Not getting any easier....

Hi Katiecola

We all knows that he needs help, so does he. As you know, until he does seek that help, nothing will change for the better.

I have written the following par on the basis that he does seek help and attempts to address his problem. Please do not take it out of context, otherwise you may feel offended by what I have written. This par also applies to the situation that jw1976 and her partner are in. Hello jw1976.

I think that if you want the relationship to continue, you will have to learn to come to accept what has been done and move on. I do not mean total forgiveness without any reservations. I don't think that if I was in your circumstances I could unreservedly forgive, but I would have to accept it on some level, otherwise what sort of life would I have? I hope Pangolin reads your post and offers her advice. It may well conflict with mine as I am from the "dark side" :). The other thing with holding on to this resentment is that it is unhealthy for you.

I was sorry to hear that you had to cut back on your counselling sessions and hope that you will be able to resume them shortly.

Final word. I don't think anyone deserves any forgiveness unless they have shown genuine remorse and are willingly and actively addressing the wrongs that have been inflicted on their loved ones. Your husband at the moment falls into this category, not the one that jw1976 is in. jw1976 is genuinely attempting to address the problems she has caused.

Best wishes to both of you

Hi Wal1957,

Your part about forgiveness was spot on. I haven't forgiven my husband and I won't until he starts councilling and makes amends. I have also refused to wear my wedding ring again yet. He was annoyed by this but I said I will when the time is right and he's showed genuine change. My councillor also offered couples councilling but for now I'm keeping my 1-1 sessions as I know I'll benefit more having my own space and im working on letting the anger go.

Thankyou for your kind wishes Katie and I hope to see some change for you in the future, if he's not willing to change focus on you and he'll soon see what mess he's in and maybe want to actually dig himself out. Good luck! Xx

I am so sorry that I upset u katiecola. That wasn't my intention. This whole addiction is the worst nightmare possible. Both for us as gamblers but even more so for u as partners.

Wal1957 has given some excellent advice on these forums. Hi wal1957!!
One of his posts just yesterday certainly gave me food for thought and I have taken so much from it.

It's heartbreaking the way u describe your other half. Some of it could well have been written about me. Putting on a persona for other people, being happy, but unable to do that at home. It's wrong, but we naturally lash out at those we love. We are actually suffering depression and self loathe and can't keep up the pretence full time. It's tiring.
I think the only difference between your partner and I, is that I know and admit I have a problem. I WANT to recover. I'm sure he does too, but he's in denial and still thinks that gambling will solve all the problems he created. He is scared to get help incase it works! He is feeling panicky and anxious at the thought of stopping and angry at life for the mess he has created.

My turning point came when I used money that wasnt mine to gamble. That devastated me. I realised I had hit rock bottom. I still can't forgive myself for that.

Counselling is a brilliant idea for u both. We went to relate together for one session then had separate sessions booked.

The first session was amazing. We both had a chance to speak and say what we needed to, without being spoke over and we HAD to listen to each other. It was really upsetting and we both cried but it really did help. My next mistake was not going to my individual sessions. I so wish that I had now bcos all the promises we made to each other have slipped and we r almost back to square one.

I still love him with all my heart and I'm sure ur partner loves you too. Counselling will help you both remember that.

Sometimes a little time apart works. It would make him realise what he is actually losing, but also in a less stressful environment he can see that it is HIM with the problem.

I really do wish u well hun. I'll keep checking your updates for better news xx

Oxford English dictionary defines "forgive" as "Stop feeling angry or resentful towards (someone) for an offence, flaw, or mistake".

I have stopped feeling angry or resentful. But I dont feel like I have forgiven, certainly will never forget.

I dont carry around anger or resentment, but I do that for me, not him. I have dropped them so I can feel happier, when people do feel that towards him (the teenagers, his parents) I stand by them, they have every right to feel that way. Mr P is in recovery, past the first 90 days, when he is met with anger or resentment he is gentle and submissive now, because he knws he caused it and doesnt wish to prolong it. He shows genuine understanding remorse, we move on. No one actually wants to live in the midst of anger and resentment, so they go through it and out the other side and move on. But we all need to feel it and say that what he did was wrong other wise we havent moved on, we just have our heads in the sand.

