It is good that you took time to write on here – I hope it helps to express your current feelings and know that they will be heard and accepted.
I think everyone who loves a cg family member – partner, son, parent – would recognize that mix of feeling within you. You have great love for your husband and you desperately want everything to be all right for you both – if only there was a ‘magic’ solution we could tap into!
Instead, you have had to bravely face your sense of disappointment and betrayal. And perhaps this underlines for you what you also know deep down – that your husband must truly choose to stop gambling and that you cannot, in spite of your love, make this happen, nor be in control in his life. So, can you come back to the one person you can ‘manage’? – yourself. Can you think again of the ways in which you can protect yourself (emotionally as well as practically and financially), take really good care of yourself and maybe even enjoy yourself?
Sometimes it feels impossible to do those things when our loved one in choosing a destructive path, but ultimately it is the only way for you to survive well and, in the long run, the only way for you to be able to support him, when he becomes ready to make good choices.
I’m sure I am repeating things you know, but we often need to find courage to pick ourselves up again after disappointment and get ourselves back on our own recovery path – I hope you can find the inner strength to get straight back on yours.
With best wishes,
Monique, Gambling Therapy Team