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    • #4014
      mermaid
      Participant

      I´m another new person to this forum. I am from the UK, but don´t live there and I am married to a Cuban who is a cg. I am currently in Mexico, taking a break and time for myself and to think what I want to do from here (I have been living in Cuba). In a year and a half I have lost a lifetime´s savings (and as it seems many of those affected by their loved one´s gambing seem to be, I am a saver type) and have several thousand of debt. My husband, who has zero income and has had none for over a year and a half (and was in prison for a year of this and I was in Cuba supporting him during this time – not related to gambling and he had committed no crime, more because it is common to go to prison in Cuba, most men have spent time there) and is now on parole until next March. The nature of the problem has only become clear in the past 4 months or so since he was released from prison, and then things just got worse and worse. He has done terrible, criminal things to feed his gambling, directed towards me (he has never stolen or committed any crime to support his gambling…only with me!) Things are so culturally, politically, economically different in Cuba and gambling is completely illegal, but is everywhere and very corrupt. You can also gamble with pretty much no money at all, they feed you money through the night and then give you a couple of days to pay (although it is hard to go in there and start with completely zero but he has done that before – if he has absolutely no money this does stop him going…I think). And if you don´t pay they come after you and it gets dangerous. My husband has recognised the seriousness of his problem and wants to stop and is trying, but so far is only trying will power, which hasn´t worked, also because he just has no options available to him. And no one really understands gambling as an addiction in Cuba. No one trusts anyone, there is a high level of surveillance and anyone could be an informer, and internet is monitored and expensive and not easily accessible. So…I have tried to look for options to provide him with support, but so far not come up with anything that is realistic and I am focussing on myself too at present and trying to understand my feelings and path to how I got to where I am now and what I want to do next. To have clear strategies and be able to communicate myself clearly to my husband. He just wants me to go back to Cuba and support him in person, but I know I don´t want to yet. For now, I still feel I want to see if I can support my husband through some kind of recovery process, but that is very difficult when he has so little support available to him. So, here I am, learning and reflecting and sharing on this forum. Aside from looking for resources here, and possibly some Cuban somewhere who has figured a way to communicate about these issues by internet that works for her/him!!!!!! I have one question for now. Is it common that someone who is a cg generally has a whacked out relationship with money and has issues with compulsive spending, inability to keep money in their pockets (besides using it for gambling) and no real sense of the value of money, money is more a means to just be spent in the moment, often for short-term fun. I guess this is linked in general with beahviour linked with impulse control? I am in a different situation too because of the very difficult economic situation that Cubans live in and their constant challenge in obtaining money, but if my husband has even a couple of pounds for the day, he has to spend it quickly, any sum he spends quickly even though he doesn´t know where his next money will come from. this is linked too I think with his general desire for behaviour that is …escape…spending, parties, drinking. But there are so many issues focussed around money that seem interwoven in such a complex way and he grew up feeling himself to be very poor, even relative to other Cubans around him in his neighbourhood. So we not only battle and argue about the gambling (this much less now as I am not there (one!) but also because I have greatly increased my understanding of compulsive gambling and become stronger and clearer myself in recent weeks) but also just generally about the use and control of money and our very different relationships to it. All so hard when really the only way for him not to gamble is for me to completely control the money and for him to have very little in his pocket – and he has worked hard since the age of 12 to support himself and always earned his own money (up to becoming a prisoner and now being on parole). So many things! But…writing them down here for a start. And it is just so comforting really despite all the pain that people have and are experiencing to see that we all go through such similar things. Ok, I will share this in cyberspace and am happy to have joined this community 🙂

    • #4015
      velvet
      Moderator

      <

      Hello Mermaid

      Thanks for starting a thread in the Gambling Therapy friends and family forum. This forum will provide you with warmth and understanding from your peers.

      Feel free to use the friends and family group, you’ll find the times for these if you click on the “Group times” box on our Home page. Now that you have introduced yourself you’ll find that many of the people you meet here have already read your initial introduction and they’ll welcome you in like an old friend 🙂

      If you’re the friend or family member of someone who is either in, or has been through, the GMA residential programme please take extra care to make sure that nothing you say in groups, or on our forums, inadvertently identifies that person. Even if your loved one isn’t connected with GMA, please don’t identify them either directly or indirectly just in case they decide to use the site themselves.

      You’ll find a lot of advice on this site, some of which you’ll follow, some you won’t…but that’s ok because only you fully understand your
      situation and what’s best for you and the people you love. So, take the support you need and leave the advice you don’t because it all comes from a caring, nurturing place 🙂

      We look forward to hearing all about you!

      Take care

      The Gambling Therapy Team


      PS: Let me just remind you to take a look at our

      privacy policy and terms and conditions so you know how it all works!

    • #4016
      velvet
      Moderator

      Hi Mermaid
      I am glad that you are here to learn and reflect using this forum – I hope you will find in it the support you need and that you will gain strength from knowing you are with those who really do understand.
      In answer to your question regarding CGs and whacked out relationships with money, it would be fair to say that your husband’s situation is common but also to say that much of what you have written is unique to your situation.
      Your husband has said that he appreciates he has a problem and that he wants to stop gambling. Of course words are easy and a gamble-free future will require action accompanying the words, however I hear what you say about the difficulty of getting the support he needs in Cuba. I hope you will feel able to tell him about this site and all our resources.
      Although the environment you have described sounds incredibly difficult and your husband will have to be very determined if he really wants to change his life, I can tell you that I would not be writing to you now if I didn’t positively ‘know’ that a gamble-free life is possible if he wants it enough.
      He is very lucky to have you willing to support him in the way you are already doing. You cannot stop your husband gambling but you can give him good support that will help him if he chooses to take the leap of faith and control his addiction. Knowledge of the addiction to gamble will give you power over it and help you cope. How do you communicate with him? Does he have any access to the internet at all? Does he have any friends or family in Cuba that know about his addiction and to whom he can talk?
      Well done writing your first post, I suspect it was very hard to write. I have read it a few times and I can hear how and why you are finding it difficult to come up with any solution. I will put my thinking cap on and hopefully support you as you deserve. I think that keeping a journal is an excellent way to plot your progress and ‘your’ progress is very important for you and ultimately for your husband. Your husband didn’t want or ask for this terrible addiction in his life anymore than you did, I hope it will help if you can give him hope that he can succeed. Although you have described a very desperate situation, I feel the more information and support that you husband can receive the greater his hope will be.
      We have a terrific Helpline which is open between 0900 and 17.00 hours UK time and is available for you and your husband – the advice is one-to-one and private.
      I am going to leave it there Mermaid until I hear from you again. I have an F&F group on Thursday between 20.00 – 21.00 hours UK time where you will be very welcome.
      Velvet

    • #4017
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi Velvet,
      Thank you so much for your reply. It is very helpful and supportive. In recent weeks I have read and read about compulsive gambling and the experiences of others (perhaps too much and perhaps time to step back a little!) and just still trying to figure out so many things. In the past few days I posted on the F&F forum of Gamcare and got several responses and they pretty much all were saying…how crazy?! How can you be with this guy? All the things he is doing go beyond him being a cg. Think hard about why you would be in such a relationship. And then of course, the usual take care of you and look after yourself and give it time and the answers will come up by themselves when you have more peace in your life. I know he is up against a huge challenge and that I have to decide how much I am willing to support him and what I actually can do. He can´t use the internet very easily in Cuba….there is limited access and it is expensive and while I am not there he generally literally has zero money. He tries to find 50c for some email time (which doesn´t give website access) and so we have been communicating by short email. He has sold his mobile phone so we haven´t talked by phone in the past couple of weeks and that is not a good option as it is so expensive. So we have email communication and I tend to write him my thoughts that way at the moment. He would not want to use this website from Cuba as he would be worried that people would monitor his history. Also he speaks, but does not read or write English, and I noticed that the Spanish section was quite limited, no? So…although at the moment I have told my husband that I am sitting tight in Mexico and waiting to see what he does…how he goes…what concrete actions he takes (knowing the limited options) to tackle his addiction and change his life (and he keeps asking me when I am going back to Cuba and saying how he needs me, but I have to see him somehow changing first and for a length of time), and also just taking the time for me, to rest and recover some strength and to learn more about cg and be clearer what I want to do. I am struggling to find the balance between being supportive and giving him hope and at the same time applying tough love and some conditions (me not coming back, me looking for concrete changes that he makes, his effort for honesty between us)…this also because I am not clear what I want and how much more I can invest in what is so much his battle, but also one that he has never had anyone understand or be able to support in the past. And…no one in his family understands, no friends do…for them it is just bad behaviour that he just needs to stop…and he feels a lot of shame about it. His mother knows and has bailed him out throughout his life, to the best of her ability as she is poor, but also just reaches out to help him every time she feels he is suffering and in trouble after a gambling episode, but i became the default person to …manipulate to get money out of and bail out and to look to for support. I feel my husband has been very open about his gambling since he confessed to me a few months ago, but hates to communicate about it…hates to think about it too much (of course). He is from a very different machista culture…men don´t talk about stuff and he hates to talk about his difficult past – so it is very hard for him to reflect on his gambling history and the triggers. Anyway, this was a fast reply….shot off quickly..I am still really trying to think what I want to do in all this…I thought I wanted to support him and at the same time I know there are a lot of other issues besides the gambling…the life of gambling and a life on the street from the age of 12 so intertwined. I know for now he comes from a very needy place in the relationship. I know I need to sit back too and see what he does.
      I would love to take part in the support group tomorrow, but don´t know how it works…how to make the box go green and join in as it says in the instructions on the page. And it would be great to talk by phone on the Helpline too.
      Thank you..I will keep reflecting and learning! I am so glad to have found this site.

    • #4018
      mermaid
      Participant

      Actually, I started crying reading the comments on Gamcare. They seemed so emphatic about how could I be in such an abusive relationship, etc. It is so hard (impossible?) to separate the gambling from everything else and I see how it directly affects the behaviour of my husband, his moods, etc. I also see an essentially very kind-hearted very resilient person too. He has done terrible terrible things, but I think also if he were not my husband, if he were a good friend, I would want to help. Does that mean I sacrifice myself too much for others and focus more on them than on myself? I don´t know. I just would love to come through this together and I know he has no one else to turn to, even though he has to go through so much of this also himself and prove that he can do that for me to be able to support him. I have everyone around me…people on the forums, my family, friends…telling me I should leave him. This is also very hard. Anyway, I will try to think of more practical and specific ways that this site can help me in my current situation. And I am very grateful for it.

    • #4019
      velvet
      Moderator

      Hi Mermaid
      I don’t think that anyone should ever suggest you leave or stay with your husband – such a decision is yours and yours alone. Give yourself all the time you need to gain knowledge of your husband’s addiction because informed decisions are better. The negative comments you have received from Gamcare do not help you or your husband.
      All the CGs I have known have been good people who, through no fault of their own, own a terrible addiction that causes very, very, poor behaviour, they need treatment and support which is available for many, sadly it seems it is not readily available in Cuba.
      It might not seem very helpful but I assure you that looking after you is the best thing you can do for yourself and your husband. If you collapse under the pressure of his addiction you become another of its victims and then you will be unable to support anybody. It is better for him when he is trying to turn his life around that you are not part of the wreckage of his addiction– it is not something your husband would want. He needs you to be strong.
      It is not for me to say whether you focus too much on others but it is essential to focus on your own health and well-being if you are to be a good support. I think it would be good if you could tell him that you are seeking support for yourself and that you know that enabling his addiction only feeds it – clearing his gambling debts only leaves it clear for him to gamble again and so the cycle goes on.
      This week the F&F group is on Thursday and I do hope you can join. If you click on ‘Support Groups’ at the top of this page, then hover your mouse over ‘Friends and Family Peer Support at 20.00 hours UK time, the green box will appear. Click on the word ‘Join’ and you will be in the group.
      Keep posting Mermaid, I will walk with you for as long as you want me to do so
      Velvet

    • #4020
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you so much Velvet for your reply again. It really is so comforting and very much helps at the moment. I have only starting truly talking about this in the past few days and I think I have been a little surprised by many of the responses I got on the Gamcare site, but then I would kind of expect that many people who reply are motivated too because they feel a strong opinion and want to express it. So forums are skewed that way. Anyway, I know that for now it is best for me to sit tight and take time to inform myself, find a sounding board, reflect and decide what I can and can´t do. And I think it is very important that I figure out how to send my husband clear messages, even if they are just short emails read every few days or so. I think all the time I am just expecting someone to get in touch with me and tell me he is in prison again or that something terrible has happened as a result of his gambling, but that is all part of it. I need to learn how best to apply tough love too.

      Anyway, I just want to say that your messages today have been really good to receive. I think I need to work on myself and how not to lose myself in someone else´s (my husband´s) problems and life, how to have healthy boundaries, etc. So much has happened in the past year and I am still reeling really from the year that he was in prison and all that happened with that and then the gambling addiction and its tough journey hit quickly afterwards! I will try to think hard on concrete things that communication on this site could help me with, and I would love to take part in the group on Thursday. Great to know you are “there”!

    • #4021
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi again,
      Something I am struggling with at the moment is that I am telling my husband that I am staying in Mexico for now to see how he goes and that I want to see him make concrete changes to combat the gambling. But really, neither of us know what those could be other than him using willpower, which I have read over and over that no one has experienced someone overcome the addiction by willpower alone with no support. So I am asking him something without really knowing what it is I am asking of him and yet it is a condition I am making to him! From here I can´t really know if he is gambling or not, only if he gets in touch and says he is in debt again because he has gambled. However, at the moment he has no money at all and nothing to pawn for the night as security, but I am worried as I think he will have $30 or $40 in the coming days. Willpower has not worked for him in the past, although I think he has only been serious in the past 6 weeks or so. Just after I left for Mexico, a month ago, after he had not gambled for nearly 2 weeks, he went and gambled for 3 nights in a row (so he said it was) went through every penny that was left for him (including as security at his mother´s and he travelled there to get her to give it to him), sold the last things I had left there and overshot by $300 still. So there is the triangle thing, money-location- time. He has plenty of time, no option for work right now and very few options for pastimes. He has tried to change his address with the court to stay at his mother´s (where there is gambling but less money and less easily accessible) and the process is just too complicated involving the supreme judge and a long wait time. And he won´t always be going around with absolutely zero money, although often is at the moment when I am not there, and generally doesn´t have a cent in his pockets – which in some ways makes him more desperate to look for a win (in his mind).

      So, I am stuck as to what to say to him. I keep saying I want to see concrete actions and not just words, but the only concrete actions I can see he has as options are just abstaining from gambling.

      Do you have any ideas at all? It feels very challenging.

    • #4022
      velvet
      Moderator

      Hi Mermaid
      This will be a bit of a potted version of a separation coping method as I am supposed to be somewhere else but I promised you I would put this on your thread. We can ‘talk’ about it over the next however long. As I told you it is not a method recognised professionally but it worked for me and it works for many.
      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 his addiction it will stays quiet, although don’t ever kid yourself that it isn’t watching and listening.
      Your husband is controlled by his addiction but it is important to remember that you do not have to be. When you threaten his addiction, it will come between you and control the conversation or argument. His addiction is the master of threats and manipulation which you are not and nor do you want to be. Once his addiction beast is between you, the only thing you will hear will be his addiction speaking 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 can’t comprehend your meaning.
      My CG explained it to me by saying that while I was telling him (for instance) that if he didn’t lie but lived honestly he would be happy, his addiction was distorting his mind convincing him that I was lying because he truly believed that he was unlovable, worthless and a failure – he was lost and fought back with blame and lies because he didn’t have any other coping mechanism. The addiction to gamble only offers failure to those who sadly own it.
      I believe F&F waste valuable time ‘wanting’ to believe that the CG they love is telling the truth and that ‘this’ time, maybe, he/she is different. I think it is good, although difficult, to not ‘try’ and believe the CG because in doing so you become receptive. If you can stand back a bit and listen to what your husband is saying, it becomes easier not get caught up in an argument that has no point apart from making you feel less in control. Once you begin to try and put your side the addiction has something to get its teeth into.
      This all sounds a little negative but the positive side is that it removes you from the centre of the addiction giving you time and energy to look after you.
      By looking after you first you will become stronger, you will be able to reclaim your own life and that is the right way forward for both of you. In pitying a CG you can become vulnerable to his addiction – don’t pity him but be strong and stand against his addiction, it is what he needs most of all.
      I will leave it there and go to where I should be – it was good to ‘talk’ tonight.
      Velvet

    • #4023
      vera
      Participant

      Hi Mermaid.
      I am a Compulsive Gambler.
      If someone kept drip feeding me with money , which I didn’t have to earn, I could possibly become very irresponsible and gamble every day, while laughing my heart out at the stupidity of the person whom I was fooling!
      Have you any idea why you feel you need to send money to your husband, when you know what he will do with it i.e. gamble until he losses it all, then come running back for more, knowing it will arrive without any effort on his part?
      If he was diabetic , would you keep feeding him with sugar or a drug addict with heroin, or an alcoholic with alcohol?
      There is a huge difference between support and enablement.
      Ask yourself what is in this for you.
      You are doing him more harm than good.
      My advice as someone who plied all the tricks of the trade to get money and succeeded in losing the LOT, is
      STOP SENDING HIM MONEY!

    • #4024
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi Vera,
      Thank you for writing and for caring enough to give me advice. I know very well what you are saying. In the past I gave him money for his debts because I was scared of the consequences for him (once I realised what was going on and that I was enabling). This was the final time…is the final time and the situation is left over from something that happened a month ago. Again, I succumbed because I was scared he would go to prison, be beaten up, or even killed. But one reason I came to Mexico was so that I couldn´t get money to him even if I wanted to and that he knew that. I realise that the past few months have fed the addiction and it has escalated and escalated. I know. He also manipulated, of course, and it took me a while to figure out things…but now he can´t get at my money and knows it. So time will tell…Thank you again.

    • #4025
      mermaid
      Participant

      Velvet, Thank you for your post and the slavering beast analogy. I had read it in several other posts and thought about it. I think it does help me to try sometimes to separate the “addict beast” from the rest of the person, although it also feels strange and somehow harsh to do this. But the cg can be such a Jekyll and Hyde and it is so true that they don´t seem to act or talk in any logical way when they are driven by the addict…or at least it is so focused on the fix and defending the fix. However, also when I think of this beast ruling my husband, so to speak, it makes me feel sorry for him…and I am trying to move away from feeling sorry for him, as we have touched on! But I find it so hard! I see him really struggling with this, I see what a grip it has on him and I feel sorry for him. But I am trying to do the tough love thing.

