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I Have had enough!!!!!!!
#1
I donno if I should be writing this here but I donno what else to do ....... i am the wife of a compulsive gambler and to be honest i have had enough of it !!!
He has admitted it and is attending meetings approx 9 mths now.
We r together approx 15 yrs and i have watched going from being the most wonderful man who i didnt want to be apart from for 1 min, hence i married him!!, to being the most awful moodiest person i know, to the point i dread coming home from work

The 1st month of going to the meeting was like living with the 'Brady Bunch', it was like having my old husband back again ....... but it went down hill each week there on !! slipping back into the spontanous moods that kick of for zero reason !!

i have jus learnt to live with the grumpyness and put up with always being blamed for his crap life !!

On Friday past i extended r loan to consolidate every debt in the hse to 1 managable figure , therefore from friday we were financially sound, although he doesnt see that the debt arose from his gambling cos they were apparently my fault cos i didnt manage the money properly , when actually i was putting santa, groceries, fuel, baby stuff on credit card cos he wud never hand over enough of his wages to cover the bills.

but i have had enough, last week i said that was it, i have had it with his moods and the way he treats me, asked him honestly & calmly how much more did he think i cud mentally take - his reply was an apology and to be honest, the best weekend i have had in years...... no rows r cross words and went out for a romantic meal which he rang and booked and he organised a babysitter !!! it was Brill and i told him yesterday morning (monday) that it was the best weekend !!!

then i came home from work (same day) and he told me he had got a tip and come, took money from the grocery fund and stuck it on - and guess what - it lost !!!!
When he started the meeting I had to take full control of the money and i gave him a small amout for an 'eat out ' lunch once a week , but he also told me he used to keep all these wee bits of money and gamble them too.
The only reason i kept a grocery fund in the hse was cos i was sick of him tormenting me that he never had any money, so if bread & milk etc was needed there was money there!!!
But i got paid at the weekend and i cleared out my purse yesterday morning and there was a good bit more in the drawer than usual !!

i feel so damn cheated , cos i was doing everything he wanted , i suppoprted his meetings, told him daily i was there for him if he needed me, put up with his tantrums when he gave off, cos he was a grown man and didnt have any money in his pocket from day 2 day !!!!!!

How much if enough to take as a wife of a gambler, and where is the line between being a supporter and a mug !!!
I apologise in advance if i have come accross as a selfish git but apparently i cant express any of this to him because as he reminds me everyday , 'no matter how bad i feel , he feels a million times worse' therefore closing the door 4 me to talk to him !!!

Should i take out 2 kids and leave him at it, im only in my very early 30's and really do think i will end up in the local nut hse if i stay here any longer ????
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#2
Hello Cat, I am a compulsive gamble in recovery. To get well through GA you have to work the 12 steps and then repeat them over and over. it's a beautiful, simple program but unfortunately some people come along looking for the magic cure!! Therefore I would say that your husband may be going to meetings but not working on the program. I, unfortunately lost 3 husbands and many relationships and family throughout my compulsive gambling illness, but I have regained much more back since I stopped. Today I live in peace, tranquility and have the tools to deal with anything that may step in the way of my recovery. Only you can make up your mind about your future with this man, but unless he gets serious about his illness and recovery nothing will change unfortunately it probably will only get worse! I have never been to a Gamanon meeting but this is for the partner's etc of compulsive gamblers and it may help you to decide or to deal with your husband's illness.
I wish you well in your future and hope your husband gets the right help that he needs!
Helen
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#3
Cat,
Hi!! Please no self blame, it is not you its this terrible desease that your husband is living with!!! First things first, wow you have done everything through love, like consolodating the loans etc you are helping and pushing him to change.

I am going to try to speak from the mind of a compulsive gambler that I am and i am going to say to you this desease we face daily you have no appreciation of how devastating it is. I believe your husband loves you but he also has to understand that he simply cannot act on impusle and gamble for the sake of you both, for the sake of your lives and future, he must understand to follow a programme is follow a programme.

Love is about nice times to look forward to, your weekend was a nice experience probably one well deserved, but now you are the strong one...to spoil that weekend by placing a bet on the monday is wrong.

Why because his thought proccess goes back to "oh if I get a tip, keep the wife sweet". I suggest going to Gamanon and understanding how we tick us Compulsive gamblers share some experience from others and most importantly stick to the pocket money regime that you are doing at the moment.

