I don't know what to do about my boyfriend. We've been together for a year and a half and living together for four months. Since we started going out I knew I would be fighting online poker.
His schedule is get up, go to the gym, play poker (1-3 hours) make/eat lunch, go straight to work, come home, play poker until past bedtime. It adds up to at least 6 hours a day. He doesn't do many chores but after a huge fight about that once he now does a token few to stop me from complaining. On the weekends he plays at least 6 hours each day. We have almost no time together, and when we do he is distracted and I know he is just itching to play again.
This morning I asked if he should take the day off poker and he agreed, then twenty minutes later threw a fit and said he was going to do what he wanted which was play poker, which he did for the next 3 hours like usual until he made lunch and went to work. Quite nicely, he told me that if we spend the whole day together today, then that's all I will want in the future and i will then always be unsatisfied when he plays poker. I feel hugely insulted. Then when he left he was happy and apologised for being an idiot, but I don't know how much more of this i can stand. He treats me and my feelings with incredible disrespect and won't hear any objection I make. He just has to 'get his games in'. he has a poker schedule he has to stick to.
He often says he just needs to get his games in for the day so he can free up time for me in the evening, but then he plays in the evening too. if I get upset or even mention the word poker he flies into a rage, yells and slams the door. I spend entire days crying. I am so frustrated and can't talk to him about it because he is just waiting for me to 'nag' so he can have an excuse to get furious and play until 2am. To punish me, it feels like. Every day I come home from work (an hour after him) and he's in there playing.... he barely acknowledges me and I am then alone all evening, every evening. If I complain he says I'm just bored and wanting attention, and that I don't complain when he spends that much time at the gym.
He wants to be a professional poker player and treats it all as experience. We don't share money so I don't care how much he wastes. He does pretty well on the tables but has this idea that if he's on a hot streak, he has to keeping playing... which means there's no schedule and no way to predict when we'll have time together. I am at my wit's end. We had lots of plans for the future but all I see is a future fighting with the computer. I am prepared to throw it all in, I haven't said this to him yet. First i want to try and make him see what he's doing to me. I feel completely unvalued and most times I just thank God we're not married and I can still get out of this poor excuse for a relationship. But I want to try and make him see what it's doing to me. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can cope with this? thankyou.
Hey :) Take a look at this site, maybe it is more apropriate to your questions. http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ Still, we are here for all kinds of games, so if you feel at home here, stay around and read. There are many other people who have had or are having similar experiences to what you have...
Sounds to me like you are learning who he is & what his priorities are. You can't change him (I am learning that myself). Just don't put on blinders. You may chose his poker playing habits are something you can't live with.
Isn't it so frustrating? My boyfriend is the exact same way! We live together, and he is a poker addict as well... The worst thing is, he uses my checking account for his online poker fetish. I find out he uses sometimes $60 a day on poker! I cannot do this anymore, I am so unhappy while begging him not to lie to me and treat me well. How sad am I?! The other day we found out he is laid off. So 'mr. genius' tell me 'I'm going to make us money' what does he do? He spends $50 a day losing at POKER! I can't take this anymore. If you don't have a job, helping me contribute to the bills, you definitely cannot be playing poker! And losing! He is normally really good, but its GAMBLING! So it's a game of risking money. We cannot afford that. I am at my wits end, of depositing money, and having my balance not get bigger, only smaller. And it is MY account! Not his! He's not only lying to me, he is making my life miserable, and I love him. : ( We are high school sweethearts, and We are 21 now. I pray that he sees it for himself, what he could have if he didn't play poker like he does. We cannot keep doing this especially with only one of us working. I work 30 hours a week, and attend college. He just used to work, now he doesn't.... I also feel so alone. I make and eat dinner alone, I often go to bed alone. I hate this. He's no the man I feel in love with. When I cry to him about my thought and feelings, he will say (what I want to hear to get me to shut up) He promises and cries to me, that he will give it all up for us to be normal and happy with me, that he's so sorry for hurting me... That he's sorry for lying to me, and he feels sick, and so bad. Well? When will I see it? I wonder if this is even love? I really don't feel it, or see it at all.