Josh didn't leave. Obviously. And unfortunately. If he had left, my beliefs and personal confidence would still be intact. But as he didn't, he had a lot to tell me and that, besides hurting me, made a huge mess inside my head. Right now I'm totally confused and feel terrible, like a kid caught doing something bad. I'll try to explain his arguments as well as possible.
First a little background.
During 2012 I was caught in a situation with an abusive tenant - I rented a family house (which I later sold) to some... man, who never paid the rent, destroyed the interior of my house and, worse, left me with a debt of 700 euros - because electrical power and water supply were in my name. I had to pay bills he accumulated and had lots of trouble getting him to leave (he was living there with two kids without water or electricity, gross). Ultimately it was Josh who got him to leave, by showing up with some friends that apparently intimidated him.
I am now accused in the police of robbing my own house, because the... man, to get back at me, fabricated a story of me going in "his" house and leaving with several electrical supplies, gold and whatnot. Josh is one of my witnesses as to those are all lies, but the process is still pending.
But moving on. When I first rented the place I was conviced I'd get paid 300 euros monthly (a bargain, but our market is terrible now), so I increased my expenses: joined an expensive gym and started having piano lessons. An extra 160 euros a month, that I didn't have because wasn't getting paid.
Later that year, I got into another situation, this time with a cat. I bough a Scottish Fold kitten from this... woman, that ended up dying just 12 days after. Besides the horrible experience of having the cutest kitten sick and dying in our house (and all the trouble it created, since I was at work all day and Josh had to take care of it), it was another disaster to my account. I remembered having 200 euros in my account and withdrawing 220 to pay for the kitten. It was a mistake. I paid for the cat (I bought it alone, Josh didn't go with me and didn't participate in this, I just called him and he said he was ok with it, if I wanted it) and I had to pay for the Vet and then to take the woman to court for selling me a sick kitten (she didn't want to give me my money back). I ended up spending about 600 euros in all this and only got 220 back.
Meanwhile, that was also when I got my arm tattoed and spent a total of 1250 euros in it, in about 4 months. So, during that year, I spent money I didn't really have and still did my life as usual - out to dinner, parties, some make-up, etc. During that time I was also helping Josh: lending him money for his expenses, that he later paid. We did this, as I said, until the summer of 2013 - I lended, he paid (my problem was that he didn't pay when I wanted him to).
As I said in a comment (and may have mentioned earlier) I have now over 70 thousand euros in savings, from selling that family house and so on. That money is safely stached in savings accounts that grant me small interest every year. Smaller than the inflation rate actually, which means I'm not winning anything, I'm just not losing as much as if the 70K were in my current account.
Josh's point of view is the following:
When I lended him the 5K, he was supposed to make it to SuperNova level in one year, but only if he would play certain stakes. This meant that he either had to win at the game, or couldn't withdraw money every month. Or else, he'd have to lower his stakes. Since he didn't win and I demanded him to withdraw money every month to pay for his expenses, although he made 4500 dollars, his bankroll went down to less than 2K.
So, if I had cut back on my expenses a little (since I was going through all those difficulties), I wouldn't feel as compelled to demand monthly payments (this is true, I admit to that), which wouldn't have caused him to lower his stakes and ultimately (along with the ridiculous bad luck he's had, according to the EV graph) made it impossible to reach SuperNova or to keep his bankroll.
In Josh's opinion, if I'd moved part of my barely profitable savings - let's say 5K - to my current account and had used it to help pay for my expenses along the year, I wouldn't have felt so stressed, wouldn't demand monthly payments (he'd pay me back everything by the end of the year) and none of this would have happened.
Regarding his hair loss pills, he said he didn't understand why I couldn't pay for them because his only issue is that he doesn't have money in his current account, only on his credit card (that receives his PokerStars withdrawals) and the pharmacy doesn't take credit card payments. So I'd pay for the pills and then he'd go to the supermarket and buy me 23 euros (their cost) worth of stuff, with his credit card.
He thought I was being extremelly selfish on this particular occasion (pills) and that I was always blaming him for my poor decisions regarding my money. He said he didn't know if he could live like this, so he was leaving as soon as he got a ride to go. His bag is packed. I seriously doubt he goes, because I know he still loves me (or, as you might ask, does he love my money?).
He also said my low self esteem is always causing me to doubt that he really loves me and making me think that he's only there for the money, but that's bull, because he knows he can survive on his own, even if not with the same quality he has with me. And that he's only trying to earn more money to please me (so we can have a family soon) because if it was only for him, he'd live with 400 a month and didn't give a damn.