      I feel bad still for enabling him so much with paying his debts and handing him money to use (when I did´t realise it was for the gambling, and also after I did, but he kept saying I could trust him and to give him another chance…or he found some trick, or he believed himself he wouldn´t succumb and wanted to show himself he wouldn´t,then did – I think there was a range of scenarios at different times) and this was also apart from being convinced by him and wanting to believe him, because I was very concerned about the consequences of not paying his debts to those running the gambling racket in town. This also while he was in prison and because he is now on parole, and also because the country is so hard and the law is so random, corrupt and draconian (he spent a year in prison with no criminal charges and no evidence in the trial and this was reduced from 4 years). Then some of the times he found ways to get money out of me, taking my bank cards, pawning valuable things I needed. Now I want to stop giving him any money and have told him so and I believe he believes me and has seen it get harder and harder for him. However, the money I sent him for the last time will have a little over the amount he has to pay, most likely, maybe as much as $30, I don´t know, and I am very nervous about this. I tried every way I could to send the exact amount, but it wasn´t possible. It is also so hard when I know my husband has no money at all right now, but it is his own doing. So these are, yes, really early days for me not enabling his gambling with any money I give him in any way for any reason. And still not quite there in the sense that there is lingering money from a couple of weeks ago that hasn´t reached him, and he is incredibly worried because it is taking so long and he is under such pressure from the guy he borrowed from. So he is generally in touch with me briefly each day saying he is so worried and desperate and I try to stay firm, say he has to wait and that this is all a consequence. But I can´t help worrying that something quite bad will happen to him because of this unpaid debt. More…time will tell…It is much easier to not think so much about it all, not be so stressed – despite the fact that I write a lot about it all here! – by being so far away from him with so little communication at the moment. I want to be a support with firm, clear communication to him, but as discussed, I don´t know what actions he can be taking, other than using willpower because of the lack of options in Cuba. So I need to think what I can be saying to him. Another ramble! Time for bed here!

    • #4026
      mermaid
      Participant

      I´m just going to go ahead and write this stream of stuff in my head. Today it is feeling harder again. Of course, some days are easier than others. I am here in Mexico really because I ran from….the addict…I have named it Chok…I don´t really know why, but I imagine it like some kind of Stone Age Man-Yeti, hairy being. I needed space from the addict, time to think, time to be by myself, and I needed to protect myself, emotionally and financially. Much of me didn´t want to leave, and I think I would have stayed there and battled longer (in vain) if it had not been for my visa expiring. So now I have just very little communication with my husband. He has really tried to be in touch, but also he has been in touch mostly about his gambling debt, how to pay it, asking for help from me, telling me how the money still hasn´t arrived, telling me about how hard it is for him that the man he borrowed money from to pay to the gambling sharks is pressuring him every day for the money and if I can´t complain to my bank, etc. etc. I will not help him again with money and I have known it is the worst thing to do for 2-3 months (it took me a while), but this is still from the past, still lingering. I know I need to focus on myself, but my thoughts are so much with my husband. We haven´t talked at all on the phone for more than 2 weeks. It is very expensive, but also he sold his phone, which really is a good thing as he had left it over and over for security with the gambling sharks and it enabled him to play and run up the debt. It took me a while to fully realise the role of the phone and I paid for him to retrieve it over and over because I also wanted communication with him. He walks around with literally zero money in his pockets, looking for some way to buy some cigarettes and he smokes a lot, but they are cheap in Cuba (but cost more than nothing!). Apart from the cigarettes, when he has a few cents someone has given him he uses it for a few minutes of internet at the state telecommunications office and gets in touch with me, but this is less and less. Today he had about 10 seconds left and just left me a quick message on Facebook that he hoped I was doing well and that the money had still not arrived and could I check with my bank except that he would have no way of communicating with me now. So I just have to…try…to let go. He is where he is because of gambling. He has no money because of gambling. People (powerful people with a lot of influence who could potentially resort to dirty tactics) are pressuring him for their money back because of gambling. He has no work that gives him at least a little income because of gambling. He doesn´t have his own nice space to live in because of gambling. I, his wife, am here in Mexico because of gambling. I miss him and the person I thought he used to be because of gambling. There is so much pain because of gambling. I cry because of gambling.

    • #4027
      michelle45
      Participant

      Hi mermaid

      It was nice to talk to you in group. I can really understand where your posts comes from. It does help to offload it all. You are in such a tough situation but are starting to look after yourself.

      Your husband is in a situation of his own doing and you know you are not responsible for him. I can ‘see’ you battling with yourself over the money but you are the rational one and know what will happen to it if you send more.

      As you have said you can do no more. You have to look after you because who else is going too?

      I hope you are able to do something you enjoy today. It will make your day easier. Leave some space in your head for things other than gambling.

      Take care. My thoughts are with you

      M

    • #4028
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you so much, M. That is so kind. It is good to have you “there”. I know all of us here are in and/or have been through such difficult situations. And sometimes it seems almost the hardest thing to look after oneself. It must be extra hard as well for you with your daughter. But it is so true, that we need to really care for ourselves, make ourselves strong and live empowered lives. We don´t have any magic wands to make this addiction go away as quickly as we discovered it was there! I know on the money thing and feel guilty as well for giving him money so many times. I also had no idea that I was drip-feeding him money (not large amounts, but steadily it really mounted up and he used me feeling sorry for him and wanting to feel he was eating better, etc.) while he was in prison. Prisons are also terrible places for intensifying addictions. I am really trying hard to stay firm with him!!!
      I do try to do nice things for myself each day. Which I think mainly revolve around nice things to eat, some wine, walking in the park for at least an hour, being able to connect to a good friend by Skype. What do you do? Do you have things that you try to do each day to take good care of yourself? I am not there right now but hope to be in a space soon where I can give support to others based on what I have learned on this journey. Power to us! 🙂

    • #4029
      mermaid
      Participant

      Here I am typing again. I just deleted a couple of my posts. Posts that were filled with details of agonising, worry, frustration over debt and paying and enabling and standing firm and allowing oneself to be drawn into it all. The venting served its purpose and the waves passed, the clouds floated by on the blue sky background. All of it so much a part of trying to learn to be more assertive, impose clear, firm boundaries, communicate clearly.

      Now I have had communication with my husband, quite a long phone call, a rare thing. I feel I have to justify myself, defend myself, I feel ashamed (not to him, to others in my life). And I really don´t like those feelings. But when I feel and I say that I really do believe he is changing, that he wants to change, that he is resolute in his desire to beat the gambling to change his life…I know that people will not believe…that they will say…but hasn´t it all happened before and well, the pattern of addicts is so…and the F&F cycle and and….My absence is making a difference to him. It could be that I return and there I am again, he is no longer missing me, and it is easier for him to slip back into his old patterns. It could be that we go back to our old, toxic dynamics (I am doing and trying to learn and grow all I can to avoid this). But there is an evolving process. He has been really struggling more than ever before because of his last gambling debt. He definitely doesn´t want to live like that. He wants our relationship. He tells me he wants my support and he wants this change. He wants me to learn so I can help him. I can´t judge how much he has gone through, if that is now enough for him. He seems more resolute. I can only wait for time to show me.

      Like I have said a number of times. I don´t really know what concrete actions he can be taking to show me he is serious about changing. I only have his words and him not gambling (and of course it is easier for him not to gamble during times when he has no money). I have known him so far to not lie so much, just more directly around episodes of gambling and even then he often comes clean fast. But I am so wary because of all the secrecy, lies and manipulation that generally surround addiction. That the addict himself doesn´t even know what he/she is saying. That he convinces himself. That in the moment that is what he/she believes, but then the waves of compulsion hit. But he has also been surprisingly open too. I am not even sure if I in a similar situation (which I know I can´t imagine, really) would be so open.

      So…I do want to give it another shot in Cuba. He wants me back there now and I still want to give it more time and have told him I don´t have the money yet and want still to see how he goes in the next few weeks. He has found a house for us to live in and it sounds really nice and we have never had our own space really because it just has not been easy to.

      I hate this feeling of needing to justify to others, and really…to myself. I hate thinking that this time is different when I know that this is often part of the pattern. But I just do think it is different! I know the fall can come. I know I can be wrong. I know my husband can be wrong. I know it is a long hard journey ahead. I know I have to do what I can to make myself strong. To handle things differently. The situation will only change if I change how I do things. If I can act differently in similar situations. If I can break the cycle. If I can protect myself and not get sucked in. And really I very much want to be much clearer in my messages to him and my expectations, and better able to motivate him.

      So I really hope that in the coming few weeks, I can equip myself with the tools, strength and insight to return to Cuba and be the best support I can to my husband (as he walks his path) and to myself. It is a hugely challenging place, but I feel I have come so far just in a few weeks just by reading, listening and writing. By sharing and learning. I wish my husband had a similar opportunity, but for now he doesn´t. Perhaps in the future.

      I will still wait and see how the next few weeks go. Sometimes it is hard and I want to rush back to Cuba tomorrow. Sometimes I find it very hard to explain to my husband why I want to be in Mexico for now and that I need more time here and that this will benefit us both. But really I hate this feeling of justifying and defending myself to others in this situation with my husband. I want to be where he is to give it a go, to try to support him. In an empowered way. And to just see how it goes…no great expectations, but also, yes with hope and hope can be dashed, sometimes horribly, but it also drives and motivates us to positive thoughts and actions. I guess I want to know how to be well prepared for any let down….just how to be strong and positive. Again…no magic wands. But…knowing different ways to…skin a cat. It is such a confusing mix – incredible wariness, embarrassment/shame (such destructive emotions!), hope, excitement, impatience…a soup of inner conflict…and..in the end…probably all stemming from…broken trust.

    • #4030
      michelle45
      Participant

      Hi mermaid

      I may be mistaken but your posts seem to indicate you are putting pressure on yourself to make decisions about your future quickly. There may be many reasons for this and it may not be the case but another piece of advice I have received on here that has worked for me has been ‘if you are unsure what to do then pause and stand still until you know’.(thanks velvet). This site is full of stories where CG have sought recovery and also CG who have not. You are not with your husband and it will be having a big impact on him. But only his actions over time will tell you if he is trying to change. I have lived with the addiction to gamble for over 10 years and although I have been aware of the addiction for many years it has taken me a very long time to start to understand and to find some strength to try and change my life. It is not straightforward and as you say there are unfortunately no magic wands.

      You are understandably going through a complete myriad of emotions .Your situation is so challenging that no one other than you will know what it is like to live your life and be you. I used to worry all the time about peoples opinions but its only you that has to live with yourself so id put other peoples opinions into perspective. They will have no idea what its like to be you.

      With regard to my own situation having a young daughter can help getting through the day sometimes. Seeing things through the innocent eyes of a 4 year old helps me appreciate the simple things. I have been out today with a friend who has a daughter the same age. The girls were so excited to be running through a stream and feeding the ducks it really helps me keep the addiction to gamble in its place and out of my life. My ex is doing nothing to address his addiction. He is an active CG and therefore I have to try and keep it out of my daughters life as much as possible.

      Keep posting. I know I am doing better and I am only doing so because of the help support and empathy I have received on this site. You will come to make your own decisions and be happy with them. You are doing it now but I suppose it just feels strange?

      Take care
      M

    • #4031
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi M,
      What a beautiful post! Thank you so much! It was/is so lovely to read. Thank you so much for reaching out and offer me help based on your own journey and the empathy and insight it has given you. You sound strong at the moment and that sounds good! I can understand some how it must also be nice to absorb yourself in time with your daughter and focus on the good with her. And it must be lovely to have a friend to share that with. It is so good to hear that this site has helped you.

      You nailed it on the head with so many things you said about how I am feeling. I know I need to be patient and wait and become less confused. Part of me so wants to rush back to my life in Cuba and just see how it all feels now. And part of me doesn´t feel ready yet or that my husband is, although he tells me all the time he is desperate for me to come back to Cuba. I need to take it one day at a time!

      But really thank you so so much. How so lovely to read your message. Take care you too 🙂

    • #4032
      mermaid
      Participant

      OK, this is me this morning….On Saturday I spoke with my husband for the first time in more than a couple of weeks. It was a good conversation, it was good to speak to him. He is also in a difficult situation because he has no money at all and was saying he would sell his clothes and shoes…which he has done often in the past and has very few clothes. He is used to just selling everything. And it is also Cuba. I know it is all his own doing, but the situation…makes me feel…sad. His growing up very poor, often without food and needing to go and ask for bits of food from neighbours led to him seeing the potential wins of gambling as such an allure, and just the crazy economy of Cuba. I tell him his situation now is all a consequence of his actions and his responsibility and he says he knows. Anyway, he asked me to send him money for living costs…send me 100$ he said…and I said it sounded like a lot and I couldn´t and it would be like sending heroine and he said he knew that. He also said he really isn´t going to gamble anymore….but…yes….waiting for actions not words. He talked about the house he had found for us and said he needed to sort out the contract and he needed money for this. I don´t doubt him that the money would be for this (and the price is normal) and this is not his way of trying to get money out of me, this has never been his pattern (so far…). (He´s never tried to persuade/trick me to give him money *intending at the time* to use it for gambling, but then if he has money….he has the compulsion and the means. He has taken it by force in the past…taking bank cards without me knowing, selling the car and going on a long binge, selling things when I have not been there). So I believe him there. The risk is that he could then have the money in his hands fully intending and wanting to use it for the house, but then use it to gamble…or even if not gamble…just spend it on something else “urgent” before the house as he is going around with zero money. I agreed to send him 60 Euros…40 for the house and 20 to pay for his expenses and pay back people he has borrowed bits of money from recently to live off. I felt ok about this for the rest of the day, but then yesterday I felt very uneasy. I just thought…what if he spends the money…and I am giving him the temptation…the alcohol, the heroine…I did it badly. I battled in my mind between letting it go and waiting and seeing if he “passed the test” and thinking no, I have done it all wrong and am enabling and giving him the temptation. I wrote to him that I had sent the money and that I was waiting here in Mexico to see how he went and that I hoped he wouldn´t mess it up and afterwards I would make my decisions about if and when to return to Cuba. But this felt wrong to…like I was imposing too many “if you do this I will do that and reward you´s” so to speak. I felt uncomfortable. So last night before I went to bed I wrote to cancel the money transfer and this morning had to argue a little with their customer service to cancel it as they had already processed it and ignored my email (and had changed their processing to how they had it on their website so the money had gone out automatically). But finally they cancelled it and I plan on sending him 25 Euros to see how he goes and just so he has something to live on. I told him if he is serious about changing then he will understand and accept what I am doing. Ideally I would send him nothing, but don´t know how best to deal with the situation that without money from me he has zero and really no way of getting any money at all. 25 Euros is the minimum that can be sent. I told him that he can send me all the details of the house and if necessary I will then send the 40 specifically for that and that we have to take it day by day, step by step and rebuild the trust. He knows that he needs not to mess up for me to return to Cuba. This all feels hard! I am even all the time concerned he will be annoyed with me and then how I deal skillfully with that. I keep apologising and telling him I hope he understands! It is such a new situation really for both of us, although he says he wants me to manage all the money (it hasn´t worked for more than 1-2 days before in the past..he has just resented it in the end and “broken out”). I definitely don´t know how to do this well. And yet I feel it is such a good life lesson for me…the boundaries, the assertiveness, the clear communication and messages. Just that still I am really not very good at it at all and this doesn´t help him at all. It definitely feels very hard, yet would help him and me and our dynamics so so much.
      ……..
      And in the end…I thought he´d already moved too fast as he was expecting the money and has been so long with zero. I just got an email to say he had already received the money in Cuba, the 60 Euros, before they could cancel it. But I tried to find out if this was the case and in the end they managed to cancel it without him having collected it. But…the games! It feels terrible. And really it stems from my indecisiveness.

      So these are lessons I have wanted to have for a long time and the universe has sent me them! But I feel so upset right now. Everything is so messed up between me and my husband…all the money stuff has just become so hard…the power dynamics around it, everything to do with money connected with the addiction.

      I know it´s the actions of my husband that count, not his desires or intentions or words. But I am a mess. I´m no support to him. So much has happened.

      I want to support him, and help him feel that he can do some of the “everyday things” in his life he needs to do…organise, but I don´t want to be an enabler. I know I have to focus on myself and sort out myself, but the power balance, trust issues, fixation on money are so hard around this all.

      And trying to learn not to let other people´s opinions affect me. I am here in Mexico, very socially isolated, because I decided not to go to England (my father offered to pay the flight) to be with family because I wanted the mental space to think without their opinions (also because I wasn´t ready to take the step to go further away from Cuba and I like Mexico and was based here before I went to Cuba). Yesterday I talked to my mum and I get into negative patterns with her…somehow she brings out me highlighting the negative things too…she says things like: It was him who got you into this situation. When I said I might buy myself a cheap smartphone for Cuba she said: Huh, that will disappear. I then start saying..yes..because last time…such and such happened, I know, and also defending myself.

      I am living with someone who is telling me I need to be at least 3 months away from my husband and have zero communication from him and always pointing out the negatives in his behaviour…(so I feel I need to be furtive about communicating with him)…what is going to make him change, etc….people who grew up on the street tend to be very good manipulators and things like that. Perhaps he is just trying to give me a “dose of reality” but it doesn´t help me.

      I just have one friend at the moment who is a very good friend…not here in Mexico, of course…who is supportive, always listens, and telling me mainly not to beat myself up.

      Too many negatives this morning! Will need to take a long walk in the park! I know the theory….I know!…but it is so hard to put into practice!

    • #4033
      mermaid
      Participant

      I´m going to go ahead and type a few lines…it feels like to myself as this forum feels very quiet and a little bit lonely at the moment (although it was so kind of M to write). I think that is how I am feeling right now. Quite alone in all of this, but…at the same time fairly positive. I have been going through and reading many posts here on the F&F forum and feel I am learning a lot. There are patterns. There are general things that help across the board…the personal growing, the self care, better clearer communication and boundaries. I can very much relate. And the people here go through such harrowing times. And then many of them sound strong, or their strength grows with time. But it really helps to hear their stories, see the things in common, learn from them. But also I feel quite alone, the forum quiet, but also that my situation is quite different from anyone on here…so I am looking for the things in common, the connections. I know that when…if I go back to Cuba I won´t have this resource (perhaps to read a little, maybe in short internet interludes at the state telecommunications office, but always nervously) and so I need to make the most of it now!

    • #4034
      monique
      Participant

      I am one of the Volunteer staff at GT. I have been looking at your posts. I’m sorry that you are feeling lonely right now, but am also glad that you are able to write so clearly and fully about what you are going through. Sometimes just getting it all out of your mind into words on paper/screen can bring some relief and also a measure of clarity.
      But you need some warm and understanding responses too, so I hope maybe there will soon be more communication with you. It is useful to read other experiences too, as you have found. And, all that you have written will help someone else – remember that, too, and know you often help others even as you look for help for yourself.
      Again, I would reiterate that message about ‘looking after you’ – try to turn your thinking around to what you need to make things better and healthier in your life; make your needs a priority – it is not selfish, even though we often think it is. As you have found, keeping the focus on the cg means you are trying to manage someone who is not choosing to be managed by you, so you actually can’t help him – or strengthen yourself, but when you focus on what is truly best for you, you have some sense of control and ultimately you will be more able to support your loved one. I know you know this, but maybe you need to be encouraged once more.
      You seem very brave and kind and you deserve to live well. Yes, every life is unique, so no one else can tell you exactly what to do in your situation, but, yes, there are patterns and guidelines etc that are useful to us all. When you think of choices etc, think of what gives you most peace.
      Of course, you most want your cg not to gamble and suffer the consequences, but work on the choices that you can make realistically, not the dreams that are someone else’s responsibility.
      Are you able to access any of the support groups – times listed under support groups?
      I wish you well.

