Disgusted's story

Too complicated to go into 45 years worth of the horror of living with someone you love but who, as a gambler, is incapable of loving anyone but himself.

I have been lied to and lost most everything I own, including friends, family and my dignity. He can charm the birds out of the trees but is incapable of telling the truth and cannot be trusted to do anything but deceive.

For legal reasons a lot of the story cannot be told but believe me when I say, if your partner is a gambler, leave now while you can still think straight. I have had all sorts of counselling and they have all told me he will never change, I thought love and kindness would do the trick as his childhood was horrible.

I was the fool, he manipulated me, lied constantly to me and in past years has also become extremely nasty to me and deliberately isolated me from people by making friends unwelcome or being downright rude to them.

I dare not even count the losses, it makes me want to pass out with disgust. There is nothing sacred to him and his latest effort has come up right on Christmas with more legal action. I simply cannot be dragged into him using me as a crutch again. I am old and sick and desperately worried about how I can manage but he never even gave me or the family a thought. He is upset now as things look very bad for him and there is absolutely not a thought about the damage to any one person in the family who will be shamed terribly by this latest legality.

He has always played the nice guy and for many years I believed him and thought that he didn't get paid well, I was supporting a criminal without even knowing it. He loves to drink when he is in this crazy gambling mindset and acts almost as if he has won the lottery with unexplainable behaviour one would normally see at a party.

When I have cottoned on to his gambling he denies it, tells me what an evil person I am and argues black is white. I end up apologising for being suspicious. The arguments have worsened terribly over the last six or so years and although he is always popping out and returning many hours later with outlandish tales, I dare not question him as he screams the place down and calls me everything under the sun making sure the neighbours all hear and trying to make me the villain.

I want him to go but he tells me to leave. I hope now he gets what he deserves and that I can spend my last years with a touch of normalcy but how I will manage is the worry of my life. I only ever wanted a nice normal life with a home and security for all of us, he has never been who I thought he was and would take the Academy Award for fooling people.

I don't care what happens to him anymore, he can cry his lying eyes out but I do care about the damage he has done to the children who although grown will now suffer more again because they love their father but he uses them too, although that is for them to work out. 

I am mostly saddened that I was stupid and didn't leave when I was young and employed, I could have had a good life and a happy old age but now none of that is possible.

I have nothing but hatred for this gambler, and if there is any justice at all he will taste a smidgen of the grief he has caused me and mine.