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#3619
ailujym
Participant

It’s been a few months since I last posted, and reading my old posts today I can see that I’m in exactly the same position once again!

I broke up with my CG in February and we lived separately for a while, but got back together. I missed him terribly, and did not feel strong enough then to be single. Finally I moved into the new house he had bought, partly with the proceeds of his poker-playing. I had many doubts about this but we still loved (love?) each other and it is a lovely house. Also the apartment I was living in was in a really unpleasant neighbourhood and I felt very depressed.

Well, when we first got back together we were really happy for a while. He was going to therapy and trying to be ‘reasonable’ about his poker playing. But over the 5 months I lived in that house things gradually slipped back to being just the way they were before I broke up with him; he was staying up until 5 or 6am every night gambling – and therefore we never slept in the same bed, he would forget to wash or brush his teeth (sometimes for several days) while playing poker, and was constantly distracted, or obsessively talking about gambling/bitcoins/the next financial apocalypse/impending global doom.

Given that he also has a job which takes him away from home a lot, I became extremely lonely as he was either out, or at home but not ‘present’ at all as he was in the obsession. Finally, after holding in my worries and anger for weeks and weeks, I exploded after he stood me up one day (he was off with some druggie friends). I became so furious that I broke a picture and kicked the front door so hard it came off the hinges. When he came home and saw the broken glass and swinging door, he was very shocked. I know it isn’t acceptable to act out on anger like this, and I felt very ashamed of myself. But the next day, he told me that he didn’t want to have a child with such an angry woman. I was so hurt by this. I’m 37, we’ve been trying to build a home to bring a child into for two and a half years – and I’m the one who’s done most of the work in that home, all the unpacking and decorating – and now I’m no further ahead than I was when I was single, before I met him.

Anyway, at this point I realised that he is blaming me for things that aren’t my fault. I left to go travelling for two weeks. I wrote him an email saying I could no longer live with the poker lifestyle, and that a condition for us continuing a relationship would be that he would have to stop playing poker and get help. I also said I realised I had been part of the problem, as admittedly I’ve allowed him to support me financially by playing poker – while simultaneously disapproving of it. I expected he’d be angry, but initially he said he was touched by the letter and was thinking about it. Then next time we talked he said that he thought there was ‘no solution’, because even if he stopped playing poker we’d still have a major lifestyle clash, and that he had been talking to his friends who said they were surprised he ‘didn’t mind’ going out with someone like me, as I’m sober and have been in AA for eight years. I was furious as this is clearly turning it round on me: ‘it’s not my problem I’m a gambling addict, its yours for being in recovery.’ So I ended the relationship there and then.

Now I am single, sleeping on people’s sofas, with nowhere to live. Luckily I have good friends who are willing to put me me up on sofas/in spare rooms, and I may have found a flat in a month’s time which I can afford (I’m on a tight budget as I got made redundant in June).

But it is getting very hard being rootless and not having my own space, and I am feeling tempted to go back and try to talk to him again, as I love our home, and I feel very lost. My therapist also told me she thought I should talk to him again and see if he is willing to try couples therapy again (we tried it before and it was useless). But I am afraid if I go back now I’ll just get caught in the cycle again: I leave because his active addiction drives me crazy, but come back because I am emotionally/financially dependent.

I’m thinking of trying to get a short-term let on a room or small flat for a month or so while I decide what to do. Any thoughts would be much appreciated!