Time flies as the world passes you by!
How are we all?
Wow, it has been at least 7 months since I last posted. There were a few times I intended to post, just never got around to it.
Quick update: In April I relapsed, prior to that I hadn’t gambled since October 2020, it was a good stretch until things went a bit backwards. The difference this time was I had all the tools from my therapy sessions to assess and review why I was going down this path again. Sure, there was a bit of excitement with the thrill of the whole thing but I know that I wasn’t there for the thrill. The truth is I let myself get pushed to go down that path again, my partner and I had been fighting on the regular and I was 90% certain we were going to break up. Absolute fear encompassed me and I went straight into protection mode, my partner controls all our money apart from what bit of spending he gives me. And I believed at the time that if we did have a bad break up he would not give me a cent and I would be left no where to go and nothing to show for my life. I wasn’t even gambling and I felt more dejected then when I would and lose EVERYTHING! So I went back, to try and win some money. This went on for about 2-3 weeks and then one day I just woke up while I was out gambling and thought Izzi, this is stupid and you know it! That also happened to be the same night my partner confronted me and I told him what happened. I also explained what drove me and the fear I had felt and at first he understood but lately his been telling me he thinks that isn’t true and that is just an excuse I tell him. In fact when I told him that the relapse was only recent he didn’t believe me and thought that I had been gambling the whole time and was just lying my way through therapy even though I literally had no access to money even if I was lying! We do very stupid and selfish things when we gamble and it turns us into people we never think we will be and because of that part he saw, there is a part of him that looks at me like that is my whole person, regardless of what my actions say about me now.
Since April I have not gambled, only once or twice I had an urge and I did not give in to it. Yet we have argued about money a thousand times since then, my partner currently gives me an allowance of a couple of hundred a fortnight and apart from that, all my money goes direct into his account once I get paid and has done so since November. Let me tell you that is a long time to have no control over your own money AND to not even consider treating yourself because you have to ask permission, which I was ok with at the start but now I find a bit demeaning and controlling.
I know my partner has deep rooted fear that at any moment I am going to gamble everything and put us in a terrible situation. The whole reason why we have money issues (for those who don’t know my back story) is because my partner gave me access to $30,000 even though he knew I was a recovering addict and I was never strong enough to admit how weak I was out of fear of coming across as weak. Long story short, I gambled around $20,000 over a period of a few months, we broke up over this and I started paying him back. When we got back together, one of the agreements was my pay would go to this and I would do therapy. I did want to have a financial agreement with him so I could pay him back but he said I could never pay him back because we were together and it would be like robbing Paul to pay Peter. He often brings up the hurt and destruction this has caused him and sometimes I say nothing, sometimes we argue because every time he brings it up I feel like his pushing me back into my past and telling me that I will always be that person. I know what I did and I need no reminder and because I do not bring it up, he feels like I got away with it (I think?). He won’t speak to someone, I have told him to speak to someone to help him walk through these fears and feelings because its hurting us and it is soul crushing (for both of us), he says he will but he has not (so maybe it won’t happen).
It has only been 4 months since I relapsed but I have been longing to have access back to my money, to come up with a plan where I give him rent etc and the rest is mine. Now this isn’t an urge or desire because I want to gamble, it is because I want to reintroduce some normalcy back into my life and just get back a bit of control. Money is the key to everything, without it we can’t eat, pay our bills etc. Next year I will be 40 and I don’t want to be ruled by this addiction anymore. I trust myself, this isn’t something I have actually said out loud but my therapy sessions really helped me look into the real root reasons why I gambled and what I was hiding from and I know I have made tremendous progress. Izzi this year, is not the same Izzi since she started gambling, she is free and hopeful for the future.
I really need some advice on how to get him to start trusting me again because giving him access to my money did not seem to win any trust as he saw it a condition of us getting back together. Now I have no idea how to make him understand why this is important because his response will say, if you want something just ask and I will buy it. If we had a joint account that would be different but my money goes into his account and I do trust him but there is an element of it that makes me feel controlled. From his point of view I get why he does it but I need some more control back into my life.
Even as I write this I feel like I sound selfish and crazy for even wanting to have this conversation with him. He said he would be willing to have a joint account if that meant only my pay would go into it and that way he could see everything I did with the money, so that isn’t a joint account, it is a watch Izzi account. Even now when the two weeks is over and I ask for a top up, he starts freaking out that I gambled (have disabled any access I had to gambling sites) and he knows I am spending the money because I come home with coffee, or groceries, or both. It triggers me every time he gets like this and it isn’t healthy for either of us. I work full time and feel like I have nothing to show for it because legally it all goes to him.
Any advice would be great, thanks for reading my post.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.