Where I am Currently and Mixed Conflicted Emotion Difficulties with Gambling and my Relationship

I echo duncs thoughts, I can see by the way u have thought thru ur first post on here a great deal and shared fully how much it means to u succeed at this and show ur partner a better version of yourself that you will succeed.  Addiction to gambling is tough because it likes to hide so in many ways ur partner like my family were unable to see the harm occurring.  If there's one piece of advice that I gave myself a couple of years ago it would be to bring ur partner into this, show  them your first post and ur intentions and then work at it together.  If ur on ur own in the battle its harder.  All the best adam

I am not sure what happened in the middle of my post, sorry. The words are supposed to be there but I do not know how it was put in that format.

Hello. This week has been very busy because we have just recently moved house, so I have not had much chance to even think about gambling. However, I have been listening to the football on the radio the last few days and an advert offer made me think a little too much then I wanted to, It made me think about how good the offer was for me if I was still gambling but stopped myself from letting that thought follow through. This has been a good test that my gambling mental block is working and gives me much positive hope for further tests to come.

Debt wise has been looking a little positive to. Since my last post the two company playing hardball have now been a little more helpful in accommodating my situation and I will only need to ring one of them now to finalise a plan. This has eased some stress and pressure I had been feeling and will help my mental health too.

Leading on to the most challenging part of my recovery, my relationship with my partner. It has been stagnated and seems to have gone back a few paces over the past 2-3 weeks. From the start it was rock botham and was grandly taking it slowly and believed to have made some progress. It was at the stage where we were talking to each other often, lathing and having a joke, being silly with each other, having some emotional contact and meaningful kissing often, more relaxed around each other and just gradually building a platform until it suddenly stopped. My partner seem to have withdrawn away a few weeks ago and it has now gone back a few paces. This is only my vision but it seems like she has stopped to put a guard up to avoid becoming more emotionally involved and letting herself push me to a distance. There are many life factors that are more likely the reason for this starting with just moving house and the other stress that comes with it. There is a lot of work to be done still including all the complications and delays that comes with it and will take a long time until it is in a more accommodating state. Also, we recently put in a referral for my daughter to be tested for autism. Over the past 6 months it has been more apparent that she is showing very strong behavior traits that can not be linked to just learned behavior from myself and my son whom we both have autism.  The challenges, stress and extra effort that come with living with myself and my son with the condition was difficult for her and now it looks like my daughter will need the help too which I understand will feel overwhelming and stressful. My partner is also mixing her working life between home and at her place of work to fit in with everything that is going on which adds extra pressure for her who already has a very challenging job to say the least.

So there is a lot there to take on and very time-consuming and exhausting before even thinking about trying to let me in a little with the remaining last few hours of the day before she sleeps or the few minutes in between each task and challenge she takes on daily. All I can do is help as much as I can, which I am currently doing. Taking on a load of manual tasks for the house and being involved with decisions with the kids. Trying to make her feel relaxed and do anything to help her distress temporarily among other things I can not think of on the top of my head right now. I will also still continue to make the effort in opening up to her, giving and showing that emotional output to try to connect again and just trying to be there when I can in case she needs me. I think my worries is that if no extra progress is made for a much longer period that it would be harder to make something of it later on, but I am still thinking positive and doing everything I can to make it work and show it can work.  Like I have been continually saying, I can only show and say as much as I can and hope my partner can see me like she did before but also the new and better version I am now then I was before. I believe we are good as a team and work well together  so that is another positive thought to hold onto. If there is a bit of progress then I know this will help me move on with my recovery and make me stronger with other challenges to come.  I like to add that tonight is the first time I have seen my partner laugh, smile and look happy after a normal catch up with her sister for a while and that is really nice to witness, and then she came in to give me a cuddle after. I want to help her be like this more often again and these little moments helps spur me on to keep fighting for our relationship. 

