Now what?

Keep going to gam anon, practice what you learn. I dont know if detatching from the gambler was disucssed, but it helped for me when mr P was still in denial. There wasn't much of mr P left at that point, so my detatchment from him was very obvious, but i was always welcoming when i saw signs of him and over time mr P has taken over again, now we only get flashes of the gambler and i refuse to acknowledge him.

The effect of detactchment from the gambler is two fold, you get stronger, your self esteem comes back, you have hope, the gambler on the other hand becomes isolated, left behind. Hopefully the person re emerges at this point and you can show that you still have love for the man, just not the gambler, you dont acknowledge the gambler.

Theres nothing you can do about him and how he is seeing things.It's hard, but the gam anon programme willl do its magic for you if you stick with it. Keep talking

Hi pangolin

thanks so much for replying to me- again! I was hoping you would!

My husband may not have had the ephiny I was hoping for last night but I have today! And that is partly thanks to you. So I now know in myself I have done all I can think of to help him- counselling, docs, GA, debt advise, hugs etc. I can do no more. The rest is up to him. He is a grown man and he needs to take action. I have made the decision to distance myself as you say from the gambler. I will monitor the accounts but I will no longer keep asking about the debt, if he going to his counsellor, or with me when I go to gam anon next week. It's gonna be so hard to bite my lip because my solution to this is to fix him but I've tried that for 3 months now so I'm changing my strategy for my own sanity. My priority now is my girls. I'm gonna start to live my life again without my every thought being about his gambling. Or at least try!

Thanks again. ( please let me know if this sounds like a good plan! )

YES! yes thats sounds like a plan for a happier life for you're on the right track there. Those gam anon meetings really help you feel a bit calmer about things dont they, defintiely saved my sanity.

Keep talking still, its a journey we're all on here and I have found reading how other partners feel really helps me too.

Thanks again, and yes I will keep talking. I, unlike my husband, am very good at that!

Well my plan isn't really working. I find it very lonely living in the same house but barely communicating. He has shut himself away in the bedroom even more. I promised myself I wouldn't get upset infront of him again and I did. He doesn't even try to comfort me. He ignores his crying wife and puts his head in his hands. This was the clearest indication yet that he really doesn't love me any more. He tells me he is leaving. I'm losing any respect for the man. I can't recognise the man I married. He has disappeared. I'm left with a self obsessed, pathetic, heartless shell. I went to gam anon again but I even feel lonely there. All their loved ones are in the next room trying so hard whilst mine is sat at home with his head in the sand. They are all lovely people but not in my position. I will continue to go though. He didn't even ask how I got on! It's very hard living like this- with such an atmosphere- and my poor girls are suffering too. How are you meant to live with a depressed person with out them dragging you down too?

Hi Katiecola,

I'm a recovering CG. That does not stop me from reading posts on this section and wanting to help if I can. Our paths may have crossed on this forum before maybe.

You say your husband is depressed and from your description of his behaviour it shrieks of it. You know he needs help and anyone reading your last post would agree with that. Forgive me if you have already done this and if this suggestion seems a bit obvious. He needs desperately to see his GP and possible drug and or counselling therapy with a mental health professional.

Yesterday I responded to a post by SL90 which covered amongst other things depression. I suggested the person concerned may be naturally depressed anyway and may need help. I speak from experience I was born with a chemical imbalance in my brain and was prone to depression anyway. Gambling lows added to that natural depression and I ended up having a major nervous breakdown so much so i ended up in hospital. The medical professionals got me on the right drugs and I recovered so much so now I do not suffer from depression and have been able to dump gambling. I feel now that i will never go back to my old life.

If your husband feels worthless (a depression symptom) and does not love himself, how can he give love to others ? If it were my wife in the same position as your hubby I'd drag her to the GP to get the right help.

In reference to you question the answer is: you can't live with a depressed person without it dragging you down. I guess you already knew the answer though. You've already shown remarkable patience and loyalty to come thus far.

If he won't visit his GP. You go to the doctor and explain that your life has reached crisis point and let the doc make suggestions.

You'll have heard the following before and at the risk of being boring, we only have one life on this planet as far as we know and it's too short to live in constant abject misery.

I'm probably a lot older than you and I don't know how long I've got left. You learn that time is precious so you can't wait for much longer in this situation without acting for the good of yourself and in particular your girls. I didn't want this post to sound like a sermon but YOU HAVE TO LOOK AFTER YOURSELF AND THEM. You say they are suffering so that's reason enough to seek help.

Thanks for reading this.

Thank you for your reply.

He has been to the doctors and is on tablets but they are clearly not working. I have told him he needs to go back. I know I have to look after myself and my girls but I can't let go. I've been married to him for 20 years, he's clearly not well and I can't abandon him or distance myself. I know he would never give up on me if the roles were reversed. He says he wants to leave because he is saving me from him. But I worry if he goes - who will look out for him then? He will spiral further- or recover naturally as he will be free from me maybe. It's like a battle that I can't win. He is adamant he has to leave but says he loves me. How does that work? He has put us into such debt, lied to me for years, I say let's work through it and he says no I'm going. Really?

Katiecola,

I was going to say you need to get him back to the GP quickly. Really it's him who has to get back there and really quickly for the sake of all of you. He owes you one last shot at this and maybe psychotherapy as well as a change in drug could be the answer. I don't know. Maybe there isn't an answer in this case. He needs to find out though.

