I have a question for wives of players and/or husbands who play.
I have been married for 6 years to a player; I'm 38 and he's 44. He's also a bartender, works 3-4 days a week and makes decent money, no benefits and no future there obviously. His life plan is to make a living playing pro poker. I work at a stressful job about 50 hrs a week as well as freelancing. My pay is ok for our area but doesn't leave much left for savings or vacations, etc. However, my job does provide benefits and a 401k.
I knew he played when we got together but since then, when he isn't working, he's playing online or traveling 45 min to the nearest casinos to play, constantly. The only other hobby is golf, which is at least one day a week. We have no kids.
He's an amazing person but I am becoming more and more frustrated that I am the only one doing anything to better our lives now and plan for the future. I'm sorry, but I can't depend on his big plan when making life decisions. He has no savings or large stash of money to play with. Pretty much everything he wins goes back into the game. He does give me money for bills without fail, but I can't help wondering how much better our lives would be if he spent more time doing something...else. I don't want him to give up the one thing he loves doing the most, but there are so many nights and weekends that he spends hours playing only to get knocked out and then play in cash games to make back his entry, for it all to be a wash 12 hours later. When he does win, and he does sometimes, it perpetuates the cycle-his confidence that he can do this is bolstered even more. I know that he's good and might even be able to make this work but it seems to me that if you aren't starting with a large sum this back and forth could go on forever. He argues that it's not gambling, it's strategy, and I get that, but I also get that there is quite a bit of luck involved given the amount of times he's come home after an entire weekend to tell me he got knocked out just short of the money because "some idiot sucked out at the end."
At what point is enough enough? This is his dream and I want him to have what he wants, but I'm almost 40 and working my ass off and don't feel like this is a partnership at all. I could add that all those hours don't leave time for household responsibilities either, unless you count walking the dog and doing laundry once a week.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Last edited by ganstaman; 08-29-2014 at 11:39 PM.
Reason: transfer from psychology forum