Velvet,

So far my wife’s gambling has not impacted my daughter emotionally or physically.

However, my wife has done a few terrible things in the past:

1. She pawned her wedding ring and bracelet
2. She wrote $15k worth of bad checks
3. She borrowed money from friends and told them that I am a stingy husband not giving her money to spend
4. She took money out of her employee’s club at her company where she is a treasurer. She eventually put the money back without anyone noticing
5. She borrowed from loansharks and high rate credit cards companies
6. One time she gambled for 48 hours non-stop after I left the house the first time

Her credit is at 800 right now, which is almost flawless. It is like this because I always helped to payoff the debts because her debts were also my debts. Now with the legal separation I don’t know how long before she ruins her credit. But at least it won’t be my problem anymore.

I don’t know if these actions are extreme or not or they are just the typical actions for the average compulsive gamblers.

Yes, Velvet, I will try to not comdemn my wife anymore. I am in the process of trying to forgive my wife and what she has done to me, to herself and to our daughter. Not because I want to come back but I just want to move on and get rid of my anger. I just want to be able to accept things as they are.

In buddhist’s teachings, when you marry someone, you owed that person something or harmed that person in your past life. The idea is that marriage is extremly difficult and people are only living togetther to back debts owed in previous lives. My mother-in-law told me that perhaps I owed her daughter something in my previous life and now I have done paying off this debt the last 10 years so now I can go free. I almost smile when I heard this. May be it is true 🙂