Chapter 10: Mission to reclaim house keys!

My usual coping tactics of trying to concentrate on work, volunteering, crafts, cooking have failed. I was so desperate I thought having my own income would help, and when that didn't work, I thought moving back to the UK would help, as it would be easier to seek medical help in my native language, rather than deal with the racist misogynistic medical system that I was facing in France. Unfortunately, I have come to the point where none of this has worked and I am unable to cope with anything. 

I thought keeping busy so that I didn't have time to think about how bad my situation was, but seeing friends and family, or doing volunteering, or crafts would cheer me up, but there was no enjoyment in anything... including work. Well meaning friends and family would say things like: It will get better! You are very brave! This will make you stronger! Or I've been through worse, you can get through this!

As well meaning as those words and intentions are, they do not help. I just don't want people to bullshit me and tell me it will get better and that I'm strong. Or this is going to make me stronger, because, right now, I feel incredibly broken, crushed and destroyed. I literally feel the opposite of strong. And I understand that you and my mum and everyone else is just trying to support me, but just don't tell me things I know are not true. I don't feel people are listening to what I'm saying, they are telling me what I should do. I know what I need to do. But right now, I can't. I know where I am. I know how it feels for me. Telling me that you've been through worse and gotten through it and so can I is not helpful. I am not you. You are not me. I am in this situation and one of the things that could possibly make it better is impossible.

Knowing all this, and after spending a weekend in Edinburgh with a kind friend which exhausted me and highlighted that I couldn't cope even in the company of kindness and understanding, I was having panic attacks just walking around a market. And knowing that I've made very basic mistakes with my work really hit me that I needed to stop. Everything needed to stop. 

I needed to stop my volunteering roles, I needed to stop working. And I needed to do things for me.

I decided that I wanted to get my house keys (for the house that I co-own with Greg) back, and as advised by the MET police I needed to log the domestic abuse with the french police as the abuse primarily took place in France.

So I booked a very short trip to France to do this. I didn't tell Greg I was coming because I was concerned that he would potentially do something irrational like accidentally not be there and not let me in. As a bit of context Greg had removed me from our joint Spotify account on the 12 August, and I was concerned that he would also do the same to our Microsoft 365, where all my documents are stored on OneDrive (both of these I was encouraged to use by Greg).

Also, on Sun, 18 Aug, 08:44 Greg had emailed my brother (as I was unable to cope with receiving emails from Greg as they upset me too much) to tell him that: " I've moved all the direct debit out of the joint account, but Way Way's French Mobile Phone. I've also cancelled my credit card on it. As l’m paying the fees for the account (and her mobile phone), could i ask Way Way to cancel her French credit card? The joint account will still exist, she can make transfer from her Livret A to it and then transfer it to her Revolut Card, for example, for payment in Euro. If she agrees, she will need to send an email to the "CA conseiller" through the app."

I confided in my neighbour about my plans, and she kindly offered to let me stay at her's if I didn't feel comfortable or able to cope with staying in my own home. She also offered to pick me up from the train station (which was lovely). So I booked my tickets to Lannion arriving Monday 19th August, and leaving Thursday 22nd August. The journey there was exhausting (and given that it has been enough of a challenge to get out of bed in the mornings let alone have a shower and get dressed - I also rarely eat anymore - no appetite - so usually survive off a banana in the morning - Mum had recently tried to cheer me up by taking me to dim sum (she even paid! - which is unheard of!) and it made me feel sick) so, I decided it would be a better idea to stay a night at my neighbours place and try to sleep and then go try and get my keys back in the morning.

I knocked on the door to my own house, Greg answered, he was incredibly surprised to see me there. I asked for my keys back, and he gave them to me (without the fob for the garage door). I went for a shower. Where upon I saw 2 towels on our bathroom towel rail - one of them was the one that Quan bought me when I was in Japan and complained to him that there were no decent sized bath towels there so he bought me one from the UK for me. Greg thought it was just a towel, but he had given this one for his new girlfriend to use. It also turns out that he had moved all my clothes out of our bedroom that he was now sharing with his new girlfriend. Despite when he asked me on the 17th April via whatsapp: 

Greg: "ok. Is it okay for me to move some of your stuff inside your study? In boxes".

WW: "why"

Greg: "To feel more in my place, and not ours".

WW: "It is still my place"

WW: "That is very unkind of you"

WW: "Not nice"

Greg: "I am asking"

I came home on the 19th August, to find out that not only had Greg moved my stuff into boxes and put it in my study, he had also moved all my clothes into the crappy Pax wardrobe that he knows I wanted to get rid of, and moved his clothes into our bedroom into the wardrobe that I had chosen and selected to buy from la p'tit boutique. Without even asking. and even when he did ask, he completely ignored my answer and did it anyway.

After my shower, I tried to talk to Greg, we recorded some of the conversation. Greg has the recording. we were effectively both hoping to go with Greg's "option 1" and neither of us wanted his "option 2". 

On Tue, 6 Aug 2024 at 10:13, Gregoire Moinet

...

Way Forward:

·         I have so far agreed to all her conditions but I’ve reached my limit in term of tiredness and stress, so there are now 2 ways to progress

1.       Considering all the elements provided, Way Way accepts the Divorce Agreement that we jointly wrote signed in March this year. The conditional order will be requested prior to coming in September and we will need to follow a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting before filling form A from the Government, which will be the same as the Divorce Agreement. The final order won’t be requested before the Citizenship Process has reached its conclusion. Some minor details can be amended.

2.       If Way Way disagrees with 1, then it’s likely better to involve lawyers on both sides which would allow you, Quan, to not be in the middle. I will stop any support related with Citizenship procedure and any communication with Way Way. Divorce procedure will then follow its own way, in UK or in France.

But Greg was now insisting that I should be obliged to apply for the conditional order before I came back to Lannion on the 19th September where I had been planning to renew my visa. I didn't want to. I do not feel ready to do this yet. Nor do I want to close my Credit Agricole debit card. But as usual these aren't actually things where I have free choice in the matter. Greg wants me to do something, he asks, I should do it. He is furious when I don't.

Anyway, I started taking my handmade cushion covers off pillows and all the bits of fabric I had hemmed to cover furniture (as Greg's valuation of all our possessions assumed Zero value for hand made items of his!). I set up my bed in my study and went around looking for some of my things that I wanted to bring back from the house in Lannion. Greg eventually went out to go buy some food (as apparently there was none in the house) I pottered about - had 2 rounds in my massage chair! - and waited until after 13:30 to go to the police station to log my domestic abuse with the french authorities.

I came back from that exhausted. went to bed. I think I heard Greg leave the house around 7pm. Didn't know if he was coming back or where he had gone, I was too tired to care. I managed to spend my evening taking down one set of my handmade curtains and curtain rails. Then I set about with chalk markers on a therapeutic art installation which moved to posca pens in our bedroom....

 

On to chapter 11....