You are acting like a mother figure to him now and it's obviously very unhealthy. If he does leave he may have to ultimately find himself out there in this great big world, for good or for bad. He will have to look after himself then. My gut feeling is he'll stay up there in his room for as long as you allow it.

Take Care Now.

You may have been married for 20 years but you are still adult in your own right with choices. If i were in your shoes I'd head for RELATE and discuss the situation with them.

I know it's easy for people like me to give advice when they are not in the middle of what must be an extremely difficult situation for you and your kids. Ultimately it is obviously you that is responsible for your own choices in this life

Sorry previous post got the Take Care Now bit in the middle.- editing mistake. It should have been at the end of the piece.

I would agree with MrStop. I didnt have a wheelbarrow big enough to load Mr P up and dump him at the doctors, but i would have done if i could.

I have to admit our rock bottom was preceeded by a couple of days where all I could do was shout at Mr P to "Get Help, you are ill" regardless of what he had had to say. I didnt know to what degree he was in what I call 'gamblers fog', how much he was depressed for a chemical reason, whether he had a personality disorder, I just didnt know, but I knew i couldnt help. I had detatched from the aspects of him that i couldnt stand and there was b****r all left to be attached to. Mr P chose GA meetings over GP, it transformed him, but he suddenly wanted it very much.

I know you are in the absolutely intolerable awful part of this right now, I really do feel for you. I had to let go, he had to sort it out himself. It wont go on for as long as it seems like it will, if that makes sense.

He might say he is leaving but is he really capable of sorting out a new life right now? Stay strong, stand firm, tough love, chin up and all those other cliches

Keep talking, we're listening, we've been through it too.

Oh and dont be scared to ring the gam care help line yourself in those dark moments, which i know you're probably coming up against just now, someone to talk to, immediately there and then, dont be afraid to use it. Scale down the one day at atime thing to one hour at a time, get down the park with the kids, make life for you as nice as possible, it's the only wa y to balance things out when things get to their worst.

Thanks for your help. He has agreed to go back to GP. He knows he's not right but he thinks he's beyond help. He thinks there is nothing left of the old him and to be honest it's hard to find. I don't know how he would get on by himself. My worry is that he would distance himself and get worse. But maybe it is what he needs. I know I shouldn't act like his mother but I can't just sit back and do nothing. I would love not to have to treat him like a child but don't know what else to do. I try to concentrate on other things and I manage fairly well during the week when I'm at work. But weekends are hard.

How did you let go? Did you tell him the relationship was over? If I detach at the mo, he retreats further and so the cycle continues and worsens.

Thanks again for your replies guys. I do appreciate your thoughts.

I let go of a future, I let go of expecting any result, good or bad, i just acted in a way which i could live with. I felt i had become something of a doormat, as taken for granted as a mother, but not held in any esteem by him. So sometimes that was angry and sometimes I did reject him, but on the whole I did move towards a place where i wasnt reacting to him at all. Mr P ultimately did want attention, he did want someone to save him and although he created the distance between us, he didnt like it when I didnt run after him.

I think i was so frustrated with it all that i wanted him to retreat, preferably to another continent. But also i noticed was that i was as addicted to rescue missions as he was to gambling, no matter how much I knew tough love was the only way forward i couldnt stop trying to rescue him, so the letting go was really about me letting go of my need to resolve everything.

It took me such a long time to realise that the situation was not of my making, it was not under my control and therefore I could not resolve it. The next step, telling myself I didnt have to put up with it either came quickly.

Then i moved to my ultimatum, complete financial control for me, weekly attendence at GA for him, weekly gam anon for me so i dont slip back into old habits of thinking i have to save everyone, he was also supposed to go to the doctors for some sort of assessment but apparenlty the doctor said he wasnt depressed and he left with a "brain gym" website which i dont think he has ever looked at. But the GA meeting did work, the one week he couldnt make it, he attended a different meeting and didnt like that, but he knows how much difference his regular meeting makes to him and me and the whole family.

But anyway much of that is for the future, and it is just me, its not a prescription for anyone elses life, its just me.

Right now, you are at a very difficult stage to cope with, as the saying goes, "if you find yourself going through hell, keep going", and you are, you're staying strong, not just in how much you put up with but in forging a path ahead, you have my admiration and i do hope Mr Katiecola pulls it together enough to get some help and follow after you.

Katiecola,

"He has agreed to go back to GP". Get that appointment ASAP. If they offer you an appointment a few weeks ahead, say it's an emergency to get in sooner. Go with your husband so the GP has no doubt how your husband is feeling and behaving. Be persistant and ensure the GP gives you all the available options.

"He knows he's not right but he thinks he's beyond help". He obviously needs to have his condition diagnosed by a medical professional sooner rather than later because he himself feels there is something wrong. It's not for me to speculate what the exact nature of the condition is right now. Best left to a medical professional.

If the man is ill, he's ill and you can both work together towards a brighter future with the right treatment in place. I'm not pretending there's a magic wand that can be waved. Your husband needs the opportunity to try and get himself put right and it seems to make sense for you to be there to support him.

By the way Pangolin posts a lot of sense I think.

I sincerely hope that things work out for you both. I've never met anyone yet in this life that hasn't had their trials and tribulations. Sometimes we come through on the other side stronger and better people.

Bye.