Hi Butterfly
I am glad that you heard from Twilight. She is an amazing person and speaks for all children of active compulsive gamblers including those as yet unborn.
You can return to Gamanon even if you feel you are not working the steps – many F&F take years to work them and for a CG it is a life-time, there should be no judgement among the members. I struggled for months with ‘Willingness’. I could not see that my behaviour needed any tweaking and I resented the implication but nonetheless my Gamanon welcomed me. Recovery is hard.
The addiction to gamble is irrational and it does get worse, unless it is treated.
Monique and Twilight have given you so much support and I am very aware that you have a wealth of knowledge from Gamanon already. You did mention that your husband has taken to his car this time as a result of an argument and I would like to focus on that as it is common for those who love CGs to find themselves in the middle of an argument without knowing how they got there.
It isn’t recognised professionally but the following method of coping has often been used successfully by many F&F.
Imagine your husband’s addiction as a slavering beast in the corner of the room. As long as you keep your cool and don’t threaten that addiction it stays quiet, although it never sleeps. The addiction likes an argument as it gives it an excuse to gamble and someone to blame. Your husband is controlled by that addiction but you are not. When you threaten that addiction, it comes between you and controls the conversation or argument. It is the master of threats and manipulation and you are not. Once it is between you, you will only hear the addiction speak and because it only knows lies and deceit, it will seek to make you feel blame and demoralize you. When you speak the addiction distorts your words and your husband cannot comprehend your meaning.
My CG explained it to me by saying that when I told him (for instance) that if he didn’t lie to me but lived honestly he would be happy; his mind however, distorted by addiction, was telling him that I was lying because he truly believed that he was unlovable, worthless and a failure. Lost in addiction he fought me because he didn’t have any other coping mechanism. The addiction breeds a sense of failure; it has no love for the addict or those who love them. However much your husband convinces you that he is in control – he is not.
You can surrender to God but you cannot make your CG do so. It is important, I think, to accept you cannot save him and to know that his addiction will drag you all the way down if you allow it to do so. The control of your husband’s life lies in his hands only so live in the middle of your life and not on the periphery his.
I can hear and read the strength of Twilight’s post, the strength that has at last come, as an adult with children of her own, from resisting her father’s addiction. When she talks of the well-being of a child of a compulsive gambler she is speaking with experience. She has written a book ‘Please Girl’ by Jeannie Kraft which certainly made me think.
Nobody can or should tell you what to do; you have to make your own decisions. This forum is here to support you as you make your informed decision.
I think, as women, many of do understand your desire for a child but on this site and with so many different experiences and situations behind us, we are more aware than most of the danger the addiction to gamble poses when it is in your life. It consumes the unwitting mind and makes fools of us all.
I am writing to you in the certain knowledge that the addiction to gamble can be controlled and wonderful lives lived as a result. Your husband has to tackle his addiction if he wants that freedom, it is not easy but it can and is done daily, by thousands. He already struggles with responsibility of his own life and he isn’t coping well with the responsibility of his marriage. He will definitely struggle with responsibility of bringing another life into the world.
Twilight is right – embrace the time while your husband shares his car with his addiction – use it to rebuild your strength, confidence and self-esteem which will have been dented by your experience. Learn to love yourself again – because you matter and you are not invisible. Your husband cannot see you because he is blinkered by a powerful addiction, not because you are not there. You can’t be invisible, too many of us now know you are there and we recognise you.
Velvet