Hi everyone, I’ve not posted online belfore, here goes! I have been dating my bf for nearly 9 years and his gambling addiction was apparent from the near beginning. I had a lot more positivity and enthusiamsm back then and thought we could battle it together. He has tried various things over the past years GA, counselling and NLP treatment but the urge kept coming back. He has borrowed from his dad, mum and my parents.
Earlier this year I asked to see his bank statement and he said he couldn’t because he had a surprise for me and not to worry because his dad also knew about it. So last Thursday I did a little digging and I found he was betting. To cut a long story short he had borrowed money from his dad for betting but saying it was to buy me an engagement ring. We have also just started saving for a house. Our relationship goes very strange after his betting is in the open. I get quite sad and deflated while he is full of life free from the burden of the secret. We both want support from each other but are not willing to empathise with how we are each feeling. I get frustrated that he is happy, obviously I want him to be but he doesn’t show much remorse and his motto is that life is too short to dwell on these things and lets move on. We now can’t get a joint mortgage because of his payday loans, he is in dept again. He is also wanting to borrow money to help him pay back his dad as he is getting suspicious and also because we are both meant to be going away next weekend. This has been going on for so long I don’t know how to look at this level headded anymore.
Hello flamingo, I am in a similar situation. I'm supposed to be getting married but his gambling problem has just surfaced again. He's tried to get help through counselling an GA but it keeps coming back too.
They have to want to help them self and my partner has made some steps recently, which is a start but he doesn't see there is a long way to go. I'm finding as well that he's all happy and I'm a mess, trying to look at it realistically. It is very confusing as you want him to be happy but realise this is serious.
Advice, I'm not sure what to give as it is very hard. i have found posting on here very helpful.
Hey NatNat thanks for the reply 🙂
Really sorry your going through a similar situation :/ Do you mind me asking your story?
It would be helpful if anyone has any thoughts on if I am being selfish or unhelpful by going through my emotions. When his betting comes out I loose the will to enjoy life for a while which impacts my bf’s positiveness. I am not my usual silly chatty self, and I start to worry about what mess we are in and how it is going to impact the future. Should I harden up a little and just be positive and not get down about what I cannot change?
Not at all, I've been with my partner for 6 years and the past 5 I have known he has a gambling problem and over the years it has got worse. He had to leave his final year of university and move back with his parents. He hit a very low point and agreed to go to counselling, which his mum paid for privately. What doesn't help that his mum has bailed him out so many times, he owes her about 20,000. Luckily the past year she's stopped bailing him out.
He tried the counselling but he never really wanted to go, he was just doing it for me and his mum. He said he could do it by himself and he did stop for a year. After it had been a year of no gambling we decided to move in together. Within the first month he gambled again, I was very upset as I thought he would be happy living together and away from his parents as he wasn't happy there. He then did it again 4 months later, every time I have found out, he's never been honest with me, he just waits for me to find out and ask him. I found him counselling through gamcare and he signed up to twice, but never saw the whole thing through and just stopped going without saying so. He thought he was ok and didn't need it.
He'd gone another 4 months and asked me to marry him, I said yes. We've only been engaged 4 months and I found out the last 2 months he has been gambling every day! He's now got 12,000 on credit cards! he's had to contact debt advice and he's taken care of it financially but it means he can't get a mortgage for 6 years and if he tries to get any more credit cards it will be fraud and he'll go to prison! He's taken some steps to get better, he dealt with it financially and he went to the doctors, but he still refuses to get counselling.
I'm proud the steps he's taken so far and I want to believe in him as I love and care for him so much, but I've been here so many times now. I don't trust him at all, I take my purse everywhere, I sleep with it under my pillow. I'm the same as you I can't seem to get out of this sadness, I'm worrying constantly and it's effecting my job. I want to comfort him but I just can't and I want support from him but I feel he can't give it to me either. I just feel like a mess! He seems to be feeling happier, which I feel the same as you, its difficult. I want him to be happy but I can't share it as i'm constantly worrying.
I often feel like I'm being selfish too, but if one thing I've learnt is that we shouldn't! We're not doing anything wrong, we are simply supporting and loving them, and hoping they get better. But it is him that is doing this and he has to want to change and prove he can. We're still not there yet and I have thought about leaving, who knows if I will. But I know I am wearing thin and don't know how much more I can take. I desperately want him to get better and marry him, at the moment I am struggling to see it happening which destroys me.
It is hard to stay positive, I know how hard it is, I am not there. I hope I've been some help.
Hi Natnat,
Thanks for your reply 🙂 It does help to read other peoples stories. Not sure if you have a Diary but I hope it helped speaking about yours, it did with me. I have only told a few friends bits of what has happened so when I read some of mine back it was quite cringing to hear. Suppose I have gotten into the habit of forgetting some of the not so nice things too. If only we could see into the future hey 🙂 I am still feeling a bit eugh so I hope I haven’t brought your positivity down too ha. Relationships are always going to be testing at times, I really hope you find a way that works for you and your bf to combat this together! It has been done 🙂
Just speaking out loud now I have no idea what is going to happen to us, we have been together for nearly 9 years and although we have a great relationship and his betting doesn’t affect our friendship too much we are just going round in circles and I am starting to want more (marriage, house and children). I can only imagine what strain that must have on a CG and possibly make things even worse?
We have discussed and planned that I am to take charge of his finances, we have not tried this before. It needs to be kick started from him so I will wait and see what happens. He hasn’t got himself into scary amounts of dept… that I know about :/ but to be honest all I am thinking in my head is that its only going to be a matter of time till things will start to get suspicious again, I’ll do a little digging and we will be back to the same position as we are now. Maybe for his sake of getting better we should have a break, as I am just so negative at the moment. Take care everyone 🙂
Hi Flamingo & NatNat
It sounds like we're all in very similar relationships and we’re all trying to work out if it would be best to call it quits or try and change the situation somehow. I know for the past few years I have resigned myself to the fact that I am living with a liar. I believe I can understand why he does it and the awful things he has been through which make him turn to gambling at the first sign of emotional trouble. I thought I could rise above the childish attitude and games because I know why it’s happening. The problem is I’m really tired of having a third child!! I really need to be loved as a woman / partner / wife and not treated like some figure of authority who he needs to hide everything from - I’d like to be the weak one sometimes!
Anyway, that’s what we’re stuck with - if we choose to be stuck. I was reading other posts and so many of us seem to question why on earth we stay with them. So I really thought about it. OK the fear of the unknown makes breaking up hard at any time. But I guess the real thing is that I love him and he makes me feel stronger. So that scared me - is it something in the gambler’s character which makes them calm and makes us feel safe and secure - however wrongly???
I think that’s why I’m struggling at the moment - on one side I’m screaming in my head ‘I HATE YOU - HOW COULD YOU BE SO SELFISH!’ and on the other side I love his company and being near him. How on earth do you balance that in your head without it ripping you apart???
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