Should I give him another chance? H

Yes still going, quite strong at the moment. We did split up at one point, I completely understand where you are coming from, he went into recovery and we rebuilt form there.

Great piece of advice i have picked up a long the way is that you dont have to decide the rest of your life now, you can just decide what to do with today and deal with tomorrow when it comes.

What you're describing is a very understandable fear of the future, you're likely to be right about what it holds if you let a compulsive gambler run your life. Get selfish! Start organising life round you and the children, he will be childish and stupid about it, but maintining things the way he demands isnt making anyone happy, not even him, so start making yourself happy, create the circumstances for the kids to be happy, stop making a priority of his happiness, it cant work while the addiction is active. Concentrate on making now nice and let the future shape itself round that.

If he decides to commit to recovery, then you can let your nurturing side out again, in the meantime, tough love is on the menu.

Its working for me, its not meant to be a prescription for anyone else, but if you want to find ways of having a nice life despite his illness, theres lots of help to be had. Equally if you cant carry on theres no one understands quite as well as us who know and we're still here to help you piece yourself back together after whats been an exceptionally destructive realtionship.

Hows it going today?

Hi Pangolin , thank you so much for your replies it's good to talk to someone who understands. Today hasn't been too bad as I've been very busy. I wiuld love to reach a point where I don't think about him and all these problems every minute of the day. I like your advice about making myself abd my daughter happy and live for the now. That is what I will start doing. I need to stop thinking of the future and concentrate on right now and do what makes me happy. I'm deleted my Facebook account because I found it was making me worse as I was checking his movements all the time when I hadn't heard from him. I found myself wondering what he was doing and it was driving me mad. I think I've had a turning point this week and realised I need to leave him to his own devices and start concentrating on me and my daughter. At the end of the day a person won't change unless they really want to.

100% right.

Mollycoddling an addict is a slippery slope to losing your mind. And it wont help him either, even if he thinks or screams and shouts it will now. For us it was a phase we went through, I took the decsision to stop rescuing Mr Pangolin and let him go, for financial reasons he couldnt just up and leave, he got very depressed and difficult, stopped showering and brushing teeth, as i have described it before, he spent some time being a rather smelly piece of furniture from my point of view,gam anon just about kept me sane through that. His decision to go into recovery came out of the blue, i opened the front door one day to find him showered, clean clothes, smiling and doing the washing up. I rarely get all 4 of those things going at once myself so it was a shock, he went to a GA meeting that night and came home on the right track, an enormous weight lifted from his shoulders and a determination to make ammends for all the hurt he had caused.

For now its a sucess story, but I could never have coped with it alone, some special people shared their strengths with me and its set me up for life with or without a gambler in tow.

Hi pangolin/skippy blue

thank you for your responses and advice I really appreciate it. I've cried so much this week. On way to work, in work and on my way home from work. I stiffle my tears when with my daughter but the slightest thing can set me off. I am emotionally exhausted. I've taken the house keys off him (he still had a set) and I've told him I can no longer do this. It's not a relationship when only one person is working at it. I'm now only communicating with him if it's to do with our daughter. I've been miserable for 2 years which has got steadily worse. If he wanted me and to be a full time father to our daughter he wouldnt be treat me the way he does. I keep thinking I'm to blame and what could I have done differently and maybe if I changed who I was and what I wanted maybe things would have worked out. I'm devastated and giving myself a very hard time right now 🙁

First things first you have to stop giving yourself a hard time. You have been through a long, deeply upsetting period in your life, you have had to make some awful decisions and stand alone, Thats enough hardship for now, one day at atime for you, just get through tomorrow being as kind to yourself and your daughter as you can manage and then the next day try again with the kindness. There is obviously going to be a period of grief (and it is grief), so absolutely and totally let go of any guilt or blame, none of this situation was your fault and be gentle with yourself, of all people in this world, the people here understand.

Thank you.

i suppose I feel like a failure because I couldn't turn the relationship around even though I've tried so hard. I look at my daughter and I feel guilty. It's so sad two adults who love her so much can't work together to give her the family she so wants. She asked me yesterday if we could go to the cinema as a family, "daddy, mummy and me". It's just so sad. Yes I am definately grieving.

In the normal world it is about two adults working togther, but when one of the adults is a compulsive gambler, normal goes out the window, you didnt fail, you could never win.

When he commits to recovery you'll be dealing with a different person,

Thanks Pangoin you give great advice. We went to relate over a week ago and he said he hadn't bet since Boxing Day so the relate counsellor congratulated him. I have just found out he went to the races the week prior to that. I've also just joticed he's hidden posts on his Twitter page do I am unable to see them. What he did t realise was his friend hadbt blocked me so I can see everything on his friends pages. Some of these posts are arranging further race days out. I'm aftaid he's still in denial. I'm walking away from this trying to move forward so my daughter and I have a chance of happiness.

It feels like the lies will never end doesnt it? I can remember saying to mr P, probably a hundred times, "just because people are too tired, or polite to confront you about your relentless lies, doesnt mean they believe you", but a t the time he wasn't listening to anything, it was all a waste of breath. One of the themes we keep coming back to at gam anon is the emotional immaturity of the gambler. They are like children and seem think that if the grown ups havent told them off then the grown ups dont know they told a fib, but then if you do confront them, theyre angry that you havent treated them like an adult. It's an impossible situation for a partner and you spend all your time accused of being the horrible moody naggy one and you can end up believing it.

You've summed that up well!. I totally agree with you and it's good to hear it come from someone else because it is driving me insane. He also told me today he can't see our daughter the weekend of 13th March because he's away but won't say where and I've just realised 13th march is cheltenham races! Apparently he's not betting!. He really thinks I was born yesterday ha!

Hi Oasis 146

I have only read bits and pieces of Pangolin's advice to you, and as an ex CG of 3 years I can truthfully say that the advice appears to be spot on!

At some point, you, not him, will have to make a decision on your relationship!

You have to be selfish, (I mean this in a good way), and look after number one. Your priorities are yourself and your child.

Judging from your posts, your partner is obviously still gambling. Lying goes hand in hand with that. I attend regular meetings of Gamblers Anonymous here in Australia, and I firmly believe that honesty is the most important ingredient in reforming ourselves.

He has choices, like all of us. Today he chooses to lie, to gamble. Nobody forces him to do this. It is his choice. Addiction or not, he decides to gamble. He loves gambling more than he loves family, that is the reality of an addicted gambler.

Today, I choose not to gamble, that is my choice. Nobody forces me to do this.

Best wishes

Hi Wal1957

Pangolins advice has really helped me. I made a decision last week to end the relationship so I am now trying to cut communication as much as possible. He's living with his mum now and my daughter and I live in the house I own. Financially it's going to be a real struggle and it's going to be very tiring being a single parent of a 2 year old but my life needs to more on from this mess of self destruction he's creating. The future we had discussed such as buying a home together, marriage and having another child together started to look impossible ( due to huge debt he had accrued) and my future was starting to be defined but this selfish childish person I no longer trusted and or liked.

Its hard but I have to keep believing life will be happier in the long run.

Thank you for your responses.