Spouse

[jimmtech]

My wife hates casinos, she hates smoke, she hates the noise of slots, she can't stand drunken people and she hates gambling.

I have taken her to casinos and gotten her lots of free cash, gifts and nice meals and lots of stays in fancy hotels.

I have tried to get her to play slots with tepid and disappointing results.

I have tried to get her to play at the tables with me - too stressfull.

I have free hotel stays, free money and free meals all over the country and she could care less.

My biggest mistake has been to disclose big losses to her early on.

When I try to discuss me going full time, its as if a new ice age has flash frozen the earth.

AP talk and even showing her wads of cash won has no effect.

I'm sure gambling has broken families up before, but my question is:

Have any of you successfully overcome this with your spouse?

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by jimmtech

My wife hates casinos, she hates smoke, she hates the noise of slots, she can't stand drunken people and she hates gambling.

I have taken her to casinos and gotten her lots of free cash, gifts and nice meals and lots of stays in fancy hotels.

I have tried to get her to play slots with tepid and disappointing results.

I have tried to get her to play at the tables with me - too stressfull.

I have free hotel stays, free money and free meals all over the country and she could care less.

My biggest mistake has been to disclose big losses to her early on.

When I try to discuss me going full time, its as if a new ice age has flash frozen the earth.

AP talk and even showing her wads of cash won has no effect.

I'm sure gambling has broken families up before, but my question is:

Have any of you successfully overcome this with your spouse?

when i started playing blackjack almost four years ago with $300 i promised my wife if i lost that, then it would be over. she agreed. so far i haven't lost the $300 and over those years i've kept her up to date on everything that has happened, the good and the bad.
she understands that most any guy is gonna have some hobby or things he like to do that is gonna cost some money, just as most wives have recreational interests that have expenses involved. she see's that my recreational pursuits hasn't cost us a single dime. so i get no grief.
i guess if it ever happens that i lose the bankroll i've built up and that $300 then she has a legitimate complaint.

[FLASH1296]

I have been married 3 times.

My first wife hated gambling
It did not enhance my marriage.
It made it stressful for her.

The second marriage was a profound disaster.
Gambling was the crux of the problem.

My third (current) marriage is to a poker player.
It works well, although I basically limit my time "on the road"
to about one week per month. At my age, that is plenty.

From the sound of what you have posted, winning and losing money
is not the issue. You are thinking of this like a man. You need to be
empathic. As a woman she i a much more evolved being than you are.
To her, gambling is simply morally wrong, and likely she views it as an
impediment to your 'relationship', to underestimate the case.

My second wife had said:
"you are cheating on me.
Your lover is a deck of cards."

She was fully correct. I could not see that at the time.

[Kasi]

Originally Posted by jimmtech

I'm sure gambling has broken families up before, but my question is:
Have any of you successfully overcome this with your spouse?

She loves slots. Always had.

She loves gambling. Always did,

I hate slots.

I hate gambling.

I never gambled or played slots before I met her. Would never have been dragged to a casino without her.

Humiliated by a dealer 3 times on our honeymoon playing BJ after being told "are you suire you want to hit that 21?"

Learned BJ on the internet recognizing an opportunity.

Taught her BJ, she plays flawless BS but gets bored playing min.

Still loves the potential big "payoff" of slots.

Made the mistake of teaching her 3-card poker and Let-It-Ride and SP21.
The only thing she likes are the side-bets with the bigger pay-offs.

I always bring an extra thou because I know by the time I go to bed upon arrival, tired from travel, she wakes me up at 4 AM with some bad luck story, still 2 days to go on our trip, and wants to borrow some money. She never knows I brought the extra thou. I give her $400 and tell her that's all I got.

I tell her fine, if I play with you and you play min BJ.

Usually, she eventually wins a couple hundred and dashes off to some slot machine or some 3-card table except I'm not supposed to know that that's what she's doing.

Once I had "lent" her $400 or so and she had about $700 in front of her after a while. I asked for my $400 "loan" back.

That was early in our marriage - don't do that anymore lmao.

Is it weird that she and I have always had separate finances? We have two jointly-held accounts but she is primary on one and I am primary on the other.
That's the way she wanted it when we got married. I don't open her mail and she doesn't open mine. I don't know her debts and she doesn't know mine. In theory lol. She writes me a check once a month for agreed-upon joint household expenses and I pay the house hold bills.

