Chapter 8: I am the controlling one

I had been organising a garden party to get to know the neighbours (fête de voisins) with my American neighbour (Alicia) for the 30^th September 2023.

  

This meant that I spent quite a bit of time with Alicia and her young daughter, Scarlett. I discussed with Alicia how difficult I found France, and how Greg didn’t understand my situation at all. She did at some point after the garden party manage to talk to Greg alone to get his opinion. She came back and told me that Greg had told her that he found me controlling. When I mentioned this to Greg, I asked what he thought I was controlling – as I had already told him on multiple occasions that I had no control over anything significant or importance in France and that he held all the control and made all the big decisions. He immediately denied that he had said that I was controlling (implying that Alicia had lied – which was unlikely as she had no reason to lie to me about this). He eventually admitted (reluctantly) that he thought that I was very controlling in Greg said that I was very controlling about cooking food and asking him not to close the gate to our drive way all the time as it made me feel like people weren’t welcome to visit especially as Greg did not like putting the car behind the gate in the car port, so that he could block the only available stopping/parking place at our house with our car.

   

(Left) The gate to the carport closed off. (Right) to the right of the stairs where Greg likes to park the car to block visitors.