Hi 3 Timer
It seems to me you are giving your partner a chance because your are not telling him there is no hope, so now it is up to him to prove to you that he is going to live a gamble-free life.
The first sticking point is obviously his refusal to admit he has a problem but maybe, just maybe, if he does go to GA he will learn to accept. There are CGs who go to GA and pay lip-service but the other members are only too aware when this happens – they are all there because of a shared addiction to gamble after all. As was said to me a long time ago ‘you can’t kid a kidder’.
I smiled at all your ‘I wish’ words dotted throughout your post. I would wish all the things that you wish but I know that no amount of me wishing will change a thing. I learned not to do ‘if only’ ‘what ifs’ and ‘I wish’ a long time ago – it’s tough but when we do stop doing them we do begin to accept the way it is and to look for different ways to live our lives – often finding better things than we had dreamed of before. CGs have to put ‘if only’, ‘what it’ and ‘I wish’ behind them too, which might help you understand your partner’s struggle. CGs would love to gamble responsibly, the fact that they can’t is something that they struggle to accept but if they can accept that this is the way it is and look for better ways forward then they can begin to recover.
There is no overnight fix, as you have recognised, so please do things that please you this summer, enjoy new hobbies; take up old interests that got put on one side while you dealt with your partner’s addiction; live in the centre of your life and not on the periphery of his. It is so important that while CGs struggle to come to terms and accept and hopefully choose a gamble-free life that those who love them do not let hours, days and months slip by without growing themselves. If your partner learns to control his addiction, which he can, he will benefit from you living in control of your life – as a victim and part of the wreckage of his addiction you can’t help him – as a strong, determined person you can,
Why do you feel that getting an apartment with your son will close the door on a possible future relationship with your partner? If you are going to stay with your sister for 3 months only to find that your partner has either not stopped gambling, or he is trying but you are still unable to trust him, then you have not walked far up ‘your’ road of recovery. Your recovery matters 3-Timer. Don’t waste time thinking ‘‘what if’ I never can marry him’ but spend your time building up your life so that if/when he does prove he is in control of his addiction you are in a strong position to make an informed decision.
I hope some of this helps but please keep posting
Velvet
