Hi M,
I just read your post (it can be cool and rainy here in Mexico too and I am stuck indoors dying to get out to the park and sunshine!) and wanted to thank you so much for writing and for all your kind words of support. Thank you!!!!!!!
I read your post and it just must be so hard to have your daughter to think about in all of this and her affected by your husband, but at the same time I know (as you have said) that she also fills your life with so much that is positive and that helps you get through all of this. Like all of it…always…in life…the trick is to try to focus on the positive! So easily said! 🙂
What really resonated in reading your post was how you write about your husband changing depending on how much of a hold of him the gambling has. I find this too with my husband and it is so so hard…it confuses and manipulates us, it truly plays with our emotions! One minute you think you have your old husband back, the one you loved and you go all…soft…and the next he is someone you don´t really know at all…and don´t want to, who you don´t like. It all brings up so many confusing emotions. I can imagine it must be even more confusing for the cg…if they care to stop and think about it. This makes it so hard to know how to relate to them, how to react. I was reading something Velvet had written on a post, and although it sounds a bit formulaic, it might also work…to have planned responses written out for certain situations and certain things that the cg says, or ways he acts…because it is so hard to respond clearly in the heat of the moment. I haven´t got any of this worked out yet, but was thinking to perhaps try. If he says such and such…I can respond in this way…and then I know…I know that the emotions of the moment will have less hold on me. I think this could perhaps help. I think it would be trial and error and learning by mistakes…next time I will say such and such…but maybe it would help. We can only learn as we go along 🙂
It is so hard to think sometimes it is just hard to get through the day, but it sounds like things are getting better for you and you are getting stronger all the time. I don´t think you are making mistakes and definitely don´t beat yourself up in any way…we are all just learning along the way in very challenging situations. I think I might try writing down sometimes how I responded in a situation or to something my husband said and then how I would like to respond in the future..and hopefully make some progress! Do you think that might work for you?
Take good care there and I hope you and your daughter have a lovely weekend. x