Perceived untruths

Every once in a while, I'll think you've lied to me.

Nothing major, just small perceived untruths that I may have originally misheard or misunderstood.

And that's what I tell myself.

Most of the time, when I recall the situation, that explanation seems plausible, even likely. But sometimes, my imagination will get the best of me and I'll wonder if you haven't been completely honest with me and I'll worry that this is an indication that bigger misdeeds are being covered up.

I don't mean to doubt your integrity, but, occasionally, Miss Worst Case Scenario takes over and looks for reasons why this relationship is destined for failure, all in an effort to prepare my heart for the day when everything comes crashing down around me.

Eventually, I come to my senses and remember that lying has been inconsistent with your behaviour and your stated philosophy for our relationship. Ultimately though, I have no guarantees that you will never lie to me, but, until evidence strongly suggests otherwise, I will continue to make a conscious decision to trust you and I will tell myself that those perceived untruths are indeed misperceptions.

More mental stimulation

Me: I just had an awesome orgasm. I would have cum within the first 60 seconds of playing with myself but I made myself wait. It was good.

D: I had one myself about the same time. You gotta give me the secret as to what the hell makes you cum in 60 seconds.

Me: Blowjob videos on The Fellatrix. And thinking about sucking your dick.

D: We'll have to watch porn together when you visit.

Me: I'd rather have mental stimulation that came from you. I didn't watch the videos to get off. I watched them to get some pointers. But then I started thinking about blowing you and the next thing I know, I'm cumming all over my vibrator.

D: Mmm, lovely visual.

Mental Stimulation

Me: That's it! I need mental stimulation.

D: Well, we can certainly work on that. I feel like we're still somewhat strangers in the bedroom, and as a result, I'm not sure what to say when we're in the moment. I know there's certain things that are kinda vulgar that you don't want to hear, and I also know how you hate cheesy porn-type conversation, so I wind up not saying anything. But I'm definitely willing to work at figuring out what I can say and do to make you feel more wanted. Do you not feel like I want you when we're in bed?

Me: No, I know that you want me. I was just saying that in order to reach climax, I need a little mental stimulation. Like when I was pleasuring myself on the last day of your visit, I was fantasizing about giving you head and being your little oral love slave.

And where do you get the idea that I don't like porn-type conversation? I like what is an honest reflection of what you are feeling at the moment. Genuineness is what takes the cheesiness out of the dialogue and makes it hot!

Trouble in paradise, part 4: advice from Dr. W

I feel a lot of compassion for your situation, Angel, and I really appreciate that you've asked my advice.

I also feel a lot of clarity on this, precisely because I am that third party person, so I hope what I have to say is what you need.

D. is showing a lack of insight about gambling, so I agree with you that there is an addiction here. He says that he only has a problem when he loses, but he doesn't recognize that it isn't "gambling" unless you lose. If there were no losing, it would be called something different. He also says that he has to recognize that there's a problem before he gains benefit from treatment, and then admits that he sees no problem, so treatment wouldn't work. In that he is correct.

From your part of the conversation, I see how unsettling it is for you to be in a relationship where this dynamic is taking place. So let me urge you to take a deep breath and try to clear your mind for a few minutes.Now, here's something to consider.

You aren't married to him, or even engaged (as far as I understand it). This means you have enough distance to work it out with him and wait it out. You can afford to explain the nature of gambling (which is; No one wins all the time when they gamble. And seeing that this is a fact, D. will not do well as a gambler--because by definition, he must endure Losses as well as Wins in order to be a "successful" gambler.) You can also afford to let him suffer some more of the losses which will inevitably come, so he can see for himself that it is a sport that he cannot control. Any assets he loses are still his own, and not yours.

Again, you can afford to let D. journey through this because you two are not married. The consequences he faces in order to learn that gambling is a problem for him will not come from any joint assets the two of you share.

I see how his struggle affects your emotions. You identified it correctly when you said that you draw up into a self-protective ball. What I urge you to do is come out of that ball for love's sake. Actively and consciously fight your self-defense mechanisms because of love. And when I use the word "love", I mean it as a verb. Make a commitment to him. Say it out loud if you have to. You will love him because you want this to work, and so you will help him through to seeing the addiction for what it is. That means you will stay ahead of your fear & self-protection and keep giving him the attention, the support, and the information he needs to go where he needs to go, which is either to stop gambling or into recovery.

Again, you can remember that you have a safe distance to let him struggle with this. His failures will not take food off your table. And during this time, you can see for yourself if he comes to a very real understanding of his situation. You can judge the words he uses to describe his opinions of gambling (as he already has done) and see if they begin to represent insight for himself, and hope for you. You can take inventory of your own emotions to see how much you can bear along with him. What's really good about this is that he's being honest with you. It gives you an excellent opportunity to make the best choices for the both of you.