      Monique
      Thinking of you.

    • #4035
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi Monique, It is so nice to get your response and I very much appreciate it. It helps a lot. It just helps to have these things repeated (and repeated…..), it really does. I do know the theory, but it is obviously hard to embrace it and then even harder in situations “when the pressure is on”. So I think the more repetition, the better! 🙂

      I am trying to think what ways I can better approach in general communication and actions around money with my husband. It is incredibly challenging because of the Cuba context. I do not have much income and it is not consistent,but it is so much more than 99% of people could ever earn in Cuba, including my husband. I have completely supported him since the start of last year, also because he was in prison for a year and now is on parole. He can´t go back to his old work and he can´t work to earn any kind of income that would be more than 1$ day and now this seems not an option because he can´t have money in his hands (and that is what is needed to buy things to resell, organise transport, etc.). So he is incredibly frustrated that he has no income and has to rely on me (since he left home when he was 12 to earn his own money and always had until he met me). At the same time he likes to spend money and has never learned how to save (although he says he wants to) and so he also has a lot of demands on my money. I say “my” money now as I was willing to share it all in the marriage, but then with the gambling and his ways of spending so much anyway, I needed to control it and separate it and it also feels more like mine as I am the one working, the savings were all mine, and my family were sending me money. It would of course feel very different if he weren´t a cg and hadn´t gambled tens of thousands in the past 18 months. If we can reduce the friction around the theme of money in general, with every day things, then this will reduce the stress for both of us, and definitely for me, and make things much easier. Often, the stress my husband feels, and also ensuing arguments, are a trigger for him to go off and gamble. I realise that if he is truly embracing embarking on recovery then he would accept all the control of finances, and be willing to work with me on it. And he is trying, I think, but he finds it very hard, and I do too. I don´t like the power dyamics, I don´t like feeling I need to be so in control, and I also know that I still resent it when he seems to be spending more on things than I do/would for myself and yet has lost so much of the money we would have had (I am working on this and he is trying to be better with money). I don´t want the focus on money, I want it to be on emotional well-being (and…yes…focussing on peace), but I truly struggle with our communication around this. I will need to “police” the money and only give him small daily amounts (whatever I seem to give him he spends it all!) and also hide/lock away anything that he could pawn or use as collateral for a night of gambling. He is aware of this, but he is also so used to just being in charge of all of this in his life and so he finds it incredibly hard too. We then both struggle with all of this and the tension is there. It is of course a very different situation than him having a job and money being able to be paid directly into specific accounts, and those which his access to can be controlled. I am…the bank and the credit card companies! Any suggestions you might have would be very helpful.

      Thank you! And thank you again for your post…just so lovely to read and so encouraging.

    • #4036
      monique
      Participant

      I’m glad you are writing things out clearly and I hope it helps you focus and sort things out in your mind.
      It is a complex situation. I am trying to imagine it and think of what might be helpful to suggest to you. But most of all, it is about you finding out what you need and prioritising that.
      Of course, you care deeply about your husband, too, and it is natural that you worry about his well-being. I am wondering, though, how does he live from day to day? Is he renting a room to live in? Is he buying food? etc. I would offer my experience that gamblers often manage to look after themselves and their basic needs much more than we, their loved ones, imagine. They will not have the same priorities as we have, but they will probably make sure they have the essentials of life, but we will be worrying that they have not – and this can ‘manipulate’ our emotions.
      I am a volunteer here and a counsellor, but I am also the mother of a young man, who started gambling when he left home to go to university. He has been through very tough times and has not lived near me since he was 18 – so I have gone through those times of anguish about how he might be coping. But the years have passed and he somehow stays in one piece! I am not sure if he has stopped gambling, but he is working and has his salary managed by someone else, who sends him money only as needed, pays bills/rent etc directly etc. I am just saying this as an example of how, in time, we can look back and realize the cg was not as close to death as we used to imagine. They do not know what agonies we go through. I am also aware that the situation in Cuba may be more risky and it is a place I do not know, so only you can judge about that. But just continue to keep in mind how much your feelings and good-will can be exploited.
      Also, all cgs will have other issues in their lives – no one becomes a cg from a blank canvas; they have bad experiences etc and we will feel so sad for them and want to make it better. But, hard as it seems, they must truly take on board that gambling is not an answer or an escape, but a road to greater destruction, pain and suffering.
      Regarding the house for you and your husband, I wonder if you want him to get a house sorted now? Or would you rather wait and see how you are in a while? I wonder if you feel you need to be there when such an important decision is being made? And if you are not ready to be there, maybe you want to put all that on hold? I cannot tell you what to do, but just want to think with you about what is best for you and whether you are feeling pressured to provide money for this? And, as you say, there are so many dangers associated with handing over that money. Your husband may not intend to gamble but I think you are saying you think that having that money could lead him in the wrong direction.
      I am rambling on …
      But do take time, more time, if that is what you really need. Let your mind relax as much as is possible and tune into what is in your heart about your own well-being.
      Best wishes,

      Monique

    • #4037
      jenny46
      Participant

      I used to feel uncomfortable about giving my ex partner money to help him through or out of his dire circumstances, but yet on many occaisions I still did it. I think my uncomfortable feelings arose out of the fact that deep down I knew that the money would be used for gambling but at the same not believing the depths or levels of manipulation at play. After all who really wants to believe that someone whom we love and professes to love us is so capable of such elaborate lies and conning us in such a way that indicates the complete opposite – let alone admit it, we too are just as capable of being in denial.

      I am with Monique in the sense that it is surprising how many people with this addiction manage to get by one way or another and it is us who fear that they will be starving etc etc I remember worrying about mine for a few months during a separation and under a bombardment of requests for money only to see him and to my surprise he’d put on a fair bit of weight and was far from the starving waif I had imagined him to be, probably because he’d moved in with another women in that time – which he had forgotten to mention in passing conversation !!

      The only way to be sure we have not enabled is not to hand over any cash for anything to someone who is gambling, even if you are paying other people back for providing him with food etc it is still a form of enabling – he needs to run out of options before he will consider the need to change.

      It is difficult when so much advice is thrown in a negative way, but keeping a distance from the addiction and concentrating on you seems like quite a good idea to me right now

      Jenny

    • #4038
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you so much to both of you for your thoughtful replies. Sometimes, yes, it does feel like focusing on the negative a bit, but I guess in the end it is all a result of loss of trust and that is very hard to rebuild and can only be done so by actions over time. Then with this loss of trust come skewed power dynamics in seeking to control situations where there is no trust – since the desire to control comes from lack of trust. It is definitely hard! For now, I sent my husband the money to organise the contract for the house as he said it would be lost otherwise as other people wanted it, and really I believe this. He already picked up the money yesterday. It was not a lot of money, but, yes, it is a risk. He does have a roof over his head and food as he is at his uncle´s house (but they have very little too), and I wanted to be here in Mexico away from him also so that he would feel more consequences of his gambling, that he would be more on his own to deal with them, and I have told him more often now and more firmly that they are his problems and his responsibility to sort out and that I didn´t cause them. I am trying to concentrate more on my own well-being, but also here is the place where I talk about things related to my husband and his gambling. I am also in a strange situation as I am quite in limbo as I picked a place to be away from him that is not around friends and family and is only very temporary. But really, like many of us experience, it is a matter of time and waiting and seeing how things go. And for now, things still feel with my husband like they can go any way any day, even if he himself tells me I don´t have to worry anymore that if he says no more, it will be no more…time will tell and also at the moment he is more motivated not to gamble because he wants to see me go back to him in Cuba.

      Patience… 🙂

    • #4039
      monique
      Participant

      Hi Mermaid. It can seem as if all the messages are really harsh and negative. But just take things at your own pace and learn to listen to your own inner voice, too. We can be so caught up with the needs of the one we love that we no longer hear our own inner voice, so it may not be clear straight away. You don’t have to do anything quickly. Doing nothing, just waiting and reflecting is also a choice – and often a good choice, when we feel really confused.
      I can appreciate that it is not easy to be in a different place, without friends or family, so look after yourself as well as possible and take things slowly.
      Best wishes again,
      Monique

    • #4040
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you Monique. I appreciate all of this. I don´t think that the comments are harsh really at all and they are helfpul. It is more..well, the situation is…harsh! I think to myself that I am not so wrapped up in my husband´s life and well-being and then at the same time, I think that I am! Even if I am less than I was. I have removed myself a lot from the situation and the emotional turmoil, just by not physically being where he is. I don´t doubt his determination to stop gambling, but I know that I feel that it will be much harder than he seems to think it is. Of course, he hasn´t had any exposure at all to anything like this forum, all the information on the internet, or discussions in any way with other cg and so completely lacks that perspective. I have totally different information than he has, and well, just much much more of it. And he has broken my trust, I have not broken his. I just have to let him do his thing and see how it goes. And I have tried to do this for the past 6 weeks now and it feels hard to keep doing it, but I know it all still needs more time and I am not confident of my own confidence, so to speak. And my inner voice is quite confused, or just very wary at the moment and yet at the same time impatient to go back to life in Cuba and just to see…I obviously miss my husband and he keeps telling me how much he misses me and he never wanted me to go away, of course. But there is still so much that feels very hard. This site is very helpful, though. Thank you!

    • #4041
      velvet
      Moderator

      Hi MM
      Appreciating you need more time is good. We make mistakes when we rush in. To cope we need to be ahead of the addiction and to be ahead we need to be sure of ourselves first.
      I have just been reading passages in my Gamanon book and I thought what a difference it made to me.
      Maybe you could access information about Gamblers Anonymous and Gamanon from the web – do you have friends in the US who can get you information – New Mexico, California, Arizona and Texas all have hotline availability to GA.
      The following is taken from my Gamanon book and I like it – I hope you do:-

      YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW.

      There are two days in every week about which we should not worry: two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.
      One of these days is yesterday with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. We cannot undo a single act we performed. We cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone.
      The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise or poor performance. Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.
      Tomorrow’s sun will rise, either in splendour or behind a mask of clouds – but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn.
      This leaves only; one day – TODAY. Any person can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burdens of these two awful eternities – yesterday and tomorrow – that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives people mad – it is the remorse or bitterness of something which happened yesterday and the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us, therefore, LIVE BUT ONE DAY AT A TIME.

      When the group closes MM – I always say out loud the Serenity prayer whilst thinking of the people I have shared the hour with – it always seems particularly poignant when the members are in other countries. It is said at the end of every Gamanon meeting and I will be saying it on Tuesday evening at 21.00 hours UK time – I hope that by printing it here you will hold my hand in cyber space so that we can say it together – with or without the word God depending on your own preference.
      God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change
      Courage to change the things I can
      And Wisdom to know the difference.

      The courage you are showing and which is building in you every day is the best thing you can do for your husband – well done
      V

    • #4042
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi Velvet,
      Thank you so much for your reply and it´s really nice to hear from you again. I hope you´ve had some really lovely days with your son and his family.

      I have read your advice on concentrating on the present…on today in other posts and I know this is good to try to do…the present is all we have. I also often think of the Serenity prayer. Thank you for thinking of me with those. I was wondering where I might get a hold of more of the GA and GAnon literature. I have the 12 steps, in Spanish too, from GA. I have been on their websites quite a bit. There is GA in Mexico, although not where I am, there are for now just a few groups around the country, no GAnon anywhere here. I could perhaps contact them and see if they have any literature they could send me, although I am thinking that it is unlikely they have a setup for payment and sending, etc. I have read a lot on the internet…perhaps absorbing myself in it too much, and perhaps time to take a bit of a step back. I have in the past been on silent meditation retreats and used to use more “tools” but I have somehow let that all drop away, and more so in Cuba where I feel I just let myself get sucked into everything there and also kind of “lost myself”…I am fully aware of that.

      At the moment, my husband seems…well…ok. He keeps saying that he will not gamble again…that he is done with it now. Of course he has said that in the past, although each time when he relapses I can see he tightens the resolve a little more and that he is genuinely trying. I keep thinking that he just doesn´t realise what he is up against. I keep thinking that if it were so easy he would have done it in the past…But also like I have been saying, he doesn´t have anything else he could really do except use his willpower and…abstain. And you have said many times that abstinence is not recovery. He could eventually try to make amends for the damage and hurt he has caused with his gambling…he could apologise, etc….but that seems…down the line and with guidance and support, no? I think he knows that I have far more resolve now to not help him at all to deal with the fallout from any of his gambling…that they are his problems and his responsibilities and his alone. I have to keep communicating this clearly to him and explaining to him why I am taking this stance – although I think he knows! For now I feel that his main motivation to not gamble is because he wants me back there and so I am so wary about going back…but that is….the future….and really at the same time it is good that he knows that it was in the end not so hard for me to walk away and stay away and that I could do it again in the future and that things need to change. But I need to change very much too, especially with boundaries and clear communication (and I have read tons on that too…all the NVC stuff….but it is all so much…theory!).

    • #4043
      mermaid
      Participant

      It all feels so deeply personal and I realise that I don´t even know where to turn for support. I find a lot of comfort in reading other posts on here, although each situation is unique, there are many patterns in common…many. With my cg, the addiction seems to suddenly take over him and seize him, sweep him up…and away…and he changes and is controlled by it. But at other times….he is completely “normal”…a kind and gentle person, who is known as someone who has a big heart (but who has always been crazy with money…). It is impossible to know when these waves will hit, although there are patterns, triggers…arguments between us (especially over money…a vicious circle…), him being on his own, him having money, him feeling stressed or even just bored, but often very much it seems when he feels there is pressure around money and he wishes he could fix it and we could have more (which will never happen with gambling, and it is only his addiction that tells him otherwise at the time to spur him on). He is aware he has an addiction and that it can control him and make him feel powerless against it and I see him in a kind of shock afterwards, like a kind of ghost possessing him has left him. He has passed through that stage and admitted he has a problem and that he wants to fight it and change, and says he wants that more than anything. But it is still so hard to know the tools that he has at his disposal to go on that journey, and also those that are available to me when I am in Cuba. I feel I will only have what I am learning in these few weeks here. It would be nice to have things to read over and over to remind me when I am there. It feels all still very much at the beginning and that there will be many trials ahead (but I am not focussing on those 🙂 ).

    • #4044
      michelle45
      Participant

      Hi mm

      I t was nice to talk to you in group again. I have read your posts and the replies you are getting. I can ‘hear’ how much you value the input as you must be in a lonely situation. Away from all that is familiar. You will find a lot if people who care here!

      Your last few posts seem clearer. Sometimes it is just time and it really helped me to get other peoples views. I I too have read lots of stories and posts and searched the internet and it is very true that there a lot of similarities. I am finding that I ask questions and become clearer on finding answers a while after. I don’t know if that is common or my experience!

      With regard to recovery again it seems every path Is different. My ex has stopped in the past for periods but always returned. I wanted his recovery more than him it seemed. I was very committed to it!! I know that is just his story and others seek recovery at different points and suceed in recovery. This site is testament to that. I now see the pattern with my ex as im more removed. My ex still believes at the moment he can control his gambling even though he really knows he can’t but is presently choosing not to admit that to himself. If he did he would have to do something about it wouldn’t he!! Your husband knows he has a problem and is understanding that action is needed. Unfortunately all of this takes time. Unfortunately you have no control over this. This is something I have struggled with for years!!

      This journey is very tough. I have days where I’m so I’ll at ease still but if I think back to a few months ago I literally struggled to make it through the day. I make many mistakes and become very frustrated.I have really good and carefree days too. When you are surrounded in addiction it is difficult to have any carefree days.. I do understand your thoughts and your need to try and rationalise things. You are human!! I also understand the battles with yourself.

      With regard to literature from gamanon I had some sent to me as it is difficult for me to attend a meeting . I realise this was in the UK so there was no charge but it may be worth a try!!

      I wish you well on your journey .

      Regards m

    • #4045
      mermaid
      Participant

      I have just been re-reading M´s reply and it is so heartfelt and supportive, just really lovely to read! Living with this addiction in our lives seems to teach us patience. We definitely need to learn patience, and to step back and sometimes just let things go their course….very much the Serenity Prayer! I have been finding it particularly hard in the past few days. I have now been in Mexico for over 6 weeks, and they have been days very much alone, day after day. When I arrived I really wasn´t sure for how long I´d stay, or even if I would return to Cuba. But I had left Cuba very hopeful, ad thinking I might even return within 2 or 3 weeks, the final few days there with my husband had left me feeling really hopeful that he was really trying to tackle the addiction, that he had hit his low and that he had realistic options for supporting himself. I was going to go away to see how he fared by himself and to give myself some time and space. And to eat good food! The previous weeks and months had been truly terrible and then before that it was a year on my own waiting for and tending to him in prison. In the first few days he told me he was behaving well so that I would come back quickly and that he hadn´t gambled at all…nada…and then after about 10 days his voice was different and then he got angry with me on the phone for an insignificant question and in my gut I knew he had been gambling again. Then a couple of days later a cry for help, desperation, shock, needing money, the admittance of lies. He had got through everything I had left, money I left with his mother 30 km away, money he had earned, money from selling the last few things of value I had left, at least $800 all in 3 nights of poker. And so….I decided to stay longer here and give it more time. That was now a month ago and it seems he hasn´t gambled since, perhaps also because he simply hasn´t had the money, but he keeps saying…no, I won´t do it again, and as I have written, I do see his resolve increase each time even if he has nowhere to turn for support. Even if they are small steps, they are going in the right direction, there is a change. He is much clearer now that he can´t continue to live how he has and that it won´t work for us.

      So it´s only been a month since then, and the time in between our communication has been dominated by his stress over paying his debt from his last gambling. I resisted and resisted and then helped him, but it really will be the last time, and I understand all about the enabling and even more so now. The payment was delayed and delayed and so he suffered more, checking for it every day, being hounded by the guy looking for his money, him being on parole, and really I knew that I wanted this. I wanted him to…sweat. I wanted him to feel more consequences and to have to deal with the situation without me around and to know that I was standing firm and not offering other options. I know I enabled one more time, but I have remained much stricter in my communication with him and resisted several of his requests for various forms of help. Cuba is so complicated and the situation with the economy and our own money dynamics even without the gambling and me having supported him for over a year and a half now, most of our relationship, is very hard. But he has the minimum he needs to live each day. And of course he would have much more if he weren´t a cg , and he knows that.

