[Carmen_3]

Hi Vera – and thanks for your very frank words ☺ I’m thinking I should change my username to Mrs Frank aye?!

I am aware that currently he is not ready to stop but I am ready to start with what I can to possibly enable his ball rolling. It’s hard when you love someone – just like it was hard for you to stop; no doubt there were people you loved but you didn’t stop the gambling for them?

Maybe I’ve portrayed him to be a bit of looser or a drip – it’s hard to be accurate when you are writing a life experience on the Internet.

His hung-dog look doesn’t “appeal” to me – don’t worry I can see beyond the the bulls*t here. If he wants to agree to my suggestions in a non-committal way, that’ll only end up being his loss; one he won’t recognise unless I walk away, I know that. If I gain more from it than he does, sobeit – i.e., if it awakens my senses and all that bo*locks, I may just get a sooner rather than later light bulb moment that says ‘girl, what the F are you doing?’ OR it may help open the part his brain I have never seemed to delve into myself – either way personally I have nothing to loose (other than a 4 year relationship lol)… but you know what I mean.

So back to my other statement of perhaps portraying him out to be a looser – everyone is well aware we are a longlasting couple and its very much official don’t worry about that. It’s the gambling that’s non-existant to everyone else. Everyone things we just lead a lavish lifestyle, drinking and eating out a lot, weekends away etc… The only doublelife he has is his gambling. S doesn’t lead much of a thrill-seeking life other than that. He is as spontenious as a slug and that applies with me and his social life with the boys. I think its quite normal in 2017 to not have mutual friends with your partner (espesically be it that we are in our late 20s) – think about all the dating apps and how probably 60% go on to form holymatramony relationships only to live a life where neither of them know any ounce of their social circle. I don’t think it’s the end of the world and I think its quite healthy (I am not giving excuses here) to have separate hobbies and do things seperatly with your friends etc. but like I said it is hard when we all want to join together as one – his friends are at mortgage / baby stage; I have never had a huge group of friends, mine are dotted about all over the place so…

I do agree to an extent your statement about wishing he was someone else. I don’t think he wishes he was someone else but I think he wishes he were in a more appealing life situation. He has come across bitter in the past by saying things like ‘We live an honest life and all we get is grief… all our mates get house deposits off their parents… can’t your Mum just give you something towards a deposit; it’s so unfair, she’s gone through a divorce and made £ off the house, bought a new car and new house and didn’t give you anything.’ Yes it was a tad unfair but my Mum isn’t obliged to give me anything. I could have said to him ‘Because of your Dad dying, your Mum has 3 ISA’s jam-packed full of money – she’s sold the house profited £100,000, downsized, charges you £100 a month, has no mortgage, she’s retired and chooses to go on 3 holidays a year and give you/us nothing towards a house… and my Mum’s tight? My Mum’s on the breadline each month because she doesn’t have anything saved or handed down to her.’

So – back to couples counselling. I have trawled through mountains of Clinical Colins and Drippy Daves and managed to find a lovely lady well-suited to the both of us who has a strong background with addiction. She too was frank with me and even said she was going to be honest with me – the addiction side cannot be delved into and tackled in CC; he would need to fix that alone with me. I said the same as I have said to you – baby steps where I am quite happy to hold his hand for the first 3-4 goes and hopefully this may push him in some sort of right direction. He may warm to her and feel he enjoys it and thus want to attend a few sessions on his own. I’m one for don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

When my head is ready to take a total break (or finish), I will. Believe me I will. But when you have the fight left in you, naturally you cant do it. What about all these women who don’t give up after affairs etc? you could say to them, once a cheat, always a cheat – the same applies, why do they stick around? Probably because they have less respect for themselves than me and trust me I’d be running for the hills if he was shagging about but it’s the same kind of calibre. And I disagree with your charmer / broken many hearts statement. S has had 1 long-term girlfriend before he met me between 16-20 years old.

