour away. Not that I can visit anyone with a pandemic going on so...
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