Rude Awakening

I stay up unto the wee hours of the morning because it is the only time I can find the peacefullness I need to write. Last night Todd woke up due to back pain, and was still up when I went to bed at 3 am. At 5 am I woke up and Todd was still up, so I asked him if he would wake our son Tate up at 6 for school. He said he would, so I went back to bed. At 6:30 the bedroom door flew open and Todd said "You'd better get out here!"

So I pulled myself out of bed to find out what was the matter. Todd was mad because he said Tate was wearing his shirt. I could not believe that he was allowing himself to get so upset over a shirt, but he was throwing a tantrum over it. Sometimes I have no clue where the man I married went to. He has been taking Vicodin because he broke his toe. I think that the Vidocin counters the meds he takes for his bipolar disorder, because every time he takes it he has an episode like this, and when it happens, there is no reasoning with him. He had gotten angry yesterday about Tate wearing his shirt. I tried to make light of it by responding that he wears Tate's shirts all the time (which he does), but he denied the fact and basically just had a tantrum until I made Tate take the shirt off. Today, he swore up and down that Tate had put his shirt on just to piss him off. I tried to reason with him that a shirt was not worth getting so upset about, but he just kept yelling. We have an appointment today with Tate's counselor. Todd screamed that he was not going to the appointment. He screamed that he was done trying to make things work.

After a bunch of his yelling I discovered that the shirt Tate was wearing was not even Todd's, but Todd could not simply accept that he had been wrong. He kept on, trying to blame Tate when he was the one who got himself all worked up over nothing. Finally, I went and sat down in the living room, leaving Todd in the kitchen to fume. Tate finished getting ready for school and then sat down at the computer, and Todd came into the living room in a very confrontational manner asking what he had done to Tate when Tate was 8 years old. (Apparently, before Todd got me up, Tate had brought up something from when he was 8.) Todd was just trying to get things stirred up again. I told him to leave Tate alone, that Tate had to go to school and did not need this before he left.

Todd went back into the kitchen, but then said "What difference does it make? He gets lousy marks in school anyway."

A few minutes after Tate left for school, Todd went back to bed.

I wish I had an instruction book so that I would know what to do. Todd is making us all miserable. When he moved out this spring, things were so much nicer here, but I know that Todd will not always be like this. I don't want him out of my life forever. When all is said and done, I still love him. The problem is, I need things to get better very quickly, but there are no fast sollutions. If I could find a way to improve our financial situation, I know that it would alleviate some of the stress. So, today I am going to look into applying to an online college to work on my bachelor's degree.