Chapter 4: Café in Lannion

23rd September 2023 I am in a state and I tell my friend that I couldn't even talk to her on the phone about it as all I was doing was crying: I told her "Greg doesn't realise how he controls everything in my life and how I have no control over anything in France"; "Greg thinks that he is doing everything possible to make life easy for me here and that I have a lot of choice as to how I live my life. And the reason I'm unhappy is because I haven't done anything about it"; He says he would do anything so that I am not sad here: but at the same time has clearly said there is no point in me staying with him if I want to adopt a child as he in no way wants that in his life. He has refused all cafes/bistros that I have suggested that I could run (I can't get a loan to buy anything in France without Greg's help. And he won't help); Before we moved here, he said our friend "Ingrid" who owns and runs Ty cosy (a bar in town) wanted to sell. And I foolishly thought this meant, oh maybe we could buy it. But after even a lot of discussion with Ingrid Greg always found an excuse to not invest. Even if I bought the business for €10k and managed the place as it was. Greg found excuses, and said he didn’t remember me telling him this (I was sure I had, and when going back through old whatsapp messages saw that I had told him on the 5th Sept 2022 about all the various options: he responded with "Bistro was is not the way I would recommend. Long days". and that was the end of that.

  

  

"Ty Cosy" - Ingrid was always talking about selling, she'd had enough after 10 years and wanted out. I asked her what she wanted for it (Greg was never interested in discussing about it and just dismissed it every time I brought the subject up – either of buying the “Ty Cosy” or any other commercial property) - she was asking 280,000€ to buy the building and business - this included the flat above the cafe. the cafe had 2 floors of shop space. she was open to any arrangement, even rental just of the business 1200€ a month. or I could just buy the business and run and manage it and keep all the profits but she owns the business for 10,000€ (this was all around 5 September 2022). all these options Greg said no (fyi, later in one of my breakdowns I said that the lack of purpose in Lannion didn't help my situation and the fact that Greg was fully able to get hold of €8000 to buy me a Citroen Ami (as he always took priority for taking our only car to go climbing either in the climbing gym or outdoors – leaving me only with my bicycles to get around to do the food shopping etc.) so that I could have some independence and get around by myself was a bit of a kick in the teeth because when he did this he claimed that he didn't know about the €10k offer for Ty Cosy...and denied that I'd ever mentioned it to him, but I did find a WhatsApp outlining all the various options that Ingrid had laid out, but Greg doesn't remember it so it didn't happen. Also, I had very limited access to money in France to be able to invest in it, all our savings had been put by Greg into the house....and one of his personal accounts where he decided how we would spend it, and as a foreigner I couldn't get a loan either.