Don't know what to do

This is the post that I always hoped I’d never have to write. Things have come to a bit of a head over the past few days and I now find myself at a time where I have to make a decision about my marriage. I feel I need to provide a bit of background taking me up to where I now am. I’ll try to be as concise as possible…

I found out about my husband’s gambling about 6 months ago after years of trying to get to the bottom of what was going on. I eventually found out as a result of us going to Relate due to problems in our marriage which I now know were as a result of his gambling addiction. It turns out that he has had this problem for about 11 years (since before we got married) and, over that time, I estimate he has lost about £100k. Since ‘fessing up’, he has had three relapses. I can ‘understand’ / forgive the first one (reasons for which would be a whole other post), the second relapse (when he lost £1000 or so) lead to me asking him to leave at which point he moved in with his Dad for a month until he couldn’t stay there any longer and had to move back home. Then, just last week, I found out he has fallen off again, this time losing £280 on the slot machines.

How did it happen? I have financial control but he needed his bank card to book flights for work. I have been exceptionally busy myself recently (at work) and kept on forgetting to get the card back and, actually, I was starting to trust him again and thought (probably naively) that at some point he needs to take responsibility. Anyway, a few things didn’t ring right to me (saying he couldn’t go to GA, that he didn’t have time for our monthly financial review meeting), so I got a mini statement from the ATM and knew straight away what had happened. Lots of £40 withdrawals on the same day. I asked him that night if he had been gambling again and he was (at least) very honest with me. He said he was stressed / down and wanted a buzz / some excitement. I asked him if he thought about phoning someone / reading a letter I gave him recently about how his addiction has affected me / our marriage and he simply said no - he wanted to do it.

He also told me that he has started smoking again having stopped about 2 years ago. I always felt that if he could quit smoking then maybe he could do the same with his gambling. Maybe that's very naive of me but it kind of gave me some hope.

So, after 6 months of Relate and one-to-one counselling for me (as this whole situation has affected me too), I find myself back at square one, just as I was starting to trust him again and relax a bit about our marriage. I said (and discussed in our Relate sessions) that after the last relapse, this was his final chance as I couldn’t take any more. And so now here I am at that point where I have to decide whether to stand by what I have said or give him ‘one more chance’.

I am in a better position than some in that we don’t have any children or a house together (actually both of which are as a result of his gambling, directly or indirectly), so can walk away more easily. If I am going to do so, now is probably my time. However, this is the man I married and wanted to spend the rest of my life with. That said, over the years, I have lost respect for him and my feelings towards him have changed and I’m not sure we can ever get back what we had. I just feel a huge sense of sadness - sadness for what has come of us, sadness and hurt for what he has done and sadness for what is going to become of him.

I’d really appreciate some direction / words of advice please.