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    • #2316
      renee131313
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      I have been married to my husband for almost 20 years.  We have a beautiful daughter and she is very attached to both of us.  My husband had almost 15 years of recovery when we got married.  He is a very strong and respected person.  He has been the love of my life and I still love him so.  A little over a year ago he underwent open-heart surgery.  He was a 2 pack smoker before and couldn’t give the smoking up.  He did go down to 1 pack a day – I will take what I can get.  He was a chef in his previous life – while he was using.  He still loves to cook and loves to eat.  Since the surgery he has put on easily 30 lbs. or more.  He does nothing to take care of himself whatsoever.  Smoking and coffee are his norm throughout the day.  He still gets an esspreso in whenever possible.  You would think I would want to be done with him – and there have been times over the last 10 years that I have.  But, that whole love thing keeps getting in the way.  He went for an EKG to determine what was going on since the surgery.  They didn’t call and tell him anything until about 2 weeks later.  He is scheduled for an echocardiogram tomorrow.  He has been getting scared that it all finally caught up with him.  He is tired all the time and sleeps whenever possible these days.  If he pulls a particular tough week or weekend it takes easily 2 – 3 days of almost straight sleep to recover.  I thought his health had to be pretty bad and then I found out the hours he was keeping playing poker with the boys.
      At this juncture it is not unusual for him to come home 3 – 4 in the morning after a tournament.  At the moment it appears that he only plays with his friends, but I have come to find out that he is instigating more and more games.  He has lied to me on several occassions about where he was and what he was doing.  I just found that out all of this a couple of weeks ago.  I knew the number of games he was playing was increasing, but I didn’t realize by how much.  He also bets Jai Alia games.  He is complete denial that he has any kind of problem and accuses me of just wanting him to quit.  He has not taken a lot of money out of our accounts and hasn’t opened anything on the side – I checked his credit information.  He has been involved in some fundraisers and I have a sick feeling that he may have skimmed some.
      The problem I have is that he is in the beginning stages of his new addiction.  He hasn’t created the problems that I read about – yet.  But he is a different person and he lies.  He has no concern for his health – obviously.  He admitted once, in a text that he had a problem, but has re-neeged on that admission.  He says he lies because I hate it and he knows that he should come home.  He was a pretty hard-core addict in his day so my fear is that he will come down hard and fast.  I am going to as many Al Anon meetings as I can – at least every day and even 2 a day.  My work is suffering because my concentration stinks.  I have prayed more ernestly in the past month than I ever have before.  But my mind will not let go and let God.  I have stayed away from him most of this week because I don’t trust what I will say.  I am going with him to his appointment tomorrow so that I can hear directly from the doctor.  Obviously I am hoping that the news will be nominal – a warning that he needs to make changes.
      How do I handle this?  I am not like others because the family destruction in terms of money is not an issue yet.  But I check the bank account several times a day.  He comes home – hasn’t had a several day binge – yet.  I can’t stop crying and it doesn’t work well with my job!  Someone please help!!"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honour is what you know about yourself." – – Lois McMaster Bujold

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