It sounds to me as if she is probably quite exhausted, she has a lot going on! You all do! You said you help as much as possible and I am sure you do but sometimes life takes over & especially when you have children with special needs and a partner too. Have you thought about relate, they are relationship counsellors? In the meantime could you help her feel relaxed and say (example) I’ll cook tea tonight, I’ve run a bubble bath for you go and  chill! Even take the kids for a short walk round the block while she is in there? Those little things will mean the world to her, especially if she’s working and then the kids and moving too! Hope you manage to work it out  

Hello and thank you for your reply. 

Yes I agree she is under a lot of pressure and everything has been effecting her mental health too. Relate sounds interesting and something I would be willing to do but I am not so sure my partner will be currently willing right now. I appreciate your suggestions in helping more and I like to think I do. I cook most of the time when I am not working, I love to give her foot and head massages and cuddles daily and we do not have a bath in the new house. I would say I could occupie the kids more when we are both at home. 

Even when doing all of this she seems to be pushing me back more. She has not initiated any long intimate kissing, touching, hand holding for a while now and it is heart breaking. I have to try and stop myself crying at times. 

I have changed for the better, I have the most determination in me that I will not gamble again or I know I will turn to someone before I ever did. I really want the new house to feel like home but my mind is stopping me for doing so because I need to see some progress of some sort. I believe it is a way my mind in trying to protect me but I just want us to be one happy unit again. 

My partner and kids are my whole world and the thought of not living with them in the future is different to think about and something I do not want to happen. I am using alot of strength to fight for a romantic relationship and it is more difficult then giving up gambling but I have to stay positive. 

There is nothing new to add on the gambling and debt side of things. Yes I had struggled a little bit more with how the thought has gone through my head more times I wanted to this week but nothing I could not handle.

The mean reason I am writing this post is more to use as a platform to write to myself and just get of my chest in how I am feeling and about my relationship which means or shall I say meant so very much to me. I say this after finishing a talk with my partner wanting to end it. If I let myself jabber on it will just be contradictory and just would not make sense. One of the biggest frustrating side of it all is that my partner has always concentrated on the negative parts of problems and life and she brings herself down with it. I always tried to pick her up and see the world as not just doom and gloom which worked sometimes but not always. The problem is that like me her mental health is very low right now and my relapse had added to that but I will finally admit to myself that it was not all my doing, not even half of it. She has become so low now that she has shut me out altogether (wheather it was intensinal or not) and was not allowing herself to embrace or let me in. I was just fighting a losing battle and I still can not stop fighting for her. I have been doing all I could for her to ease as much pressure as possible but taking up most of the house chores, keeping the kids occupied as much as possible as and when I was home, giving her as much space, time, comfort and love I could give while concentrating on what I needed to for myself at the same time, I would do so much for the women who has done do much for me in the past (not saying I have never done anything for her in the past) but like I said she has not embraced the effort like I hoped she could. Of course you all do not know how our relationship over the 11 years was like and you have only my word for it but I will sum it up truthfully let me I have always done on hear. Yes it has not been an easy ride, tell me relationship for that period of time and longer that has not. There where a lot of struggles with my disabilities, later on the kids disabilities and my gambling but truthfully it has not just been me adding the pressure to the relationship. At the beginning my partner was controling, her health had a major impact on our s*x life and her self esteem, her work and mental health in all. Me losing my job to no fault of my own and her struggles to see past negative thinking also included. There where points in the relationship where I the optimist thought this could not last any longer and I would be lying to myself if I said I never thought about ending it befor. But actually thinking back through it all there has been so many good points and times together through the relationship and I would say more then the worst. I am not just saying that either. Even though we are quite a bit opersit we where/ are a fantastic team, we made each other laugh, smile happy. We where comfortable around each other and could be happy sitting in a room doing different things and be happy knowing each other was there. There is so much more I could say but can not think of at the top of my head right now. We are very good and caring parents too and work well collaborating together to give them the best as we can. This worked not just because she became my best friend but because of the romantic love we had for each other. 

One of the points my partner mentioned was that the s*x had not been enjoyable ever since I came out to her about my latest relapse and what if it never is again if we continued trying. My thought on that is we have been through that befor and after a long period big time we got through it. The s*x for at least half of the relationship has been difficult because of previous releases, her physical health and mental health but my love for her meant more and it became better because of it. Also with that thinking then it would be difficult to get better because you are not letting yourself believe and saying it will fail before it has started. 

