Beyond heartbroken

[lurker1000]

I've posted before - summary - husband is moving out (angry that I didn't share my inheritance with him and stepson as I chose to put away for our DCs as he is a gambling addict - one year off bets).

I'm just in a mess - I'm stumbling day to day - he said that he is moving out, but won't give me date (although apparently the Sky will be turned off next week so that may be when). But it's the complete and utter callousness that's involved - he won't speak at all, he's thrown me under the bus regarding all household bills (says he needs his money for new home), he won't watch the children at all or do any of the runs (says he is having to 'self-preserve' and will make it up to them when he is in their new home).

I'm going actually crazy - I can barely function with the kids, with my job, with keeping it together. He said he thought I would have fought for the relationship more - but I don't know what he wants me to do?

I genuinely don't know if he is gambling, or if there is someone else, or if he just hates me - for once, I didn't back down (over my parents estate) and he is walking away. I feel like the relationship was never what I thought it was (15 years - two kids - married for 5). I've buried my head in the sand and I know that reaching out to my friends and family will help but I feel that will just make everything more real...How can someone that you thought you knew, be so cruel?

You need to practice caring less! Every time a sentimental thought about him and his needs crosses your mind whip out a piece of paper and write down how much his behavior has cost you. Pounds, pennies, time, opportunity.

First you should block his texts and tell him you will only accept email about the kids.

Or if you can’t block him trsin yourself to respind with a 👍and thats it.

”I loved you so much!” 👍
”You bitch!” 👍
the inly variatiin is if he asks or demands money. Then just say “No”

@lurker1000 hes playing games with you to try and lure you back, don’t fall for it op
stay strong

Fir Gods sake see this as the lucky escape it is. He's a gambler, doesnt respect you, and is punishing you for not giving him money that isnt even his. & you're letting him. Greedy, grasping and callous. He's a man not a God - no man is worth this drama. We dont die for lack of a man. Instead of helping him move out you're showing him you're weak at the idea of being without him. Such a wrong move. He must've killed your self-esteem.

He's not left yet as (a) he doesnt really want to as its him that cant do without you & (b) he wants you to give in, and give him money. Up to you if you want to 'win' him that much.

Honestly, you are a Mother - catch a hold of yourself and function responsibly. You must love this man more than you love yourself. Practice self-care. Do yourself a favour and free yourself from this man who is definitely no prize.

It isn’t just hitting him, stop telling yourself that. He’s trying to draw you back in. Master manipulator right there. Stay strong and stop being sucked in with his bullshit. You’ve done the hardest bit and will massively regret it if you let him back into your home.

He has gambled everything on this in the hope that you’ll give in and share your inheritance. This is a man who is prepared to hurt you and your children for money. He has zero respect for you or your family.
Things will get better OP, but you have to be strong.
I used to work with a woman who was married to a gambling addict. She had been a single mum when she meet him. She’d moved to where I live from a different part of the UK and put every penny she had into a home. She met this man, got married, had children, then discovered he had gambled away everything including the home she’d bought. He had contributed nothing at all financially during their marriage. She and her three kids ended up homeless. He seemed a lovely guy in every other way, but so deceitful and manipulative over money.

@lurker1000 has he said anything more to you? Or have you ignored him?

@209448spp he was texting this morning - the same things, he knows that may regret this, he will always love me but he doesn’t like who I am and what I stand for.

my only response has been to remind him that he chose this.

he then text to ask if I wanted to take our kids to see my stepson play football today (he will be staying at his dads flat tonight for first time)

thia weekend has been brutal - but I know that it can’t always feel this bad. I’ve got good friends and family who remind me all the time that despite what he is saying that I’m not in the wrong and I’m trying to keep busy.

Maybe it’s ti e fir you to reduce contact with him to a minimum- talking about the dcs and nothing else.

He certainly can’t use you as a shoulder to cry on because he is finding too hard!!
And he will have to start playing his role aka if someone takes the dcs to see his ds play football, then it should be him surely?

As things will get more settled, with some contact agreed (when, how much etc…), it will get easier.

The guy will keep throwing grappling hooks over the side of your listing ship until you hack them off. Just say No to every text. He will keep this up if you give him intermittent reinforcement. He is just seeing what catches your attention. Don’t let him know. Not love, promises, money, negging, insults, jokes, sadness, memories, the kids, the step son, the weather—ignore all of it.

