HI Logic,
Thanks for reading my thread. Yes, things are good at the moment between my CG and I, in many ways it is a bit of a fairytale but like all good stories it has been hard fought and gruesome at times, has required courage, determination and has tested us to our limits at times, the 7 years we spent apart is testament to this.
Our story is different to yours because my partner told me when we first met (working holiday romance) 17 years ago he was a CG, he has never lied to me about having a problem although he has lied to me about when he has gambled. He pushed me away at first trying to keep me safe but I think it was the fact my life was so different and my complete lack of interest in gambling that kept bringing him back to me, I was a safe haven. He has turned to me when things have gone wrong and he has feared for his life, I have spoken to his mother about his problem and been a go between for them, I convinced him to go into therapy and I left him as I said I would if he gambled again. In the end though stopping gambling had to be his choice and using his will, I couldn’t do it for him.
Gamblers tend to surround themselves with other gamblers or addicts to enable there situation, to keep their secrets, they often have few real friends and so I think it can be hard to see life as being any different. I personally believe that there are no half measures, you need to reject gambling if you want to reject it in someone else but then again as I say I don’t even buy a lottery ticket and the only reason I’d go into a bookies would be to give them a piece of my mind! I hate gambling and all it represents, after all it has come between me and the love of my life and almost destroyed him to boot!
I was in no way suggesting you are an addict btw I was simply saying how it might look to him because he is in denial he will be looking for reasons to justify his own behavior and you gambling even as a one off is a perfect excuse. Of course this is not your problem, it’s his and you should be ale to go on holiday with the girls and have a bit of fun but if you are doing that intending to continue to be with your cg and wishing him to change his ways you need to be aware that it might cause more problems.
They say you can’t chose who you fall in love with but you can chose what you want out of life (and what you don’t want) and sometimes it is necessary to let people go in order to move forward and have the life you want. In my case the only thing bad in my relationship was the addiction, my partner and I are best friends as well as lovers and he means the world to be. It broke my heart to call it a day when I did but as the non addict in the relationship I had to have the honest and consistent approach stick to my word and my principles in order to not become embroiled and get myself dragged down too as this would of helped neither of us.
It’s easy to enable and much harder not too, we all want to be loved, we all want to make the other person happy. Having to say no to giving my cg money when I managed it for a while was really hard and he manipulated me in many ways to try and get it but loving someone is about saying no when needed as much as saying yes, it is about hard truths being told and hard choices being made above all it is as much about being true to yourself as anything else. I would rather see my partner gamble free and happy, than with me and not, if that was what it took.
Being a good example by being a fully rounded person and practicing what you preach is so helpful when trying to navigate through this maze which is having a relationship with a cg ‘As you said ‘I can only hope that if I’m working towards being in a better place, CG will want that for himself too.’ Everyone’s story has a potential for a happy ending although it is not always the ending you expect! Lily x