This was basically it. My head feels like a drum and I had a bad day at work yesterday. I don't know what to think, but I must find out what I want. I didn't buy him the pills though, he asked his grandmother and she paid for it. I'll go to therapy later, which will be good. Got to get my thoughts together. I think he has a point, but I'm afraid to be manipulated. Maybe I'm crazy and a bit paranoid and can't believe he loves me for me. Maybe not.
Thanks for reading all this, appreciate it.
xoxo
Andrea
i'd tell you it's time for him to go, but you already know that.
ReplyDeleteditto
DeleteSo he says .....If you had paid all his expenses you would not be stressed..........
ReplyDeleteTell him no need to wait for a ride. The foot you should put up his ass will make him run fast to where ever he is going. Don't worry, he will return when he has run out of your money.
LOLOL well he said if I had enough money for MY expenses I wouldn't be so demanding with his. Does this make sense? Am I allowed to poorly manage my expenses if that takes its toll in our relationship? Or is he playing me?
DeleteHe was/is taking money from his poker account to help pay the bills. His poker account was funded by YOU. He is paying expenses with YOUR money. The amount in his poker account is smaller because he is not winning.
DeleteWhy is this all so hard to see?
Who is managing their expenses more poorly, the person with an income and savings, or the person who doesn't want to work and can't win at poker and pays his "girlfriend" token amounts of money that she borrowed from a bank and is repaying on his behalf with interest anyways.
DeleteHe doesn't have enough money for anything and is simply losing yours on pokerstars and mad that you won't give him more.
"He was/is taking money from his poker account to help pay the bills. His poker account was funded by YOU. He is paying expenses with YOUR money."
DeleteAccording to Josh, that is not entirely true. I mean yes it's the money I borrowed him but he still has to pay me back the WHOLE 5k. So saying that he's using MY money to pay his expenses would mean that the money isn't his now, and consequently that I didn't really lend it to him (and agreed to receive it only years from now, which I did) and he wouldn't have to pay me back.
When you lend someone money, the money is his/hers for that period of time. I agreed to lend him 5k until the end of this year if he made it to SuperNova or, if not, until he got his share of his inheritance. What he does with that money is his problem. I can't accuse him of using MY money to pay for his expenses, it's against the whole logic of lending money to someone.
It's a bit confusing when you have depbt overlapping debt, but I believe the logic is correct.
What's the life expectancy of his grandparents looking like? And how much more will you have to "loan" him to keep him afloat until the inheritance train comes in? And who says he even pays? I'm sure he's taking his gym body to Monte Carlo or Vegas without you as soon as the check clears
DeleteYou have 70,000 Euros in the bank, a good job that you like and you're completely self sufficient? Plus you're cute and smart?
ReplyDeleteHey baby....how YOU doin?
with tatts too. if she is real LMAO
DeleteAndrea, when you loaned him the $5k, wasn't there an agreement that he would make monthly payment to you? All the other stuff with your own finances is really irrelevant. Besides, $5k is really a lot to work with, if he was playing $15 SNGs. Even if he had lost 1/2 of it, $2.5k is still over 150 buyins. That is plenty of BR to work with if he is a winning player.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, he has been in a dream scenerio for years. He is living basically for free, what little he pays, mostly came out of your loan to him. If he can't make it as a poker player under these circumstances, then he is never going to make it in the first place.
Hi Pokerdogg, sorry for the late reply, it's hard to come here in the weekend. Well, when I lended him the 5K we agreed that he would pay HIS EXPENSES monthly. Not the 5k loan, which he'd pay by the end of the year or when he got his inheritance (we have a contract saying that). He was expecting to win money ON TOP of the 5K, as he usually won, to pay for his monthy expenses. However, the year started off bad and he didn't win or lose, which meant he had to take some money from what I lended him to pay expenses, monthly.
DeleteSo during this year, he paid me everything back. With the money I lended him, yes, but that is irrelevant because he's still going to have to pay me back the WHOLE 5k... so he wasn't living basically for free, he paid for his half of eveything, with a freebie here or there (like the steak dinners that we divided in half even if I ate a burger, as I mentioned, stuff like that).
Now.. regarding the fact that 5k is a lot to work with.. I agree, at least from my understanding of the game. I told him that, and also that 5 years is enough for us to know if he's a good or bad player, if he can live off poker or not. His reply was that he is a good player because in 5 years he never lost money, he always won, his graphs are always rising, except for this year, when he didn't win or lose, but his BR went down because of the payments he had to do to me. He said that if he didn't pay me monthly he'd made SuperNova and give me back the total of his expenses money by the end of the year when he got the bonus.
This is what he told me, I don't know what to make of it yet. Meanwhile, a little victory, I didn't buy him the pills as you know and he ended up agreeing on going to City Hall to get the dog's documents. So basically I didn't break, I set a boundary and he had to respect it. Plus, now he knows that I won't break even if he threatens to leave. Baby steps. We'll see if this is the way for a healthy relationship, where I feel good, of if it's the way for us to get separated, but the important thing is that I respect myself.
