His kingdom for a cigarette....

I'm pretty disgusted (as usual, huh?). I really thought things were stabilizing, but I'm finding out that even "stabilizing" doesn't really mean much.

It actually started with me. I continued to get upset because DH and DD would spend the day fishing, watching movies, hanging out with DD's pca (I know I should be happy that he's at least getting out of bed, but....), and I was coming home to the usually filth. I asked DH to clean the bathroom. He swept the floor. The rest of it is absolutely filthy. I asked him to please do the dishes. He did one load of them (dishwasher) and then forgot about the rest. So I was getting angry, and I told him it wasn't fair that there were two (basically) grown up people sitting home all day (or going ot to have fun) and I was the one who was coming home from work and having to clean all the crap. And the house is smelling because we are still drowning in pee, and DH can't be bothered to let them out often enough....but that's a whole 'nother post. I was angry. And DH said all the right things, like "you have a right to be angry" and "this has got to change" and "I would've lost my temper a long time ago, and probably left"....but I didn't take it as sincere. It might have been, but it didn't feel that way this time. I really felt like this time he was just saying things because they shut me up. So I just got really sad, because nothing is like I wanted it to be and I've been feeling pretty discouraged. DH was very supportive and understanding, even though he was the cause of the problem, he was very nice about it. He didn't make excuses or anything like that.

Then, my mood started to lift, and I could see "That Guy" coming out occasionally....like one time DD mopped the floor and DH was telling me that she did it, and DD told him "don't be taking credit for my floor!" Normally that would just be majorly annoying, because he wasn't taking credit, and to the best of my knowledge isn't like that. But he got so angry and started swearing at her, totally out of character for DH, but completely true to form for That Guy....anyhow, there've been a few episodes like that, and he's just generally been down. Then Tuesday night he told me, "I was getting ready to set up my pills for the week, and when I looked, the slots for Monday and Tuesday morning still had pills in them." So he had forgotten to take his pills for two days in a row. So that could be the cause of some of this, but...

Over the weekend he asked me if he could take some change out of my piggy bank(s). I told him that I had been putting all of my at-home savings in the locking safe (he doesn't have a key) and that the piggy bank(s) were empty. Because he had helped himself one too many times.

Anyhow, he told me his mom was sending him money. Originally she was going to send the money on Monday, so it would be at our house on Tuesday. It wasn't there. His mom said she didn't get the money mailed out until Tuesday. So yesterday (Wednesday), I was getting ready for work (I stay at Anita's on Wednesday nights, so I wouldn't be coming home that night) and DH asked me to buy him cigarettes. Since the money from his mom was supposedly on its way, I only bought him one pack (he's a pack-a-day smoker). He was kind of mad about that. But I told him that if his mom was sending him money, I wasn't going to buy his cigarettes. I could tell he didn't like that, but hey, I knew it was reasonable....anyhow, so he had cigarettes for Wednesday and a little into Thursday. At 4:45 he called me. The money didn't come.
So I said, "Well, you're just going to have to wait until I get home (around 2am). There's nothing I can do now." I could just hear him blaming me for this in his voice. Because it was all my fault that he was out of cigarettes with no way to get more. I told him "try to take a nap or something to take your mind off it." I called him an hour later and he had already gone to the pawn shop. I have no idea what he pawned this time, because I know he lost his brother's Fender electric guitar and his brother's gun back in April. But it made me so disappointed that he did that, regardless of what he pawned. This is just like the "old" bipolar DH, making stupid impulsive decisions. Today I am wondering how much more of "That Guy" I will be able to put up with before I say "enough's enough!"

And the saddest thing of all....DD, with all her problems, has been doing virtually everything I ask her to help with, and doing a good job (mostly). She has been doing more than 10 times what DH has been doing. DD, who never had a family before, who is a "lazy" teenager, is more valuable to the family than DH is. And that makes me extremely sad, too. And I worry about what impressions she will take into adulthood related to DH's bipolar.