[Clarity]

My Story: Perfectly Obivious
My husband and I have been married for almost five years, together for six. We have two children from my previous marriage. When I first met him he was the perfect man for me. Honestly I had never been treated better. He was awesome with the kids, loved them. When we married I was set to build this awesome life and family. Over two years ago he never came home when he said he would. He said he was going to help a buddy move something and stayed out drinking until 2 in the morning. Never called me even though i called him. I honestly thought something had happened to him, because it was not in his nature to go somewhere and not let me know if there was a change of plans. That was the start of this downward spiral. His attitude change slowly but surely after that. It seemed like his goal was to make me seem like the problem and him the innocent person in all of this. In his words…I was the psycho b@#$% that he married. By last August our relationship had detiorated to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore. Money was disappearing, alot of money. Divorce had been threatened and talked about by both sides many times. I had no respect for him and I honestly thought he hated me. September I finally confronted him, demanded the truth, he promised me that night he would talk to me and tell me everything. This wasn’t the first I had asked for him to just be honest but this was the first time he tried. He told me that night that he used to have a gambling problem, and about a year and a half ago his old bookie caught up with him and told him he still owed him money $8500. So he had been secretly paying that back all this time. That is what he told me. Swore up and down that it was all behind him. I chose to believe him because I wanted to. But the lies continued and I finally told him one more lie and I let his family know. I couldn’t deal with it myself anymore. Of course there was one more lie and I told his sisters. If I thought my life was miserable before I had no idea. He really did hate me at that point, called me names, blamed all of this on me. I was ready to file for divorce had my attorney, separated our finances but I still loved him. I asked for him to go to counselling with me, one last try. We did, but I was the one that eventually backed out. By this time it was November, and I felt I had my extended family at ease with our relationship, my husband seemed totally committed to me and our family. He wanted to be a good man and do what it took to right what he finally had admitted he wronged. But by now, I was angry and I mean angry. I felt horrible about myself, couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong, I wanted to die. After Thanksgiving I started to see a counselor and was getting myself right. I had thought my husband was on the straight and narrow and we would be back to that wonderful family before I knew it. But I started to see money disappearing again and he would tell me he owed so and so money from before. He promised me he had not gambled since he met me and he was done with that. I chose to believe. February he started a great new job, the final answer to our prayers. He did have his own company but the gambling pretty much destroyed it and he had not been working since August, but he actively looked for employment. I thought he would be on cloud nine but he seemed worried and more distant. I attributed that to being stressed over a new job. Last week he took considerable amounts of money from our account to, according to him, pay past debts. After alot of arguing over the past few days he finally admitted that he has been gambling for two years. That he had kept away from it for five and when the bookie contacted him it just all started over. Yesterday I told him he had two choices admit his problem and get help or loose his family. I can’t do this anymore. He chose to get help. He gave me all of his debit cards and is going to the local GA meeting tomorrow. I am relieved to say the least but I’m also angry, hurt and tired. I want to be there for him, but I’m not sure who is there for me. I don’t know if I tell our kids (17 and 14). I don’t know how much to restrict access to money. I just don’t know what to expect. I have hope, but yet dread that this won’t work. Any advice is more than appreciated and welcomed.

[Author]

Posts