I haven't posted in a while. Mainly because I have been working 12
hours a day to make up for the fact that my CG pretty much got laid
off work for a while. He is still working a few days a week and
getting unemployment for the days he doesn't work.

I haven't had much time for anything. I'm doing my best to keep us
financially ok during this hard time. I have been disappointed in the
way my CG has chosen to spend his time off. I guess I figure if I am
working double and he is working half of what he normally works, he
could spend lots of time working on his recovery and helping out a lot
around the house. Instead, he was just hanging out with his friends
and started getting into online poker. He never played with our
money, but on his brother's account. Either way, I told him it is a
stupid thing to start doing being a gambler and being that we live 2
seconds from a casino with a poker room.

In Vegas, unemployment is put on a prepaid visa card and you can then
pay bills with it or take the money off the card at a bank. As soon
as we received the card in the mail, I took it away from him and hid
it. I guess I didn't hide it good enough because he found it and
gambled half of it away 2 days ago.

I was furious that #1-his gambling canceled out the money that I was
working over time to get for our family. I have been so tired and I
feel like I worked the extra hours for nothing because the casino has
the money now. #2-how could he gamble when he is barely working and we
are trying to conserve money.

He made a bunch of promises about getting help and fixing the problem.
Its the same thing he says every time. Things haven't been great
with us the past 2 days, but they were getting better. I decided to
leave the prepaid visa card with him because I wanted to see if he was
honestly going to stop gambling. When I checked the balance on the
card, I found that he took the rest of the money today while I was
working a shift in addition to the one I had to work tonight. I lost
my mind and told him to pack his stuff and get out by the time I get
home.

I called his brother and his parents and let them know every gambling
incident that has happened in the last few months. I figured that
keeping my husband's secret would only allow him to continue his
addiction. I also begged his parents to stop enabling him and come to
gamanon with me. They are really bad enablers....but this post is
long enough without me getting into that issue. My brother in law
apologized for stupidly letting him play poker with his money.

I came home to a note saying that he understands why I want a divorce
and that he is giving me everything, including our 2 cats because the
split is all his fault. It was so strange thinking that this could be
it for our marriage. My husband is my soul mate. I can't imagine not
being with him, but it angers me so much that he hasn't been making
recovery his #1 priority and I can't live like this anymore.

We finally talked tonight. I told him that he isn't to come home for
30 day. In that time, he will need to complete the outpatient rehab
we have here that requires many counseling sessions and attendance of
lots of GA meetings. I told him that he can have money for gas and
food, but all other money he makes goes to me for household expenses
and bills. He is allowed to stay at his brother's house for free as
long as he is working on recovery when he isn't working at his job. I
feel like I need to give our marriage this last chance before I walk
away knowing that I did everything I could to make it work. I am
powerless over his addiction and he will decide the fate of our
marriage. Until then, I'm working on my exit plan so that I will be
ok on my own.

Sorry this post is so long. I guess I needed to let it all out.