emp4th

I have been here before but I am really in need of support today. I have been dating a man with a gambling and marijuana addiction. He has been emotionally abusive to me in the past and has attempted to get help but hasn't followed through even when I told him he needed to do it if we were going to save our relationship.
We have been together a year and he has broken up with me several times now, but each time he comes back I go back to him. This time feels especially bad. We argued 3 weeks ago about something very petty - he became controlling when I didn't respond to a message one evening. He then disappeared for 3 weeks and I did not message him as I was following the no contact rule, hoping he would come back and tell me he loved me and wanted to work on it. I had just started feeling better and then he messaged me today. I have been checking every day for a message so when I heard from him this morning I was thrilled. Turns out he just wanted to see how I was and explain why he had decided to break up with me. He said he didn't want to keep "taking me for a ride" but he thought about me a lot and hoped I was doing well. He also said he wasn't doing very well, which I assume to mean he is still smoking marijuana and perhaps gambling again - even though he is now unemployed. I felt I had no choice but to accept his decision to break up with me, as I know I can't change his mind but I feel absolutely broken and this has completely set me back in my recovery. I couldn't help but reiterate to him how I felt but still got rejected by him as he seems set in his decision.
I'm here looking for some advice as at the moment I am struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm struggling to accept the fact he doesn't want to be with me and can't understand why he would make this decision. I am a caring and empathetic person and have given him more chances than someone else would. I'm really hurting right now as I don't know where the man I met went, and what changed? Why am I finding it so hard to let go of him?

trailmix

Hi emp, glad you posted but of course sorry for what brings you here.
It sounds to me like - and this is just guess - that he wants to be free to do what he wants to do, gamble and smoke weed. You don't want him to, he wants to, that seems like a pretty good reason to go out on his own?
With any addiction, 99 percent of the time the addiction wins hands down. The person who is trying to control the addiction (in this case you) becomes an enemy of sorts.
Why is this particularly hard, the break up? Google intermittent reinforcement for that answer and see if that speaks to you.
You will be ok and you will move on to better days, but now is the time for courage. You did 3 weeks of NC so you do have it in you and like you said, you started to feel better - and you will again.
Learn all you can about addictions, not for him, for you, most of us don't know what we don't know about it until we need to know. Once you have that information you will be much better prepared going forward so you don't find yourself in this situation again.
Hang in there.