I have a very short fuse when it comes to suspected gambling, anger and resetment come back to me quite quickly if I think I am being fooled again and I make no apology even though I have recently been wrong, because of the times before I made apologies when I was right.

I think forgiveness involves a layer of concern for his feelings, and I am surprisingly lacking in concern for his feelings, I spent a long while doing the right thing in the face of considerable abuse and i did stop listening to him, I dont respond in the same way to him being upset as i used to, i take an objective look at what he might be hiding, whether this is reasonable for him to be upset and go from there, his feelings dont influence mine as they used to. I am told this is a much healthier way of being.

So actually I dont think I have forgiven, his actions were unforgivable, but the future is manageable, one day at a time, our life together is manageable and quite often pleasant. So I manage. And we are happy again.

Thats just me, my view from this point on the road, which is some distance past all the pain. You dont have to take the same route or find the same places. Just know the road is yours to travel and no one elses, take your own decisions and dont have your journey planned by a CG.

Actually we do know someone who lives totally for anger and resentment and if her life seems lacking in it, does out of her way to create or find some more, bitterness is her way of life, we have all learned to keep her at arms length. I mention her only to prove that there is an exception to every rule, but like i say no one (apart from her) wants to live in the midst of anger and resentment, so we learn techniques to manage it, for our own benefit, this bit of 'selfishness' benefits everyone. Forgiveness feels like some saintly state i'm not sure i can achieve, but I do love him.

Hi Half-Life

Yes, it is an interesting discussion.

Whilst I was reading thru these posts, I was thinking to myself..."what a pity it is that most Gamblers who are still gambling will never read this".

Just to throw a hand grenade into the discussion. Is a compulsive gambler resigned to facing their life defined by an action that @ the time they believed was vital for their very emotional survival. That wrongly they found a behaviour they believed solved for just a few hours a way to feel safe & secure, to find a peace & calmness within themselves they struggled to find elsewhere. Are they required to be thought of as the very thing that drove their addictive behaviour in the first place, weak, stupid, not good enough, inadequate?
Or if they show they have true remorse, prove they are doing everything in their power to find new coping stratagies on how to deal with what life throws their way, should they not be shown kindness, respect, compassion. Should they not be treated as an equal whos feelings & opinions have equal importance?

Obviously there are the exceptions, who can pinpoint their gambling behaviour to a perticular event or set of conditions in their life, but on the whole, gamblers gamble in response to normal lifes pressures, people with addictions dont start with lives harder than other peoples, they just make them that way. So, in my opinion, a wave of the magic wand that takes the gambler back to a normal life where people are treaing them normally, is setting the gambler up for another fall.

Mr P s feelings are actually more important than mine, a misreading of them could have devastating consequences, but a rush to pick him up and kiss him better every time he cries is not what he needs.

I would say that someone who loves you, including your faults is going to give you more kindness, respect and compassion, and the compulsive gambling is a devastating fault.

There are other conditions, apart from addiction, that require that someone is handled with some objectivity while still being loved, not many carry the same stigma as compulsive gambling though, for all parties.

just my opinion, good hand grenade

you set boundaries, maybe they can be construed as limitations, but maybe also security, if that makes sense....

Hi day@atime

I think you may have misunderstood what has been said. I wrote in reply to Katiecola..."Final word. I don't think anyone deserves any forgiveness unless they have shown genuine remorse and are willingly and actively addressing the wrongs that have been inflicted on their loved ones."

The other replies reflect where they are at the moment in relation to this. On the whole, I find them to be a very honest and open response to a genuine problem that we recovering gamblers face.

I think that if a recovering compulsive gambler relies on the first paragraph of your reply to JUSTIFY his actions, to demand sympathy, then he is not in recovery.

I did all of what is in that paragraph and more. Don't feel sorry for me. I was the one who did it. I knew what I was doing, I just didn't care.