To be honest I have lost track of what I wanted to say and not sure there was any real purpose to this thread except giving myself a chance to vent and just write down the thoughts in my head of the moment and see what came next. 

I will be going back home soon to exspected awarkednes and probably a final conclusion to my worst nightmare of the relationship finally being over. The funny thing is that I say to myself for my birthday next month all I wanted was for my partner to embrace me a little bit and even touch me a little just so there was something to hold on to and work on. I guess it was just a dream and another one of my optermistic thoughts but it was nice to think about when it lasted. When I get home I will still fight for us because I know there is a lot more we can give each other but most of you would think what is the point. The point is because there is actually a lot still to fight for, we have still so much potential as a relationship and what we can give each other that we could not do if we where apart. Also she needs my help right now and I can give her a lot more of it being together then not even if she can not see that. 

Anyway I will stop typing or I will just go on and on and will probably just start another post tomorrow or the day after. I just wanted to say thank you gamcare for having this platform available to me just to write my thoughts and all aspects of my recovery. This time it has really helped me tenfolds then before and I have noticed the improvement in counciling and other support networks and software/ programs that was not there before in previous relapses or just was not noted to me at that time. Yes I am wholeheartedly doing this for myself but I have been doing this for my kids and relationship too. 

Part 7:

So here I am once again, and I am just going to talk about what is going on in my relationship for this post.

So after a few more days since my last post and fighting until my last breath we both agreed to continue trying. We know it's going to be extremely difficult, but we have some strong basses to build on. The last week has been slow but been showing some promise. I had been continuing doing what I had done previously with a little more effort on top and honestly it has been tiring and my partner had started to open up a little by initiating small kisses and cuddles and even a bit of touching. Last night was more promising on the touching, but I was not going to read anymore into it. So everything was going in the right direction but today I made a terrible mistake even I can not really explain why I did it and it had nothing to do with gambling.

So today I had been thinking more to why my partner has been so depressed to help her more apart from my mistakes I have done and the damaged I have caused which is very obvious but thinking other reasons why. One thought that had troubled me the most was is she looking for something else with someone else and I have said that thought before in a previous post. The strange thing is, I do not believe one little bit she was doing anything like this, and she told me that she has not and I believe her. So, I am even more confused to why I had made this terrible mistake I will explain about soon. Was it just my own insecurity creeping in and trying to and successfully over run my natural thoughts and perception. I had thought a lot more things also and the majority was me thinking about how lucky I was to still be in a relationship with the love of my life. Including how wonderfully beautiful she really is, How I just love touching her and how much I am deeply in love with her.

So the inexcusable and very damaging mistake I had done which has wiped out all the effort I had made over the past few months in less than a minute is because I unlocked my partners phone, stared at the front screen for around 15 - 20 seconds and when I was just about to lock it realising what I have done and how totally stupid it was, my partner walked in. That was it, time stood still and my heart sank to below the earth. I did not look at anything and was not going to but I still unlocked the phone. I had been told the password a number of times before but I never remembered it which made the situation more strange and complexing. The password for some reason just popped into my head and I for some reason just opened it right at that time and that is it. I had no thought of going through and looking for anything and did not act on doing so either. I spoke about my insecure thoughts before typing what happened in this post because I thought it was more to do with that but thinking over and over again trying to make sense of it all even after talking to my partner about it, I truly believe this was not the reason. There actually is no reason to it, the password for some random reason popped into my head and the phone was on the bed at that time and I just tried it out to see if it was correct and if it would work, That is it. Even I would not believe that if the tables were turned so god know what damage I have caused for no reason at all. When she caught me just as I was locking the phone even made it look worse and more suspicious especially as I panicked to. Over the 11 years there has been umpteen times when her phone was in the same room with me alone and I never once had attempted or even thought about looking through it, even when times were bad. When talking to my partner about it, I was still trying to make sense of it myself. I panicked, so I was explaining the few thoughts going through my head that day trying to give an explanation to why I had decided to open up her phone but now I know this was not the reason at all and it was just what I said above. How can I actually explain to her the full truth when I know she will not believe me for a second and no one else in the world would either. I am currently up to early hours in the morning wrapping my head around this thinking about the extensive damage this has now caused. I had not looked at anything and I now know I had no intentions or reason to go further into the initial part of opening up her phone but the fact stands that I did open it up, I have broken her trust just for that action and to add to all the miss trust I had given her previously due to my gambling addiction.  How can she trust me ever again when she was already struggling to do so, and I was putting every bit of energy I could to show her she could. Her mental health is so low right now and I go and do something so idiotic making it seem like I do not care at all but I completely do. 