@lurker1000 im so glad your staying strong and rebuffing his conversations.
Are you going to watch your step son play football? I bet that would be really hard, maybe suggest that he takes the children by himself.
Hope your ok and hopefully after this weekend you have many more that get easier over time

Sounds as though he's made his point - which is to inflict maximum suffering on you in an attempt to make you capitulate - and now that objective's been achieved (and he still hasn't got his hands on the money) he's wanting to backtrack. He's made you suffer, but in doing so has made his own life more difficult for himself. He is going to want to remedy that situation at the first opportunity. Yet still, it's 'I don't like what you've become'. The cheek of this man defies belief. Because not one tiny modicum of this situation is of your making. This is his problem. It's not you. You haven't 'become' anything, other than sick and tired of his addiction ruining your life.

He is an addict. Addiction is a horribly destructive, corrosive disease. It erodes everything around it, or will, if we let it. Don't let this man manipulate you: his problems are out of control and only you can decide not to allow him to inflict his chaotic lifestyle on you. His departure is a wonderful gift in the circumstances. I'd stop replying to his texts and giving him the 'narc supply', as it's sometimes referred to, he craves.

Any family support group - the Forward Trust, the various 12-step programmes, Adult Children of Alcoholics, etc, will tell you the same thing. No one 'makes' another person become an addict. Spouses - whether horrible or the most benign human being in existence - don't 'drive me to drink'. That's a copout. It's a failure; an abdication of personal responsibilty for their own behaviour.

The fact that addition is a disease doesn't absolve the addict of that responsibility. The whole onus of that rests entirely with them. Step 1 of the 12 Steps- and by far the most difficult - is the admission that they are powerless over whatever substance/destructive behaviour pattern is at the root of their addiction.

Remember the three Cs.

You didn't cause it.
You can't control it.
You can't cure it.

I'm the daughter and sister of two hopeless alcoholics. Alcohol indirectly killed my father, and it's now in the process of killing my beloved brother, who I've just nearly lost to liver failure. He will die, unless he has the strength to stay in recovery for the rest of his life. He knows that I'm there for him as a sister: but I'm not his mother, not a carer and not an enabler. If I enable him, I'm killing him. This isn't an option.

Gambling might not be such a threat to someone's imminent physical health, but it's a threat to practically everything else.

Listen to @SerafinasGoose . I have nothing to add except 'me too' - I lost my husband and my mother to alcohol addiction and they became people I barely knew. I fully accept the disease model of addiction, but it does not absolve the addict from personal responsibility.

OP why are you responding to his texts and being sucked back in to conversations with this man ?

Oh wow. I'm so sorry you're going through this, if you want to PM me please do and I will respond to you. You have support please don't forget that.

Frankly 100% this is all a game. You probably won't believe it to be honest but it is exactly that, the moving out slowly is a "look i'm leaving... are you going to stop me?" and it's all a ploy for attention.
The best option for you is to stop responding to him and shut the door on his way out. Lawyer up and write to him regarding what's next, ie: Buy him out or house sale. Make sure he's aware that you've accepted this and that it's irreversible because trust me, you will not hear the end of him just because he's moved out. He's already showing you that from the text messages he's sending you saying all this bs.

You need to understand that these games are ways of tugging on your heart strings to make you comply/change/do what he wants or give him validation and so he gets his own way. That might look like you begging and pleading for him to come back. Don't give in, don't let him see any emotion even if you're cracking at the seams and don't give in and try to explain it all like I did when I went through something similar. I spent hours writing letters only for him to dismiss everything with one sentence in response.

This kind of situation changes you forever in my opinion, because whilst right now you are absolutely full of pain and grief, when you have started to adjust to him not being there anymore and you have started to gain some strength back (which will happen, even though you feel like it never will) you will never ever accept this shit again from anyone. As soon as someone starts playing this shit with you you'll slam the door on them - that's certainly been my experience.

Right now you will not see this as the blessing it is, I thought people were talking such utter BS when they told me that this will make my life better, but they were right because I've done more in 6 months without my ex than I did in 5 years with him. He was the equivalent of one of those dementor things from Harry Potter being attached to me sucking the life out of me.

It's going to take you time to realise that you can have yourself back now, you'll take a lot of time feeling shit I won't lie, you'll be confused, ruminate and feel like it's your fault but if you can get counselling and watch people on youtube like Dr Ramani and Stephanie Lynn Coaching then this will help you so much. It has done wonders for me.

I promise you that you are going to be ok and that he's just done you a favour, and when people said this to me I wouldn't hear it, I just wasn't interested. 6 months later though I am so much happier, it takes longer for some and less time for others. I am still sad he's not in my life sometimes but you can love someone and still be happy they are not in your life anymore.

How are you getting on OP? I hope him being gone has given you sone much needed space to see things a bit more clearly.

He has no reason now to message you apart from anything to do with the kids.

There are even apps you can use specifically for that. Or block him on what's app so he can only text and not see when you're online / read messages etc.

Thanks both - these messages - in fact all the messages really help and I have re-read so many times. I'm still in bits - he is making lots of effort to stay in touch, to see the kids, to do 'family' things.