Your 2nd paragraph I think is close to the money though. The unknown factor for me has always been this...if I was the partner of a gambler, how would I feel? I know straight away that on the level of trust, they would never regain the trust they had prior to gambling. I might even harbour some lingering resentment as well, but I just don't know.

Best wishes

I think the question of going back to a previosu state of trust, or remorse leading to a recovery of trust is a different route to the one we have taken.

I know we are the same physical entities, but mentally both of us have changed and neither of us recognise the people we were before. The relationship feels very new in that sense, but obviously it is old, because we have this amazing foundation of honesty and some wisdom.

It all cuts both ways, before recovery we didnt understand each other, we just assumed we knew. Going through recovery we are both finding ourselves as new people and finding each other as new too. I do not trust Mr P with money, i manage the finances, this is not unbearably weird or anyone elses business, Mr P has changed his expectations of me too, he seems much more gentle, doesnt ask me to man up anymore when it comes to the things that i struggle with.

Unfortunately Mr P still snores, but you cant have everything.

Haha Pangolin, cant have everything i suppose!

Thanks Wal, i didnt misunderstand i just like to question perceptions sometimes.

I havnt placed one penny on gambling in nearly 8 years & the biggest challenge i faced in early recovery was trying to recreate what my wife & i perceived was a perfect relationship before my gambling was uncovered. When we constantly fought to get back what we thought we once had we both found ourselves angry resentful unable to mend something that i had blown to smithereens.
It was only when we realized that relationship was dead & gone but we could create a new but different one together that we could both be happy again.

That was achieved by both of us working together on an equal footing. With openess & honesty. Recognizing whose strengths lay where. By moving away from blaming & feeling blamed. Its not an easy process & i suppose that is the question co-dependants & addicts need to address. Not is what we had worth fighting for but is what we could be worth it

Hi day@atime

I think that during the early stages of our recovery, we all face to some degree what you faced. We have to earn the trust , respect etc that was there prior to our gambling.

Congratulations BTW. 8 years gamble free is nothing to be sneezed at. 🙂 I would have been 6 years now but for a bust about 3 years ago which lasted approx 6 months.

The blaming is another interesting issue. As gamblers, we have to come to terms with what we have done in the past, and forgive ourselves. To be able to look in the mirror and not feel ashamed is something I do every day now. When I was gambling I was always filled with self-loathing for what I was looking at in the mirror.

Best wishes

Something that doesnt seem to get talked about much, but is part of this process, is that when us partners embark on a new life, with our gambler or without, we lose something. We had a plan in our heads and hearts, a set of expectations of how life would be and we played our part, when we lose that there is a period of grief and like all grief it needs time and it needs to be acknowledged and experienced if we are to move on from it. Burying your head in the sand is not an answer.

I cannot think of anything that explains the feeling of losing that expected life as closely as grief does.

But it's not something i hear talked about outside a small group of partners that i talk with regularly.

I dont even know what point im making, other than to say that perhaps forgiving is a process rather than an event and maybe i will know more about it in a year or two.

Hey Half Life,

Im in agreement with you. Just thought id open the discussion up as to long term strategy. I still have my finances watched & questioned, why change what works! GA is a twice weekly thing for me. It keeps me grounded. It makes my wife feel secure. So why change what works!

The reason between 95 - 97% addicts relapse within the 1st year is mindset. They want to be free of addiction. To believe they have won the fight. To forget what they are capable of. To believe they can control addiction. It is only with acceptance that everytime we try to stand toe to toe with addiction it will beat us to a pulp that we learn how to co exist with it safely.

It has been my experience within recovery that those who are successful are people who accept they dont need to fight anymore. What they have all focused on instead is creating a life where they no longer need to use. Where they find self fulfillment, interesting pastimes, real intimacy with others & a sense of belonging. A scary experience for anyone to embark on. One which is impossible without the solid foundations of barriers, honesty & the support of the amazing people around us who have seen something within us addicts that we couldnt see about ourselves.

I really do wish more people from this site came to this part of the forum. For me there doesnt seem to be a great desire for change from most just a desire to stop losing their cash. Here they may see that money doesnt play any part in their or their partners wishes for a different life.