Now please do not take this part as seriously as it may sound but straight after talking to my partner I truthfully thought for a good few minutes, what Is the point of living anymore when everything I try to make things better just fulls apart with my own doing. Knowing there was nothing to it but still being so damaging to our relationship has now not help me hating myself just when I was starting to get past this feeling. The stupidity and just the random act of it is just so obscure and unprecedented just makes my problem a lot worse for everything that is happening and what I had been trying to do to make things better.  I am 100% NOT suicidal. I am going to chat to someone after writing this post. I have always been completely honest on here and will always do so even when it may look bad for me when someone else reads this because there would be no point writing and helping myself on here if I was not completely honest.

I am baffled, lost, silently panicking, contemplating my existence, stressed, tired, unhappy with myself amongst other things. I am scared that this has now ruined everything I have worked on for the relationship to continue and work. I have wiped out every good and correct step I had made. I have moved one step forward but 5 steps back. I am aware that people with autism like myself do things that look and seem suspicious when actually it's just an innocent or random act that has no meaning or intention of harm. I have done this before and mainly without knowing but I refuse to use this as an excuse even if it may have a good chance of being the reason. 

I do not know where to go from here and I don't know what else to say.

Hiya Louis 

Just seen your post and feel your pain but we can all do things without thinking you know that with your gambling your impulsive that's an axe all problem gamblers have to face, you've picked up the phone like we pick up things and play about with them in our hands. Has your partner took this really bad as I don't know what you said as was a lot to read, I know how down you feel as I've been there but not being strong at the time I was stupid and made the biggest mistake off all by acting on it,but that's the past that I totally regret. It's a horrible thing when your mental health is having problems as that play's a big part off how we see things. All I can say as these things take time I know you may think that's a stupid thing for me to say, IF your partner is suffering due to the gambling this is understandable but if it's something else that's going on I bet you just want to get to the bottom of it as seeing our loved ones in pain is horrible so you could've been thinking that way, or even if for a minute you thought someone else was involved that's a common thought for a gambler. We all have thoughts and feelings and sometimes these don't make sense even to ourselves. Try and get some sleep and talk to your partner honestly when she awakes, sometimes things look worse than they are. I wish you all the luck in the world in sorting things out 

Hello and sorry for a late reply. I would like to thank you for taking the time to write a comment. 

Yes we all do things without thinking but I still believe my action would of been a bit more excessive to most other people and why they would not see the truth. 

I did not understand to well what you asked about if my partner took it badly. If you meant did we have a shouting match or she was screaming at me then no because we never deal with our problems or talk to each other that way. She was though very upset that involved the very disappointed and when will this going to end look. It happened one week after deciding to try again and see how it goes and it was starting to go ok until then. Now it seems like she is finding it harder and putting a cover on it. Before the incident there was some genuine growth, effort and willingness from her but now after it feels more mixed, more uncertain and more inconsistent. This is what the incident has done to all the effort and hard work I had put in for our relationship and my recovery. I can not expect much from her now and try to remain optimistic if that is possible. I am still doing my best to help with her low mood, self esteem and mental health and then trying more slowly to generate something in our relationship but she can fully end it any time and possibility of that feels more upcoming then ever before and I know we have a lot more to give each other. If I did not make that strange mistake then I do believe we would be in a slightly better and stronger position but like always I go to ruin it all again on my own. 

There had been times where I thought someone else was involved but not as strongly as first thought after she told me herself there was no one and I do honestly believe her. Even when hearing what she says sometimes in her sleep can be confusing or make you think twice again slightly but I still believe her and have no reason not to. The one thing we have both never done is cheat on each other and if she did she would of truthfuly told me. 