As Vookenmeister and others have said, the online poker scene has gotten a lot tougher over the last few years. There are many people whom used to win online, are now losing players. It would be interesting to see Josh's ROI% each year over the last five years.
DeleteMost importantly, is he winning at the lower stakes since the beginning of this year? If he isn't, why not? If he still can't win after dropping in stakes, something is wrong. Either he doesn't have the skills, mental toughness, discipline, or all of the above, it doen't matter. If he can't win, what is he going to do about it?
I know it is hard to play well when there is a lot of pressure, financial or otherwise, but if you want to make it as a poker pro, you have to find a way to block it out and focus when you are playing. If you can't do that, then playing poker as a living isn't meant for you. It is not very meaningful to say you can be a professional poker player, if only you have the perfect environment around you. From what you have written in your blog, Josh has had it pretty easy with all the financial support you have given him.
According to his stats he's breaking even, and according to the EV graph he should be winning more, which means he is having bad luck. I asked him what will he do if his luck doesn't change soon, he says he can't lose/not win forever and it's a matter or patience to turn things around. :\
DeletePatience and more money from you. Has he really broken even? Doubtful.
DeleteVookenmeister probably have a lot more knowledge abour the validity of EV graph w.r.t. SNGs, but IMO the graph shows only a small part of how well one should/could do. It measures one portion of the game (allin moment), and extrapolate that to how much one should win after winning or losing that hand.
DeleteThis graph should be more useful in cash games, but I have stopped looking at it because it shows I am consistently running worse than expected at the current site I play on, in fact 1/4 what I am supposed to be winning. I don't have much faith in the graph after 120,000 hands.
Hello :) Actually Josh told me yesterday that he had realized his HM stats weren't right. He saw he had been playing for 8h and the program only registered 3h. So... I'm guessing the stats I posted aren't totally accurate and the EV graph may not be accurate also.
DeleteBy the end of the day what matters is really if he keeps learning more about the game and makes money on the long run. I should update the blog... nothing special, but will do a post soon.
I hope your therapy session today will lend you some clarity. Best wishes.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately my therapist had a "compulsive commitment" (she had to commit a crazy person to the mental house, I don't know how to say it in english) and couldn't see me... I'll see her today.
DeleteI tried multiple times to post a super long comment this morning pointing how ridiculous his logic is, but it didn't work. So the two most pertinent parts are:
ReplyDelete- #1: if you have $70k in the bank, why did you take a loan that you pay interest on for his poker funds that he has subsequently lost/ spent on token payments towards shared expenses?
-#2: in an equal partnership it's reasonable for a partner to question what the other is doing if they feel they are being irresponsible or reckless. But the guy who refuses to work so that you don't have to draw yourself so thin every month and is too lazy to dig deep and get his shit together and do anything to actually make you happy and show his commitment to your happiness
For some reason the cursor froze on my iPad.
DeleteJosh doesn't work and can't be bothered being more than paid help that you sleep with and he thinks he can tell you how to spend the money you work for despite wanting nothing to do with your animals or home life behind what you're paying him for? And you're okay with that?
I seriously pity you. You're in an emotionally anusive relationship and your best case scenario is hopefully ten years from now he hasn't transitioned into drinking and beating you up. He's never going to magically figure it out and make something of himself.
Hello :)
Delete1 - Because I didn't have the 70k by then. Hmm but I didn't take the loan, I'm only his "security" for the loan, which means I only have to pay if he doesn't (which now I know it's the same, because if/when he doesn't pay I'm screwed, but by then I didn't know). He hasn't skipped many payments though, like one or two in a year.
2 - Yes... I am in an emotionally abusive relationship, which I'm trying to change by setting day to day boundaries and not breaking them. The other way would be to break up with Josh, but only to go on to my next emotionally abusive relationship, because I don't have what it takes to stand up for myself, I'm a pleaser and forget myself in relationships, as I've always done (with previous boyfriends). It's an issue I have to work on, with Josh or with any other man being my "guinea pig".
#2 is an excuse - Josh is unique in how poorly he treats you. He knows how to manipulate and take advantage of you whereas another man would in theory be with you because he loves you and wants to share happiness with you
Delete#2 - I have never heard of a bank work that way. How much principal is left on the loan?
He still has 4k to pay until 2017.
DeleteIf the end of 2017 then 37 months times 125 a month is 4625. His ability to pay you back is doubtful at best so just pay it all now and save 625 euros.
DeleteAndrea - one quick suggestion. If you borrowed 5k from a bank and have 70k in savings, you should use some of the 70k to pay off the loan. You're paying more in interest than you're receiving from your savings.
