Stuckinlimbo

This is my first post and I truly don’t know where to start. My fiancé or ex fiancé hence the username is addicted to alcohol and gambling. I am familiar with both having had family members struggle with one or the other. I heard stories but I never experienced the effects it has on everyone it touches until now. When I first met my fiancé it was amazing, I knew I found the one. He was hardworking, giving and loving. As the relationship progressed and I had moved in, I slowly started to see his disease. Around 18 he started playing poker online and in person and excelled at it. He made a living out of it. Fast forward 10 years he is working a high stress 8-5 job. He started to gamble online and excessively drink to cope. He would tell me he would gamble to get his mind off of work, bills just everything that was stressful in life. He would then get extremely intoxicated and continue to lose. This is an absolute toxic combination. He would stay up all night going through a months paycheck in less than an hour. At this point I could barely understand what he was saying because he was so drunk. I became a victim of manipulation and constant emotional abuse. I was enabling him and I was codependent. After drinking all night and losing thousands of dollars he would become violent punching holes in the walls, throwing glass bottles on the floor, threatening to kill himself. It wasn’t until I called up crying to my best friend of 15 years balling my eyes out scared for my safety, that things changed. She called my brother and told him everything and my brother told my parents. I have been living at my parents for the last 4 months. I have been going to therapy once a week to address my enabling and codependency as well as the emotional abuse I have gone through and still am going through. Me and my ex/not ex still talk almost everyday. Sometimes I feel like I’m talking to the man I once knew who was so kind and loving and other times he’s cursing me out calling me every name you can think of. I feel this responsibility towards his family in a way because I’m the only one he’ll talk to and if they haven’t heard from him they think the worse. I also feel scared all the time that something’s happened to him. I feel so lost and alone. He is fortunate enough that if he wanted to get treatment he could but he refuses. I know many of you have been through this and I appreciate you taking the time to read this.

FallenAngelina

You're still together if you're talking every day and engaging regularly in abusive conversations. Just to be clear. You are still "with him," even if you are removed physically. That's important to know about yourself and be honest with yourself about. In this section of the forum, our "drug" is our obsession over our person.

trailmix

Yes, the toxic mix of alcohol and gambling.

Yes, you are still involved but the question is, do you want to be or would you like to move along to a happier life? As long as you are speaking to him on such a regular basis you are just as entwined as you ever were.

Perhaps if you dropped out of this drama, he would start to contact his family. The thing is, none of that, not obligation to his family or fear for him, requires you to be his monitor and it absolutely does not mean you should take any abuse.

Do you know what you actually want?

What he is getting from this is not really being separated from you while be able to carry on just as he was, without the "formal" obligation of being your fiance'. That sounds pretty ideal for him really. Do you want to be that for him?

You are really doing yourself a disservice here. I really doubt you were put on this earth to be his punching bag, but that's what you are. He gets to have you talk to him nicely and he gets to yell and scream and vent his frustration at the world to you, to make himself feel better. Are you willing to donate your time and energy to that?

Anyway, those are all decisions you need to make, you have support here at SR and you have your therapist etc. Have you read the book codependent no more? If not I think you would find it very interesting.

You do deserve much better than this you know, perhaps another question is, why don't you think you do? Also why do you believe this so strongly that you would forgo happiness to lessen his misery? This could go on for years.

Sleepyhollo

You are not responsible for his actions, no matter what he decides to do. He is still an active addict and he still knows he can get to you. You are probably the only one that will still put up with him and that is why you are the only one still talking to him, because you let him. He isn’t going to decide to get clean just because you hang around. If we had that much control (or any for that matter) none of us would be here. You are still enabling him. You don’t owe him or his family anything. He is an adult. If he is wants to get clean he will seek treatment. if he doesn’t want to get clean he won’t. Nothing you do or won’t do will make any difference in that. But if I were you I would go no contact and block him. He can go find someone else to enable him. If he doesn’t show you he is serious about getting clean (which it doesn’t sound like he has any intention from your post) I would run as fast as you can. And learn all about addiction so you don’t get stuck in another relationship like this (we tend to be drawn to the dame kind of relationships until we get past our codependency issues.
I did weekly therapy for 2 years and never knew how much I needed it until I started. Had it not been for therapy I probably would’ve still been married (my ex got clean but it was too late for me and I finally had enough confidence that I knew I needed out and not just stay because I owed it to him since he got clean. Codependency takes a while to get a handle on because for most of us it has been a lifelong issue that takes time to change.

by staying in contact you continue to be drawn back into the drama. You worry about him etc. if you go NC you will stop worrying about that after a while. And if his family doesn’t want contact with him then that it is his problem. He knows what he needs to do he is just not willing to do it. It is easy for his family to make you deal with him because it gets him of their back. Very convenient for them. I know it is hard to let go but there is nothing positive about your relationship with him. Even if he is “a great guy” when is he sober. It doesn’t excuse the crappy and abusive behavior when he is not, plus he will likely financially ruin you at some point.