Amounts other things my partner is suffering from the gambling and the trust issues that goes with it and this is the part I am trying so hard to re-build and show that she can again. This is my part I have played in her mental health and I am not proud of it and it kills me knowing I have helped her feel this way. I do believe I am in a great place in my recovery, much more then any other time and feel so positive that I can continue this forever (I never felt like that before). I have a better and more structured plan and process in place and a much better mental capacity over it even with everything else going on. I feel like a much improved version of myself, the person I should be without gambling and I feel I have put a very strong padlock on that gambling door. It is to early to tell if my partner will see this and afraid it would be to late if she does. No matter what bad comes my way, what I have done to mess up a good thing or ruin my progress I will still have hope and fight to prove that our relationship is a great thing for both of us and I can make my partner happy again with me like we where or even better then we where at before I told her about my last and final relapse. If I gamble again which puts me in a lot of debt again then I have promised to walk away and I will but I know in myself I will not be making this mistake again, I believe in myself and just pray she believes in me and us. 

Thank you again for your reply and hope this answers your questions.

Hiya LG

I can tell from what you've wrote that you really love your wife and it's a horrible situation to be in. We all make mistakes my friend and it's how we deal with those mistakes that Devine us, in a world full off mistakes make yourself the cure, I really hope with all my heart that your wife's mental health problems get easier to deal with having ptsd myself I understand only too well how mental health effects the way you are and it can make you feel so drained you've nothing left inside but it's not just one thing that does that to you it's a accumulation off things some big some small, so please don't put all the blame on yourself plus I really do believe that your done with gambling, as just take it one day at a time and always remember it's a devil's addiction and your not the only one caught in this spider's web. I wish you and your wife all the best for now and the future as the past is dead and gone and all we can do is learn from that. Chin up my friend 

Part 8:

Well it will soon be 8 months without gambling and I have not wrote on here for a while, so I thought I will do an update and just get things off my chest for my personal benefit.

So like I said above that I have not gambled for almost 8 months which I am proud of. I have been fully focused like I have promised myself so it has been easier than I thought but I know there still could be harder times to come, so I am glad I am still aware of that too and not becoming complacent. Watching Netflix, Amazon Prime and being able to watch my team on the laptop have been a big help. They have helped distract me from any gambling thoughts appearing  and filled in boardum holes I had before which made me vulnerable in the past. Concentrating on my family and doing my best to make it work with my partner has also been a big drive for me too, and I am still confidant as ever that I can keep this addiction behind me for good.

On the financial front it has been largely positive. All companies had finally become helpful apart from one which is being a little difficult where I will have to ring this week to help keep my payments on track. Apart from that doing it my self has been very hard, challenging but worthwhile and is good to know most of it is going to plan to get myself debt free.

My relationship with my partner has been up and down since I last updated this thread. I will give one example of a downside off the top of my head. My partner was ringing the water board to make a closing payment on our previous house (we have recently moved) and to restart another with our current home. They carried over the details from the previous account we had  so my partner decided to change it and take my name off the water bill completely. I will note that my name is not on the mortgage, and I am happy with this and I have no financial right to the property but it is still my home where I can give input in home decisions. This decision at the time did upset me a lot and made me feel pushed out and like she was planning ahead with life without me and putting all the pieces in place. What my partner said is that she did not want me to have the responsibility and it was not like she went out of her way to take me off. To me I did want the responsibility still as it was still our home living together and to ask if my details were still on the account, getting them to set up a new one without my name on it and the extra time and effort it took to do that to me was going out of her way to remove me. I only brought this up as an example and it does not bother me anymore and me have moved on from that.

The positives have been very good too. My partner has been a lot more happy, putting more time into the family and started to make effort with us too. She has made some health food choices and taken up counseling which has had a positive effect on her. She has been a lot happier, more driven and I actually see her smile much more now too.