      I have read so much on this forum. Hours and hours each day. Sometimes it just feels too much. So much suffering and so much frustration. People searching for how to truly change their lives…change themselves. Maybe I really need to step back. It feels so intense. But I also feel I have just these few weeks to be able to read and learn and have to make the most of it. And then I am spending all day every day alone and don´t know how to fill the hours. I know the social isolation is bad for me, but I haven´t figured out yet how to change it, and am also trying to spend as little as I can. And then all this questioning…what really is love…how selfish is it for one´s own needs…how much is it its own addiction….who does it really serve….what purpose…aren´t there so many ways to love and so many people “out there” we could love? I have no children, I am in the early stages of my relationship. Why don´t I want to just walk away now? What is it that makes me want to stay and support and journey through this with my husband? I am in love, but that passes too…life goes on. Is it just now that I feel I know more and have more tools and can “do things better” and want to try another way? And me missing my life in Cuba, so lonely as it is there for me. It would be so easy to fly back tomorrow. But not yet 🙂 More days, one day at a time…but if I keep thinking so much, my head will explode! 🙂

    • #4046
      michelle45
      Participant

      Hi mm

      I was just updating my thread and somehow lost what I had written. In the meantime I have read your reply and wanted to let you know you are in my thoughts. It must be incredibly difficult if you are spending a lot of time alone? Loneliness is an awful feeling and I think the addiction leaves you feeling lonely and isolatef often in a room full of people sometimes. I do understand. I spent many years feeling lonely although I could have spoken to friends or family. I felt shame and embarrassment. I now realise I could have helped myself sooner by seeking support from other people too. Is there anyone in your family or a friend you could talk to who you feel won’t judge. Even now I am truly honest only with few people about the affect the addiction has had on me. I didnt even realise the effect it did have for a long time. The first place I truly opened up was here. That somehow gave me the courage to reach out to others. I know your situation is very difficult but do you contact friends and family in the UK? Can you Skype.? Anything to connect you back to things you used to enjoy. Things you have forgotten about. My head has been full of gambling for many years and it is such a waste. The most difficult thing for me was accepting I had no control. A really hard lesson. Instead of trying many strategies to minimise the affect of the addiction I wish I had used my time more effectively for me.

      These thoughts are just my experience its just I know I am so much better when I am with people and doing things not just sitting thinking. If I keep busy days pass by quickly. I still find weekends most difficult as I perceive others to be in their traditional family unit. But it has just taken me time to find the energy to actually do things!! Are there things you enjoy doing,?

      Thank you for taking the time to write on my thread. You are being very supportive at a time when you are having such a tough time and it really is appreciated. Writing things diwn helped this weekend. Thanks. Keep looking after yourself as much as possible. I know how difficult it is to think clearly and be strong. My experience is that only by finding the right answers for you do you begin to feel easier. Have confidence in yourself. You have lived with such difficult circumstances already don’t forget you are strong enough to deal with this. Keep faith in yourself. That is all you really need
      I know I need to also convince myself of this!!

      Best wishes
      M x

    • #4047
      mermaid
      Participant

      M, thank you so much for your response. You are so sweet and so supportive. Ok…let us both do what we can to boost our faith in ourselves! What will that be?! I chose my situation here, really. I didn´t think it would be quite so isolated, but I am staying with someone who is only an acquaintance and who is quite judgemental about my situation (but a kind and caring person) and he literally only sleeps in his house. It gives me the space at the house, which is also nice, but means I don´t talk to a live person just about ever, really, at the moment…perhaps I exchange a few words a week. But, I do use Skype and that is really good. And I do have people to chat to online and I reach out to them. I decided not to be with my family in the UK so as to avoid their opinions, even though I know they want the best for me,and I just wasn´t ready to leave that far from Cuba and my husband. And I have been nomadic for years and years. That was a big part of the draw to just take the leap and “settle down” in Cuba….but in the end it wasn´t very settled! The dealing with difficult circumstances and feeling strong…I almost feel that I have been weak to “take” all that I have and that I am being weak by planning to go back to Cuba and that the stronger option would be to walk away and I have no friends or family who don´t think I should leave my husband. I know it is my own decision and I do really feel that I haven´t really tried to make it work for me so far because I didn´t have the information even two months ago that I have now. I do love my husband and we tell each other we love each other all the time, but I am old enough to know that love does not conquer all! 🙂

      So, every day I think to myself what can I do to make the day a bit nicer for me. I try to eat nice food (which is still such a treat after time in Cuba where there is such a limited choice of food). I love being outdoors and had hoped to go camping more with people, but it hasn´t happened. I am in a very urban environment, but there is a beautiful big park near the house that I walk in for at least an hour every day. It feels wrong though to be wanting each day to pass and just to be happy to go to bed at the end of the day. We only have one life and it is short and it feels so wrong to be wishing it away and feel so in limbo.

      I know what you mean when you say that your head was full of gambling for so long and what a waste that was. It is crazy really how it sucks us up into its drama and before we know it it dominates our lives. Then we have to really work hard to free ourselves from it. We are both still working at that.

      We never know what will happen in our lives, from one moment to the next really or one day to the next. Things can take us by surprise, but for many of us the norm is a feeling of some kind of security. With this addiction so much can come crashing down from one moment to the next, at least that is how I feel. It just takes my husband to go and gamble once and the earthquake strikes again.

      But for now things are calm! And I will try to learn all I can and how to change for the better. And your words truly do help…thank you so so much. I look forward to hearing how you go this week, what you are feeling and thinking and what opportunities the coming days bring you and your daughter to appreciate this crazy wonderful life.

    • #4048
      charles
      Moderator

      Hi Mermaid,

      Just letting you know that I just moved a post you placed in the Topic group Forum. That forum is used to discus the advertised Topics we have in the Topic Groups. I’ve placed it in the “Discuss the latest research & treatment articles here” Forum which seemed a more appropriate place.

      Hopefully talk to you in a group again soon.

    • #4049
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi, Thanks. I thought it had actually gone under the research articles forum, and intended to hit that one, but somehow must have got it wrong!

    • #4050
      mermaid
      Participant

      So I started reading his blog and then a book written by Lance Dodes, called, “Breaking Addiction. A 7-Step Handbook for Breaking Any Addiction.” The book is written from a career working in addiction treatment in the US. And it is making me think, and re-think. There is a whole chapter on advice for the loved ones of addicts. He challenges the theories of no enabling and tough love, and says that the individual situation/event should be considered and that…which remains consistent…the important part is always self-care for the loved one, doing what they need to look after themselves and remain strong. Then, the tough love and no enabling can be seen more in terms of for the loved ones to protect themselves and make their lives less controlled by the addiction, but not as punishment for the addict and not as anything to make that person suffer. The tough love and enabling have their role also in helping the addict to see that the situation is serious, although in many cases enough has happened that they really know that and it is more a case of admitting it to themselves. He dismisses the idea of addiction as an illness, a disease of the brain, and believes that it is…complex…and a mix of psychological responses to feelings of helplessness that the addict does not know how to control. Therefore any treatment, to have more than a small chance of success should involve therapy to help that person understand the source of these feelings of helplessness and find ways to come to terms with and tackle them in different ways than their addiction. I gaining a deeper understanding of the addiction, its roots and its triggers, then the loved one can better know how to relate to, communicate with, and support the addict, as well as the best strategies to look after themselves in the relationship. I don´t know what you think of this, but this is making me at least rethink tough love and enabling!

      I will keep reading and see how I am thinking about things at the end of the book. I would be interested in input from others though. I guess the clear message is still self-care and doing things to protect oneself emotionally and financially in the relationship! 🙂

    • #4051
      mermaid
      Participant

      I guess a follow-up to the above is to ask more people like Velvet what kind of rate of success does she see in the recovery of cgs, or has she seen over the years and what seems the most effective. there is much discussion about the poor rate of success of addiction treatment programs. And then the online forums seem full of people who just can´t beat the addiction and go days, weeks, months and relapse over and over. I understand that the focus of this group is the loved one and success is measured in them taking control of their lives, living with less fallout from the addiction, understanding themselves better and what they want, etc., but knowledge over the addiction gives us information to inform our decisions, attitude, and actions.

    • #4052
      monique
      Participant

      This seems a very interesting book, Mermaid. Do update us, as you read more.
      It’s true that self-care is often the really crucial idea and practice that is needed by those who love a cg. It is in one sense obvious, yet can be so difficult to prioritise.
      Best wishes,

      Monique

    • #4053
      velvet
      Moderator

      Hi MM
      I have been thinking about your question about the rate of success for CGs and what seemed the most effective.
      As I said in the group I cannot give figures for success rates but I know that CGs who have the right support have the better chance of success. I have seen the different outcomes of relationships with CGs and in my opinion, all of those outcomes have benefited from knowledge, the knowledge you are gaining.
      Your sum up of the ideals of this forum is spot on – F&F can all go on to better lives with knowledge and can recover fully from the experience of the addiction. The focus here is on the person who loves the CG, the main enabler, who is the closest target for the addiction. If that person can gain strength by refusing to play the addiction game then the CG doesn’t have anything to bite on. As a victim the non-CG is easy meat.
      I hope that I have never given the impression that refusing enablement was punishment. I am completely of the opinion that the way to support a CG is to stand shoulder to shoulder with the CG against the addiction but to do so it is important to do a lot of work on oneself first. I believed that everything that happened to me, when the addiction was consuming me, was my fault and my behaviour reflected that belief. With such a belief came the need to cover up any wrongdoings either by giving money, clearing debts or convincing others who trusted me that all was well. I was weak but I don’t blame myself because I had no idea that a gambling addiction existed – a fact well known to my CG. Once I knew what it was that was hurting me it became imperative for me to do the right thing and that involved understanding as much as I could about myself as well as the addiction. I wanted the complete package.
      I share the belief that the addiction is “complex and a mix of psychological responses to feelings of helplessness that the addict does not know how to control. Therefore any treatment, to have more than a small chance of success should involve therapy to help that person understand the source of these feelings of helplessness and find ways to come to terms with and tackle them in different ways than their addiction” and I will be interested to know your thoughts when you have finished the book.
      I am on holiday for 2 weeks so I won’t be posting but I will open my groups as usual so I hope to ‘see’ you.
      I believe that all the reading you are doing is the best thing for your husband – he is lucky to have you on his side – but never forget to protect yourself. Putting you first, it is not punishing him, it is the way to survive for both of you..
      Velvet

    • #4054
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi Velvet, As always it is wonderful to read your intelligent and warm responses. Although I am selfishly disappointed for me that you won´t be posting for a couple of weeks as I will very much miss your writing and support, I hope you have a truly lovely holiday.

      Reading the book has been good and I even managed to find it in Spanish for my Kindle so can take it with me for my husband to read and we can talk about the concepts using the same words. It is at the same time quite confusing as it seems so black and white, so simple….and yet of course so difficult in that it is saying that the addiction is linked to the deep emotional themes that run through one´s life and it seems to say that it is this, and nothing else…and yet, in my experience, the addiction behaviour often seems to take on different patterns at different times – e.g. sometimes it is clearly a reaction to a situation of stress and feelings of helplessnes and sometimes it just seems to be a…why not, it´s fun, kind of thing. And then it seems so interwoven with every aspect of the addict´s life. But it is the most interesting, practical thing I have read so far and I hope to use it also as a guide as where to look more for myself in my own “personal development”. I find myself wishing that I could have access to counselling, books, internet in Cuba. However, it seems that there has just been a huge breakthrough and that they have just introduced pre-paid cards that give full-time access to internet on mobile phones. This is a huge step! So, I don´t feel as lacking in access to resources and support for myself, even if I am always wary of the monitoring. This is good!

      Communication, as limited as it is, has been good lately with my husband. He is full of ideas for when I return to Cuba and seems to have been gambling free for about 6 weeks now. I have been making an attempt to communicate compassionately, clearly and assertively…and sometimes it works…and also to wait and sit with feelings first before communicating (the distance helps with this!). It is so challenging because there are options for him to have an income but any handling of money by him feels so dangerous and makes me worry. I still don´t know how we will negociate me having control over the finances and being able to collect any money from him that he earns to distribute to him in small amounts over time. We just need to take it step by step. Also, we are trying to work out ways to change our living circumstances and conditions to reduce the stress in our relationship and give ourselves space away from others when we need it. None of it is easy in Cuba.

      The other day the friend in whose house I am staying (who is a psychologist) took me to see a friend who runs a couple of addiction centres in the city centre. The people there are mainly drug, alcohol and inhalant addicts. One was open, where people could freely come and go and was very quiet, with few people. The other was closed, all locks and people confined in a small space with no way to leave for 3 months. The food was very poor and it was all very cramped with very few resources. They seem to receive quite good psychological care, though. There is no government funding and they rely on donations from families, who themselves have little money. I was told that these places were among the better ones and that there are many where the residents are like prisoners in chains, chained to posts, etc. and regularly beaten. It made me feel very uneasy about the nature of addiction in society.

      The man running the centres asked me about my own situation and I explained. He was extremely blunt: leave the guy, he is just taking you for a ride, he just wants to gamble everything away and gambling addiction is the most insidious, hardest to break, you are crazy, etc. I can ignore what he says, but it is still no fun to listen to people who say such things and I didn´t go there expecting it.

      All in all, I am currently feeling optimistic. I want to get back to Cuba, but need to wait for some things here in Mexico and for a few things to fall into place in Cuba. I want to work on myself. I just want to grow and learn. There will be enormous trust, communication, money management issues when I get to Cuba and I need to just go as calmly as I can with everything and find my inner judgement. For now, I will keep reading, finding my space, and just taking it one day at a time in Mexico. It has been incredibly lonely. I spend long days alone every day as the owner of the house is almost never home, but I do get out into the sun, eat well, and hope to go camping next weekend. I imposed this time on myself after things had just been too hard in Cuba and with all that had happened with the gambling. But it is too solitary and I know it is too solitary, but I hope it will all change in the coming weeks.

      I didn´t mean to write so much here and it just came out…reflections…Although things became very intense in Cuba and I was extremely unhappy and struggling, it still feels very much that it is all at the beginning of a long journey. I just really hope not to go back to the depths of despair and frustration of the past. I will definitely try hard to do my best! And I will keep interacting with this site, which has been truly wonderful to have in the cyber world. I am very grateful.

    • #4055
      mermaid
      Participant

      Ugh, I just typed (fast!) for half an hour and lost it all by accidentally hitting the control key and being moved off the page! I had typed so much!
      Anyway…writing different things now…the cycle…a relapse from my husband, me feeling that my emotional state was too dependent on what was happening with him and feeling frustrated about that, but not knowing how to get out of that, and also me feeling that my husband´s lying and deception around the gambling are gone at the moment, he is very open and honest and wanting to stop. I wish he had the resources for support, but he doesn´t! His gambling has shifted from more like partying binges, although sometimes also reactions to when he was clearly upset, of before, to just when he is struggling emotionally and as a clear coping mechanism. I have been observing myself and my reactions to when he has been out of contact suddenly, wondering and expecting him to have gambled, wondering about the extent of the damage, wondering about being able to trust…and just not wanting to feel so dependent on his state, not wanting to be thinking so much, so obsessively about him. I was in the desert for 3 days camping, which normally I love, and had not heard from him, which was rare, and was just feeling that something had happened and so desperate to hear from him and know. And I felt miserable! The not knowing and waiting for the bad news and wondering if he was just deceiving me were the hardest. And then the mind just questions the truth of so many things…a real snowballing. When he explained the situation (and he had gambled) it was all a relief, just to know. And to see his openness and honesty and him trying to make steps to change and also him starting to work and support himself better (which he needs also for his self-esteem). At the same time I was thinking about my reaction…the relief…the co-dependency of being the helper…again…my role…and wanting to be as aware as I could…over analysing sometimes making my head feel like it is going to burst! So…he gambled, he lost more money (and I am paying this for him to pay me back and also now not buying the thing he most wanted me to bring back from Mexico, because I am no longer convinced of the clear black-and-white of the damage of enablement in the form of paying the debts of a gambler – apart from worrying about my lack of money and mounting debt…barriers, yes…taking away temptation, yes…but letting the cg suffer to hit “rock bottom” when it is clear they already know that it is serious and are suffering enough to know that change is needed…?). I do resent to some degree all this loss of money…and am sometimes angry with him about it, it is extremely hard to have the pressure and lack of freedom, but really I am more concerned about emotional well-being, self care and determining my own path. I have lost so much money already! And I am happy that my husband has more options now for work, even if it is not much money.

      So…I am happy for the communication with my husband, which seems to be improving all the time. I think that both of our´s awareness of the patterns around his gambling, and the causes, etc. is increasing and this feels empowering, and I am still taking it slowly. I just need to find ways to not suffer so much wondering about what is happening with him and the possible consequences…and to feel that we can both be more independent of one another too, while at the same time being supportive.

    • #4056
      jenny46
      Participant

      Sorry to hear of your recent news and interested in your views of enablement or reading on the subject I should say. In a previous post you talk about not enabling, not being used as a punishment, which I fully agree with, not enabling someone really is an act of kindness, after all why would we want to give the person we love the continuing means to further damage themselves ?

      You also mention the clear necessity for self care and protection emotionally and financially which again I entirely agree with you. It might be worth reflecting on these points again when the dust has settled eg. paying off gambling debts = enablement, not bringing the thing he wants most from mexico = punishment. Self care meaning financially protect yourself by not paying off debt etc etc.

      I understand how you may be concerned about his safety with his debts etc., but these are the choices that he is making and the consequences of which he may have to suffer or at least believe he will have to suffer if he continues to make these bad choices. He currently has no reason to stop.

      Vera’s post gave you some insight and having read loads of accounts of the lives of people writing on My Journal as well as my own experience I’m afraid I have yet to read about a successful recovery whilst enablement is still available.

      I too enabled for several years to both my own detriment and that of my ex partner

      Jenny

    • #4057
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi, Thank you for your thoughts. I guess, I agree. I understand. But also I don´t see it as completely black and white. In covering my husband´s recent debt this time, but not then buying him the things in Mexico then I guess it is also my way of saying that he is also paying the debt, as he does not actually have the cash. I also want him to pay me the cash, little by little, when I am back in Cuba, although I have no guarantee that this will happen right now, and it does not help, I know, to know that he would pay now and would not ask me for anything if he could.

      It is difficult to separate out the not enabling and the punishment. One doesn´t want to push heroin into an addict´s hand, one doesn´t want to say, aw, it´s not so bad, never mind, after the destruction of another bout of gambling. So I agree with not enabling in the form of blocking, in the form of handling the finances firmly so that the gambler is restricted in the means they have to go and gamble. My husband is already aware of the seriousness of his gambling and the effect it is having on his life (and my and our lives). He has gone through enough situations, especially in the past few months, that make him see that. I actually feel that if I pay or don´t this time, it does not make any difference to him wanting to stop. He does. He is trying. Is that enough? Trying……Do I need to see more actions, more effort? What are his options? I believe that if he were somewhere with GA and counselling, he would be attending. But he isn´t. That still means that for me I have to be as aware of the situation as possible and protect myself. It is not my “fault” that he has this addiction and is in a place where there is no support to stop. I can´t feel more sorry for him and cut him more slack because of this and this is perhaps a trap I fall into sometimes. I can only act based on the reality and the options that are actually there.