So out of love for the guy and your desire to make it work, my suggestion is to trade your fear for love and support. We both know that as long as you want a relationship with another human being, your heart is not guaranteed safety--but at least your finances still are.

Ultimately, you will come to the place where you will know for certain if;

1) He comes to understand what Gambling is,

2) He decides to quit or to continue

3) Your tolerance of gambling reaches its limit

Then you will know how to proceed with your life. But that information only comes after you've worked on this, and giving in to fear is the opposite of working on it. I'm learning that from all of you guys.

I'm sending a lot of support and strength your way, Angel. You've got someone in your corner who knows the struggle of fear and the difficulty of overcoming it. And it looks like D. is there in that corner with you too. How lucky are you? :-)

Dr. W

Trouble in paradise, part 3: a late night conversation

Me: I went to bed at 9pm, slept until about midnight before waking up and lying in bed for an hour. My mind has been racing the entire time, preventing me from going back to sleep. I struggle with the idea of telling you these feelings because I don't want you to use them to beat yourself up with. But these feelings overwhelm me sometimes and I have to get them out to someone. I can't think of one friend that I can share our struggles with because I don't want them to take this situation and make lasting, negative assumptions about you. None of my family and friends know you very well if at all. (This may be my fault or it may be the fault of the distance.) They have no frame of reference where you are concerned. They have no positive to weigh against the negative. I don't want the negative to be the only thing they know about you so I keep my mouth shut and suffer in silence. It's a heavy burden. Although the feelings are difficult to shoulder on my own, I don't want to put any unnecessary strain on our relationship. What I want to know is do you feel you are at a place where you can handle hearing my innermost thoughts on us without your psyche taking a hit? If not, that's okay and perfectly understandable. I just need to know.



D: I may be fragile and dealing with stuff, but we've been trying to do things in a way where there's total honesty and communication. So I really need to know what those thoughts and feelings are. I don't think I can beat myself up any more than I have been, so it's not going to hit me too hard, I don't think.



Me: I was just sending you an email telling you that it's not as bad as I made it seem. I journaled about my feelings just now and looked at the words on the screen. I think you can handle it. Do you want to know them now or wait until you've had a good night's sleep?



D: You can send it now.



Me: This is my journal entry:

I want to learn to trust again. I want to love with abandon again. I want to be able to relax in this relationship again. I feel that I have to prepare myself emotionally just in case this relationship should end. This keeps me at a distance from D., I feel. It keeps me from loving him as well and as completely as I should because I'm holding something back, guarding my heart just in case. I don't want to live like that. I don't want to love like that. I don't want to be on guard all the time. Plus, no amount of worrying or self-preservation is going to have any affect on what may actually happen down the road. What will be will be. What will happen will happen. Why not love the best way I can now and deal with the circumstances as they arise later? I worry that this is the beginning of a slow unraveling of us. (There is so much power in this statement that I hate to even look at it on the screen.) It's also just as likely that it is not, that it will be the thing that makes us stronger. The problem is I don't know for sure. I have no guarantees about what is going to happen next and that's a little unnerving to say the least. I want to make this thing work. I want to think positively (but not pollyannaish) about it all so that I can be at peace. I want him here right now. I want to feel his reassuring arms around me. I want to hear him say, "We can do this." So difficult these relationships can be. But this is the part that I've said all along that I was waiting for, the part where I roll up my sleeves and get down to the business of making a relationship work. And not just survive but thrive. He has his issues to work through too, his own emotions. That's okay. We can work through this together. It is possible. I don't have to worry about the what ifs and the what if nots. Why do I resist journaling so? Why, when I am a mess of emotions, do I cringe at the thought of writing those emotions down, especially considering that it helps me? It's the only way I gain perspective. It's the only way that I can sort through my feelings and not feel so overtaken by them. This situation fed into my fears that everything is going to come crashing down around me. It rocked me to my core and I have to find my bearings. This is helping.



D: That is a sobering piece of writing, but I'm not going to beat myself up.

Yes, my actions caused this wave of fear in you that we're slowly breaking apart, but because you hung in there and insisted on conveying the message that gambling with no money is bad judgment, I have ceased my actions and taken a road that won't cause a bigger rift. I don't think I have the words to tell you how much that meant to me, and I'm sure that's a part of the problem, the fact that I haven't communicated with you how much you mean to me and how much your not getting angry meant to me. I think you did the exact right thing for me and for us--you firmly let me know that you couldn't respect and be in a relationship with a man who gambled without money, yet you still loved me and wanted to help me find other solutions for my financial woes. I expected anger and yelling, but I got tough love. Thank you for being the mature one.