ReplyDeleteThat's good thinking Cranky and I will look into it. But I think he already paid the interest and is now paying the remaining of the loan. The bank is like: we borrow you 6k, you'll pay a total of 9k in 5 years, the first 3k (like 2 first years) are interest and only then you start paying the loan itself. But I must check it with the bank, it's a good idea.
DeleteHi. Andrea,
ReplyDeleteI know you've been posting for a few months now and have gotten quite a bit of reaction to your blog. I've actually been too busy too comment before, and honestly, I don't know what to say. I really can't put myself in your place.
Also, I think the easiest thing to do is for someone to tell a person, "Dump him (or her)" Only you can make that determination. No one else is in your shoes.
I hope you posts are at least therapeutic for you.
I did want to thank you for listing my blog as one of the few blogs on your blogroll. I do appreciate it, especially since our blogs are so very, very different!
Good luck and I hope you are able to make the right choices going forward, whatever they may be.
Thank you for your kind comment Rob.
DeleteNo problem with the blogroll, it's the least I can do for people who put up with my soap opera like posts. Actually I must update it with the new commenters' blogs soon.
Hope to hear from you again :)
His logic is simple. He did you a favor, while sponging for four years. So you should spend your savings to support him indefinitely and fund his poker account without expecting repayment until year-end. You should trust him because he is a POKER PRO who never loses and never violates agreements about money. If he found a better sugar-mama then he would be outa there, BIATCH.
ReplyDeleteWell yes, he might be, that's what I'm testing by setting up some real boundaries for the first time.
Delete"I would pay … 250 euros ... He would: Do everything."
DeleteHe threw a tantrum because you wouldn't give extra money? Cut his allowance now! When you are done punishing your little boy, find a real man.
FYI, bonuses accumulate the year AFTER you attain Supernova status. It isn't much until double or triple Supernova levels. Josh would need to play successfully at much higher levels for two years to earn a couple thousand extra euros. This is just a smokescreen excuse to explain why his financial problems are your fault.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/44/omaha-8/supernova-status-really-worth-621129/
When Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP, online poker attracted a generation of suckers. Then the Department of Justice cracked down, and many sites closed (often cheating and stiffing customers). T.V. sponsorships ended, new suckers stopped coming, and old suckers went broke or wised up. Books were published, and the general level of poker ability rose.
DeleteNow a huge overhang of poker pros competes over a diminished pool of amateurs. A few years ago, a good player could earn a living online. But conditions have deteriorated. What was realistic a few years ago is getting difficult and impossible. Josh has failed to plan and adapt. He has no plans to earn more than minimum wage or cope with further adversity. What if Pokerstars eliminates rakeback, or closes, or gets tougher games? He plans to sponge off you forever, baby!
Keep your gym, look hot, and find a new man ... or two.
I constantly ask him those questions. This weekend I was (again) telling him about the importance of a backup plan, that he invested on his education or something that he could rely on in case Poker somehow disappears. But no, he doesn't care. He believes he is a good player and will become rich if his luck gets "normal". What can I say?
DeleteI'll do exactly what you said. I mean I'm not actively looking for a new relationship, but what will be will be.
You lent $10K, and then $5K. Now he owes you $15K with a measly $2K left in his account. He is a lifetime losing player.
DeleteHe currently ekes out a tiny profit, but mostly pays expenses with your loans-gifts. That $2K won't last long. Are you going to "lend" him more money to extend the poker charade? Or merely pay all his expenses so he can play soccer and chase women full-time?
Your country and your life is in crisis and yet the "amateur psychologist" in me sees that you are soothing yourself with material items and purchases well beyond your means.
ReplyDeleteInevitably, this man will bleed you of your savings and self esteem and then leave when their is no more to take. This is appears to be a repeated pattern of you empowering other people in your life to make you suffer for your generosity.
Break that cycle.
i think josh is awesome
ReplyDeleteThis seriously is the most sad blog I have ever read. Josh needs help YOU need help, you need to excise Josh out of your life before he kills you. Some people no matter what you do, cant or wont be helped, wont appreciate anything you do for them unless your doing more and more and more and then when you cant, they make you feel guilty for it.... I wish you would listen to ALL THE PEOPLE HERE telling you to kick Josh to the curb. It will be the best thing you will EVER do for yourself... but honestly Im not holding my breath
ReplyDeletecome on,marc. it has only been 4 years and he has made no money. where is yr heart? some people r to good to have to get a job and want to better themselves. i say ,we give josh 10 years as long as andrea or whoever is bringing home the bacon. let the pro play,work out,get his hair products,and hang with his buddies. making no money at poker is hard work. we just dont understand ,marc.
DeleteIt's amazing what people find inevitable in other people's lives.
ReplyDelete