I wish you good luck!!!
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#4
hi all and tanks for your replys
jus to clarify some of your questions, he has been attending the meeting but i think its jus to keep me happy, ive never heard him speak of the 12 steps- although i know abot them cos i have research this illness so much ....
since the above event..... the following weekend he didnt bother with the meeting and hasnt since.
This may be due to the fact that the saturday after the above event , we went shopping with the kids, to a shop abot 40 mins drive away , we stopped first for lunch , pretty much to make a day of it and because when he 1st started the meetings he had asked me to help him by doing stuff on a saturday so that he wuddnt be able to go to bookies !!!!
So we we in the shop, doing a big grocery shop, and after about 1 hr he kicked off cos i was looking a jeans for both r boys for xmas day !!!! he started on that we DIDNT NEED them and i was wasting money on stuff and he didnt have a penny and i was wasting money!!!! well i bit my tongue until i got into the car and flipped .......
i informed him that he cudnt speak to me like that, and told him (very loudly) that he wudda had money in his pocket if he haddnt of took it from the house and stuck it on a horse which lost , i also told him he was making a fool outta me , as he was going to the meetings (to please me ) but also going to the bookies when he saved up his wee bits of lunch money he was given !!!!
i maybe shuddnt have been so honest but its wrecking my head !!!
when he did attend the meetings, he wud come home a tell me how lucky he was that he didnt loose big amounts, cos there was ppl there who have lost businees, and homes and ppl in debt restructure for the next 20 yrs .............. why doesnt he realise that what he has lost, you cannot put a monetary figure on it , he has lost the love and respect of probably the only woman who ever loved every bones in his body , his wife !!!
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#5
Cat,
I posted earlier and wish top post again as your obviously following this, I think for you to research this desease then you must love really wish for things to change.

In your post you mentioned your two sons now these are important people why because they are probably at an age where to see "mum and Dad" argue will have some type of effect on there mind, although I am not saying that you are wrong.

Your husband who's name you havent mentioned needs to realise for you, for your sons how important it is he sticks to that programme of recovery, how life will be tough for him, just having pocket money, but he is doing it because he cannot escape responsibility and life and go to the bookies and ruin your futures also.

I want you to read my post to him, well the below part anyway.

There was a guy at our meetings who would argue over spending x amount on a pair of trainers for his son when he had X amount in his pocket to put on a one legged donkey.

I wasnt like that I was always generous but I hid my gambling very very well. The reason i said "enough was enough" was not because life would become "boring" without the thrill of gambling, but because I simply couldnt control it. Oh to sit in a room full of losers, losers who lost there wife, lost there families, lost there businesses....im not that bad?? To try to follow a programme, be a decent guy, its not changing me. (these are the thoughts in my head!!!at the time!!)

But it was changing me....9months I was a good man..happy with life....she was happy with me. Then I lost my future wife....eventually lost my business....so I was that guy, I was that bad....and yet still I fight...I come back like a punch drunk boxer....get off gambling fight it, fight it, am I however complete?? my family is gone, my business is gone.....

See its not about fighting this desease or bit by bit, its about admission, admission that somehow we accepted that we simply cannot fight this desease....willpower is simply not enough....so we had the foresight to follow a path...for ourselves and we accepted the consequences of our actions had implications on the way we would have to be treated.

Seven months after loosing the future wife I remember stading in an arcade chatting to a guy as we both played the bandits, gambling away, nagging free, smoking away the conversation was ironic in my destiny he said "im skint, my wife wont let me see the kids" I said just "stop gambling" he said "oh I cant impossible"...he was not the only one I met like this....whilst in action....

But that foresight led me to stop, not a simple way neither....more because I had to than choice...it was "always someone elses issue" or "its so easy for others"....but and the big but comes after you have actually spent a long time off it.

We realise that we were unbearable, unreasonable, and also unrational as people, how could anyone else actually think we were decent when we didnt think we had a problem. Then we start to look at what we acomplish through "not gambling" and its not really measurable in terms of "us" as people, unless we look at friends (ones we actually now have!!!) but it is measurable in terms of the things we bought for ourself, we stopped going one step forward and two back.

We took "one day at a time" towards being better people.....

You stay strong, stay calm, your husband must want what I have seen....to be a better person.

best wishes

B
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