Our relationship had started to be slowly more progressive with intimate touching, more kissing and spending more time together to name a few things. She has not become confident enough to become more intermet in front of me again in bed etc but to what I was seeing from her it seemed like it was slowly becoming more likely that this could happen sooner. It did get to the point when spending time together led to us starting to have s*x for the first time in many months and I could see she was starting to enjoy it but stopped because the kids were still awake and said let's save this for later. Well this was very positive to me but nothing come about finishing what we started that night and things seemed to had changed again. I carried on like I had before making effort to show how much I love her, and she is my world, but she became less responsive each day after and then a few more days later my partner said to me that I was becoming too handsy so of course I stopped to give her the space she needed.  It seems like from that time we started to have s*x that she felt that she did not want this anymore, she rewound herself and our progression back and now things seem to be at a stand still again. This has been like this for just over a week now, and I am not sure whether I should touch her now or be affectionate again. I do not want to push her into progressing again or to make her uncomfortable but I don't want all our efforts going stale and back to where we were a few months back again. The ball has always been in her court and I want that to remain too. If she makes a move then I would welcome it and if not then I would sit and wait and see. Today she has seemed more positive again and given me more kisses and even made me a cup of tea but I just don't know what to do because I want us to start making progress again but I don't want to blow it and send her back to restart again. Even though I am confused and a little lost in what to do next I love her with all my hart and will continue fighting so hard for this to work. We are great together and still can give each other so much. I still have the drive to make this work even after the odd few doubts I had over the past few months thinking whether I should give up or not. My partner is beautiful, kind and caring and I know I can make her happy again being together and still have hope no matter how small that it can work out.

Like I have said previously that I am not looking for replies but this is just for me to vent my thoughts and to help me just get some things of my chest. Writing on here has been very helpful to me and that is why I have always been very honest. I write this for myself and to help myself.

Part 9:

It is close to 11 months without gambling and even though my post may sometimes seem that I am finding it easy, I am not. It has been very difficult keeping myself balanced and well as trying for it not to effect my already fragile mental health even more. I think a few weeks ago was the hardest when I started thinking about old times when gambling for around thirty minutes (may not sound long but that is still too long). It took me a while to put my thought process in place then I read a few posts on here to remind me of the damages it causes and then spoke to someone. It may have been a brief conversation, but it was helpful. Since then, I am still managing and pushing on with my main goal in beating this disease. The goal is not something I can say one day that I and cured but something I will continue to strive for throughout my life knowing each day that goes by is an accomplishment.

Paying back my debt has been challenging but stable. All companies are now on board and I have been making my regular payments to them on time while adding extra when I can from overtime etc. There has not been any hiccups of yet but a few will be up for renew soon where I will have to renegotiate a new plan which I hope will not be as challenging as I know it can be. Still a long way to go, but it is progress.

Now to the bit where I vent for my own purpose about my current relationship situation. It is still very challenging, but I still have not given up and even though there was one awful time since I last posted there has been positive moments too. In short terms the bad time came about when some parenting was involved, and I was shouted at for not weighing in enough which resulted in my partner verbally abusing me bringing up my past mistakes and saying it was my fault. Of course, I was hurt by the way she spoke to me, but I did understand her anger and I can not change anything I have done in the past no matter how much I would really love to. We did eventually talk which did not come to any real conclusion, but we did understand that we both have different ways in dealing with that parenting situation and know both of them work and not to assume the other is not doing anything because there are not doing it their way and try to react to the situation differently and do more to help each other. I have huge respect for my partner with everything she has put up with me and the troubles the kids bring too on top of her fragile mental health she is trying to deal with. She is a strong remarkable woman, and I am so lucky that she may have not given up on trying just yet.

There are times when I do think that she is thinking about giving up. Maybe it is me being insecure again, but I do not know any more. The thing that gets me thinking is when I can walk into a room naturally I sometimes see a bright light flash where I then notice my partner quickly flicking her screen off onto her phone home screen or just turning her screen off, It is usually when she is looking on a website or WhatsApp. No I am being honest and never intend to walk in the room when she does this and the first few times it happened I did not think anything about it. Then it happens more thinking it is a coincidence, but then it happens a lot more where it is hard to come to that conclusion. That had put some doubt in my mind if she is looking somewhere else or chatting to someone on WhatsApp that she does not want me to know. I know it is my mind trying to make me feel insecure and for slight moments it does, but I do shrug them off and carry on because I know that more than likely it is nothing of what I had thought for them few seconds and just something private but unrelated that she does not want me to see. Now I will say that I do not purposely look at her phone especially after the last incident that I did which I truly regret and mentioned in a previous post.