Maybe you’ve had a different experience gambling-wise and relationship-wise. I don’t agree that he uses me as a moneylender (if anything I borrow from him), 2nd fiddler (I quite happily tell his mates and their girlfriends he gambles so its up to them if they talk to him about it), or a punchbag! He is never emotionally charged or fuelled up enough to let rip on me about anything; he’s sometimes so placid he looks like he may nod off. But you are quite right – it could change if I ended up with him longterm / with a ring on my fingers vs financially committed and bound… this is why I am exploring this route.

Listen I don’t doubt your advice or comments here – and its good to hear it from an experienced CG. But everyone has their own stories to tell as to why they choose sometimes, the darker paths.

Speak soon and thanks x

[Carmen_3]

Hi!

Sorry to hear about your son – I hope he is okay and you didn’t have to sit in A&E for too long…

Lol @ herding cats – good metaphor. 40% of the chat I was herding cats, but the rest I was herding sheep so to an extent I feel we got somewhere and needless to say, it went a lot better than I thought.

I would like to think I have a good head – but you know what it is like. Putting your words into actions and sticking to them can be quite the challenge. It’s hard to stick to your guns especially when you love someone and you are so use to the contentment.

I googled counsellors in my area and you can filter by what they specialise in; I am finding it hard to find one that does relationship (couples) counselling with a background knowledge in addictions. I won’t give up – I have found one chap who I have dropped an email this morning so lets wait to hear if he gets back to me. I think it would work better being councelled by a male as it may make him feel subconsciously like me and another female are just taking sides during discussions and finding levels of understandings he thinks he’ll never reach.

