Hi Ali
I am so glad that you have found our forum, you sound as though you need a place in which it is safe for you to vent and be understood.
A lot of what I will say to you is tough to take in when you are full of anger, even if the anger is totally understandable but if at any time you don’t understand or don’t agree I hope you will tell me and not stop posting.
Your husband didn’t ask for or want his addiction anymore than you; he could not have known, until it was too late, that gambling was not to be a pleasurable pastime for him. I have had flutters with the lottery, card games with friends and even a horse race but I am not a CG (compulsive gambler), I can walk away. The CG in my life did not have that ability, his addiction meant that he could not walk away and it destroyed his life and mine until 10 years ago. 10 years ago he took a leap of faith into learning to control his addiction and he completely changed his life – and mine in the process. I found the early days difficult. It seemed to me he had been given all the support – and I had had none, I was still reeling from all the gambling years and I felt neglected, confused and angry.
On this site we often say that if what you are doing is not working then it is time to try something different and I think you will agree that your arguing isn’t changing anything so what can be done that is different?
When a CG starts a true recovery it is far from easy and if has to be selfish. Every day is a struggle and every day there has to be an affirmation that for that day there will be no gambling even though the temptations are real and frightening. The CG has to think about his behaviour all the time and will not have the energy at the beginnng to consider those around them as they probably should. The selfishness is hard to take for those who love them because the active addiction was all about being selfish and surely it is to be expected that once recovery starts selfishness will cease. Selfishness does cease but only with time.
Your husband’s addiction only offers failure which means he will be suffering from a lack of confidence and low self-esteem. I don’t know if his sacking is connected to his addiction, or not, although I assume it is likely – but for whatever reason, a sacking will have knocked his confidence and self-esteem even further.
And all the while this is going on, you are working hard at a stressful job, trying to make sense of the senseless and grieving for your lost dreams – it’s a tough call for your relationship – but your husband will not be deliberately cutting you out, he is almost certainly still locked in with his feelings of unworthiness and fear.
I am going to leave my first post to you there Ali and await your reply. I am hoping that some of what I have said will help stem your flow of anger although anger is understandable.
I wouldn’t be writing to you Ali if I didn’t know that the addiction to gamble could be controlled and fantastic lives lived as a result.
Speak soon
Velvet
