Hello everyone.
I really don't know where to start.
My fiance and I have a one year old daughter and a result due to get married in two months time. Before we got together we said he had a problem with online poker and got into a bit of debt that he managed to pay off (this was about 10 years ago). When we got together he put a couple of bets on the football but was always open about it and it was never anything alarming, just a couple of pounds here and there. I asked him to stop when I became pregnant and he did. I found out he put a few more beta on (about £60 worth) after I asked him not to and confronted him. He apologised and stopped. I monitored him for a while and all was fine until this evening.
I've just found out that he has accumulated £8k worth of debt over the last 6 weeks alone and has been lying to me about finances for a while. We are so hard for money right now that I have had to out our most recent food shop on a credit card just so I can feed our daughter but I thought it was just because we moved house 2 weeks ago and it caused us a lot of upfront expenses. Turns out, it's b cause he gambled all his money away and more.
I really don't know what to do. How can I marry a man in two month time when he does this to me? Leaves me and his daughter in such a bad financial situation.
Someone please give me any sort of advice because I just feel so lost at the moment and I don't even know where to start.
Hi toroliver it's a shame to hear that you are realising the extent of your partner's gambling so close to your wedding. Unfortunately we don't realise when we meet compulsive gamblers and they tell us they 'used ' to have a problem what that actually means . They then pretend that small bets are all they're involved in, when behind the scenes is chaos. No one can tell you to do this or that, stay or go, marry or postpone. That's your decision. What I can advise is that you start securing finances in your name, no joint accounts. Don't pay his debts. Encourage GA. If he can't pay debt and living costs he needs to contact stepchange. Don't ignore this. Find a gamanon meeting for yourself and start learning how to cope. Call gamcare and get some help or just talk. Ask questions on here, others will hopefully answer and offer support.
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