Hi KB
I’m glad Harry has written to you, it is always good to get the reaction of someone who remembers being an active CG and who, although he will always be a CG, is now in control of his addiction.
My reply to you is going to be in the same vein as Harry’s but I will write it anyway as it helps, I think, that the more people who say the same thing, in different ways, the better. I believe you cannot talk to the addiction but you can talk to your husband. I hope the following explanation makes sense but if it doesn’t just come back to me.
The addiction takes over the mind of someone who loves a CG and it is so easy just to think solely of the gambling and how it affects you and what you think it is doing to your loved one – you forget to talk about anything else. This is double edged sword – the first edge being that the addiction isn’t going to allow your husband to understand your words anyway but the sharpest edge is that it will not help you in the slightest. It will bring you nothing but grief because you know you are going to hear lies and feel anger and disappointment – it is heart-breaking.
You cannot make your husband stop gambling but you can stand shoulder to shoulder with him against his addiction. You can do this by looking after you first and foremost. Every day have periods of time where you fill your life with things that please you and where addiction has no room in your mind. This might seem a pretty pathetic way to deal with something so awful but it works. It works because your husband does not deliberately hurt you and if/when he is ready to face his addiction, if you have cared for yourself then you will not be part of the wreckage he has to deal with. Ultimately this is the greatest thing you can do for your husband and it really is the best thing you can do for you.
Bashing your head against a brick wall, which is what it feels like, trying to deal with this addiction, will always hurt ‘you’. ‘You’ are important and if trying to makes sense of the senseless doesn’t work it is time to try something new.
It takes time and I know only too well it isn’t easy but the most important change in my life was finding myself again and learning to like myself – in doing so I also found a person strong enough to cope with an addiction and its multiple horrible effects on me. I was a pathetic blob and turning me around was hard for me and for those who were supporting me but it was the best thing I have ever done.
Your husband’s addiction has seen red which is why you are still seeing his anger. You have stood up to his addiction and it doesn’t like it. Make your husband a dinner that he likes but most importantly one ‘you’ like; go and see a friend that ‘you’ like and chat to your husband later about what you discussed with your friend (not gambling); change furniture around because ‘you’ like it in a different way: have a massage; a new hairstyle – whatever you do make sure it is for ‘you’. Get communication open without letting that addiction speak. His addiction believes you will crumble, it will be confused that you are not crying, shouting, pleading, threatening, asking him to understand and all the other things we have all done.
Do you have a Gamanon group near you? It is wonderful to talk in real time and share physical contact with those who understand you.
I will write again soon but I wanted to deal with the post you have written.
Keep posting.
Velvet