Hi Val.

i think the feelings of being unworthy of you and the children come from the guilt of gambling. The downs these gambelers get on afer loosing are terrible. Why don't they learn? I just don't get it.

As I havementioned before my H gambles from time to time. I generally find that he does it when he is stressed; kind of like a release for tension or an escape. The problem is it goes in a cycle. He is stressed so he gambles; he then feels unhappy because he lost and gambles again. It doesn't stop till he has no money left, and then he'll try to borrow it LOL. I NEVER lend him money, (have done in the past but found this to be a big mistake..) he may need to hit rock bottom before he realises how bad things are.

My thoughts are that you are expecting too much from H at the moment. You want intimacy,friendship,for him to cut down on something that gives him pleasure etc and I think this is only adding to his stress. I say this as I have been there with my H. You sound like me a year agao. What I did was completely let go. Didn't phone him, left the phonecalls to him, Didn't make conversation with him, let him take the lead, Didn't invite him anywhere, just totally detached.

It wasn't untill I had finally let go in my heart as well as my mind...and I knew he had too that I was able to look at him with new eyes. We don't have our old relationship back. What we do have is a new relationship where both of us are able to put in as much or as little as we feel comfortable with. We need to work on communication big time but it's early days yet.

What I am saying is that you may need to let go before you can get any further with this.

My H worked 200 miles away from home and would be gone all week. Sometimes he had weekend work (exams) and we would not see hi for 3 weeks. I wanted him to give up that job badly; he knew tha but wouldn't. When I dropped the rope and stopped stressing and dropping snide remarks he started to hint he was fed up wit the job. He has now given up the bob and is working just up the road.

Weird!!


Do you think your H could be depressed?