[Leda]

My husband hasn’t gambled recently, so that’s good, but I’m still uneasy. He seems to be feeling depressed, although that could just be loneliness since I’ve been travelling these past 2 weeks.

He took what he called a “calculated risk” by going into a bar that has VLT’s to have some beers with his friend. I don’t think there’s anything remotely “calculated” about that risk and I think it was just stupid. I should be relieved that he didn’t gamble, but I’m actually more afraid by it, because I know how he thinks. He’ll take this as a “victory” over gambling, and it will give him a false sense of security. It’s not any kind of victory, in fact if anything, I think it’s regression and him going back into that stage of his illness where he thinks he’s recovered.

Meanwhile, he’s still not confronting his feelings about his daughter. She just had her baby, but they’re still not talking. He stubbornly refuses to reach out to her, because she was the one who told him to **** off and not talk to her. She very well might still feel that way, but he’s obviously feeling some longing for a relationship for her. That might not be possible, since obviously she has just as much say in whether that happens, but unless he reaches out, he doesn’t know. If he reached out and was rejected, at least then he would *know* and he could then get the therapy he obviously needs to deal with the natural feelings that are going to come up when your own daughter rejects you. Instead he’s completely avoiding it all, and just getting more and more depressed.

That, in turn, also triggers feelings of resentment towards me. Right now, I’m learning how to make web pages and trying to start a business with that, but it’s slow-going and not currently profitable. He’s the only one working, and while that never bothered him before, his words and tone more recently indicate that he’s feeling resentful about it. I think he always just coped with this by going out and spending his hard-earned money on slot machines… his distorted thinking process was that then at least HE was the one spending the money he earned, even if it was just him flushing it down the toilet.

I’m getting back tonight. We probably won’t talk much about it tonight because I’d rather reconnect and just have some time together, but later this week I definitely want to talk to him about this whole daughter thing. He obviously needs to DO SOMETHING about that, because he’s going around in circles and getting more and more depressed about it, and that’s just pointless.

[Leda]

I’m trying to remain optimistic. Not that he won’t gamble again, but that I’ll be able to cope with it when he does. I’m really starting to understand this as a full and proper disease, not just a bad habit.

We watched a really good documentary, I highly recommend it. It’s actually an episode of the Real Hustler series, where the guy tries to understand what separates him (a career poker player and hustler) from his dad (a gambling addict). Along the way, he visits a neuroscientist who studies compulsive gambling. They scan his brain while he plays VLTs, and the brain of a confirmed gambling addict, and shows the exact difference. This is the interesting part: it turns out gamblers aren’t addicted to the win (which we know) or even the bet (which lots of people here say). It turns out what they’re actually addicted to, the thing that really excites them, is the near-misses… A non-CG gets excited about the wins and disappointed by the losses, even the near ones. But the CG brain doesn’t even notice the wins at all, but lights up like fireworks when they ALMOST win.

For that to be such a clear physiological difference, it has to be genetic, and therefor it has to have offered some kind of evolutionary advantage. I love thinking about this stuff, because it often helps my brain accept things that suck, because biology is messy and haphazard, and I’m cool with that. So near misses… I can see that… Hunting is as much chance as skill. If you NEARLY hit a deer, that’s a really good sign that your skill is pretty good and you just need another chance. The hunter who gets excited and encouraged by near misses is far more likely to try again than the one who gets discouraged. The hunter who tries again is more likely to succeed, and eat dinner, and live another day to pass on his genes. The problem with VLT’s, of course, is that the element of skill is completely removed. Near misses no longer indicate that you’re becoming a better hunter, and a few more tries you might get your catch.

It also explains, to me at least, why my husband is so hooked on that Bejewelled game. When he beats a few levels in a row with 3 stars each, he gets bored. What is it that really sucks him in? Getting 2 stars 57 times in a row. In other words, the near-miss. He just HAS to get that third star. He does Google Play surveys to earn credit which he spends on extra lives for the game so he can get his 3 stars for every level. Myself, when I was playing that super cute “Crunch Time” game (Simon’s Cat), I started out trying to get 3 stars until the levels got hard, then I gave up and just tried to finish as many levels as I could, then I got bored again and quit playing all together.

