[LostandDespair]

Hi, just wanted to update and let everyone who provided me with their insight know that I am grateful for this site and the people on it . Many of us walk alone in having to deal with a cg, due to shame and no one undrerstanding the terrible impact that gambling truly has on family – not only for the person who can’t beat this but for those who are the collatoral damage to the compulsive gamblers habits.

Maybe because I have been out for a few years I can provide some insight. I had to sue my ex for child support and never in my life did I beleive that it would have to come to this. I am no longer broken and am certainly not drinking the kool-aid that he wants me to drink.

I sued him and begged him to get a lawyer – I wanted him to enter into the issues with respect to child custody and child support with eyes wide open. He did . . . First on the agenda is his lawyer telling my lawery that the gambling clause to our proposed agreement is “too restrictive” because he takes cruises with our child that have casino’s on board. Soooo . . . Needless to say, I know full well where his priortities are.

I received my court order and the child support amount that he should have been paying for our son (the one person he claims matters the most to him) and have chosen the high road because in the bottom of my heart I know that he will never change and that although he has not hit rock bottom, I have though with respect to having anything to do with him. He is angry and upset with me and I am okay with that. Hopefully he can recover from the betrayal (because I am sure that is how he sees it) – I did, I never thought the man I loved and who I spent half my life would ever do this to me or our child.

It makes me sad for our son, bitter sweet so to speak. I am good and it will only get better. I have not spoken to him in over four months and that was my healing period that I needed to say “No more – this is not acceptable and I will not tolerate it in my life anymore.”

It was fantastic that he decided that it was in our son’s best interest to have his enabling mother text me and run interference for him. Needless to say I can hardly handle my ex and his gambling – insert enabling mom here. I have no interest in having anything to do with ex cg and his family who continues to enable him.

I will burn the bridges and not look back because I am not going that way.

I have decided that all that matters is me and my son and i will not back down to the manipulation or the enablers that feed his addiction anymore.

I am no longer lost and in despair and no longer hope he can beat this for his child, I am a mother to a beautiful child – hear me roar. I am not that person who he told me I was and I will never back down when it comes to our child.,

“Sometimes you must hurt in order to know, fall in order to grow, lose in order to gain, because most of life’s greatest lessons are learned through pain>”

Thank yout to all on this site who heard my desparate cries to be heard and understood, I am forever gratefule.

[LostandDespair]

What is it with this addiction and manipulation? I know I have made the right decision and yet I still ALWAYS feel bad for him, after all that he has done to my son and I, how is it that I fell bad? I continue to refuse any phone contact with him, or see him in person, these are the boundaries I have had to put in place and still he tries to manipulate me through email. I have never cut contact with him since our separation of over 2 and a half years ago but I am finding that with me not having to speak to him, it has done wonders for me and over the past month the only thing I dread is the ding of my email going off on my phone which has tapered considerably. I am hoping that he is having the realization that I will no longer tolerate his actions or him disrupting our lives, but in all honesty I doubt it. It is terrible and I never thought it would come to this but in the same breath, I wish I had taken these steps sooner. He is not a bad father – he was however a bad partner who was selfish and continues to be.

He has our son every other weekend and when he does have our son he schedules poker nights with his friends and thinks that if one of his friends brings his child over to entertain our son, he is fullfilling his fatherly duty. No idea why he couldn’t book his poker nights on the weekends that he doesn’t have our son and then turns around and texts me that he misses his son and would love to spend more time with him. Really??? He also consistently drops our son off at his parents house when he has time with our son and I am pretty sure I could count on both my hands how many times in the past 2 and a half years he has actually spent one on one time with our son.

I am obviously the bad person though who wakes up every morning at 6 to get our child ready for school, fed and then dropped off to school to go to my fulltime job, to leave work, pick our child up and take him to his activities after school, homework, bathtime, bedtime (repeat) and I wouldn’t change a thing.

I have to have some contact with him due to our child but I find myself in a place where I can’t even look at him, little alone speak to him. How does someone do this? How do they not realize what they have done and what they continue to do (and feel justified in doing it).

It amazes me that you can spend half your life with someone and not really know them at all. We are complete strangers now and I am a lot different then I was even 2 years ago. I am no longer as scared of the future holds because I now know that no matter what happens I can and I will be ok (and so will my son).

[LostandDespair]

I only have a few short minutes and just wanted to let you know Dadda that I read your heartbreaking story, hugs to you. It is astounding what destruction the CG can cause and just by reading your story I can tell what a strong person you are even if you don’t always feel like you are.

[LostandDespair]

Thank you Velvet, Monique and Dadda for your kind replies you have no idea how much it helps to know that I am not alone in this maddness.

