[Ali123]

I have recently discovered that my husband of ten months has spent the last year and a half gambling £25000 he has been give by his parents. I found out by accident- they were very naive and didn’t question why he kept needing money and he lied constantly about where he was and his debts- even on our wedding day.

Anyway, two months on from the initial shock and things seemed to be getting back on track- he is going to Ga, accessing councilling, is on antidepressants and is being a much better husband.

However, this week he has been sacked from work. It has bought back all the anger. I have a stressful and emotional job and I come home to him- he isn’t able to search for jobs online during the day as can’t have access to the Internet ( due to gambling). When I get home he just wants to watch th or prioritise seeing friends/ his parents. All we do is argue…. How long do you keep supporting someone when it doesn’t feel like they are invested in you? I feel he is prioritising everything else and I, our life together and my dreams are bottom of the pile.

How do you deal with this anger?

[velvet]

Hello Ali

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!

[velvet]

Hi Ali
I am so glad that you have found our forum, you sound as though you need a place in which it is safe for you to vent and be understood.
A lot of what I will say to you is tough to take in when you are full of anger, even if the anger is totally understandable but if at any time you don’t understand or don’t agree I hope you will tell me and not stop posting.
Your husband didn’t ask for or want his addiction anymore than you; he could not have known, until it was too late, that gambling was not to be a pleasurable pastime for him. I have had flutters with the lottery, card games with friends and even a horse race but I am not a CG (compulsive gambler), I can walk away. The CG in my life did not have that ability, his addiction meant that he could not walk away and it destroyed his life and mine until 10 years ago. 10 years ago he took a leap of faith into learning to control his addiction and he completely changed his life – and mine in the process. I found the early days difficult. It seemed to me he had been given all the support – and I had had none, I was still reeling from all the gambling years and I felt neglected, confused and angry.
On this site we often say that if what you are doing is not working then it is time to try something different and I think you will agree that your arguing isn’t changing anything so what can be done that is different?
When a CG starts a true recovery it is far from easy and if has to be selfish. Every day is a struggle and every day there has to be an affirmation that for that day there will be no gambling even though the temptations are real and frightening. The CG has to think about his behaviour all the time and will not have the energy at the beginnng to consider those around them as they probably should. The selfishness is hard to take for those who love them because the active addiction was all about being selfish and surely it is to be expected that once recovery starts selfishness will cease. Selfishness does cease but only with time.
Your husband’s addiction only offers failure which means he will be suffering from a lack of confidence and low self-esteem. I don’t know if his sacking is connected to his addiction, or not, although I assume it is likely – but for whatever reason, a sacking will have knocked his confidence and self-esteem even further.
And all the while this is going on, you are working hard at a stressful job, trying to make sense of the senseless and grieving for your lost dreams – it’s a tough call for your relationship – but your husband will not be deliberately cutting you out, he is almost certainly still locked in with his feelings of unworthiness and fear.
I am going to leave my first post to you there Ali and await your reply. I am hoping that some of what I have said will help stem your flow of anger although anger is understandable.
I wouldn’t be writing to you Ali if I didn’t know that the addiction to gamble could be controlled and fantastic lives lived as a result.
Speak soon
Velvet

[Ali123]

Thank you Velvet for your lovely message. I actually read it when I awoke in the middle of the night. Wonderfully it dissipated my anger straight away, I had a bit of a cry and then I woke up my husband to say sorry and tell him I love him.

I am very lucky to have a supportive family and a great group of friends. They are great at listening and helping distract me when I need it. However, I didn’t realise how much I just needed someone to say there was hope until I read your reply.

I swing from feeling in control and believing that if I support my husband he will be able to be the man I want him to be and that we can rebuild the trust. Then I swing to hating him, feeling like he duped me in to marrying him, feeling a fool, feeling guilty and so so angry. Is this normal?

I am a really positive person and I can’t wait to feel happy and make jokes again- it feels like forever since my husband and I have laughed.

Thank you again so much,
Ali

[velvet]

Hi Ali
Laughter often goes out the window when addiction comes in the door but I hope you will soon laugh with your husband again, however, it does take time. Taking control of an addiction demands a lot of careful attention and I have found CGs in early recovery need, from necessity, to be more serious.
I hope you will keep posting because early recoveries go up and down – not just for the CG. When I first came on this site the recovery for F&F was not considered important, the general feeling being that if a CG had stopped gambling F&F did not need support. In my opinion, however, F&F recovery is tough and it is a time when support is definitely needed. A lot of emotional baggage is collected when a person lives with a CG and it doesn’t go away overnight. The ‘whys’ crop up when they are least expected and the ‘what ifs’ weigh one down.
Something caused me to doubt my CG within the first 2 years which turned out to be nothing to do with him. I had a major crisis of confidence and the doubt nibbled away at my peace of mind until I told him my concern – although he set my mind at rest I rattled his recovery because I hadn’t trusted him and he had to seek support from his peers. Such things, I believe, are bound to happen and how we handle them is important. A CG with support is far more likely to succeed with a gamble-free life than one without. Following that incident I realised I had to trust him with his recovery and that is the trust I have.
So please keep posting and however small you feel your worries are, push them around here and hopefully strengthen your resolve to recover ‘you’ because you are very, very important. You will probably swing from hating him and worrying if he will ever be the man you want him to be to loving him and back again – you have had a terrible shock and I hope he understands your confusion. If at any time you feel he doesn’t understand maybe you could suggest he puts whatever is worrying you to his other GA member to see what they think – CGs who want to change their lives offer great empathy and support to each other.
We often laugh in the F&F group – it would be good to ‘meet’ you there.
Velvet

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