During the next few weeks Bratty made a half-hearted effort at a job search.  She slept in, watched TV, and ate all day.  Dishes piled up in the sink.  I would leave for work having put breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, and would come home to a sink full of Bratty’s dirty dishes from the day.  She also left the patio door open when the air conditioning was on full blast, left the front door unlocked, lost the pool key (which SO paid $25 to the HOA to replace), kept parking crooked in the driveway blocking my car every morning, wouldn’t clean her bathroom, kept leaving the ironing board out, forgetting to unplug the iron (I never understood why she had so much ironing to do – she never went anywhere LOL), and probably more annoying stuff that I can’t recall now.  In other words, she was a typical messy and forgetful teenager.  These things would have been annoying in normal times but in my stressed out state was overwhelming to me.

Per our agreement, I would raise these issues with SO.  He did correct her on the laundry room (because it was HIS pet peeve) and the parking (because she also blocked him in) but would argue with me about the other stuff.  Why does Bratty have to put her dishes away during the day?  Bratty didn’t get around to cleaning her bathroom for a whole month – why is that a problem (um, do you have eyes and a nose - it is NASTY in there)?  We live in a safe neighborhood, it isn’t a big deal if Bratty forgets to shut the door occasionally.  Bratty is just a teenager, after all.  When I would point out that Bratty was turning 20 in July, he said well that’s still far away (um, it was in a month…).  Eventually he would get around to telling Bratty to pick up after herself and clean her bathroom but it was a big struggle to get SO to take action as he seemed to keep making excuses for Bratty and/or trivializing my concerns. 

My anxiety was through the roof.  Between the work situation, the hormonal fluctuations, the house messiness and SO’s resistance to enforce any rules with Bratty, I was a ball of nerves that couldn’t unwind.  It didn’t help that Bratty was always around and underfoot.  She did eventually find a summer job where she worked about 10-15 hours, on a good week.  She tried to call high school friends to plan a weekend trip to the Bay Area.  No one wanted to go with her.  SO asked her why she didn’t take the car out to the beach for the day and she would say she had some random ailment, stomach ache, or didn’t want to get sunburn (sunburn is a big thing for Bratty LOL).  SO asked her about driving to meet up with friends and Bratty would say she didn’t want to pay for gas.  SO would ask her about her therapy goals and Bratty said she didn’t want him to incur a co-pay.  So mostly, it was turning out to be a lazy summer for Bratty:  sleep late, watch TV, eat.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

One day I finally asked SO if he had any concerns with how Bratty was spending her time that summer.  He said no since she was working.  I pointed out that she wasn’t working much and wasn’t going to therapy.  She seemed a little depressed just sitting around the house all day.  SO got upset with me and said Bratty was fine and she was an ‘adult’ who was going to do whatever she wanted to do.  I pointed out that Bratty can’t be a ‘teenager’ when it came to getting out of household responsibilities but an ‘adult’ when it came to do nothing all day.  SO got even more upset and said I wasn’t Bratty’s mother and to basically butt out.   Sure, darling, and noted for the future.

I couldn’t seem to get anywhere with SO.  I was to the point of shutting myself in our bedroom after dinner each night because I didn’t want to hang around Bratty.  I finally told SO I was going to make an appointment with a therapist for myself.  This is the point where it finally hit home with him that I was really struggling.  He was supportive (or tried to be) from that point forward.

Before we get to what the good doctor had to say, we’ll take a closer look in our next installment at Bratty’s summer drama:  Workplace Etiquette (or lack thereof), Hypochondria, More Bicycle Adventures, and Mini-Wife Summer Vacation Plans.