My husband hasn’t gambled recently, so that’s good, but I’m still uneasy. He seems to be feeling depressed, although that could just be loneliness since I’ve been travelling these past 2 weeks.
He took what he called a “calculated risk” by going into a bar that has VLT’s to have some beers with his friend. I don’t think there’s anything remotely “calculated” about that risk and I think it was just stupid. I should be relieved that he didn’t gamble, but I’m actually more afraid by it, because I know how he thinks. He’ll take this as a “victory” over gambling, and it will give him a false sense of security. It’s not any kind of victory, in fact if anything, I think it’s regression and him going back into that stage of his illness where he thinks he’s recovered.
Meanwhile, he’s still not confronting his feelings about his daughter. She just had her baby, but they’re still not talking. He stubbornly refuses to reach out to her, because she was the one who told him to **** off and not talk to her. She very well might still feel that way, but he’s obviously feeling some longing for a relationship for her. That might not be possible, since obviously she has just as much say in whether that happens, but unless he reaches out, he doesn’t know. If he reached out and was rejected, at least then he would *know* and he could then get the therapy he obviously needs to deal with the natural feelings that are going to come up when your own daughter rejects you. Instead he’s completely avoiding it all, and just getting more and more depressed.
That, in turn, also triggers feelings of resentment towards me. Right now, I’m learning how to make web pages and trying to start a business with that, but it’s slow-going and not currently profitable. He’s the only one working, and while that never bothered him before, his words and tone more recently indicate that he’s feeling resentful about it. I think he always just coped with this by going out and spending his hard-earned money on slot machines… his distorted thinking process was that then at least HE was the one spending the money he earned, even if it was just him flushing it down the toilet.
I’m getting back tonight. We probably won’t talk much about it tonight because I’d rather reconnect and just have some time together, but later this week I definitely want to talk to him about this whole daughter thing. He obviously needs to DO SOMETHING about that, because he’s going around in circles and getting more and more depressed about it, and that’s just pointless.