My dad has always been terrible with money. When me and my sister became adults he would borrow money ever month to ostensibly pay for bills. My mum always took a hands off approach to money while she was busy raising us.Â
She has just viewed their bank statements and found out that he is a gambling addict. £800 pounds last month on their debit card. 30 gambling transactions in the past week. Two maxed out credit cards. This is all she knows about so far. I feel so so angry and betrayed. He is completely downplaying it and she’s had to find all of this information out herself.Â
He doesn’t know that my sister and I know. How are we supposed to continue to have a relationship with him knowing the financial position he has put our mum in? How is she supposed to find out her/their true financial position? She doesn’t want to leave, especially with this financial position. How can I help her protect herself? Sorry for the questions, just feel completely lost.Â
All I would suggest is talking to him. Not confrontational but see if he can open up and get help.
It would be a good idea to research this mental illnessÂ
Hi, I hope you're all as ok as possible.
1 thing I will say, and this is coming from someone who was in your Dad's position. He didn't do this on purpose, gambling is an awful and evil disease that takes over your life. Nothing is more important than the next bet and I know, I've been there. I neglected my wife and children for years while I secretly racked up £10's of thousands of pounds worth of debt. Lying about everything, being secretive.
He can be helped, if he wants to and you can help him put blocks in place to prevent that from happening. Make no mistake, what me, your Dad and millions of others did is wrong but if you approach it the right way with love and care it will help him more. I've had a million ups and downs, not knowing if my wife would stay or not and that made it very hard. We are still together today and her support made me want to improve things for her, I certainly didn't deserve that.
It's going to be a hard journey for everyone, but first he needs to admit he has an addiction so that he can realise that for himself, take accountability and get the help he needs. If you can get that far then that's amazing because a lot of people don't want to admit it. If he wants your help then email the betting sites he uses to explaining he has an addiction and would like to be banned indefinitely, you can self exclude but they don't usually last long. Put software on his devices to prevent accessing new gambling sites. You say they have credit cards, if so then order new cards that are registered to the gambling sites so that the details aren't registered, and when they come cut them up or keep them safe from him being able to use them again. Utilise any interest free period you have on cards to shift the debt away.
Keeping the cards from hi might sound almost child like but if he struggles or hits low points he will try to do anything to start gambling. I found joining this helped, I created a diary and got a lot of advice from people either in my position or further ahead in their recovery. It may even help for you, your sister or your Mum to speak to people to understand it a little better. Please don't think I'm trying to defend what he's done I'm just coming from someone that's been in his shoes and it's not nice.
Stay safe and take care.
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