      I need to go back to the chapter in the Lance Dodes book. He supports actions to enable the addict to be aware of the seriousness of their addiction, its effects, but he argues that the majority are and it is not because they aren´t aware and are denying reality that they don´t stop. I can see from reading that actually in gambling this might be different as the person does not suffer so much with physical effects and (in many countries, but not where my husband is) it does not have the risk of its illegality (apart from when stealing happens to pay for the gambling), but at the same time the financial and emotional destruction is equally, extremely devastating so perhaps there is no difference…suffering is suffering…. There is advice everywhere not to pay the gambler´s debt, I know. Really, I can only make sure I am aware of my own limits and am looking after myself first. The ways of applying firmness and the forms of not enabling…these I am still trying to work out for myself. For me first, I guess it is trying to make sure that I am not aiding in providing my husband with the means to gamble. If he believes that I will always pay his debt if he gambles, then this does not help..no, and perhaps he would always find some way to gamble even with the barriers, but it is far far less likely. But I am also not sure it is actually damaging and making him gamble at the moment, him thinking that each time the safety net is there. That is not what goes through his head when he “decides” to gamble, not at all. I think that is a key point in the way I currently understand things. I actually have been “punishing” him to some degree and I am still confused how I feel about this, making him wait and wait and suffer the consequences of waiting before the money reaches him to pay his debts, me staying away from him in another country for longer when the money is used to pay his debt (but this was more for me, too, not just to get him to be in different circumstances to see things in a different way), not buying things I would have bought. But I see him suffering without any of this (although perhaps the most effective for him to think about things in different ways is me being separated from him for a while – and things might reverse again when I am back there, but I am equipped with more knowledge now, in many ways) and it is up to him what he wants to do and what he actually does to move forwards.

      This is a ramble. It is just I can´t see it so clearly black and white and I have read much about the enabling by paying the debts. In the end, the most effective seems to be to get at the root emotional cause of the addiction and work with that, but that is of course extremely challenging and requires huge effort from the cg and skillful experienced people facilitating the process.

      I am still thinking carefully on this and appreciate all input, very much so. The book by Lance Dodes did resonate with me and my personal belief systems and I have found it helpful. He of course also emphasises the F&F looking after themselves first and foremost and the reasons why this is important.

    • #4058
      mermaid
      Participant

      Questioning myself a lot the past few days on enabling…the payment of my husband´s debts after he has gambled (and they always need to be paid within a couple of days), the lack of consequences for him (this is not true, he goes through quite a lot emotionally after the event, but paying the debt takes away the most serious consequences), him consciously or unconsciously believing that if he gambles I will cover him as I have done up to now, even if sometimes enforcing a delay to make him “more aware” or protesting for a while first. I don´t see my husband´s gambling addiction as bad moral behaviour, as character weakness, as stupidity that he can´t wake up to…it is a psychological symptom with deep underlying emotional causes. He could have had another compulsive behaviour such as obsessive house cleaning and then I would not be thinking about enabling or not…The tough love and the not enabling are not so black and white. Sometimes they seem to make sense as the best approach, at others no. They will not cure him, but they can make him perhaps decide to act in a serious way to tackle the addiction. Without them perhaps he wouldn´t. And they help to protect me (important!). Mostly at the moment, it feels like it is about my own protection and not his.

      And, my husband does want to stop gambling. He has realised, he knows that it is serious and he needs to change. He is stuck for options to help him. The best he can do is, alone…with the help of reading perhaps, better understand his triggers and the underlying emotional causes…to better understand himself and to change his responses based on this understanding. Not at all easy alone! But…possible…? And his patterns have become much clearer recently, he is clearly treating his emotional pain. So he has reached the stage where he sees the seriousness of the situation more clearly…if I don´t enable it will not cure him, it will protect me from the consequences, and he at the moment would go to prison, most likely, which would be even worse for his addiction. The book I have been reading says that it does not take long to see if stopping enabling actions helps the addict to change their outlook. In some cases the enabling can put them in a position where they can think and still have the options open to them to get help. It all depends on so many things.

      I am not trying to defend any particular opinion or action here…I am trying to work things out for myself in my particular situation. But I also very much welcome input from others, and those who have had many years of experience.

      I guess I am still giving my husband chances and opening doors for him to explore his options, through him having far greater understanding than he has ever had before of his compulsive gambling. He is still the one walking that path, and no one else can walk it for him, but I can place things in that path that he will come across and will influence his journey, one way or another. Each section of that path is a little different, and I see him going in a mainly forwards direction at the moment.

    • #4059
      Jilly1
      Participant

      Dear mermaid,
      I am going to share some of my experience. I would like to think it will help you…it certainly helps me to write it and try to make sense of it for myself.
      Like you, I read everything I could about gambling addiction..even academic journals. I spent hours reading forums , asking others thoughts and opinions looking really for somebody to give me the answer . Of course nobody can do that and everyone’s situation is unique. As you say it is not black and white , it’s a whole mass of misty grey whilst you are in it.
      I can only talk about my situation and I can’t suggest it will be the same for you but I can empathise and share some of my experience. I enabled for years.(25+) not always directly but by never letting my husband hit rock bottom. I recognised that there were psychological roots to the gambling and tried to help but he never really sought help for himself and when I think about it now I don’t think he really wanted to give up his thrill. He said all the right things, showed remorse, offered financial control etc etc but they were just words and sometimes tears. Very convincing words and I think he believed himself at the time but just words. They were not backed up with consistent action. It was reasonable to give him a chance maybe 2 chances even 3 but I got into the 100s of chances! And I mean many many chances after major gambling binges …..£1000s time and time again. Friends and family were staggered that I would go on forgiving and to be honest looking back now I too am staggered by my inability to make a stand. Who was that woman?
      If you have any doubt about the wisdom of enabling or clearing debts etc post your question on the forum. The best people to answer you are the compulsive gamblers themselves. They can see straight through everything . They know every ploy/trick in the book and even though, like me you do not want to see your partner as manipulating you and they don’t consciously see it as that they become very clever at saying what they need to say to let their addiction survive.
      I am coming out of the fog and sadly that has meant divorce for me and my CG. I still struggle to express all the complexities of my situation but something changed for me. It’s hard to explain exactly what but after all the searching for understanding and answers and ways to help I just recognised eventually that I could not do anything more for him and why did I still consider it to be my responsibility after all my efforts had failed ?
      I very clearly began to see what everyone had been telling me and that was that I had to look after myself first. I would hear the words and understand the rationale but not ‘feel’ it if you know what I mean. It was as though I understood the logic of what people told me but I couldn’t live it for some reason. I had that ‘paralysis by analysis’ thing where I had thought about something so much I couldn’t act. All I could do was churn it over and over. I looked at it from every angle and in every light and still felt stuck. I can see something of that in your description of yourself.
      I can’t remember who said it and how they said it…..probably velvet and it was something along the lines of its ok to hover for a while letting everything sink in. So I hovered and hovered and all the time I was hovering my situation with the CG was getting worse. Then a few things happened at once. I accessed some counselling. I got a new job that made me a bit more independent. My youngest child left school. My husbands behaviour became more extreme. One day a dear friend of mine came to stay and I poured my heart out for the umpteenth time as we went for a walk. We passed a solicitors and she pushed me through the door and made an appointment and then returned with me a week later to make sure I went and supported me through what was the first big step ( after many baby steps and lots of hovering here) towards me finally taking control of my life and protecting myself and my children from the terrible effects of my husbands gambling.
      I will still say that that first visit was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life but it was a turning point. A major turning point I could physically feel the difference. I was living and acting from within myself. I felt fearful but brave at the same time. I wish I could explain this better. It was like I had taken control of the steering wheel not just been the back seat passenger muttering away. It was like all the researching and thinking and talking finally all came together into that one action. That one action set the ball rolling which from then on seemed almost effortless and certain. I had a clear direction to go in.
      That analogy of the aeroplane mask is very good where they tell you to put your own mask on first before helping your child. What good could I be to anyone if I was drowning too.
      So I’m nearly at the end of the process of making myself immune from the effects of my husbands gambling. My relationship with him does not depend on me being married to him. It was too big a risk for me. His life is his responsibility. I did my best but I am not going to sink with him. My first responsibility is to myself. I now think my own thoughts, live my life to my own values, control my own finances. As I have taken this action I have had a wave of support from people that has carried me through. The children, who had been a big factor in me hesitating were able to express their relief. They probably hadn’t consciously registered it but they had been waiting for me to take this lead for us all. I finally made a stand and whilst I will still say it was the hardest thing ever I do look back and think why did I wait so long? I could have saved a lot of pain and debt but I know not to look back into the mist just forward.
      So mermaid. I am not saying divorce is the answer for you but taking a firm stance is. It’s the only way out of the fog. If I hadn’t I would still be hearing some variation of the ‘help me out just one more time’ tale. I even think I have done the best thing for my nearly ex husband. He might well find someone else to lean on but if not then he has to come face to face with himself and do what he has to do to recover.
      I can help if I want but from my wonderful peaceful sanctuary of safety.
      Love, empathy and understanding
      Jilly
      X

    • #4060
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi Jilly, Thank you so much for writing. I truly appreciate it and I wanted to reply sooner, but I am really a little lost for words! You express everything so well and so clearly, and also gently, and I found that all I have been really able to do is absorb it quietly, if that makes any sense. I hope that writing it all out does help you, as you said it would. You went through so many years living with such a difficult situation, taking it day by day as best you knew how at the time. And it sounds like now you have leaped into a new freedom, that you can appreciate far more for having had the journey you have. It is lovely to read about and I wish all power to you!

      So I guess I am still in the hovering stage. My way of being “firm” has been to separate from my husband, which (and I may be wrong) to me seems to be the thing that hits him hardest and makes him reflect most. I have continued to pay his debts, and also being aware that I have told him several times, never again…and then I do, although the delays and complications in me deciding/the money reaching him have hit him too, and I knew they would. But I am still questioning if the consequences – likely prison time – would really help him in his life and his process of tackling the addiction. At the moment, I don´t believe so, and really think that it would only make it worse, but I may change my mind, or at least feel that for my own protection, it is the best option, best for me. I haven´t seen my husband in over 2 months. My plan is that I will see him in a couple of weeks´time. And then I will see how things go. I know I don´t want to return to the life I had with him before I came to Mexico in July. I know I have more knowledge and more skills in determining my own path. I just hope I can put them into practice! I am most wary about the implementation of barriers, control of the finances (and objects of value), and how my husband will take that. He is also very good at ….words…and I am very aware of this. And I think he convinces himself at the time of what he is saying. To me, I see extremely clear psychological roots to his gambling, but do not know how he will reflect on those and what options there will be and what he will choose to do to work with them. At the moment, he doesn´t really have any…only himself, with whatever support I decide I can give to him, in what I know is his process. With the words, the remorse, etc., it is so hard to know what is “real” and what is not, what will really last, what will truly drive actions to change. I guess at the moment, I feel I need to know where things are at, and I need to see how I feel differently and cope differently than a few months ago. And then go from there. I may still be under a whole bunch of illusions, but not nearly as many as I was. I have also done nice things for myself in my time here in Mexico, and just generally made myself stronger, although I know that emotionally I still carry so much just beneath the surface. But self-care has been much more a priority for me 🙂

      There was a lot more I wanted to say in reply to your words, but sometimes there is so much I am thinking! Again, thank you so much for writing, it was truly heart filling, and it is lovely to read of you “in your peaceful sanctuary”. I hope you continue to find harmony in your life.
      xx

    • #4061
      mermaid
      Participant

      After reading a few posts today of those who have “made the leap” and are building their lives on their own terms now, with distance from the addiction and the addict….I am here, in the familiar cycle. I know I will be contemplating it all a lot today (while also trying to focus on my work!). My husband was in touch briefly this morning. I plan on returning to Cuba and being there within two weeks…to see how things are and how I go after this time away. I left knowing far less than I know now, but I am not sure that I have much more “strength” (of character?) than I did then, although I have had a far less stressful time and therefore have more energy. He asked me if I would send him some more money to survive on until I get there, $40 or $50…I think $50 is a little high, but he is not living with any relatives at the moment so he is buying more his own food, etc. But…irrelevant, whether 30 or 40 or 50, or…really…it is not a lot of money, but at the same time it is not insignificant and if I pay it I pay it with debt, as with everything I spend at the moment and for the past several months and I am so very careful with money myself (and I had had a lot of savings until I met my husband, and never gone into debt in my life). A week ago when he asked me for money to cover his drinking binge and return to gambling to “treat” his emotional upset I sent it to him, while at the same time (of course) he said he would be able to make bits and pieces of money to support himself now until I got there (and afterwards) and would work to repay it, support himself, etc. etc. It probably hasn´t worked out as well as he had hoped and he can´t make any money, and Cuba is very hard, and he is on parole with very limited options (but his time in prison while not linked to gambling was due to a real lack of judgement and immaturity on his part, even if it was unjust and draconian, he knows his country, and I gave so much to bail him out of further problems and support him through a year in prison). So…he has his life how he has it…he messes up, he struggles…he asks me for help. He says he has a couple of friends helping him, but that he is embarrassed to keep asking, and that he hasn´t asked me sooner for more help as I helped him last week, and before, and before…so he hasn´t said anything. His one peso ran out so the Facebook chat got cut off before I could respond specifically. I had started to say that I had already sent so much, that he was in this situation because of his gambling, that he had blown the money I had sent him to buy an internet card for cellphones there (which is a huge advance) to greatly help me in my work and I had bought a new phone because of this…that if he has money it gives him the option to go and gamble. He of course denies he would use it for that, and of course he believes that before it actually happens…he says he doesn´t have enough money for food…and I believe him. So…me here…as I eat my big breakfast, think of all this. I am thousands in debt and…just, well, sad and anxious, unsure of my decisions and actions much of the time…and he has this life, which I have become connected with. I believe (and choose to, for now) that he truly wants to stop gambling, and that he is trying. And that he would not want to spend the money on gamblling. But he would have it in his hands if..as a couple of weeks ago…something happened that upset him and triggered him to want to gamble. And he is in the situation he is in, asking me, again, for money because he gambles (and because he does the things he does in his life, it is not at all just the gambling, but if I think about it, just about everything can be traced back to the gambling in one way or another). And he turns to me. I know he feels shame to ask. I know he thinks this is better than asking to cover gambling debt because it is for food, etc…necessities…but in a way really it is to cover gambling debt…as he would have money if he didn´t gamble. He would have a nice house, a business…he would be doing well, most likely…or at least those would have been more real options. He would not have left his uncle´s house feeling so let down by them, and they would look upon him more favourably and want to support him.

      He does look quite hard …at least…more so recently, after a bad run before I left for Mexico…and also in his past, I know, for ways to support himself…he is a “fighter” and independent…but in our relationship he has become very dependent and I am….feeding this.

      I would have told him …was typing that…that I would send him 25 Euros to help him (the minimum the transfer service allows) but his time ran out and it cut off. And this has given me more time to reflect and decide what I will do.

      To so many “outsiders” it all looks so simple, I know. No more money. Let him figure out things for himself. This is enablement. Why are you even in this relationship? There are plenty of men in the world. And you are at such an early stage in the relationship and it has all started so badly. Quit now. And I see all this…and what keeps me in it all?…Apart from the usual…feeling sorry for someone you love, knowing that this does not help anyone though…and I like Cuba and the life I could have there (yes, I know…that I *could* have), and I think how he is trying to change, even if his options are so limited. But it is a long journey (I see the emotional roots and it is a reponse he has learned since he was very young…someone likened it to being so hard as it´s like saying you need to unlearn the alphabet or the 2x table, it is all so ingrained), and I need to have my part of the path well defined, to myself and to him.

      Yes, I know…the big mess of enabling…

      Ugh.

    • #4062
      velvet
      Moderator

      Hi MM
      Having spoken a lot in real time I have an understanding of your motives and intention – I certainly don’t think decisions are easy for you – you need time and I understand that you need to see your husband again. Nobody has a crystal ball and nobody else has the right to tell you what to do.
      I agree with your decision to return to Cuba. You are in limbo at the moment, neither sure of your own strength nor sure of your husband’s state of mind and behaviour. I think I have more faith in your ability to resist his addiction than you have – you have come on leaps and bounds and you know the dangers. You are not ready to walk away from your husband but you are also not saying you intend to hang in regardless. You are thinking clearly and you want to see your husband again which is perfectly natural.
      In my opinion MM, armed with all the information you have accumulated, you will be able to get close to the addiction again without getting burnt up – what you allow is up to you, what you will not allow is up to you – the little word with the big meaning is ‘no’ – use it and you will be safe. This forum, Group and Helpline will be available to you when you can connect – there will be never be any judgement.
      Hoping to ‘speak’ tomorrow evening
      Velvet

    • #4063
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you so much, Velvet. Again. 🙂 Well, my husband reappeared online for a few minutes in the early evening, and although we didn´t have much time at all to chat, after several hours to contemplate, this did give me the chance to be firm with him, or at least to start to be… And I want to emphasise this firmness in the coming days. I would like him to get some idea of how I will be responding when he repeats the same patterns. Is it an Einstein quote that the definition of insanity is to repeat the same actions (errors) expecting different results?

      I can see that he is in the cycle of genuinely believing that inbetween his bouts of gambling, when he steps out of it again, he has it under control, has realised the seriousness of it, and will change and it won´t happen again, and then of course the addiction takes over and it does. This part has not really changed from before I left. But he has reduced quite significantly (which could be due to various reasons, not necessarily so much his willpower, but I think to some degree it is), but I see he is still powerless if an emotional trigger hits him. Which is understandable at this stage. He still hasn´t actually taken any course of action to gain a deeper understanding (and how could he, with no resources and if it were so easy for him to understand and break the cycle, just so, by himself, then he would have done it ages ago, and the fact of not wanting me to leave him I don´t think is enough because right now he is waiting for me to return and for “all to be good”), but he is still “active” of course and even if he tells me he knows it is the only way forward for me to control all the finances, I know that he does not actually believe it, at least not all of the time, he doesn´t feel the importance enough, want it enough, and he contradicts himself over time. He is still asking me to “show him a bit of trust”, and so I tell him that there are no offers of trust in this situation, that it doesn´t work like that. That it works by examining the patterns and breaking the cycles. Hah, words… 🙂 !

      So…opportunities to be firm, and show myself I can do it and build on that. And…using the “no” word 🙂 !

      I feel wary, but I want to be strong.

      I hope you had a lovely holiday, and I look forward to real-time interaction from one cyber couch to another.

    • #4064
      vera
      Participant

      In my book , Mermaid “Show me a bit of trust” meant “Get off my back and keep the funds flowing so I can gamble in peace”
      A CG cannot gamble without money.
      When we are supplied with cash, deep down we (I) justified my gambling by saying (but not out loud, of course) “Well he allowed me to continue, by making money available so it’s not TOTALLY my fault. After all I’m vulnerable”
      HA!
      Another peep into this CG’s mind.
      We are all different of course but the outcome of gambling never changes.
      For every CG and their SOs, it always ends in bitter tears.
      Keep your boundaries high Mermaid Take this a a warning.
      When you return to the chaos you might not be able to stay as focused as you are now.
      Not judging. Just saying!

    • #4065
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you, Vera, your input is always very much appreciated. For so many reasons, I know that it is important…crucial…for me for me to take a very firm and clear stance with my husband, and I struggle with the actual actions even though my logical brain part knows what it is best I should be doing.

      I think that where he is at at the moment, is not looking for money or support for his gambling (but maybe subconsciously…and of course he wants to face minimal consequences – which I find so frustrating because I want him to accept responsibility for more of the consequences…of course), but that he isn´t aware of his patterns and the importance of not even having the risk there for a “just in case Scenario A happens”…Since he is most likely to gamble when he is upset by something, and he always overshoots the amount of money he initially goes in with (by a lot), then he doesn´t realise that he can say over and over again that he won´t do it any more because he is resolved not to, that it can quite easily happen under the “right conditions” if he has never been able to prove this with his actions so far. I guess, most important is that *I* know I need to protect myself (and these actions also protect him).

