LIZ JONES’S DIARY: Why does David disagree with everything I say?
It all went so well. David bought me a new vacuum cleaner. Awesome. Bonus point. He started repairing the windows. He disappeared to buy wood, a saw, everything he needed. He took the windows out of the master bedroom, installed new cord. Beautiful. Progress.
The next day the weights got stuck behind the paneling. He lost patience when I jumped up while he was dragging my late mother’s recently restored Bergère chair across the floor looking for something to saw wood on, and said to me, “Oh, shut up.” He admitted defeat and said, “You’re going to have to bring someone in.”
I now have a very large hole where the window once was.
I called someone, who said they couldn’t start until October. (Later I got a quote for the work: about ten thousand dollars to renovate all the windows.)
But when David admitted defeat, I didn’t complain. I just said, “Well, at least you tried.” He then disappeared with my broken Miele vacuum cleaner to get it repaired. Hours later he returned ashen. “It was miles away, and then it was closed.”
I said, ‘What a waste of time, you should have asked me where it was. Call them first.’
He: ‘I’m wasting my time.’
Me: ‘I can’t stand chaos.’
I decided that we would just sit in the garden on Sunday and have lunch. I got up at 6am to get the horses out of the sun as Nic was in Scarborough for the weekend. I got home at 11am, he was still asleep, his iPad blaring Radio 4 in his ear; he hadn’t got his John McEnroe headband earphones to work. Lunch was fine, in a local pub.
I kept telling him about items I had bid on on eBay – a cast iron bath, a vintage French dining table – but he didn’t offer to help. Although he did say, ‘Should I take my fridge?’ when I already have my brand new pink Smeg. He told me he had ordered a two-ton electric bike: ‘It’s going to be my mobility scooter.’
“Try to make yourself even more attractive, why not,” I said, half jokingly.
I noticed that every time I made a comment, he said the opposite.
Me: ‘Why are they cutting down the hedges and wildflowers when the birds are nesting and the bees are pollinating?’
He: ‘No, no, it looks neater, it’s just a strip.’
“Do you think you can at least get the bathroom window open?”
He: ‘No, no, I prefer a warm bathroom.’
‘Can you guard Mini and her food, because Teddy will steal it, and he mustn’t eat her tablet.’
He: ‘No, no, he doesn’t.’
We stayed for a pub quiz. Every time he got a question right he looked triumphant. In the car he couldn’t breathe, he had to suck on an inhaler; he had been sucking on a vape all day. We got home and watched the final of Britain Has talent. I remarked that I found the fireworks behind the winning singer too distracting. ‘No, no, they didn’t, I was focused on her.’ Sorry, but that was it.
“Do you know you have a habit of disagreeing with everything I say?”
“No, no, I won’t.” Gaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!
He started screaming for my collies. I added: ‘And you have a very short fuse, you go crazy. Tells me to shut up!’
The day I moved in, he had a shouting match with a woman who was walking past the new house. ‘She started it!’
“Couldn’t you have ignored her? You knew what a milestone it was, moving day, how hard I had planned and organized, and you ruined it for me. I won’t let anyone yell at me in my own home.”
‘Ah, I was wondering when you were going to say that. The thing about me is, I can curse and throw things, but then it’s over, it’s over.’
Me: “I think your anger comes from feeling like you’re not good enough. You’re ashamed. And why don’t you clip your toenails?” Honestly. Surely a sign of respect for a partner is to take care of your own body.
“I don’t think I can achieve it.”
I went to bed and he started packing. ‘You’re not driving back to London after a few gluten-free pints.’ (He still has his cat and his apartment.)
‘I’m not going with you,
I won’t live with you. I sleep downstairs.’
The next day I woke up and he was gone.
Jones’ moans…what Liz loathes this week
Oh. There’s more. I made him give me my house keys back during our argument. ‘I only lost your keys when you took me to a dodgy bar.’ He was referring to the time I interviewed Peter Stringfellow for work.
Ah, so now it’s my fault he lost my keys.
Contact Liz at lizjonesgoddess.com and find her @lizjonesgoddess