So you probably want to know what happened and how the chat went? He rocked up with fish n chips for us both accompanied with a chipper attitude – I told him I appreciate the thought but dinner comes last tonight, so I made him put the food in the oven. Thankfully I was in a good frame of mind and I was glad I was had a stern head on me. I actually also managed not to cry and it helped! It helped him take me seriously – more than he ever has before. I also was able to take myself seriously… I have realised now – with such a situation you cannot let emotions run away with you and you have to approach the matter really regimented. Almost like a Mother-figure.
So – I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked him to just pour it all out to me, talk the truth and say what he feels to me. I stopped him as soon as the words ‘I can’t believe you tracked me’ came out of his mouth. Said this wasn’t going to be a blame game – no one is in the wrong here and I most certainly won’t be judging him / hoping he wasn’t going to be that way towards me and if the discussion is to continue this way, then he may as well make himself scarce. So, these (from what I can remember) are some of the bits n pieces we said
(S) ‘We have been through a lot as a couple, lots of fall-outs with my family, your family, friends, jealously… work gets on top of me… I don’t gamble excessively… I gamble to my means and I am not in there everyday… I need something to do and escape at times… the boys go down the pub when they’ve had enough… some people do drugs… some cheat on their girlfriends, we all have our vices’
(J) ‘Well sad to say, I have standards – maybe more than most of your “boys” girlfriends/wives. What you are doing is not acceptable and you know I have never condoned it otherwise you wouldn’t be keeping it from me. I am more let down this time by the sheer fact you have been lying about your whereabouts.’
(S) ‘I’m not lying’
(J) ‘Now you’re lying that your lying? Please stop. You couldn’t TELL me where you were when I called you and I have black and white evidence that you have lied. You wouldn’t win this case in a court of Law S. Now you’re lying not just with gambling S but you do it with a lot of things… you exaggerate – I heard you the other day when you were bigging me up (yes thanks) to your mates wife saying I worked in a Hospital and when she asked if I was a Nurse, you told her yes. Why do you do that?
(S) ‘I didn’t say that to her and I forget what your job title is’
(J) ‘Its flattening to be made out to someone that I have a clinical background but I don’t. I don’t want my life to be glamorised thanks. So leave me out of your habits – see I am scared knowing that your compulsive habit to LIE is falling through in other ways. Listen, I am worried for us but mostly myself. I don’t want to be another 2 years down the line facing the same sh*t with you again, feeling nearly 30, missing my chance with a wedding and babies, all thanks to the fact I have just trusted in you.
(S) ‘You can trust me. I don’t want you not to. So what am I suppose to do now, call you up everytime I want to go for a bet?’
I literally LOLd
(J) ‘Are you kidding? That’s like me calling you up on a night out, checking in to say I’M JUST ABOUT TO DO A LINE OF COKE, OK?… its not OKAY? Don’t be so childish. If you originally thought it was okay you would have originally called TOLD ME THE TRUTH or originally when I confronted you… and you didn’t. I’m not going to pick the phone up and say okay honey see you in 1 hour when really you could be with me right now… and that leads me onto my proposal…
– he totally was looking at me with fear in his eyes, he knew I meant what I was saying
‘You don’t have a hobby… you don’t have anything nice to show for how hard you work… when you buy nice clothes you tell me how amazing it is and how good about yourself you feel… and we need to curb your compulsiveness trips to go somewhere more productive… like buying clothes… a new Mercedes… a lavish holiday with me?’
(S) ‘Right so what are you proposing?’
(J) ‘Well, I have thought about it and we either head down a relationship counselling route – 6 weeks I want out of it and we ½ £ the sessions each… OR… I can’t continue this journey with you.’
(S) ‘We don’t need relationship counselling all because I spent some money in the bookies… I am good to you… I am so good to you… we don’t even argue… we haven’t got issues…’
(J) ‘We both haven’t I agree… combine us as a couple and we do have issues. You, like earlier, bring up the past. You are bitter of how many people we’ve lost along the way just because you love me. You are bitter I don’t care and think it’s their loss. You are bitter people don’t want to do all the nights out and clubs that you want to anymore – you are bitter people have other priorities other than maintaining a friendship with us… people are getting older S and so are you. You are fighting a war in your head.’
(S) ‘What are we suppose to do if we hear things we don’t want to hear’
(J) ‘I want to hear the good the bad the ugly… we are going together. They are not there to judge you or take sides, simply to mediate and give clarification. You moan there is nothing to do week in week out, well look at this as something contrastive and healing to do. It’ll help you as a person S – you have even said you get frustrated you can’t find the words and sometimes think I out-wit you. They’ll help you with stuff like that
(S) ‘Well… I’m not loosing you over the fact I wont go and see a shrink. So we’ll do it I guess.’
(J) ‘No, we do it only if you want it. If you let me down throughout it S, it’ll just push me away and you’ll be face with this mini ultimatum again. It’s about compromising too.’

So you can kind of see where the convo went here. Other things were said but it wasn’t a shouting match nor was there really any disagreements. Yes, I know he didn’t out rightly admit he had a problem; he beat around the bush to say the least. I have told him now – counselling commences the end of the month. He’s got enough time now to think if he can do it and enough notice for him to work his jobs at work around the session(s). so yes – it is a long-shot but it’s a start. If it doesn’t work or I catch him out again (I have told him I have other means… I will drive and just wait at the betting shop!), we’ll have to really call it a day and at least I could look back and say I tried EVERYTHING.

S has an angry streek and I have only seen it once. All I can relate it to is when Hulk goes greener than green… or when King Kong has simply had enough. I do know though when he is angry and overwhelmed or feeling claustrophobic (I don’t help being a pesty girlfriend either, maybe something I need to work on… when are you here… how long… what do you want for dinner… when’s your last job… what are you doing…’) he just glazes over and you cant get through to him. He could probably walk through a wall.

We went to a Christening Saturday and he randomly came out with how he wants us to have children in another 2 years… I just looked at him and just said we haven’t even started counselling yet… I’d love kids with you… baby steps for us first though.

Where abouts in the world are you anywho?

Thanks again for listening Lilly,

Jess x

[Carmen_3]

Hi Lilly,

Thanks for last night’s prompt reply – full of great advice and support for me to mull over this morning.