      As is so commonly the case it seems, I do feel frustrated that he does not just take on more responsibility for the results of his gambling…he moves on fast after the remorse of an episode…although I of course understand why it is easier to bury it. I know I have helped in making it so much easier for him. So not doing it helps do away with my feelings of resentment…of course!

      I notice that I am increasingly nervous as it gets closer to me returning to Cuba. I want to go, but I am very wary and I know there will be many ups and downs. My husband can be extremely foreful and willful…it is…hard. I also know that in many ways not very much has changed while I have been away in my husband´s acceptance/awareness of and the actions he is taking to combat his gambling. His words still sound very similar, although his gambling patterns have changed, but also so has his living situation. I know he wants to change, but he still has no idea of the scale of the problem, and hence the nature of the thing he is trying to change.

      Step by step. Day by day.

      Still, I need to focus on the positives and remain focused on my own best interests, and then how I can best support him. I do find myself wishing I had some form of support in Cuba, but I know that it isn´t there.

    • #4066
      mermaid
      Participant

      Well, I got so upset this evening, shaking, crying. Just not knowing how to deal with things. Now I have been for a long walk in the park (teary-eyed) and have had some mezcal and am feeling calmer. I write on Jenny t´s profile (whose situation truly touches my heart) and can´t follow my own advice. I am so alone in Mexico and have no one to share anything with here, it was just what seemed the easiest place to take a break from my husband and the toxic soup that our relationship had become and just the relentless run of gambling since he had been released from prison 4 months earlier. I didn´t show much strength, really. I needed to leave as my visa expired and would have tried to hang in there otherwise. The only resolve I have shown is staying put and being here so far for over 2 months without returning to Cuba. I just see that I don´t know how to communicate with him skillfully. That I get into this questioning/negociating amounts/asking for justification with him about it can´t cost this much, surely you don´t need that amount, why are you asking now when you said you would be ok, I can´t risk that you might gamble it, I know you don´t think you will, but… I don´t just clearly and firmly say NO. Without explanation. Without excuses Without feeling guilty. I just seem to find it so hard. I know he is with very little money (making a couple of dollars every couple of days selling bottles and relying on a couple of friends to put him up), but also the people that are helping him there do not have the thousands of debt (and still increasing) that I now have and they have not “helped” him over and over and over. I am trying to work out where my resentment all comes from and how to act so that I don´t feel such feelings. I guess I feel that he should just take more responsibility for his own life and deal with the consequences of his actions. And that is also because I have kept helping and helping, I know.. He was so demanding and so annoyed with me today because I had not sent him the money “that he needed”. And this upset me so much. I can´t figure out my jumble of feelings right now. I just don´t want to feel so alone with all of this. I think I need to keep “hovering” as Velvet calls it. I know that my husband doesn´t want the money to gamble with (from all his patterns so far) and feels he can control himself, and that he wants it to buy food, etc. and struggles each day to earn a dollar (peso), but he is also where he is because of gambling. He is relying on the support of friends (recently-made friends) because he left his uncle´s house because he felt upset that they would not help him with money and he was selling his clothes (and he has very few), when he has given them considerable amounts of money (that I have given them) but they don´t trust him and have seen what he has done the past few months. So he seeks money from me to support himself “until I return”.

      I just need to say no. Punto. He has always survived on the streets. And I would “normally” trust in his ability to survive again, but he is on parole and I am so scared about hearing he is back in prison, where there is so much gambling and serious consequences if you don´t pay up.

      My work each day is at the computer for several hours, but I stay in the house and by the computer all day in case he is in touch, and I see how much my state of mind depends on if I hear from him and how much I wait for him to “appear”. He has gone to great lengths to find a dollar to communicate with me almost every day. But I need to be more independent from him. So crazy, that I have spent so many years single, travelling, living, working around the world, and here I find myself ….well…bending over backwards because I want to be loved and exchange love…by/with another person. A person with an addiction, and who keeps looking to me for….”help”.

      Again…ugh.

      I wish I knew the words to skillfully use with him.

      More mezcal… 🙂 (Today is Mexican Independence Day!)

    • #4067
      michelle45
      Participant

      Hi mm

      I don’t come on here as much these days but I saw your post and wanted to write a reply. It will be very quick as I am off to work shortly.

      I can completely relate to what you are saying as I did this myself. I waited around for my ex to call or stayed in hoping he might pop in. Your situation is so difficult as you are alone and that must magnify your feelings. You also havent seen ypur husband for a long time its understandable. I understand the rage and anger. At work I really really lost it one day. I barely new a colleague and he witnessed a tirade of appalling language about my ex so I completely understand!!!!

      I too understood the logic for years but didn’t act on looking after me that well and hence I suffered. You are doing brilliantly but seem to constantly doubt your instinct. Your husband will say what he needs to get what he needs, the money to gamble. Believe in yourself and you are not letting yourself or him be drawn in the addiction when you say no. You know this logically. I too found it difficult to be firm and with anything in life that’s difficult once you master it you feel stronger and better for it!!

      I hope this makes sense. I notice how you are so kind to to reach out to others too. I haven’t been keeping up so much with what’s
      going on on here but as you know the support you offer someone will be very much appreciated.

      I hope you are feeling better soon. Stay strong!!

      M x x

    • #4068
      velvet
      Moderator

      Dear MM
      I read your post a few hours ago and it has played itself back to me as I was having coffee with a friend – I have been thinking what would I say to MM if we were sitting together enjoying a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and I realised it would be to tell you that ‘it will be ok’.
      A terrific amount of what you write comes from within you – it is not words you have read or heard on this site or elsewhere – ‘you’ are doing the work on yourself, using the pointers given to you, ‘you’ are building the barriers that will protect you. You have recognised the severity of the problem before you, you know all the theory but you don’t feel you have put it into practice yet – I believe you will do well.
      Barriers are not brick walls, they are threads of understanding that we weave around ourselves until whatever is trying to hurt us can’t get in. My CG is still a CG, he always will be, so I have barriers – I can share things with him and enjoy him without fear of being hurt. My barriers were erected a long time ago by soul-searching and learning, just as you are doing now – it wasn’t him that saved me from his addiction – it was me, it wasn’t ‘his’ actions that changed my life, it was ‘mine’.
      In this post I am deliberately not going to mention your husband’s behaviour that concerns you so much, I am going to focus on the one person who ‘will’ make a difference to what happens when you see him again. Of course you are increasingly nervous about returning to Cuba but it will not stop you going – when you are ready. No, you probably can’t access this site or other support while you are there but the words, love and knowledge that has surrounded you here will go with you.
      As you so rightly said ‘Step by step. Day by day’, you cannot move any faster. Every day that is passing is making you stronger even though your nervousness increases. I remember the sheer, sleepless terror of seeing my CG again 6 months into his rehab programme – ‘how would he be’, ‘would I be OK?’ I believe that as a consequence of me being stronger and less afraid I was quieter and as a result did more listening than I had ever done before although for a time egg-shells would have been easy to walk on by comparison. In my case my CG had changed his life BUT and it is a big but – if he had not changed – I knew then, for positive, that I had. Recovery isn’t easy and I mean the recovery for F&F – old fears, doubts, memories don’t die away fast, a lot of things have to be swallowed or they will choke the recovery. Of course it helps if the CG has changed but I believe now that there comes a point when those who love CGs can say and really mean ‘no more’ – if they want it to happen enough and are willing to allow it to happen.
      So do as you say and focus on ‘your’ positives, the person who was not afraid to travel alone, the person who supports others, the person that I have had the pleasure to share time with in the groups, you are a very special person and a survivor.
      Whatever you do in the coming week or two MM, I believe you will do well. You ‘know’ what you are up against, you might be confused by some of what you hear, you might fall for some of the manipulation that comes with the addiction but you will not go back to the way you were before. ‘You’ have brought yourself to this point of awareness because you really are stronger than your husband’s addiction. Never forget too that whatever you do you will be understood here without judgment.
      I look forward to having another group with you before you go. I don’t doubt that you will cope when you return to Cuba because unlike what you said to Jenny, I know you ‘will’ follow your own advice because ‘you’ are making sense.
      Speak soon
      Velvet

    • #4069
      Jilly1
      Participant

      Hi MM,
      It is so difficult loving an addict. Reading through what you wrote I’m trying so hard to think about what made a difference for me. As I have said before everybody’s situation is unique and there are no easy answers but I do know one thing that changed. I took the focus off my husband and his problems. I decided he would survive somehow. I focused on myself…the only person we can really change. I kept coming across that phrase -‘we teach people how to treat us’. I had a good look at myself and decided I was trying too hard to be what others wanted. Even the cat had me wrapped round his little paw!
      I also think people with addictions may target those they think they can manipulate although I accept it may not be as conscious as that.
      So the changes I made were not just in relation to the CG. In my life. They were entwined with many other aspects of MY behaviour and thinking. I spent a huge amount of time trying to work out and understand the CG. There is no logic or sense to understand so it was a pretty futile task in someways. Also it is not our task. It is for the CG to address their problems and seek help. It somewhat sums my situation up that I was also trying to do HIS recovery work.
      We need to work on ourselves. It is a process and doesn’t happen overnight. I don’t know when the point will come for you but for a number of us here something just clicked and we were able to see the situation in a more detached way. It was like a shield went around us – the barriers that V mentions and the Teflon felling I mentioned in the group which my CGs words just seem to slide off. I can see you working really hard on yourself and it will pay off eventually.
      I can see you are going to feel cut off from support in Cuba but you are never alone once you have come here. I think that was the first feeling I remember when I found this site. I was not alone anymore. We will be thinking about you and here when you can access us.

      Jilly x

    • #4070
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you so much, M and V. The words you write truly provide me with much support, encourage me to “keep my head high” and…smile 🙂

      But also…I guess for now I am still in a very confused place. My husband was in touch again this morning, briefly, and quickly wanted to ask why the money hadn´t arrived. He then got very annoyed that I hadn´t sent it when he had expected it and believed that I had said that I was going to send it (which I did a few days back, less than he asked for, but he made an insulting remark that it was such a sh***y amount and then said that was just a joke) so I never ultimately told him I was going to send it or had, but also I was not clear. He said he had borrowed money last night and needed to pay it back today and that he was in a difficult situation and he felt I had been playing with him. I just was not clear and direct to him. But he also heard what he wanted to hear, I think. So he was not happy, I saw how I was being meek still and didn´t want conflict and didn´t want him to be angry with me and he took up and left. Then quite quickly he was back again, apologising..and…saying various things…conflicting things….trying another time…again very short of internet time…and I …..

      ….ended up sending him the money………………………

      So…where does that leave me?

      I feel or hope I can negotiate all this so much better live in-person and when I can assess how things really are by being there. I have had weeks and weeks of very rushed Facebook chat communication, messages cut off, waiting a couple of days for the continuation.

      He did what he has done before and makes me so mad. He went ahead and borrowed money and left himself with the need to pay it back and expected me to send him money, without seeing if I was really going to. I know often he is desperate for money, but…here we are tens of thousands later and he is where he is with money and his life, and it really is not so very different to where he was before he met me (but I didn´t know it then), just that he has been “milking” me in one way or another and managing to make me feel backed into a corner. That is how I feel…backed into a corner, with this rod poking at me.

      He may do/have done…it is possible…use the money for gambling. It is not his pattern though, but it gives him something to be able to go if he feels triggered. I need to understand better for myself where my feelings of resentment come from…the feelings of powerlessness. I want him to just take more responsibility for his own life now…finally…and not lurch from one desperate situation to another,and I want to see my role in how I might be able to support him in this (even though it is so much up to him, his process). I don´t want him to feel he can ask me to help him when he has gambled (and of course be all sweet and remorseful) and then shortly afterwards ask me for more money and also expect that I will pay “because he really needs it otherwise he wouldn´t be asking me” and “he has no one else to turn to”. He´s trying to get the judge to accept papers for new work for himself, but this is all in limbo for now and not at all guaranteed. So even though I don´t believe he will use the money to cover gambling activities, I have come to realise I am still enabling because he does not need to really face the seriousness of his actions. I had thought he had changed more, and saw him suffering more consequences in the first weeks of me being here, but now from the last few days, I don´t know how much he has really changed and how strong his conviction really is. Perhaps this is not so important….even though it upsets me so much right now…what is important is what happens when I arrive and how we negociate things together.

      I felt helpless to resist…I sent the money…and I don´t really understand it all very well at all. I just have to see how I go in the real live in-person world.

    • #4071
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you also so much, Jilly. How lucky I am to have such wonderful and wise input! I feel honoured.

      I understand to clearly everything you say, Jilly, and you express it so well. But then I feel backed into that corner, berate myself for how I got there, and I lose my sense of power and clarity. But I do believe it will come more and more with time. And that I have truly advanced from where I was just a couple of months ago.

      I so understand that it is his process and I am not here to fix him. But perhaps I make excuses for him as I know he doesn´t have the support options and I can´t just at least suggest…this or that counselling, or GA…I hope we can have calm, clear conversations and I can just explain some of the things I have learned (that can be related to him) and he can take what he can and wants to of it. I just have to see. I just have to find more things to focus on other than him (so hard in Cuba as it is so hard for me to find balance there, it is so isolating). I have to find more ways to do things for myself to carry myself through the harder times when there is conflicts and setbacks happen. I have to remain focussed on the positive.

      He is changing and trying, there is some progress even if it is such early days so, despite my feelings of recent days, I am encouraged to go back and see. And I am focussing on me and how best to be for me in all of this so that I get a better version of me (as I have a lifelong relationship with myself) and he does too.

      I like that: “We teach people how to teach us” and I interpret it as by living our own example of who we want to be, being who we are, a separate me marked by healthy boundaries, and not by lecturing and protesting to someone who doesn´t want to listen…knowing the difference between supporting and walking alongside, and controlling or surrendering to the other person.

      I have rambled and ranted so much in the past few days! Phew!

      Everyone has been so incredibly helpful and supportive. I know I will carry this with me when I travel.

    • #4072
      jenny46
      Participant

      Hi M

      In my experience M patterns can change, he will change his pattern to ‘fit’ what is the beginning of your new found learning, his ways of gaining enablement will become more crafty, the lies get bigger, the debts get bigger, the addiction becomes more sneaky and it gets stronger.

      I guess no – one knows whether he has gambled or not but I can tell you quite sincerely that the scenarios you describe along with his behaviour could just as easily have described my ex partners antics – almost text book or should I say “The Guinness Book of Lies and manipulation”

      He will be picking up on small changes in you, whether or not you recognise that you are getting stronger or not, he will and his addiction will begin to feel a tad threatened by that ! hence the possible changes in patterns – if we can see the changes in you, why wouldn’t he.

      In one of your earlier posts you mention your need to be loved by and exchange love with another person, although you don’t say specifically him. I am wondering whether or not this is what holds you within such a destructive relaitionship. Is the fear of being alone more daunting than continuing with this situation? Do you enable because maybe you fear he will reject you if you don’t? The reason I mention these things is not that I am analysing you as such but that they were issues that I had to face within myself, once I was able to shift my focus from why is he doing xy and Z to why am I putting up with it, things truly began to change, all be it still slowly.

      what do you think he would do if you flatly refuse to give him any money – end the relaitionship? because if he did what would you lose ?

      You are getting stronger and sooner or later you will put it all into practice – when you are ready and in your own time

      Jenny

    • #4073
      vera
      Participant

      I agree with every word in the first three paragraphs of Jenny’s post.
      It is impossible to read a CG’s mind, or figure out our devious plans.
      Rational solutions do not apply to irrational acts.
      Give him a wide berth, Mermaid.
      He needs to paddle his own canoe even if it does mean hitting rock bottom.
      I understand how it is very tempting to enable him. I would probably do likewise if I were in your shoes. When our heart rules our head, we make crazy decisions. And we pay the price!

    • #4074
      mermaid
      Participant

      I´ve been quietly reading the posts on the site, relating to much of what they say, but at the same time trying to distance myself some from thinking too much about all of this…it has been feeling a bit too much…worrying about what might happen in the future, what might be lies, what could have happened instead…what if…? It is so hard to have lost trust and then end up questioning everything, and think how to rebuild that trust (yes…by seeing actions…).

      If my husband is changing his gambling/manipulating patterns to adapt to changes in me, then…it would be very hard for him to do. It would mean that he has been able to control himself and no longer overshoot (just gambling exactly the amount of money he had) – and he normally overshoots by a lot of $ – and no longer chasing for several sessions in a row. That would be suddenly a lot of control for him, and just a big change.

      It is in the calm again…that cycle…he is trying not to, he is feeling “very normal” himself and that he has things under control…and I am extremely wary, anxious and thinking about my return at the end of the week. There have been positive changes and I see him wanting to make it work…I just have to be there to see how we navigate things together.

      I am trying not to focus too much on the gambling as such, on the past. And not to worry about the things I don´t know. I am finding I am questioning my husband a lot and that makes me feel awkward, and that I also want to mention the G word less to him right now than I have been, and not to remind him why I feel so nervous so often still. I…try to justify myself to him…too much. But I feel he expects more trust than I can give right now and he needs to earn that trust (which, really he knows). I am just hoping he gets himself sorted out with his new work, and that we can eventually work out a house to live in…a bit more foundation! From that foundation we will see about the G stuff too and the terms we negotiate together.

      Really, I am just feeling a bit drained from lots of G thinking and the search to trust.

    • #4075
      velvet
      Moderator

      Hi MM
      I expect I will ‘see’ you tonight but I wanted to push a few thoughts around.
      Your husband does not have the ability to ‘learn’ about his addiction so I would imagine he is hanging on to your every word for understanding. Because he doesn’t have support groups and information he will not be gaining the level of understanding that he would have had in other countries. It could therefore be argued that he is not able to adapt his patterns of behaviour to fool you. However although I don’t want to overestimate or underestimate the manipulative ability of the CG, the addiction to gamble it is one hell of a pernicious enemy. Money equals gamble and therefore the sole aim of a day or relationship is to get that money. With one goal in mind the CG’s every fibre is geared toward gaining the wherewithal to gamble, you on the other hand are thinking of many different things at a time.
      I think that mentioning the G word is often a waste of time; it seems to bring out the worst of the addiction and who wants to hear more lies and excuses? From all you have said I still think that your return to Cuba is the right decision for the person that is ‘you’. It might not be right for everybody but you need to know for your sake what the true picture is. Once F&F emerge from the dark and fully recover I think they can safely cease to fear being near the addiction – however, although you are not at that point yet, you want to see your husband again which to me is understandable – I wouldn’t want to give up at this stage either.
      You will go to Cuba therefore armed with an arsenal of knowledge of which your husband is unaware. You are stronger than his addiction but in view of all the above you are also extremely vulnerable – love can be a real pain can’t it?
      I sense you are in limbo right now, wanting to approach the man you love but afraid of the addiction he owns – what are the options – never to return to him or go and see for yourself? In other words it is time to make your own informed decision. That is what I believe you came on this site to learn to do and that is what I believe you are doing.
      It will be the most cynical thing I ever say but I think that to trust your husband at all would be totally unwise. If your husband is asking for trust it is implies he is not accepting his addiction yet as he should know he cannot trust himself. Trust will take a long, long time to rebuild and nothing can hurry it but healthy actions over a long period.
      I am interested as to why you are feeling awkward about questioning your husband – if you didn’t question wouldn’t it imply that you are accepting there is no concern – in which case it would be a dishonest assumption.
      Hope to speak tonight
      V

    • #4076
      mermaid
      Participant

      Well, Little Miss Blob who is trying to be Little Miss Boundaries is struggling, but…trying. My husband was back on Facebook this morning, in a good mood, wanting to know when my flight was for. I told him firmly that I didn´t want any more lies, that 100% honesty is fundamental. He said he would not lie to me anymore on this particular issue that it is all about – detail of what happened to some money and that´s why he told me the truth yesterday, but…he didn´t tell me what happened to the money and only said he would tell me when I got to Cuba. I asked him if he had lied to me because he thought I would be annoyed, and he said, yes, a bit. Then I asked him to explain again with the money, but not the details, that we could talk about it when I got there. He just got totally annoyed, said, enough no more. I said I wanted to know and wanted to know that I could trust and that I am waiting for him to show me I can trust before I organise my flight. He said I am always talking about problems and he wants to talk about other things, know that I am well, etc. and he said no more, I´m leaving, and we ended the conversation, both upset.