Now, that said, I don't know how long I will be able to step away from the gambling, and I don't know if I'm convinced that it's a losing game that I can't succeed in, which is probably why you feel like this is something that will eventually eat away at us. But I love you and I hate putting you through something that clearly hurts you. I also refuse to lie to you, so I'm not going to go through it without letting you know. That leaves me in a situation where, like we talked about, I now have to be accountable to someone else, and I'm not used to that. But I want to be accountable to you. I know you have my best interests in mind, as well as our relationship's. This is rambling, but what I'm trying to say is, I may be shaky with my gambling, and you may be shaky with your fear of what it will do to us, but our love is not shaky. You don't have to worry about that, and you can love me without worrying about that. Just the fact that I'm not gambling right now shows you how much I love you. So try not to have any fear when it comes to that.


Me: I appreciate you being honest with me. I really do. But your email made me cry before I went to bed and here's why:


You wrote:

Now, that said, I don't know how long I will be able to step away from the gambling, and I don't know if I'm convinced that it's a losing game that I can't succeed in, which is probably why you feel like this is something that will eventually eat away at us.

Here's what I found last night on a website for loved ones of compulsive gamblers:

Compulsive gambling brings despair and humiliation into the lives of countless thousands of men, women and children. The compulsive gambler is a person who is dominated by an irresistible urge to gamble. Coupled with this is the obsessive idea that a way will be found not only to control the gambling, but to "make it pay" and enjoy it besides. This disease causes deterioration in almost all areas of the person's life.

I am here to support you and encourage you on your path to quit gambling. And I do think it's very possible to quit gambling. But I also feel strongly that you need help in doing so. There are too many underlying issues that are the basis for your gambling problem that you are just not dealing with or you haven't sought the help that you need to deal with them. That does not bode well for us. And it makes me very sad. But I can't want it more than you do. I absolutely refuse to want it more than you do. I don't think it's healthy to want it more than you do. But that leaves us on very shaky ground, which is unsettling at best.



D: I don't know what to say. I know that it kills me that my gambling hurts you so. But I can't get help because it wouldn't work. I'd have to believe it's a problem for therapy to work, and I continue to believe that the problem occurs only when I lose. I hope you're not thinking that I have to choose between help or you because it's not that I won't get help out of spite of you or because I'd rather gamble than have you. It's because it wouldn't help. I totally understand why you'd be very nervous about us now that you have an idea of how obsessed I am with becoming a successful gambler. And I don't know what to tell you that would make you feel better. But I hate hurting you, so I'm really trying to be responsible and work my way back to financial health instead of going for the quick fix. That's all I can promise you right now, that I'm trying.



Me: For now, I guess that will have to do.

Trouble in paradise, part 2: seeking help

Me: D. and I had a difference of opinion yesterday, and it is really bothering me. He is having a bit of financial trouble. The other night he mentioned that he was looking for a quick fix and was contemplating placing a sports bet. I kept quiet because he is a grown ass man with no ring on his finger, so he is free to do whatever he wants. But then, he asked me my opinion. I chose my words carefully and said that I didn't think that placing a sports bet was the answer for him. I added that I wasn't sure what the answer was, but I was 100% certain that it wasn't gambling. Well, he placed the bet anyway. I was so disappointed because I felt like he exercised such poor judgment. What I found even more disturbing is that he didn't see right away that it was poor judgement.

Oh yeah, and he lost the bet.

m., is there a red flag here that I need to be concerned about or am I making too much of this? Married couples are sure to experience some financial bumps in the road from time to time. I don't want my husband gambling our rent money away because he thinks he can get cash to pay the utility bill too.

He says, now that he sees how much of a negative effect it has on me, that he won't make those kinds of choices anymore. He also asked for my help in determining if he's using poor judgment since he may not always be able to see it. I am a believer that loved ones are going to hurt and disappoint you from time to time. We are all imperfect and need the freedom to fail every once in a while. Is this a wise approach in this situation? Or do I need to go into self-preservation mode?

m: i'm not quite sure what to say except that im sorry that you're feeling however youre feeling. i know its a mixed up, jumbled sensation that leaves you in an impasse.

what's important to me is not that he did it, it's how he responds once he knows it bothers you. we all have and come with our own baggages and ways of dealing with struggles. some partake in risky behavior like drinking or doing drugs or being overly sexual. And unfortunately, some gamble. it's funny to me how he risks money that he doesn't have in an effort to gain more.

but I cant judge that. i've done the same thing before, and it scared me.

so, lets examine his behavior when he realized that you were not supportive of him. he said he would stop. okay, now the ball is in your court. you can choose to believe him until he proves himself not trustworthy...or you can deem him untrustworthy and never believe what he says again. his decision to listen -- and maybe he didn't listen right away -- makes me think that he respects your opinion and your judgement, and you should take advantage of his offer to help him see the error of his ways. i dont think you were being at all irrational about this because this is big. but he deserves a second chance about this...we all deserve second chances...and you are very mature with your thoughts and actions. i hope this helps. i empathize with you on this. and no, it isn't a red flag. it's a behavior. how he responds to your feelings is more of a determination, i think. let me know what happens.

love,

m.

ps: self-preservation mode? not yet.