I will say that slowly after the argument things seemed to had picked up slowly but nicely too. My partner has been showing her real self a lot more towards me and showing some really sweet, kind and loving affection towards me which had really brought a smile onto my face and a warm feeling in my heart knowing I can actually see that she is trying to make this work and putting the effort in. She has shown the affection the most a couple of weeks leading up to Christmas giving me emotional kisses, holding my hand and giving long loving cuddles. It also just gives me that glimmer of hope to want to keep working hard with us and give me that extra strength to continue and not to give up. Those had probably been some of the most precious times between us since I last relapsed and are nice thoughts I like thinking back to time and again. My slight concern had been when she decided to give me oral s*x the other night for the first time in a long while which I was very grateful for but after that her affection and demeanour towards me had reduced a bit and just makes me wonder if she regretted doing it or that she just needed a bit of time thinking she may have done something too soon. To be honest I do not know, and it could be just the few days after it had just been stressful, and she did not know that she had been a little less affectionate of late just thinking of other daily life things. She has said to me, she is not ready for s*x and I fully understand and support that, I would be lucky if I ever get it again, but she also said that she would not of done anything if she did not want to which does give me some reassurance.

Today has been a little frustrating because I had become annoyed with myself which made my partner think she may have said or done something wrong that hurt me. It had made me a little quiet and look annoyed, but It was just me beating myself up again over something I misunderstood from a conversation a day before. My partner asked me yesterday what are we going to do tomorrow knowing her sister is going to be having the kids for the whole day. I replied saying probably housework (because it is much easier when the kids are not around to do it) and she replied that she thought we could just relax and watch some Netflix and spend time together. I took this as my partner wanting to spend the whole day in with me giving each other some affectionate time together which may lead to some type of sexual activity for a small period of it (I will add I was not thinking about physical s*x). Today came, and we spent the day doing housework with a bit of Netflix time in between. I realised during the day that I must have misunderstood what she had said the previous day and got annoyed with myself, and it has not been the first time I had done this over the past few weeks. There was a time when my partner mentioned to me that her behind is sore so please do not touch her there but followed up with you will have to touch my front a lot instead tonight. When it got to nighttime I went to start touching her there nicely but after a very short time she pulled my hand away, I continued to give her a head rub which I like to do each night then she rolled over and feel asleep. I got so annoyed with myself thinking she meant something else and not realise that she was just joking. I cried a lot that night while doing my best not to wake her and let her know I was upset. Another time I can remember of the top of my head was Christmas Eve night. I was touching her affectingly that night with a good response then my partner said we can not do any more tonight because her sister was asleep in the front room (she stayed over to spend Christmas with us and the kids) and we can continue with this with more tomorrow when my sister is not hear. So Christmas night came and my touching was politely rejected where she rolled over to go to sleep. I then got annoyed with myself for misunderstanding her again and thinking something may happen when she was not thinking that. There has been many other times lately that I have been doing that. I do not know if it is because I am sexual frustrated (my own fault of course) or just that I am just that dumb that I just keep misinterpreting what she has been saying. Either way it has made me angry and annoyed with myself each time and on many of them occasions made me want to cry too. I know I should not be doing this to myself, but it is hard not to when I and trying so hard to give us that chance for us to work.

That is my vent to myself out of that way, and it has been helpful to me to get this off my chest to myself. Now my head is clear I can now go back to bed and get some needed sleep. I will try and promise myself not to leave it so long to post again.

Part 10:

I am still here on this road to recovery, and now it has been 1 year and 2 months. I am proud of myself in getting this far with much more confidence and persistence, but this recovery does not feel the same as others. I feel more nerves like people are just sitting and waiting for me to mess up just to say I told you so or give up on me. Not only that, but I understand it is like the boy who cried wolf, but I have so much confidence and persistence this time and that is why I have done so well this time. They say time will tell but this time round has not changed much in home life etc I would have hopped for or wanted. 