I also went to a Gam-Anon meeting last week. It was pretty good I guess. I did like talking to other people who’d gone through this, but it was rather disheartening to hear from the two women who’d been coming to that meeting every week for 20+ years and their husbands were still gambling. One of them started coming because her husband told her about the meetings. He’d heard from others at GA that when their wives started attending Gam-Anon, they stopped nagging so much. So this guy got his wife to go to Gam-Anon… and then quit going to GA. *sigh* She still goes obviously, because it really helps her, but that’s gotta be pretty frustrating.

What I told my CG is this: I understand this is an illness, just like how my mom has bi-polar. BUT, just like I expect my mom to get treatment (continue seeing her psychiatrist, taking her medication, and doing the self-care required of her illness), I expect that of him as well. And so far he is. He met in person with a gambling addictions counsellor provided through the health region, and they’re going to meet by phone regularly since he works on the road and can’t make it in every week. So that’s a good start, and we’ll take it from there.

One thing that came up a lot at the Gam-Anon meeting was putting titles in the non-CG’s name. They explained that because we’re a communal property jurisdiction, they still have a right to half the property in the case of divorce or anything, but it prevents creditors from putting leans against the property in the event that the gambler accrues debt they can’t pay off. I mentioned it to my CG but he freaked out and swore he would never put a lean againt the house, but I don’t think he understands that he wouldn’t have a choice, they would just do it. I’m going to talk to him about that again, specifically to say that if he ever goes behind my back and gets credit again, THEN I’d want to put the properties in my name so they can’t take them. As in, I’m not going to push for it right now, but I want him to know that’s my plan if he decides to do something stupid again like getting credit behind my back.

[Leda]

Want to know the stupidest, most ironic thing?

The man has a frickin’ certificate in addictions counselling. Like seriously.

He had a drinking problem in his youth and a lot of issues from growing up that he knew he needed to deal with, so he’d signed up for this live-in addictions counselling certification program that also puts the students THROUGH addictions counselling, so they know what their clients are going through, and so they deal with their own issues first rather than projecting them on clients later. It’s a pretty brilliant program in theory, and it started him well on the path to self-growth.

But clearly the message got dropped somewhere. He’s always said he has to be careful with drinking, and he keeps a pretty close eye on his mood when he’s wanting to drink, and doesn’t drink if he feels something emotional going on. And he controlled his drinking pretty well for years, although recently I think it’s gotten bad again. That whole incident with the growler, together with his general reluctance to give it up, is telling. But that’s why he thought he could control his gambling, because he was controlling his drinking. I might have clued in to extent of the gambling problem then, when I pointed out that first he’d quit drinking for a few years and get therapy before he’d been able to do it under control, and suggested maybe he needed to quit gambling for a few years and get therapy before the same can be true.

Right now, I’m thinking a zero-tolerance policy on both is probably in order. The way I see it, the logic is simple enough: either you can give something up or you can’t. If you can, and the thing is hurting someone you love, then why keep doing it? If you can’t, then you’re addicted. If you’re an addict, then you’re either active or in recovery.

Besides, alcohol is frickin’ expensive and he’s got a lot of gambling debt to pay back to the household savings. He especially loves the craft beers with dinner at fancy hipster joints, and never less than two with a meal, three if I got a drink, I guess because then it’s encouragement.

Sometimes he’d drive home drunk too. I can’t believe that didn’t bother me more! Wow, so so much is becoming clear now. It’s sobering on a whole new level.

I need to quit “smoking” too. I have my own set of problem behaviours that I won’t go into here. But as stupid as it sounds, I guess part of me felt a bit of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” with it. Plus both my parents are chronic users, so it’s always around. I’m not remotely prepared to cut off my relationships with my parents over it.

I wish we could get away from our current lifestyle. We went to Thailand last winter and we’ve been dreaming of retiring there ever since. We could go there and just do yoga and meditate all the time, get massages and go hiking. But running away won’t solve anything.

[Leda]

In many ways, I’ve had a very fairy tale life and marriage apart from this. There’s always been enough money to do the things we wanted, even if his problem periodically wiped out our savings. The amounts grew smaller as my oversight grew tighter. He gradually started realising he has “a problem” and then started getting worse about hiding it. Or maybe I could even be charitable enough to say better at admitting it?