      I can´t get him to open up and tell me what happened with this particular amount of money. He just gets so annoyed that I keep asking him, interrogating him, and he digs his heels in. I know it is futile. I actually don´t think he used the money to gamble, it got spent in other ways that he thinks I wouldn´t approve of. But it is his gambling “beast” also that likes this being able to have control over me not interrogating him over money, and that feels the shame.

      He could very well go and gamble now because he is upset.

      So…I am actually ready to go to Cuba, have the practical things pretty much organised, but…I am sitting tight now to see what he does. I don´t want to negotiate this whole transparency about money thing (and there is a history we have on his bad use of money and just doing things with it without telling me that goes far beyond the gambling) when I get there, I want to do it now before travelling. I don´t want to budge. And I see that it will be a problem over and over when I am there. He just wants to still have things on his terms, that if he doesn´t want to tell me at a certain time he won´t. Of course it is futile to try to make him. I had believed we had got beyond this stage…

      Even though I am completely alone here in Mexico, I have to stay strong and stand up to this. I can´t buy my flight yet. He has to know that I don´t want to go back to him when he acts this way. But I know he doesn´t understand why I am insisting and I can´t make him understand.

      I am so so sad again.

    • #4077
      velvet
      Moderator

      Dear MM
      At the risk of making you sadder I hear manipulation in every line. I suggest to you MM that the reason he cannot open up is because the money has been gambled.
      If I was hearing the same words in my situation over again I would be positive the money had been gambled – actually I will correct that statement – when I heard almost identical words my CG had always gambled. Why do you not believe that he has gambled the money?
      Your husband seems hell-bent on getting you to Cuba but offering nothing but prevarication and manipulation – I don’t hear someone trying to build even a tiny bit of trust. You can hear that ‘he’ is getting annoyed but I suggest to you that his addiction is getting doubly furious because you are not jumping to its tune. ‘His’ leaving the conversation so abruptly is typical too – leaving you with the guilt to think over what has been said and to realise that when he gambles again it will be your fault. By taking on the guilt, ‘in advance’ of his next gambling spree, it seems to you that you haven’t fully accepted your husband’s addiction.
      I have been feeling MM that maybe you should return to Cuba and see for yourself but in view of this latest communication and your reaction I hope you will delay longer and give yourself time to think and understand more. I know you have been reading and trying to take in all the different aspects of the addiction to gamble but of course coping with a loved one who is actively gambling is not so easy. Sadly it takes far too many kicks in the teeth before we finally get the light bulb moment and then the strength to keep it switched on.
      In my opinion MM it would be better if you leave him to do some thinking – hold off from communicating and maybe write some headings of what you will and will not not say to him when you do. Talking to an active CG face to face is hard enough but you are trying to discern from a distance what it going on and I definitely do not hear the conversation the way you have done.
      I am sorry you feel so alone in Mexico – I hope keeping in touch with the site is helping you to feel less so.
      Speak soon – you will be ok
      Velvet

    • #4078
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you, V. As always your response is so helpeful and I already feel better. I don´t want to budge and I want to give him some thinking time and for him to be aware that…well, I have power at the moment as I can choose when or if to return to Cuba, and he has been quite desperate for me to do so. He knows what I am asking of him, really.

      And I was thinking about it more and do believe he gambled it…he got so upset and stubborn about my asking…money just evaporates from him without the gambling, but he was telling me how a few weeks back he had to sell his clothes, etc. and he probably needed to do that combined with the money I had sent him because of a gambling episode. And, perhaps he also did the same last week when he got annoyed because he had borrowed money from someone based on expecting me to have sent him some. Perhaps he has changed his style and manages not to overshoot *so* much…I can´t know from here. I do now highly suspect he gambled this set of money, weeks back, though, and for now I will assume that was the case. And that the lies around his gambling continue and the lack of willingness to truly let me control the finances when I am there still exists.

      Very little progress 🙁 Less than I had thought. I believe he is *trying* but he has no support…and the reality is that there is no support…there is just me….and I am also his closest target.

      I will sit tight for a while longer in Mexico….I will eat tacos and drink tequila. I will work on a design for my Little Miss Boundaries cartoon figure.

      Thank you so much, this site is so so so helpful.

    • #4079
      vera
      Participant

      CGs gamble on the strength of money that is coming our way , Mermaid. Payday cheques, Bonuses , Tax rebates , Insurance Claims, Retirement Funds, Inheritance AND gifts via Banks or Western Union from “enablers”!!!
      AND we hate to be questioned about money we have “spent”….
      Just sayin’!!

    • #4080
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thanks Vera, you always drop by and give me the jolt. And I truly appreciate it. Ok, I get it now! I think I was getting it before, but I didn´t want to listen to myself (like the cg!!!).

      I hadn´t seen him controlling his gambling in a long time….but I guess he has bouts of being able to control it a little more, a little less…to keep on gambling at different levels, but to keep on doing it somehow. He overshoots still fairly often, but by lesser amounts sometimes, knowing somehow how much he will be able to dig himself out afterwards. He has got himself into situations that have really scared him and not been able to getout of them for weeks, but they have not been enough for him to take actions to stop. They can get pretty low, but cg´s forget fast and bounce back.

      Nothing much has changed. He is still doggedly holding onto the addiction. He is figuring out how he can keep it going one way or another. He uses and more words that sounds more convincing, uses more I Promises, but they don´t mean anything.

      He returned very briefly to Facebook. He admitted that he had gambled the money, still saying that he didn´t want questions…ok, I understand…he doesn´t want questions, I don´t want lies.

      He is being all….needy. He wanted to know when I will be getting on a flight and if I will so he can know, because. ..he is suffering so much with me dragging it out and he wants to ask the judge on Friday for permission to travel to Havana to meet me and he has to know when I am flying by Friday so he can ask him, and then he has to travel that same day as they can only release him the same day (generally, he is not allowed to leave the province during his parole period and people´s movement in general is very tightly controlled in Cuba, and especially people of descent from the east of the country – it is easy to get into trouble). So he wanted to put me on the spot, a few minutes of Facebook time. All he wants is to be with me and never leave me, etc. etc. And this just as I am realising how much he has continued to gamble. Ugh, its all so icky co-dependent. 🙁

      So I told him to find a bit of money and get in touch with me tomorrow. That I will think it over and we will talk tomorrow.

      I feel so tired from it all today. I am more resolved to be firm now. No more enabling. If he doesn´t want me to completely control the moneyand stick with it then there are no options for our relationship to continue. I will go back to Cuba…but I haven´t decided when yet. I want to have the conversations with him face to face and, if need be, I want to take my leave in a different way than in July. And I want to go to the beach!

      I have my armour on, the drawbridge up and I don´t see an of it through rosy coloured spectacles. I may still be a bit squishy, but there are no more chances now.

    • #4081
      mermaid
      Participant

      Well, I bought my flight for Saturday and I am just going to go, armed with all I have learned…all the theory, and it is time to see how I go with putting it into practice. As I arrive in Cuba there will be a full lunar (“supermoon”) solar eclipse. I hope it ia a good sign for an emerging of a new me! 🙂 Reading the posts on Eva´s thread this morning was good….can never have too much repetition on self care!

    • #4082
      michelle45
      Participant

      Hi mm

      Just wanted to wish you all the best back in Cuba. Always remember you are the rational one not controlled by addiction. CG have the ability to confuse us and doubt ourselves if we let them! You are in a much stronger position and clerer on what you want. So much stronger than when you left!

      I do hope you can come back on here and update if possible. I will miss you in chat.

      Your husband is lucky to have you on his side.

      Best wishes m x

    • #4083
      vera
      Participant

      Safe journey, Mermaid!
      Stay strong. Stay wise. Use the Recovery tools you have been given here.
      I hope you will stay in touch with GT.
      Looking forward to hearing how Life improves for you.
      One day at a time.

    • #4084
      velvet
      Moderator

      Hi MM

      I will be thinking about you – we will raise a cyber glass to you on Tuesday – you will be missed.

      Keep Safe

      V

    • #4085
      Jilly1
      Participant

      And a smile to send you on your way –

      “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
      the courage to change the things I cannot accept,
      and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had
      to kill today because they pissed me off’

      Will be thinking about you, especially 9 pm Tuesday when I reflect on the true serenity prayer and remember the people I have met here.
      Jilly

    • #4086
      Anonymous
      Guest

      For what it’s worth….. A person with a compulsive gambling disorder cannot trust themselves. If we could we would not be compulsive gamblers. I agree with Vera. Don’t trust him until he has earned your trust for a long time .. Maybe never.

      I think best way to “support” the compulsive gambler in your life is to withdraw ALL FINANCIAL SUPPORT!!
      If not where is the incentive to recover. The gravy train will stay flowing.

      You have a right to a happy secure life with or without him, and you can have that life with or without him.

    • #4087
      mermaid
      Participant

      Well here I am at the airport my last chance to access this site for a while although i know i will often strongly wish i could and wonder about all of you i have interacted with here. I will be back though and there will be updates. I am so grateful for the replies, the advice, the support, the sharing here. It has made all the difference and now i have to build con it all and put things into practice, which means a bit of reinventing myself too! Rome wasnt built in a day! I do get some of the messages loud and clear now, finally. Sometimes it is as much the f&f of cgs as well as them who dont want to face up to the truth. I will be thinking of you and cheering you on from my Caribbean Islandia. Be strong everyone. What a wonderful siete this is. V, thank you!!! I hope that cyber toast brings good things.

    • #4088
      monique
      Participant

      Hi M. Thank you for all your posts and contributions in groups. I send you my warmest wishes as you enter this new phase of your life and relationship. You have opened your heart to us here and we will miss you and, no doubt, you will miss us. But use your knowledge and stay strong. Make sure you look after yourself and stay as safe as possible. Let other things fall into place. I hope you will be able to update us again.
      Farewell.

      Monique

    • #4089
      mermaid
      Participant

      Hi Everyone, I am back after 6 months! I just got to the UK a few days ago and am really not sure where and what next. It has definitely been a journey in the past half year since my couple of months last summer here with the support of GT. I am still trying to process, understand what I can, accept what I can’t, heal, and move on. In the end, I just wasn’t able to embrace what I had learned here and look after myself well in Cuba. My husband’s behaviour just battered and battered me and I let it beat me down and things felt desperately hard for a few months and I felt very alone with it all. There was the gambling, but much more going on and the level of lying and deceit and absence/abandonment connected with the gambling created a whole world of confusion and mistrust and people all around me telling me he was not gambling, it was other things…..wild partying, drinking, women…and it may very well have been a lot of that, too, I don’t know if I will ever know. But, I know I experienced enough personally to see the gambling be extreme and it was so destructive and I found it so hard to protect myself, and just to stop paying the debts when I didn’t want to at all but felt somehow forced to protect him from the possible consequences that he always told me would happen to him. There was so much manipulation and I succumbed to it so much. I tried to padlock and protect things and he took hidden money, padlocked TV, laptop, speakers, bicycle and, and…even when I was in the shower and he had quickly returned to the house. Actually in the end there was professional support available, for addicts in general, mainly oriented towards alcoholics as it seems no gambling addict seeks help in this way in Cuba, and I hung on to see him finally go to a session with the psychologist, but then could just not tolerate any more and had lost all my money, even wondering how I was going to eat. For me right now, I am trying to sift through how I feel and what I believe happened as so much of my life with my husband may have been just lies and deceit and the stories…the gossip…what people told me about him once I had left him were mind blowing, really. I am looking at support for people who have been in relationships of narcissistic abuse as it seems to fit my experience and will see how I can find myself some counselling support and read what I can. I need to start again financially, career wise, with a place to live…with so many things, and have so much debt, but I am at least out of the relationship and away from the environment where it all happened. And…I am happy to be back here and to have a place to read and express and process my feelings and experience.

    • #4090
      worriedmama
      Participant

      I’m so sorry for all that you have gone through Mermaid yet am equally happy that you made the decision to put yourself first and get out… that takes a lot of courage.
      It’s funny, it is so much easier to see a situation for what it is when we are not involved. When it’s our own we just have to see it through… so we know we did all we could and have no regrets.
      Good for you!

      Cathy

    • #4091
      velvet
      Moderator

      Dear Mermaid
      Welcome back to someone who has been in my thoughts, especially with Cuba hitting the news so much recently.
      I am so very pleased you knew you could come back here and know that you would be understood.
      I am really pleased to read that you are happy to be back as I know this was not the outcome you wanted but without a crystal ball you could not have known for sure. You gave your husband the greatest opportunity to turn his life around but he didn’t want to listen – that is no reflection on you, you were just amazing going back to Cuba and trying again.
      I am not going to write anymore in this post as I think you are still coming to terms with so much water under so many bridges. I just wanted to say hi and let you know I am still here and I understand why you went back to Cuba and why you are here now.
      The aftermath is difficult but with your resilience I know you will overcome.
      Keep reading, keep expressing your feelings and live ‘just for you’ while you get back on your tail. (I’m not sure Mermaids have feet perhaps you could let me know.)
      Velvet

    • #4092
      Jilly1
      Participant

      Dear Mermaid,
      I had been looking out for you and wondering how things had been in Cuba and suddenly here you are. I am so sorry you have been through such an ordeal and whilst I try to avoid being too negative for the sake of all the people who are trying to recover from the effects of compulsive gambling, I have to say I am not surprised at how things turned out.

      I expect you are still reeling from everything that happened and the awful behaviours you discovered. I remember when things were at their worst that it could all feel quite unreal and I think it is the minds way of coping sometimes. It takes a while to process everything.

      Like Velvet, I understood your need to go back and try again.
      I know every situation is unique but I try to help others (and myself) by sharing some of my experience – I eventually divorced my husband as you know and now I sit on the sidelines watching him continue to self destruct which is not a pleasant experience but a far better one than letting him take me down with him.

      Over time you will rebuild yourself and see things with more clarity. As V says, the aftermath is hard – very hard. Use all the support you can find. I wrote on here quite a lot when things were very bad and it acted as a diary of events that eventually helped me to see patterns of behaviour that previously I was erasing from my mind because they were too painful to recall. I could see the repeated cycles of behaviour and the endless destructive loops I was caught up in.

      You are probably having lots of negative thoughts about yourself so I will echo V and say you are amazing and will be even more so as you recover from this terrible experience.

      I eventually found a wonderful person to have a relationship with, someone I could love and trust and really take care of – that person was me.

      Jilly

    • #4093
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you so much, all of you, for your replies and caring empathetic words. It is good to be back! So many times in Cuba I wished I could access this site, but I stayed away just in case it might affect my husband, even when it got to the point where sometimes I didn’t care and I believed that he deserved more time in prison. It does still feel very unreal and I wonder so much about what really did happen and what others told me was happening. What I actually experienced with him was terrible enough, but then there are stories and stories, such as him leading a double life for many months with a 17 year-old and some of the money he got out of me for supposed gambling debts going to support her….it all feels very surreal. I feel this could all happen because of so many lies and all the deceit surrounding the gambling behaviour. It sucks you in to such an unreal world and you end up questioning everything, and often your own sanity.

      I went back to Cuba determined that I wasn’t going to give him any more money or things he could pawn/sell for gambling or pay his debts. Straight away he greeted me with debts and trying to force me to pay and find ways to get at money somehow and responded with extreme anger and sometimes disappearing if I didn’t. When I did manage to keep funds from him to go and gamble he always found a way and it wasn’t until I split with him that he explained how he had debts all over town as he would go to people and ask them for money to start the gamble and then at the gambling places he would continue to borrow money, large sums. So each time I finally gave in and paid his debt believing it was all the people who ran the illicit gambling places and had their big black men heavies come to the house…it was always several debts all around town that they would not have pressured him to pay in anywhere near the same way. I guess, in the end, he always found a way and would always, and the more money he lost, the more he chased.

      The world of lies and deceit is so so destructive. The abandonment over and over. The empty promises. The withdrawal and moods. The complete manipulation. I think some things will come out in the wash over the coming weeks and months and from afar I will learn more about what happens with my husband…and I do want to know. I do want to understand what parts of it were lies. Because in the end, when he saw my “understanding” for his gambling, how I forgave and forgave, everything was about the gambling, and it seemed he had no problem in revealing it to me…and I still don’t know if some, maybe quite a lot wasn’t, although I do know that he was and will gamble in any way he can, and has done since he was a boy, that it completely consumes his life. I was a gift from heaven for him and his gambling compulsion and fed and fed it for over 2 years. But now I have left and Cuba feels very far away.

      I am trying to sift through it all bit by bit and rebuild my life and the worst is definitely behind me. I will need to accept many things I will never know. I do wonder how I could have been so stupid, so trusting,so forgiving and so lacking in care for myself, but I know that is all past now and I just need to try to grow from it all.