Yes – but in such a circumstance, one has to obtain factual evidence. I couldn’t just keep going on the fact he may be down the betting shop – it’s near enough impossible to just drive 4 miles down the road and arrive the exact time he is betting. But on the other hand it’s a great app for someone who feels their partner is doing the dirty on them!

Wow – you hung in there then; 30 years together is something. You must love each other a lot too. Do you have kids?

Thankfully my emotions, fears and uncertainties aren’t as heightened as the last time I dealt with this situation. I was a lot younger then and the first speed bump is the biggest as you are in shock that your partner would do such a thing – over time I have grown up (my job has helped wizen me up I think, managing staff). But maybe my attitude shows I didn’t expect anything less than this; maybe deep down I knew it was coming again, it was just me being able to sweep it under the rug because I am to an extent (and in a health way I guess) blinded by our love. He’s not abusive – S would hate to hurt anyone’s feelings. S hasn’t got an opinion even on the darkest of humans. So I know there is a lot of good in him, more than most but we/he need to see a professional to help enable that good to be channeled effectively. However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel betrayed.

Luckily my Mum’s bought me up to be quite an open individual and I am not ashamed to discuss my fella’s problem and the problem we/I am in. On the other hand, he doesn’t discuss it with his friends. Our friends are totally separate and we haven’t grown up in the same area so it doesn’t matter be venting to mine. I only have about 3 I can rely on but I have a lot at work (work in the NHS which helps) that are there to lend an ear. My Boss has been accommodating and told me if I need to just go home then I am to go – but I said, it’s not like I need to go home and lick any wounds. I am much better mentally, placed here during my weekdays!

No, judgment doesn’t matter to me. My mum stayed with my Dad for another 6 years (out of 20) following her finding out he had a weed addiction. My Mum says me telling this all to her brings back memories of how Dad was and destroyed their marriage (it was both sides though) (I don’t know where he is now he did a runner after the divorce with another woman) and says she doesn’t want me to be having a happily-ever-after to someone with Dad’s addiction traits

I am not one to give a cr@p about how the rest of the world sees me… whether I was lying in a gutter or walking into a betting shop and confronting him.

Well – I “caved” this morning and dropped him a phone call. I hadn’t heard and to be honest, this was another reason to feel let down. I thought he would’ve contacted me after 48 hours. A tad immature. Probably licking his wounds trying to make me feel as if I am to one needing to be punished for putting the app on his phone! Not having it. When he answered oh boy he felt sorry for himself but I remained stern – ‘are you calm enough to have a productive conversation with me tonight – we both need to decide where our paths are heading now,’ ‘yes I will be over for 7PM’ so with that I switched it up ‘make it 8PM, I have a gym class I’d like to attend. See you later.’
I think tonight instead of tackling it head on regardless of how calm i remain – I think I want to head down the more ‘let’s explore the route of relationship counseling…’ I feel that would be more compromising and a solution for the both of us (less blame pushed on him) as if I say ‘you need therapy, you need some help for your addiction etc.’ I’ll probably get the same body language as the first time round and it’ll end up going nowhere. And then if he can’t even compromise with me (7 weeks, once a week, we are to pay half the session each) then I will ask him gently to leave my apartment to go and allow us both to think whether this is relationship is really for the both of us as I can’t wait around forever.

So if we were to “get better” together and ride off into the sunset, I would like to do it knowing this addiction 110% squished before I commit to marriage, babies, bills and a mortgage. It seems for a lot of people on this site it’s just been a bit too late.
I think my reasons are firm enough grounds to say, fine ciao you can’t commit then neither can I – I don’t want to jeopardize my credit rating, the chance of having a bailiff here, your company folding and forever wondering why you aren’t home the time you promised me you would be.

No – not brutal just constructive. I am an honest and frank person and I enjoy when I receive the same from others.

Thanks again for reading and replying – lets see what tonight brings. I could do with treating myself to a nice glass of red though beforehand…! x

[Carmen_3]

Thank you so much
Will comment back properly when I have some time at work today x

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