Shortly after my last post, I am at my son’s sporting event with my mother and my ex cg approaches me (which is not uncommon) with his family watching on and the conversation ends with me telling him to walk away. Next morning I get a text from him and he said well since you mentioned split custody yesterday I would like to sit down and talk about this (Me: ummmm what????). My anger simmers and about 6 hours later reaches that calm boiling point. I respond to his text unleashing everything that I think of him and how I cannot believe that he wants to bring more conflict to my and my son’s life and upset everything that I have built for the past two years. He responds the next day “I will never forgive you for the things you said to me” (always the victim – everything I said was on point and although I was angry don’t regret a thing I said) and I think we need to talk about our child support agreement” I am stunned yet again (you would think I would get used to it by now) and spend two days writing a boundary email to him and have a coworker read it before I send it to him and tell him that we should revisit child support that HE set because I was so traumatized by my son and my life exploding and I agreed because I was scared about what the future held for us. I told him that I could not respond to him by text and I would not take any phone calls from him and that he needed to respond to me by email so that there were no further misundertsandings. My phone rang which I sent to voice mail and then the rapid texts start coming. I respond to him telling him I will need his income disclosed to me and he is back in threatening mode and trying to break me down again except this time I am not having it and I keep telling him he needs to respond to my email (and that he can still maintain his regular schedule with our son but I will no longer talk to him and that his access to me is denied) A week of back and forth and he relents and sends me his income amounts for the past two years (which for the most part are blacked out) and I send him a text stating you raised the issue and can’t even do this without conflict and upset (after he told me he would). He is back to his usual tactics of threats and abuse and then I look at everything and he has been paying me child support based off half his income but has always refused to disclose his income and I am beyond devastated yet again. How nice of him to buy our son boots and snowpants (out of the bottom of his heart) and apparently I am the one with the problem and don’t appreciate anything and should be grateful for his charity while he is gambling away all six figures of his income and doing everything that he pleases while not paying a mortgage and living off his family. Clearly, I am the one with the problem.

I respond by email and block him on my phone because he won’t stop tormenting me while I am at work and then I print off and pour through text messages and everything else that has occurred over the past two years and relive it all over again. I can’t even talk to him, I am scared and cannot believe the position he has put me and his son in. I agree to meet with him in a public place to discuss these issues (and know I am setting myself up for further verbal assault and abuse and threats) but make an appointment with a lawyer for the day before the meeting at a rate of $350 per hour and can’t believe this is happening but feel that I have no choice but to cut my contact and hand it off to a third party because not only am I emotionally bankrupt but I am bracing for what is coming. Figure out that he owes me close to $10,000 in back child support and am now facing substantial legal costs and am filing for custody and the proper amount of child support and know that he will not go quietly into the night but I can’t even bring myself to look at him litlle alone speak to him. I cancel my meeting with him and have instructed the lawyer to proceed – so tired and haven’t slept properly in weeks and am now looking at counselling at a further substanial costs in therapy because I can’t take it, wrap my mind around it and don’t have the emotional capacity to keep dealing with him all while trying to keep my son’s life as normal as possible. My lawyer told me it was time to have a talk with my son and that although I have been hiding the issues from him I need to discuss these things with my son and yet I can’t bring myself to do this although he sees me crying night after night, I just keep telling him mom is sad and now I have to wait for the courts to decide because I see no other way to bring it to an end and have him be accountable to someone or something and feel so beat up all while trying to keep it together. I know he loves our son but at the same time I feel like I have to fight because if I don’t he wins yet again further feeding his sickness and there is no end to this other then calling his bluff and rolling the dice and gambling my son’s future and upbringing in the process but know that he will never stop as it is all about control which he lost a long time ago and will never stop even at the expense of our son all while blaming me for this.

[LostandDespair]

Thank you for your kind words and understanding, I know I am one of many and have spent hours pouring over this site that to be honest I accidently stumbled upon in my search for answers and understanding.

I know I will never have the answers or fully understand and in reality I am ok with that because I am healing although it seems to be a forever process and I can’t help wondering if I will get over it – and deep down I know I will but it has certainly changed me. Time does heal. Do we forgive (yes slowly because that is how we recover and how I see it heal). However, as previously mentioned I am haunted and struggle with forgiveness and can honestly say I will never forget.

My son and I are in a pretty good place considering. Our life is what I make it and I am fully aware of that. I broke the cycle by walking away as hard as it was to do (I spent half my life with this man, it was all i knew and I never wanted my son to be from a broken home but believe with every grain of my being that I did the right thing for me and my son as hard as it was).

it is up and down, I am better today, the other day no so much. My mother is terminally ill, I lost my grandfather the weekend before and my ex cg told me that he is not able to do our son’s birthday as promised (Just one more thing – I’m starting to think that I don’t have a breaking point) . He got my son soooo excited and a plan was in place only for the ex to turn around and say “sorry buddy we can’t this year” (and I can only assume it is mostly for financial reasons and because of his inability to not be able to stop dumping his paychecks into slot machines) I take issue with the broken promise and the hurt it inflicts on our son – this is when I struggle the most not to completely go off the rails because then I am put in the position of yet again making things better and picking up the pieces of the disappointment and saddness that our son feels. It is truly a hidden addiction and as previously mentioned my son knows very little of the monster that his father carries around and has to feed all at the expense of him. I have never discussed my ex’s gambling problem with our son. I am amazed how strong I am on the outside when I am falling to pieces on the inside. I am so grateful for my son – he is a big part of my healing and the reason I get up in the morning. I gave him his birthday party last night and it was a success and that is all that matters.

With respect to his family. His mother is a cg, his father is estranged and also a cg. His brother died about 4 years ago and they were close which was the ultimate trigger and undoing of my ex. He finally spiralled and lost everything – his home and us. The enabling family member is the deceased brothers widow and that is a whole other story that I will post at a later date. I can say this – the inheritance that was left for the ex cg’s brothers children is gone,the life insurance money that was meant to help the children go to school and buy houses and make their lives a litlle easier (because their father wanted them to be ok and not struggle like he had as a young adult) is gone – it fed the addiction and sucked more victims in along the way. This addiction has far reaching consequences and will be fed one way or another until there is nothing left. It will be just another matter or time before that situation explodes and he either hits his rock bottom or moves on to find another enabler – Not really my concern but sad all the same.

Thank you again Monique and Velvet it is nice to be able to be heard by people who understand. Dumping these toxic feelings is providing me with an outlet and the more I type the calmer I feel – like a release that I am grateful for.

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