Even this only really reared up every now and then, maybe once or twice a year in any significant amount. He actually did keep it under control most of the time, surprisingly. And because I’ve always been so quick to forgive (which I do highly recommend as a life philosophy, regardless of this situation pushing me past its limits, I generally feel really happy as a result of not holding grudges), it only affected me for a few hours strongly and then I’d be upset about the lost money, but there’s always more where that comes from. And I fully recognise the privilege of this, of having the savings on hand to cover his losses, and that even though his credit rating is much better now than when we met, he can only access so much credit at once.

Gambling, even compulsive gambling, is very normalised in his social group. He works for the railroad and half the guys on his crew are gamblers.

I asked him this weekend how many of those other guys were married? He thought about that pretty hard, brow crumpled up and everything, and he didn’t answer. I asked again, and he said zero, although one of them was divorced. I laughed and said I wasn’t surprised.

No matter what, I’ll never leave him completely. I know that. He’s my soul mate and I love him more than anything. But if it came to it, I -would- be willing to get a legal divorce and separate our finances, still having his pay direct deposited into my account. All the properties in my name, obviously. So if nothing else, that gives me a glimmer of hope — there exists some way that even if he never gets better, I can still stay “with” him in person if not legally. God I hope it doesn’t come to that.

[Leda]

Today has been a hard day, and it’s only 1:30 in the afternoon. Long way to go. I’ve been crying off and on all day. It’s really sinking in how much this isn’t going away. CG already seems “over it” and that leaves me feeling 1000x more hopeless than I did yesterday, which is really saying something. He’s already back to being cheerful and happy-go-lucky. He’s quite bothered by the fact that a good friend of his at work was seriously injured, will probably never walk without pain again, and that could have been him. And while that’s a perfectly valid fear and concern, it seems to have overshadowed any memory that he has this whole gambling addiction thing.

I was on the helpline today, and they helped me see crystal clearly how nothing I do can trigger him to change his behaviour. Maybe my “three strikes” plan was coming from a place of trying to force him into rock bottom or something, I don’t know.

Today I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever (x1000 more “evers”) be able to leave any money with him or credit cards without him gambling it away. This puts me in a really tough spot for the next 2 weeks, since I’m going to Jamaica and he has to be able to put fuel in the camper to keep the heat running, to say nothing of food and water.

It’s more and more clear to me that my idea to go to my mom’s is born more out of punishment and forcing his rock bottom than taking care of myself, since at home is the place I want to be. But I don’t know any other “consequences” I can give him that don’t punish me at least as much. I know from past experience that if I threaten too short of a leash financially, he explodes with a “why don’t I take ALL the money that *I* make and you can just get a job then!” and, well, he has a point. He could do that. I mean, he’d be ending his marriage and would probably be lonely and miserable for the rest of his life, but he could do that.

I’m just so angry. I hate being forced into a position where someone else has so much control over my happiness. The only way I see to regain some control over my own life is divorce, and sure that would allow me to start the recovery process and start healing, and I would probably end up “happy” a lot faster than if I stay. But in the meantime, I would be absolutely devastated.

Besides, as callous as it sounds, these thoughts do come up: He works more than he gambles, and even though he’s lost tens of thousands, he’s made far more than he’s lost. We’re still in the black overall, so even with the gambling, staying is financially preferable to leaving. So far, at least.

[Leda]

That’s a good point. I don’t feel very good about that particular “three strikes” plan either. I just don’t know what to do, and I know I have to do something. This cycle will never end.

[Leda]

One of the scariest realisations for me is that, this time around, I find myself not “liking” him right now. I still “love” him, but I don’t feel happy or joyful when I look at him, the way I used to. I look at him and feel sad. I’m recognising this as a first step down a slippery slope. I just hate the fact that I’m so powerless to do anything here. It’s like my happiness over the next 5 or so years is completely in someone else’s hands. (I won’t say for the whole rest of my life, since I’m at the “leaving-crossroads,” and if I left, I know that I would be sad for a while but I would eventually recover and fall in love again, I’m only 35).

[Author]

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