      So so nice to be here! So lovely to read your replies. Thank you! I will gradually catch up with people here and start posting as I get a little more settled. I feel a little “needy” for now and that perhaps I am in a place where I am looking more for support than I can give to others, but hopefully with time…

    • #4094
      monique
      Participant

      Hi Mermaid. It is good to see you posting here again. You have been through so much and hopefully you can now have some freedom to start to process it and gradually find your way forward. It is perfectly ok to be ‘needy’; you don’t need to worry about giving support to others at this point. Strange thing, though, is that you may well find that other people find encouragement by reading what you share honestly from your own heart and your own real experiences – and you will support people just by being true to yourself! Honest reflection speaks volumes to others and helps them know they are not alone, when things are painful in their lives. Your survival and your will to understand and recover can be inspiring. But, do feel free to concentrate on finding the best ways to look after YOU for now and furthering your recovery.
      Best wishes,
      Monique

    • #4095
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you, Monique. I haven’t been writing here as much as I was back in the summer as I’m feeling quite stuck on what to write and what to think, how best to move forward with processing it all. I left the UK over 26 years ago and so it is very strange to be back, even if I think it will only be for some months. It is my port in a storm and my family are here and my finances are so decimated that I have no option but to live with family right now. It is also so cold!!!! Brrrrr! 🙂 So there are so many transitions and changes for me. My family are very supportive. They are focussing on the “practical things” – me getting my debt paid off, being “more settled”, putting on weight(!), etc. I tell them quite a bit about some of the things that happened, but they are the actual “acts”, physical events, and I don’t really talk about the emotional journey and how I feel, I just say that I feel a bit traumatised, but I am fine and will be able to move on fine and learn and grow from it all and not repeat the same mistakes, etc. etc. I think their attitude is that it is all over now and that I shouldn’t look back and that I should stay away from relationships for a while and from Cuba. I feel very much that I need to talk, to reflect, to process, to take my lessons from it that way. It was an abusive relationship and I was trapped in it for a couple of years. That is not sooo long. I have no children with my husband. He is now geographically a long way away. But I know how hard it was for me to get out, how low I had to get, how easy it was for me to take the harm he was doing to me over and over, how I enabled and enabled, how I really made it all far worse by how I acted, promoted his behaviour, sometimes handed it to him on a plate, and really how easily I got sucked back in over and over. A lot of it was about gambling, and his behaviour became so extreme around it and he just kept going and going, taking anything he could as collateral, chasing and chasing his losses. Padlocks didn’t work and I had to keep things in the house next door and he even took the laptop when I was in the shower. But, also I don’t really know how much of what he said was gambling really was, either. When he saw that I was sympathetic to him being an addict and needing to get help (even when I told him it was his path to walk, he saw obviously how I kept helping him avoid getting into further trouble and how I was less upset (sometimes) when he could say it was gambling) he used this as well. In Cuba it is common for people to lie and manipulate. Not everyone is the same of course. But there are many people who lie and deceive. 60 years of communism has created a society of hustlers, in many ways. My situation was immersed in that environment. It got to the stage where I didn’t know who to believe. I learned late on that my husband is a compulsive liar and often lying for seemingly no reason, but also to manipulate and to not have to face the consequences when he has done something “bad.” There were stories about what he was doing that were so shocking, like some kind of crazy movie. The hardest for me, I think, was to live in this web of lies and gradually find out more and more that he had been lying about so many things. I couldn’t trust him and I couldn’t trust myself in that environment. I didn’t know who to believe or who to turn to. At first I thought the lying was only mainly connected with the gambling, but then it just came out more and more. But my husband could say that it was others who were lying, as they were too, for their own reasons, their own gain, to protect themselves, to protect him ,and so I often chose to believe him instead. I couldn’t find the ground beneath my feet. And even with all this, I didn’t want to leave Cuba, had become so used to it, love it, was attached to being there. So I had to pull myself away from Cuba to be away from him, too. So here I am in a gambling support forum, yet of course there is always so much more going on. With my situation, this feels especially so. I would love to have “answers”, to be able to separate the truth from the lies, but I know that I will have to come to my own peace, that there are many things I will probably never know. It still feels so confusing. I feel I can’t trust my own judgement. Friends tell me I let people walk all over me, that I trust too much, that it was my own fault, etc. I want to learn how to “stand up for myself”, know how to impose healthy boundaries (“Little Miss Boundary”), look after myself better. I feel I have experienced very much how “love makes you blind” and it feels…well, scary. So, I am very much wanting to learn and grow, also to reflect and process. I’ve been in such a world of lies and manipulation, in a culture that was not my own, with its challenges, but with many aspects that I grew to appreciate. Gambling was a part of it, but not in the way I believed it was last summer. I also saw how strong I felt when I left Mexico to return to Cuba and how when I got there, back in the situation there, that I wasn’t able to act at all how I thought I would be able to, that I found it so hard to protect myself, that I needed to go through so much suffering before I climbed out of it. I did in the end, and with the support of some very good people in Cuba. And really now I am wondering how I feel. and how to move forward.

    • #4096
      Jilly1
      Participant

      Dear Mermaid,

      I know the feeling about being stuck in how to write down your thoughts and also how they just pour out at times and how that process helps you to make some sort of sense of what has happened in your life.

      I often find myself saying – if I had been living a totally normal life and just woke up one morning and all this ‘stuff’ had happened I would run a mile or a hundred miles! But it isn’t like that is it? Things creep up on us – drip drip drip.

      Love has a lot to answer for and one of the crazy but lovely things it does is make us temporarily blind to the failings of the one we love and then by the time normal perception kicks in we are all tangled up.

      As you say, you were away from all your usual bearings and in a quite different culture for a long time.

      You use the word ‘abuse’ and that is such a strong word although one that my daughter uses a great deal in relation to my ex. I had huge difficulty with seeing him in that light but actually financial abuse is a form of abuse and I think is rarely found in isolation. It is accompanied by lies and deceit etc etc.

      Recovery is a long long process but with each week that goes by you will take some small imperceptible step forward even when you feel you are slipping back. With each step forward comes clarity and strength and recognition of your true self again which is probably the best gift.

      The more I read here, the more I see common themes and feelings and thoughts and even a strange sort of guilt about how we got in this situation and how hard we find it to get out of it. Velvet always says you never need to apologise for anything here and that is so true and so important. So I put together a list of 20 things that everybody on this forum understands and that never need to be apologised for.

      Never apologise here for:

      1) Feeling confused
      2) Needing help and advice for yourself and not feeling able to help others
      3) Writing a lot
      4) Writing a little
      5) Writing a jumble of thoughts
      6) Feeling your situation is trivial in comparison to others
      7) Staying stuck in a situation
      8) Loving someone
      9) Having very dark thoughts about someone – and I do mean the bus running over them type darkness!
      10) Taking a long time to ‘do’ anything – it can take years.
      11) Enabling – you will not find one person here who has not enabled in some way.
      12) Blinding yourself to the truth
      13) Repeatedly asking the same question
      14) Going into a lot of detail
      15) Defending your CG
      16) Feeling weak
      17) Feeling guilty
      18) Feeling depressed
      19) Feeling happy even though your CG is going downhill in his life (a personal difficulty for me)
      20) Finding yourself in this situation

      I hope other people will add to this list and that here continues to be the wonderful supportive place it is for us to be able to express ourselves and never be judged.

      Jilly

    • #4097
      mermaid
      Participant

      Jilly, Reading your reply is so very helpful. It is often the most wonderful thing to truly be able to relate to another person, to empathise and feel understood, to share in this way – it gives so much strength. I can so relate to the drip, drip, drip and how you just find that this is your life now and it does feel kind of crazy, but that you have also developed a kind of numbness to it and that if it weren’t for all the drama you might even miss that…the highs and lows…in some crazy strange kind of way…but mostly it is just accepting that this is how your life has become, not really understanding how you got there and why you don’t act in your own best interests instead..sometimes it’s like just only being able to come up for air briefly now and then and the rest of the time you are below water fighting with the currents.

      It is strange for me too to use the words “abusive” and “abuse”, but it seems to also help me to realise how much I was knocked around hard being in the relationship and how much the other person, knowingly and perhaps unknowingly, manipulated and took advantage of me. It is hard for me to describe exactly how though if someone were to ask me: “In what ways were you abused?” Financial abuse, yes, for sure. Extremely so. Which is no small thing. Emotional, definitely…much harder to explain how that all really was. But living in a world of deceit for another person’s gain. Not being shown appreciation, respect and the other person taking and taking. And when I didn’t deliver as he wanted and he was trying to get me to pay or just wanted to do what he wanted with no one to say no, then the anger and disappearances for days and nights. “They” say he was living with a 17 year-old for much of the past year, while pretending to live with me too, and then taking money from me for her. He smashed the windows of our car, then took it and sold it for much less than its value and then disappeared for 2 weeks and spent it all…a lot likely gambled, but also it seems he was in a hotel for 2 weeks, drinking a lot…women, most likely..and I thought I would leave him and didn’t…much longer story. He took all the money that was from exchanging our car when I didn’t know he had already made the transaction and disappeared for 4 days and they say he took another 17 year-old to the beach. He spent more time away from the house than there, more nights not coming home at all and then when he appeared it was drunk. He was often unrepentant. But then sometimes he was meek, tearful, like a frightened child, but this never lasted very long and never was enough to change his behaviour. Most of all he lied and lied to me and I still can’t separate the lies from the truth. I got sucked into his vortex of hurt, need and deceit and it was nearly always about him…then he would turn on the charm for a while and tell me how much he loved me and needed me and be so affectionate and it felt so “real” that the other things he did felt like they were from some dream world, that it couldn’t really be him (apart from the gambling). He took and took money, always found ways, and lied and lied to cover up what he had done with it. I believed he was another person altogether for a long time and then as more and more he did terrible things and dominated me I just lost my strength. But…I got out. And it is such a crazy thing, this love, this losing ourselves in feelings for another person and feeling it is the most important thing we have in our lives, latching on to the parts of it that do make us feel good…although they might be very few and rare…and enduring all the rest, over and over. And, yes, it is so important not to feel guilty and blame oneself…but to move forward and learn how to live how we truly want to be living and by loving oneself we show others how we want them to treat us.

    • #4098
      worriedmama
      Participant

      It really makes you realize how the gambling is just a symptom of a bigger problem.
      You are reclaiming your life and self and that is such a positive thing.

      Jilly… to add to the list.
      – Anger, anger, anger @ the CG and ourselves. (not a pretty emotion in a mom)

    • #4099
      Jilly1
      Participant

      Oh yes worried mama –

      21) never apologise for anger

      I was thinking about ‘drama’ – the highs and the lows of life on the roller coaster with a CG. You mentioned it mermaid and it set me thinking. All those arguments and then the making up, the storms and the calm, the shifting sands – it can make normal healthy relationships almost appear dull or boring. But that’s all it was – drama. Drama does not equal love or passion, it’s just what it is – drama and I prefer to see it on the stage or hear it on the radio ( anyone heard ‘the archers’ recently??) and not have it in my life anymore.
      Jilly x

    • #4100
      mermaid
      Participant

      I often thought, while at the same time knowing that this was not how I wanted to see things or be, that it was somehow even addictive, definitely giving you shots of emotional adrenalin, the roller coaster of my life with my husband. It was also somehow like having some kind of special (and I was fully aware, messed up) bond…the cycle of discovering that he had lifted/taken/stolen another item because of his gambling/debts, the waiting for him to return (terrible, it was often several nights and days) and to see what he would confess, that “closeness” of our conversations when he was feeling all remorseful (briefly and I now don’t know how much he was faking it to manipulate me to pay his debts)…like some kind of secret dark world that only we shared, that was the basis of our intimacy. Then the hope that it would all be ok, although I knew that things were too far gone, but I fell into all the cycles and fantasies. Yes, it felt very messed up, but drama sucks you in and then things do feel kind of dull without it. It was “my story”…a more interesting narrative of my life, craziness in Cuba, far away from anywhere that offered me stability and perhaps the environment to see things more clearly, like some kind of movie that I was acting in and had forgotten that it was not real….did not have to be real….And then when I did finally decide to end the relationship, the calm did feel good, the gradual departure of all the physical sensations of stress in my body, the going to bed and sleeping, not wondering all night if and when he would come home, shaking in bed, desperate for it all to go away. And not having to guard my things, being able to safeguard my money and only be spending it on me. Not being sucked into the vortex of the drama that he created. So, Jilly, I can very much relate, and it is something that can be so hard to climb out of, but the world opens up again when one does and it is like coming out of a thick fog.

    • #4101
      nomore 56
      Participant

      I’m glad to read that you are safe and sound back on some solid ground! I live in the US and the majority of addiction counselors are realizing more that co-dependency is an addiction of its’ own. We are sucked into the world of the addict, just on another level and with different symptoms. Unfortunately, only the addict gets treatment, if he/she is lucky. The loved ones have to find their own way of creating their recovery system. There is a reason why a lot of addicts are advised, to NOT return to their old environment once they complete treatment. Most of the time not possible but it does increase the probability of staying clean. Makes sense to me. It is not enough for a cg to complete treatment successfully and then return where nothing has changed. JMHO of course. Based on my own experience. The first two inpatient programs my hb completed didn’t do much good. The third did the trick. So I do believe that an addict has a better chance of lasting recovery when the loved ones are in their recovery as well. I wish you all the luck in the world! The weather is certainly better in Cuba but better laughing in the rain than crying in the sun 🙂

    • #4102
      mermaid
      Participant

      Thank you, Nomore. It does seem to be something we get “sucked into”…insipid and then it has taken our strength, confused us, morphed so many times, has so many layers…all the lies, the deceit, the shocks. Like trying to keep one’s head above the water in a rough sea, or surfing, and the waves keep buffetting you and taking you under. The term “co-dependency” is used quite a lot and seems to cover such a broad range of things. The brain chemistry is certainly complex and I think we are only starting to get a tiny insight into what might be happening. I still am feeling very wary, a little scared, about falling into a similar situation in the future because I got myself into and stayed in a situation that was so harmful to my own well-being, and I knew it, but I placed the focus more externally, in my husband, and in my environment, than in myself. If two people are in a relationship that goes through so much turmoil, then of course it makes sense for both to learn how to move forward from it and understand their own personal experiences. It sounds like you have weathered the storms to come out into some sunshine and it is good to hear that your husband has benefitted from his treatment. I wish you both much luck too.

    • #4103
      mermaid
      Participant

      Well, I haven’t been writing much here (and the forum seems very quiet at the moment!) because I don’t really know what to say. I am trying to get some counselling sessions from Gamcare, but it is taking me time to organise registering with a GP after so much time away from the UK so I feel that I very much need to be talking to someone, but still haven’t organised how to do it. I have been staying with my cousins and they are taking good care of me, and I would have talked more with them, but my problems suddenly have become so trivial really in the family as my cousin was diagnosed with lung cancer last week and I have done my best to be as much support as possible and be a cheery comforting presence in the house. I still feel that I have gone through trauma and my eyes often daily just spontaneously fill with tears suddenly recalling things that happened in the last couple of years in Cuba. At some stage it would be very helpful to tell the story from start to finish to someone. I still feel very much that I need to reflect and process so I can learn and move forward from it all. I feel absolutely no bitterness or anger towards my husband in Cuba, or very little, and that surprises me. I just feel betrayed on so many levels and still find myself thinking about it all so many times every day and still dreaming about him every night (in ways that always seem to be also showing me how damaging the relationship was to me). And I can’t stop myself wondering and wondering what all was lies and what was the truth, what was “real” as people were telling me so many more things about him after I left him, but they too were also lying sometimes – I was caught up in such a web of lies, wondering who I could trust, questioning my own sanity. And also wondering how much of it was gambling. It is so hard to have a close relationship with a person who is a manipulator and to get out of that relationship once you have found yourself in it. At the moment, I just don’t know how to talk about it all. I just find myself in the UK after so many years away, and feeling so disconnected to life here (there is so so much stuff, people spend so much money, and live such different lives to the one I have bee used to!) and with so much debt and little income. But, really, I only have myself to look after and feel very lucky that I have family who are giving me sanctuary and encouragement.

    • #4104
      mermaid
      Participant

      There have been many times that I’ve thought about writing here and then have thought that I really don’t know what to say. I feel like I’ve been examining myself so much, almost too much, in the past months and that there is so much inside, but that a lot of it just seems inaccessible and just comes out occasionally as tears like someone testing my reflexes on my knees. I guess I am just trying to rebuild my life, yet I also feel that I am trying so hard to “fix” myself…to understand what happened and why or even not to understand even, just to find some magic way to “release” parts inside me shaped by the past that brought me to all the experiences with my husband and still trigger pain or hold me back…those belief systems they talk about that don’t serve you…the magic wand! One year ago my husband had disappeared for 2 weeks, he had taken our car against my will after he had smashed its windows and walked off one night when I wouldn’t give him the keys to go off for the night in it with his friends. He sold the car far below its value and fast and within 2 weeks had spent all the money, much of it on gambling, thousands (and at the time I thought that that was most of the story of where it had gone, but it wasn’t) and then when it had all gone and he had actually got debt again even he called me…and…I responded. And even then I didn’t leave, it would take me returning after nearly 3 months in Mexico and then another 3 months of total craziness and so much money before I threw him out and then 3 months more before I left the country. And now here I am 🙂 I guess still quite confused about where I’m at, but at the same time positive about the future, about taking full responsibility for my life and living it how I want to, but still quite battered, quite sensitive. So much shifted when I finally left my husband, and then especially when I moved far away. So many things that now seem so crazy except for my memory of me just trying to get through it and keep my head above water had become the norm so fast, my norm, my everyday. It just felt like being so trapped…trapped in a hell and you can’t quite understand how you got there and how this person who you know you fell in love with can behave in such a way, a way that seems so very hard to understand. And yet you don’t leave and don’t leave. Anyway…it is good to remember some, but not to spend too much time on that…to be able to fill my mind with new thoughts and hopes and feelings in my body, but also to acknowledge that it happened and to grieve as well and be grateful for being able to move on. For those that really feel that there is no hope with the person they are with, then it really does change when you are no longer with them, it gives you the space to just be you and focus on yourself and all that is important to you and to take care of yourself.

    • #4105
      velvet
      Moderator

      Dear MM
      I think at times of self-doubt we analyse ourselves and possibly tend to over-analyse looking for solutions that frankly are not there or if they are will not give us the answers we want.
      In times of self-analysis I often ask myself why this or that happened but the answers are not always mine to be had. Your experience is a result of you being you but it is also a result of your CG’s personality and addiction, your family’s contribution to the way you are and all the various people you have met along your way.
      I don’t believe that trying to understand now why your husband took your car against your will and smashed its windows will advance you one jot but I also find it hard to believe that wondering why you still tried to care for such a man will help you either. It is what you felt then – and at that time, for all his faults, you still saw in your CG some goodness and you were affected by that intangible thing we call love. Your upbringing possibly made you feel that no matter what the world saw in your husband you were going to find the good – you were trying to save him from himself – and I find no fault in that. You were doing everything wrong but, oh boy, you were doing it for all the right reasons.
      When you stand back and look at yourself I hope you will learn to see the good in you – the person who wanted to get it right, the person who wanted to see the best in someone that the world would struggle to love. If being that person is wrong then I will not understand either.
      It is what you do now MM that matters, now that you know that another person can tie you up in knots that you don’t deserve, causing you to wonder how you got there. It is important to protect yourself with ‘barriers’ – self-imposed safety devices that help you never to fall into the same trap again. I believe the way to avoid pitfall in the future is to ask better questions of yourself and those you meet and to accept that you cannot undo the past. The most important thing I believe about the experience of having the addition to gamble in your life is to treat it as just another part of your education, the extra class you didn’t mean to take, and turn it into something good for the future.
      I hope you will soon leave the past firmly where it belong – in the past. You are a unique and very special person with a lot to offer and many people will benefit from knowing you. You are now a person with an experience behind you that most people will only imagine in their nightmares – use it MM, use it to make your future a better place – I know you can do it.
      Hope to see you tonight
      V

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