One reason why I am on here today is because the Grand National is coming up. This event is very big for me and it being a family tradition since a very young age has embedded this event as a must be involved occasion. I have been doing a lot of gambling avoidance and distraction which has worked very well and this year I only found out the event is coming up because my partner mentioned it to me the other day. I had not seen or heard any adverts about it until then and the thought never crossed my mind. For me this is very good and a new experience for me and a happy one too. The problem is that now it has been mentioned little thoughts have creped into my head. Not about gambling on the event but just the event in general. I know it is coming up, should I still just watch it (no I should not), should I check who won (no I should not). I may not be able to avoid the last part because of news coverage on news articles online or sky sports etc, but I am not going to be actively looking for it. Sometimes I wish I was never was told it was coming up soon, but another thought makes me think my partner may actually care and probably assumed I would be thinking about it and needed to talk. 

Financially is going ok.  There has been no new issues with the banks/ lenders, and I am still making all my payments on time. I have not been able to work any overtime any more because of family finances and interrupting our benefits which has hindered my re-payments amounts (paying extra) but I am still making them.  The part I do need to work on is how I spend my leftover money. I have become slightly better with this but something that needs to be worked on a lot too. I still tend to spend it quickly or on things that are miscellaneous, not worth buying or could be spent better. The good thing is I am a wear of this, and now I need to be more proactive on it. I have managed to save up some spending money for the holiday with the kids in late May, so that is a good start. 

Relationship wise things are still very difficult and conflicting. We had a talk last month and then after it seemed like we went straight back to where we were one year ago, it was upsetting for me and troubling. My partner said she is trying with us and I can see this more with us in general day to day but in more intermit physical terms it seems less so. It gets to a stage where something finally happens and then nothing/ very little over the next three weeks. This is very frustrating and what I find difficult. When I think of trying I think of more regularly trying to build up on that confidence with each other again and building on making it more natural/ normal. Anything with a long break in between just sends us back to square one again when it comes to the next time. Some of this is due to her work load with the kids, her very stressful jobs and getting things sorted with the house renovations etc and me which understandably makes her very tired but the thing that stopped us before was because of her health problems which has mainly been dealt with which my partner said at the time would now make things more regular and better, but this is not the case. Yes my relapse had a part to play in that and the trust around that, but now it seems like this is the part she does not want to try and get around. At times the other week I thought she was just dealing with her pleasure herself and not wanting to share it with me. I have no problem with anyone doing this at all but when someone said they are wanting to really try then this dose really effects the effort and makes it less likely they want to do anything with their partner that day or in the coming days. It just takes away from the intimacy and trust building when you do actually try something. I do not really want her to know I am frustrated over this situation because it would make her feel bad, feel a lot more pressure on her, and it would create a talk where once again either none of us agree, and we are left in unresolved issues or the situation will just come back on me again where I am made to feel bad again, or I was wrong for bringing it up in the first place and that it is just my problem.  Then  also there would be the situation where it said there is a communication problem after the talk and this is why it will not work/ is not currently working. It is difficult, hard and conflicting which I believe would not really solve anything because I find it very hard to actually explain what I am trying to say or in get misinterpreted or misconstrued. 

I have been very confident in trying to make us work over all this time, but it has slightly dwindled lately which is upsetting. It will not stop my efforts, but it has slightly stopped how much effort I am wanting to make now. If things change then my efforts which increase again.

Things I have been working on is being more considerate and being involved more (as much as I can be) and spending that bit more time with the kids. Yes I can do a lot more, but I am still improving on this. Work is going well and other aspects of life seems to have slightly improved.

My mental health is still a problem, still a bit due to my frustrations physical intimately, but it has not become worse, and I am now at a stage where I can work on it and try to improve. More positive thoughts etc.

Again this post is more for my reference and just to get things off my chest or out of my head for myself, so I have clear thoughts going forward. This is a vital tool for me and has been helping, so thank you for making this available to me.