I really struggle with this though - it feels like false hope in some way. So he wants to do all the nice things and then he goes back to his flat (he asked me if I wanted to go to his flat to see it, I said no). He says he wants to work it out, to go to counselling etc, but right now I don't know where my head or heart is at. Every part of me wants him back but there is a voice in my head that is telling me to stay strong. He says that he wants peace in his life (lots of GA speak) and when I am ready to move forward and stop living in the past then he is there. My head is all over the place. I stop work next week for 8 weeks (I am a freelancer) and whilst I am dreading time alone, I think I also need some head space! I hate the house without him here, the kids really miss him (they have been to stay at his at the weekend). And when I see him, it is normal. If anything, we have been able to have a normal conversation for the first time in ages. Who knows if I am just kidding myself though.....xxx

Don’t fall for it OP, I feel he’s playing the long game.
Stay strong, you and your children can have a lovely future ahead of yourselves.
He made his choice so much so he’s moved out.

That's what I keep telling myself - and him - 'you left'

The tiniest part of me (the delusional part, I know) thinks maybe he made a mistake, maybe he didn't mean for it to go that far, but the far bigger part, thinks 'he knew what he was doing and he done it'. Why is it so hard???

@lurker1000 it is so so difficult I’m with you there however he probably didn’t think he would go as you would have caved in and given the inheritance. Now he’s trying to back track and play mind games to get his end goal.
Hes better off where he is and you will be much better off in the long run.
Money can change people and make them incredibly spiteful, this is what all this has been about money and him being spiteful over it.
Even now in your post he says ‘ He says that he wants peace in his life (lots of GA speak) and when I am ready to move forward and stop living in the past then he is there.’ That’s him putting conditions on things so he can be in control of the situation. I really don’t think he’s being as nice as you think. Please don’t go back OP your worth a million times more.

I think you are right and that is why I am 'trying' to stay strong - I know I'm being delusional, but there is a part of me that will hope he will come to his senses (I recognise this is madness!)

And yes - the control thing is strong - everything is my fault, he has been on a journey of recovery (that I didn't join him on)and he is in such a good, calm place now, that I should be the one to sort myself out apparently. When you love someone for a long time and this is a different side to them, that you have never seen before, you find yourself going out of your mind.....!!

OP stay strong. Whatever he says - he doesn't like what you've become, you should stop living in the past - it all translates to the same thing. Give me the money and everything will be fine.

The sudden family man? To try to make you give him the money by showing you what you're missing and take him back.

It's all manipulation. I wouldn't trust a word he says or one iota of his behaviour. Having your head in a mess is exactly where he wants you because he wants you to cave in and give him the money just to make the headfuck go away.

Any and every angle he can think of with one aim in mind. Every time you get a message from him, every time you see him, train yourself to think 'you only want my money'. It will get easier.

He’s trying to break down your resolve to get hold of the money. Sending you strength

What he's saying isn't coming from GA, it's coming from selfishness. Twelve step organisations do not recommend that the people attending 'move on' or make their loved ones do so. They recommend focusing on recovery, not relationships, because without the first, the second cannot function. Your husband is using what he's learning in a way that is highly selective and manipulative, suggesting that he is not serious about pursuing recovery.

You need to find your anger op.

He only wants your money. He doesn't care about you.

Grey rock. Stop texting him.

He's made his point. And his point was to exert maximum pressure on you by showing he was prepared to leave and following it through, to 'make you regret it'.

All is not so rosy now you've taken him at his word, and he's blowing hot and cold, first telling you he 'doesn't like what you've become' (scoff), the next minute playing the devoted family man (funny way of showing it). And, as leaving your address hasn't compelled you to part with the money, (bet that surprised him) he's now trying to wheedle his way back in.

Don't think for one moment that this is in any way to do with anything you are or have been. It's about him. These are his issues. And he's trying to foist the responsibility for them onto you.

Please don't let him do that.

To quote your post:

everything is my fault, he has been on a journey of recovery (that I didn't join him on)and he is in such a good, calm place now, that I should be the one to sort myself out apparently. When you love someone for a long time and this is a different side to them, that you have never seen before, you find yourself going out of your mind.....!!

I'd go so far as to call this mental cruelty. Just re-read this and see what he's doing to you. You have nothing about yourself to fix. The onus for that is on him, and you're not under any obligation to humour him whilst he does so.

Grey rock and keep communication to an absolute minimum. As for coming to his senses, he'd have had to have some sense to start with and his actions as described in your posts belie this. Addiction gets a very strong hold and recovery is the responsibility of the addict. And this is responsibility - the first and most difficult of the 12 steps - he is still not accepting, given he's still making a concerted attempt to blame you.

Don't fall for it.