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LOCKDOWN AND OUT
Lockdown with my ex was the biggest mistake, he turned my Mrs Hinch home into a dirty squat – I’d never do it again
WHEN lockdown two was announced, Christina Baxter immediately knew it would be different to the first one – in a good way.
In March, the 28-year-old mum-of-one decided to lockdown with her ex Ahmead Yakubu, 31, something they both began to regret almost instantly.
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Ahmead insists he was the model guest, travelling to Cheshire to London to help look after the couple’s little girl Kiki, four, while Christina worked.
His job in theatre had dried up because of coronavirus restrictions so it seemed like the perfect answer… but it turned into a complete nightmare.
Christina claims he was a total couch potato, sleeping on her sofa until all hours, ditching Kiki’s schedule and laughing whenever she got annoyed.
Here she talks to Fabulous about the hell of locking down with an ex, and why she would NEVER do it again…
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“When Ahmead and I split in January 2017 we vowed to be good co-parents and put Kiki first.
We’d been together four years and things just came to a natural end, but it was a massive relief for us both to be living apart.
But then lockdown happened, Kiki’s nursery shut and my mum had to self-isolate.
I was freaking out about childcare because I work shifts and sometimes don’t finish until 10pm.
In my fragile state, inviting Ahmead to come to stay with us seemed like a good idea.
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I couldn’t have been more wrong, the whole thing turned into a living nightmare.
It only took a week for me to remember exactly why we’d broken up – Ahmead is selfish and lazy.
To start with, I only have two bedrooms. It means Ahmead had to sleep on the sofa – fine if he tidied it up each morning.
But he didn’t, and he often didn’t get up in the morning either.
Even worse he arrived with mountains of bags, clothes and mess which he spread all across my beautifully clean living room making it look like some kind of squat.
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After a week his clothes were scattered everywhere and when I asked him to tidy them he was always too busy chatting to his mates on the phone.
It stank of his aftershave all the time too - I used to love it, now I loathe it.
But it was nothing compared to the stink of his old sheets and sweaty socks.
It’s also important to me that Kiki sticks to a schedule, but Ahmead doesn’t even seem to know what one is.
I’d come home from work late at night and she’d still be awake. It left me fuming.
So then I tried setting rules to see if that helped – I told him to make sure she ate and slept on time and to clean and tidy the house.
I might as well have been talking to myself.
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By week two I realised the cleaning lists, shopping and routine for Kiki I’d left on the table each morning were being ignored.
It spiralled into hell on earth, I quickly went from a chilled single mum to a nagging Mrs Moaner.
I’m a clean freak and everything has its place in my house. I love Mrs Hinch.
I clean for up to three hours a day, and when Covid first hit I was scrubbing and disinfecting for up to 10 hours of my day off.
Safe to say, Ahmead does not feel this way.
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So I’d be disinfecting the living room with my mop and bucket and he’d call me freak. I’d end up storming to my room and we’d stop talking for days.
I like to be up early on my days off but he’s a night owl, and that caused problems too.
Despite me telling him he to be up, with the bedding put away, by 8am he’d still be snoring at 10am.
He’d watch films constantly too so I couldn’t get near the telly, if ever I tried to he’d just switch the channel back.
He’d sit around in his PJ shorts all day long, playing Candy Crush and texting his friends. If I ever hear the bing of his phone again as a message comes in…
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I even tried bringing laundry into the living room and folding in while I watched the telly, but he flipped the channel over and ignored me.
The bathroom was another battleground. He’d leave wet towels everywhere, the loo seat was always up and he stank the whole place out.
The stink would follow him around too, in the end I’d spritz him with perfume from a mini bottle I carried around.
Sometimes I couldn’t use it for an hour after he’d been in there.
He was in here for ages too, I can do my whole look - shower, makeup and hair – in 30 minutes but he seemed to need hours.
What Ahmead says:
“Christina and I tried to make it work as a couple and I tried to help out in lockdown.
Kiki is the centre of my world.
I thought I was incredibly helpful.
I think Christina demanded a lot and after all she is better at those household chores.
A man needs respect and space.
We do get on each other’s nerves and as exes we like distance.”
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Don’t even get me started on his chewing either – I swear it never used to be so loud. I mentioned it to him one day and he just started at me and munched even more nosily.
I started to feel like his slave. But it was my own fault, I was too nice to him at the start and treated him like a guest instead of someone there to help me.
In the end my days were all about work, tidying at home and flicking him the Christina Death Stare – not that it worked, he just laughed it off which made me even angrier.
The man has a thick hide.
Nothing gets to him, he’s brazen and I used to love his ability to ignore people’s comments – not so much when it came to lockdown together.
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