STBXH has finally admitted to gambling addiction

[Thingsarel00kingup]

Recently separated due to his controlling ways, abusive behaviour etc etc. Over the last few weeks since separating he's confessed to watching "too much" porn, being controlling etc and I still thought he was hiding something. TBH I thought it was another woman/other women and/or full on porn addicti
Anyway, long story short, he's a compulsive gambler and has lost A LOT of money over the years. It's gambling he's addicted to.

I'm really confused now and asking myself the following -
Did I enable him by suspecting SOMETHING but not digging enough?
Could the addiction have caused his increasingly unpleasant behaviour and therefore does this mean there is hope he will get better?
Am I cluthcing at straws to avoid acknowledging the he didn't ever actually love me?

He is now seeking treatment for this addiction and various other issues (including the "too much" porn, his behaviour, his need to be in control). I feel that if the addiction(s) caused the behaviour, or influenced it, there's maybe still a chance for us. I still love him (I know, I know).
If there isn't a chance for us I can accept that (and have already distanced myself because I think I could hinder his recovery) but am finding it hard to accept that I put up with all the shit, the debt, the lies, the nasty behaviour etc., and he's now going to be recovering, will meet someone else and she will have the person I thought he was, if that makes sense. Basically I'm fast forwarding to him being in recovery and am 'jealous' of the woman he's not yet even in a new relationship with!! He had times of absolute loveliness, and we have some amazing memories, and if he is in recovery I imagine he will be this lovely person all the time. Now that the secret is out, his life has immeasurably improved, he's had a weighty burden taken off his shoulders, and yet mine has just got even worse.

Sorry, long thread. Thanks for reading, I look forward to your advice. I know I've been foolish and am being selfish.

I don't think you're being selfish. I speak from experience when I say that you will be second to the addictions for some time yet. They have taken priority over you for months and now he is recovering they will continue to be more important until he judges himself clean. Addicts are unbelievably selfish as that's the nature of addiction.

You have to think about yourself. Put him to one side and think about what you want and what you want to do in the next 12 months. Your decisions are irrevocably caught up in what he's doing and you're putting him first. Stop doing that and reassess what you want. Think about what if the rehab/treatment doesn't work. Or if it does work and he decides you are part of the problem not part of the solution. You seem to be partly waiting for a point where he will realise what a fucker he's been, throw his arms around you and try to understand what you been through and to appreciate your hurt. That point may not come.

Ultimately the choice is yours but don't define your life by his adduction. Even if he does overcome them and never uses them again he will not be the same man he was, both the addiction and the recovery will have changed him so in a sense you will never get the man he was back. And you will spend the rest if your years together wondering if its started again and looking for symptoms.

Sorry to sound all doom and gloom but in my instance I left him eventually as I couldn't reconcile the shitty way he had treated me. Good luck to his present girlfriend and I hope it works out but I know what cruelty he's capable if so jealousy doesn't come into it.

Stop looking at the future as there are too many variables to guess . sort out what you want short term

The selfish person in the story sounds like your STBXH, not you. People like this don't 'love' because love involves a degree of selflessness and consideration. Instead they tend to treat life as one long opportunity to self-indulge on their own terms, feel entitled to special treatment, bully, manipulate and and screw the consequences for anyone who doesn't buy into this version of the universe. The gambling addiction won't be 'because' of anything you did or didn't do. It won't be the reason why his behaviour is appalling either.

Thanks Magrats and Cogito
These are the perfect replies, and you both sound like you can read my mind exactly. Your replies are the stern talking to I needed and I'm going to screen shot them to read whenever I'm having a wobble.
I do want him to tell me he's sorry and it'll be ok, but deep in my heart I know he's not sorry (actions speak far louder than words), and I know it won't ever be ok, because it never has been ok, it's all been a house of cards (no pun intended).
Onwards and upwards though!

I didn't think I was being stern :)

Remember the three C's, love:

You didn't cause it
You cannot control their behaviour
You can't cure it

Its not your fault & nothing you could have done would have prevented it. The choice was his.

You have been neither foolish nor selfish, addicts are fecking secretive & cunning. I look back too & think 'why didn't I see it' but even if I had have seen it I couldn't have influenced it.

Hope I wasn't stern either :) Of course you want him to tell you he's sorry because you're clearly an optimistic, hopeful sort of person and it's a kick in the guts to contemplate that you might have wasted a big chunk of your life on someone who ultimately couldn't be arsed to be a decent human being. But that's how all these types keep you on the hook.... Misplaced optimism about what love can achieve and the mistaken idea that they have the same kind of conscience & values as normal people. They don't.

He will meet someone else. Someone kind and gullible who will mop his tortured brow, thinking she can cure his imperfections and 'issues'. God help the poor cow, right?

I think you have misunderstood the nature of addictions, which is not surprising since you aren't an addict.

You didn't cause or enable his addiction, this is entirely on him.
His increasingly unpleasant behaviour may be as a result of being in an active phase of the addiction but he will never not be an addict. He might recover, he might not. But his behaviour happened and he can't change the past. You don't have to deny it even if he does change.
I would imagine he did love you, but he made bad choices.

You are fast-forwarding to a future that may never happen. He will certainly never be 'better'. He will have to live with resisting the addiction forever. The burden of secrecy may be off his shoulders but the burden of addiction is not. And has he really come clean about his addiction? Do his friends and family all know about it?

Maybe he will meet someone down the line who could be lucky enough never to see him give in to his compulsion. More likely he will struggle and likely he will fall off the wagon and whoever he's with needs to make her own decision about whether to stick around for it. And if you know he's not sorry, there's no chance that his recovery will be successful because he doesn't truly accept what he's done.

It sounds like he's using the addiction as a convenient scapegoat for his problems. Don't get dragged down that rabbit hole with him. He still did what he did. There's no magic wand to undo what's happened or to cure him of the addiction. His focus needs to be on the long, hard road of his recovery and yours needs to be on yourself and on what you need.

Thanks also Tripbot.
Great level-headed, sensible advice from you all, and advice I would do well to take, I know that. I will take it, but this particular phase is pretty grim. As per usual I am thinking of his future, and not my own and that needs to stop. I will grasp this opportunity with both hands, I really will (just not today).

Thanks again

Glad you're grasping the opportunity. Manipulative people are the devil to get shot of because they worm their way into your psyche like emotional parasites. They can make you feel responsible for them long after it's over. 'Guilt' is their speciality. Time and distance helps a lot. You'll get there

Compulsive behaviour does change people when it is uncontrolled. But in my experience not necessarily in the way you have described.
Behaviour changes brought on by compulsive gambling tend to be around secrecy (as CG have to lie in order to gamble) Withdrawal (as CG are obsessed with gambling and how to gamble) nervousness (financial pressure and risk of discovery). You get the picture. CG can also go hand in hand with other uncontrolled behaviour, drug use, risky sex, porn use etc. IME when recovery begins these negative behaviours drop away very quickly (and i mean almost literally disappear) if they were linked to CG. They do not reappear unless recovery fails.

If they have behaved like this because that is just their personality for example the controlling behaviour well that will not disappear.

Either way this is not the end of all his problems (or yours) The road to recovery is long, hard, littered with relapse and failure and has no end point. As others have mentioned its a lifelong journey. That doesn't mean that you have to go on it with him.

As a note of positivity, there are many compulsive gamblers with long successful recoveries who have returned to a normal way of thinking and living. No doubt you have gathered, i am one of them.