Hi!
Sorry to hear about your son – I hope he is okay and you didn’t have to sit in A&E for too long…
Lol @ herding cats – good metaphor. 40% of the chat I was herding cats, but the rest I was herding sheep so to an extent I feel we got somewhere and needless to say, it went a lot better than I thought.
I would like to think I have a good head – but you know what it is like. Putting your words into actions and sticking to them can be quite the challenge. It’s hard to stick to your guns especially when you love someone and you are so use to the contentment.
I googled counsellors in my area and you can filter by what they specialise in; I am finding it hard to find one that does relationship (couples) counselling with a background knowledge in addictions. I won’t give up – I have found one chap who I have dropped an email this morning so lets wait to hear if he gets back to me. I think it would work better being councelled by a male as it may make him feel subconsciously like me and another female are just taking sides during discussions and finding levels of understandings he thinks he’ll never reach.
So you probably want to know what happened and how the chat went? He rocked up with fish n chips for us both accompanied with a chipper attitude – I told him I appreciate the thought but dinner comes last tonight, so I made him put the food in the oven. Thankfully I was in a good frame of mind and I was glad I was had a stern head on me. I actually also managed not to cry and it helped! It helped him take me seriously – more than he ever has before. I also was able to take myself seriously… I have realised now – with such a situation you cannot let emotions run away with you and you have to approach the matter really regimented. Almost like a Mother-figure.
So – I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked him to just pour it all out to me, talk the truth and say what he feels to me. I stopped him as soon as the words ‘I can’t believe you tracked me’ came out of his mouth. Said this wasn’t going to be a blame game – no one is in the wrong here and I most certainly won’t be judging him / hoping he wasn’t going to be that way towards me and if the discussion is to continue this way, then he may as well make himself scarce. So, these (from what I can remember) are some of the bits n pieces we said
(S) ‘We have been through a lot as a couple, lots of fall-outs with my family, your family, friends, jealously… work gets on top of me… I don’t gamble excessively… I gamble to my means and I am not in there everyday… I need something to do and escape at times… the boys go down the pub when they’ve had enough… some people do drugs… some cheat on their girlfriends, we all have our vices’
(J) ‘Well sad to say, I have standards – maybe more than most of your “boys” girlfriends/wives. What you are doing is not acceptable and you know I have never condoned it otherwise you wouldn’t be keeping it from me. I am more let down this time by the sheer fact you have been lying about your whereabouts.’
(S) ‘I’m not lying’
(J) ‘Now you’re lying that your lying? Please stop. You couldn’t TELL me where you were when I called you and I have black and white evidence that you have lied. You wouldn’t win this case in a court of Law S. Now you’re lying not just with gambling S but you do it with a lot of things… you exaggerate – I heard you the other day when you were bigging me up (yes thanks) to your mates wife saying I worked in a Hospital and when she asked if I was a Nurse, you told her yes. Why do you do that?
(S) ‘I didn’t say that to her and I forget what your job title is’
(J) ‘Its flattening to be made out to someone that I have a clinical background but I don’t. I don’t want my life to be glamorised thanks. So leave me out of your habits – see I am scared knowing that your compulsive habit to LIE is falling through in other ways. Listen, I am worried for us but mostly myself. I don’t want to be another 2 years down the line facing the same sh*t with you again, feeling nearly 30, missing my chance with a wedding and babies, all thanks to the fact I have just trusted in you.
(S) ‘You can trust me. I don’t want you not to. So what am I suppose to do now, call you up everytime I want to go for a bet?’
I literally LOLd
(J) ‘Are you kidding? That’s like me calling you up on a night out, checking in to say I’M JUST ABOUT TO DO A LINE OF COKE, OK?… its not OKAY? Don’t be so childish. If you originally thought it was okay you would have originally called TOLD ME THE TRUTH or originally when I confronted you… and you didn’t. I’m not going to pick the phone up and say okay honey see you in 1 hour when really you could be with me right now… and that leads me onto my proposal…
– he totally was looking at me with fear in his eyes, he knew I meant what I was saying
‘You don’t have a hobby… you don’t have anything nice to show for how hard you work… when you buy nice clothes you tell me how amazing it is and how good about yourself you feel… and we need to curb your compulsiveness trips to go somewhere more productive… like buying clothes… a new Mercedes… a lavish holiday with me?’
(S) ‘Right so what are you proposing?’
(J) ‘Well, I have thought about it and we either head down a relationship counselling route – 6 weeks I want out of it and we ½ £ the sessions each… OR… I can’t continue this journey with you.’
(S) ‘We don’t need relationship counselling all because I spent some money in the bookies… I am good to you… I am so good to you… we don’t even argue… we haven’t got issues…’
(J) ‘We both haven’t I agree… combine us as a couple and we do have issues. You, like earlier, bring up the past. You are bitter of how many people we’ve lost along the way just because you love me. You are bitter I don’t care and think it’s their loss. You are bitter people don’t want to do all the nights out and clubs that you want to anymore – you are bitter people have other priorities other than maintaining a friendship with us… people are getting older S and so are you. You are fighting a war in your head.’
(S) ‘What are we suppose to do if we hear things we don’t want to hear’
(J) ‘I want to hear the good the bad the ugly… we are going together. They are not there to judge you or take sides, simply to mediate and give clarification. You moan there is nothing to do week in week out, well look at this as something contrastive and healing to do. It’ll help you as a person S – you have even said you get frustrated you can’t find the words and sometimes think I out-wit you. They’ll help you with stuff like that
(S) ‘Well… I’m not loosing you over the fact I wont go and see a shrink. So we’ll do it I guess.’
(J) ‘No, we do it only if you want it. If you let me down throughout it S, it’ll just push me away and you’ll be face with this mini ultimatum again. It’s about compromising too.’
So you can kind of see where the convo went here. Other things were said but it wasn’t a shouting match nor was there really any disagreements. Yes, I know he didn’t out rightly admit he had a problem; he beat around the bush to say the least. I have told him now – counselling commences the end of the month. He’s got enough time now to think if he can do it and enough notice for him to work his jobs at work around the session(s). so yes – it is a long-shot but it’s a start. If it doesn’t work or I catch him out again (I have told him I have other means… I will drive and just wait at the betting shop!), we’ll have to really call it a day and at least I could look back and say I tried EVERYTHING.
S has an angry streek and I have only seen it once. All I can relate it to is when Hulk goes greener than green… or when King Kong has simply had enough. I do know though when he is angry and overwhelmed or feeling claustrophobic (I don’t help being a pesty girlfriend either, maybe something I need to work on… when are you here… how long… what do you want for dinner… when’s your last job… what are you doing…’) he just glazes over and you cant get through to him. He could probably walk through a wall.
We went to a Christening Saturday and he randomly came out with how he wants us to have children in another 2 years… I just looked at him and just said we haven’t even started counselling yet… I’d love kids with you… baby steps for us first though.
Where abouts in the world are you anywho?
Thanks again for listening Lilly,
Jess x