[pammm]

Thank you Vera, Worriedmama and Theone. It really helpful to have your feedback and support and it’s good to get the different perspectives from a cg and mother of a cg as well. Still struggling. But it is a cycle. I want so badly to believe that everything is ok, and we go through cycles where I can pretend that it is ok for awhile, but then I’ll become aware that more gambling has been happening the whole time. The longer it goes on I become afraid that I will start to see it as normal when I know that it is dysfunctional chaos. My husband and I haven’t really spoken very much for the past few days since I confronted about the most recent credit card activity. He did not apologize, or readily admit anything and would not give any insight into what was going through his head. Now we are just kind of going through the motions, trying to act normal in front of the kids but not really speaking to each other. This is not a normal way to live. I never expected or wanted my life to be this way.
I am an accountant, and I have made a budget of certain household expenses he is to be responsible for based on the pay he takes home, but when it comes time to pay his share of the mortgage he does not have the money because he gambled it. I am not going to not pay the mortgage because I do not want us to lose our home, so I pay the whole thing. Each incident pushes me closer and erodes whatever love I once had for him. I’ve just been thinking over in my head how to tell his family, if I should tell his family? When/how to say that I want him to leave? What to tell the kids? Where will he go? etc. but I don’t actually do anything.

[pammm]

I’m so glad I stumbled upon this site. It really helps to get feedback from other people who understand and to read the other messages and know I’m not alone. My friends are supportive, but they do not know what I’m going through and I get the sense that they pity me, which makes me uncomfortable. Short of separating from my husband, I’m not sure how I can NOT enable him. Even if I do not directly pay his debts or give him money, I am paying for the roof over his head, the food he eats and the tv he watches and supporting his kids while he spends all money he earns on paying off his debts and/or more gambling. He is not feeling any consequence or making any sacrifice for his own actions other than having to endure me yelling at him, I guess. I’m sure he feels anxiety at trying to hide his gambling, maybe depression when he is losing etc. but I do not think he is really feeling the sacrifice and loss that I am feeling, no matter what I say to him. He will not really acknowledge that it’s a big deal. I try to put it into different ways so he will understand the impact, for example the money he lost could have paid for college educations for both of our kids. but he does not get it. He will say ridiculous things like he will “pay me back” in three years when his personal loans are paid off. There is no “paying back” this amount of money, and we are married so he would only be “paying me back” with my own money. I believe he imagines that he will eventually win at gambling and cover all of his debts. It is delusional. I know it is the nature of his addiction, but I do not see how he can overcome the addiction when he’s not acknowledging it, and only he can do that. So it is a catch 22 because I want to be there for him, but in the end I feel like “supporting him” in the traditional sense does not help because it is only enabling the behavior to continue. So really there is nothing I can do and I should just look out for myself and the kids. I feel like my dreams of living comfortably have been stolen from me. My optimism and motivation to succeed have been stolen from me. I feel like no matter how hard I work, he will just take whatever I have worked for and gamble it away. I am ashamed to show up to my job and have the oldest, worst car in the parking lot when I make a decent salary and I can’t explain to anyone why. I’m sick of my kids telling me their friends are going to Disney World and they want to go, but we can’t because Daddy gambled away all our money, but I cannot say that to them so I don’t know what to do. I know that these things are shallow and that we are lucky to have our health etc. I remind myself of this when I get really depressed. but I’m emotionally exhausted and it takes its toll on me mentally. I don’t want to be a mother to my husband and have to monitor all his spending. It is exhausting and futile and I only get resentment and no appreciation for it and I can’t even let anyone know that it is happening. I can’t catch everything he does, he is sneaky. I’ve used the GPS on his phone to track his location and “caught” him. I’ve also caught him multiple times with secret burner cell phones after I began monitoring his call history on his normal phone (which I pay for). At one point we had a physical altercation in front of our children because I accidentally walked in on him with the secret phone and he hid it behind his back and would not show it to me. I cornered him. He was like a caged animal who would do anything to get away and it scared me. He pushed me into a wall and literally ran down the street without shoes on to get away from me and not show me the phone. Completely irrational and crazy. I kicked him out of the house that day (it was on Easter) but then later felt bad and asked him to come back and work it out. Almost every holiday is ruined with some memory of an altercation with him, because holidays are when I “catch” him because I am not at work. He turns things around on me, reacts with anger and insults me where he knows it will hurt me the most for example, somehow things are my fault because I have gained weight since having children, he is not attracted to me anymore- I know this has nothing to do with his gambling and I know that he says it to distract me from his problem but it is still very upsetting to me and ruins my self esteem and confidence over time. Now I have reached the point where I am becoming numb to his insults, but I frequently have nightmares where there is some terrible “secret” being hidden from me. A lot of the nightmares I have are about people close to me dying suddenly including my children. In the dreams, no one will tell me what has happened and I beg and beg them to tell me and finally I find out that my child has died and I wake up screaming. I’m glad that I stumbled upon this page, because reading the other stories has helped me to feel like I’m not alone and to get some of my thoughts out.

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