A couple times she wanted like a $10K "loan" so I gave it to her and she'd pay me back over 5 years at some interest rate. How weird is that?

I get the fact she'd rather gamble than buy a new car or whatever. I'm not going to change her.

Sounds like your wife is me and you are my wife to some degree lol. I hope she accepts what you like in the same way I accept the fact of how much my wife loves to "gamble".

But we only go on 2-3 trips a year.

Don't even know what I'm saying lol - don't know how much you play - bet to
a roll you guys can agree upon, measure results frequently and go from there lol.

[callipygian]

Originally Posted by jimmtech

Have any of you successfully overcome this with your spouse?

Define success. If she resents you for the rest of your life but you get to follow your dream of being pro, is that success?

I haven't been in your exact situation, but this sounds like a pretty normal marriage issue - you want to do something or make a lifestyle change your wife doesn't like. That something varies, but the conflict usually ends up being the same whether it's you wanting to work at a lower paying job or to move your family to another state or to have a threesome or to accept a promotion that requires travelling. Stuff like this happens all the time, and there's a standard battery of exercises that marriage counselors can use to help you talk through your problem. If there's someone you both trust (friend, counselor, pastor, etc.), I'd suggest hitting them up for advice.

If you want to save yourself some time or money, these sessions generally start off the same way:

There's generally a root (unspoken) issue that's the real key to the problem. Try to find out what that is - is she worried you won't make enough money? Is she worried you won't spend enough time with her? Is she worried that you'll fail?

Also, look inside at yourself. What's your goal here, to convince her to sign on to something you've essentially decided to do with or without her, or to find a way to make the pro life work for you? Be honest with yourself; you don't need to post anything here or PM me or pretend to be anything you aren't. I'm not your counselor.

[ihate17]

Originally Posted by jimmtech

My wife hates casinos, she hates smoke, she hates the noise of slots, she can't stand drunken people and she hates gambling.

I have taken her to casinos and gotten her lots of free cash, gifts and nice meals and lots of stays in fancy hotels.

I have tried to get her to play slots with tepid and disappointing results.

I have tried to get her to play at the tables with me - too stressfull.

I have free hotel stays, free money and free meals all over the country and she could care less.

My biggest mistake has been to disclose big losses to her early on.

When I try to discuss me going full time, its as if a new ice age has flash frozen the earth.

AP talk and even showing her wads of cash won has no effect.

I'm sure gambling has broken families up before, but my question is:

Have any of you successfully overcome this with your spouse?

Great lady, but our interests were just too different.
Best of luck

[daddybo]

Originally Posted by jimmtech

My wife hates casinos, she hates smoke, she hates the noise of slots, she can't stand drunken people and she hates gambling.

I have taken her to casinos and gotten her lots of free cash, gifts and nice meals and lots of stays in fancy hotels.

I have tried to get her to play slots with tepid and disappointing results.

I have tried to get her to play at the tables with me - too stressfull.

I have free hotel stays, free money and free meals all over the country and she could care less.

My biggest mistake has been to disclose big losses to her early on.

When I try to discuss me going full time, its as if a new ice age has flash frozen the earth.

AP talk and even showing her wads of cash won has no effect.

I'm sure gambling has broken families up before, but my question is:

Have any of you successfully overcome this with your spouse?

Gee Whiz... Is her name Liz?

[DonR]

Originally Posted by sagefr0g

when i started playing blackjack almost four years ago with $300 i promised my wife if i lost that, then it would be over. she agreed. so far i haven't lost the $300 and over those years i've kept her up to date on everything that has happened, the good and the bad.

Wow! That is pretty amazing, Sagefr0g. Quite a few times I went down $300, or more, in a matter of an hour, or two. A lot of people here, probably even faster than that. You have to tell us the secret.

[ricopuno]

I learned to gamble through my wife. I hate gambling before , but I lost the

battle

therefore I gave in. Now, I'm a card counter, video poker player, slots player.

This coming May I will receive my severance package and I told my wife that

she will sit down while I count cards.

[hawkeye]

I got my wife into gambling, she's getting better at BJ everyday. She doesn't fully count, but employs a modified short-term counting system where she keeps her eyes out for a large quantity of small cards in one round, and then ups the bet for the next round. If the big cards came out to make up for it, she drops her bet back down. If not she keeps it up. It's actually pretty effective, given it's kind of a home made thing.