Looking for some advice for my wife. I'm a compulsive gambler and last night I relapsed for the first time, after going bet free for a year.
I told her this morning, because part of our agreement originally was that we would be transparent about things, despite the consequences. I have a fundamental belief that you should take accountability for your actions and I was prepared to honour whatever she felt on the matter.
By God's grace, or one of my nine lives, she has been understanding and has agreed to support me this time - with some conditions.
1. I work overtime to repay the money I spent.
2. I re-engage with support services and start going back to GA again weekly.
3. She takes control of the finances (something she really doesn't want to do, but we both agree is a sensible step for the foreseeable future).
4. We have a weekly check in where I talk to her about any feelings I have about gambling so she doesn't feel shut out.
I feel this are more than reasonable and I count myself lucky I have another shot at putting things right.
My question is to both family affected by gambling and those who continue to remain free of the curse of gambling. Do you have any suggestions that might help my renewed recovery or help my wife rebuild her trust in me?
I appreciate any help in advance.
Just for today, I will not gamble.
First thing first going 1 year gamble free is a great achievement and you should be proud, to be brutally honest it a very difficult for a partner to understand addiction relapses do happen, you have to understand a relapse could happen any any given time which is why its just for today i will not gamble, what u can do is be honest with your partner use the chat rooms and if u can get your partner to get a better understanding its a life long illness it simply cannot be cured however can be contained, their a guy aka Dave from Peckham not had a bet for over 29 years however still considers himself has a compulsive gamblier so the gold news is by going thr extra mile and showing how much your trying to change will give her a better understanding, unfortunately someone with no understanding about addiction not going to understand it not simply a case of quiting and repeating the same mistake it about learning about the addiction and understanding your own triggers
My husband doesn’t expect me to trust him. In my opinion it’s just a word. His actions show me he is following his program.
if you try and follow the 12 steps you will see how to be more humble, accept yourself and make amends.
it sounds crazy but in day to day life you just have to be grateful. Money is only a bartering tool. I don’t think about money in the same way. Happiness comes from being content with what you have.
we also don’t talk about money anymore. It just causes problems. We do talk and that’s the key.
we did spend 10years paying off a mountain of debt. He gambled for 30years. But once he admitted to himself he couldn’t have money, bank accounts etc he started to get better. I stopped ’helping’, I went to meetings, severed myself financially. I don’t engage in bad behaviour. I had to let go and detach. I read lots of books about addiction, enabling, women who love too much. We can’t do it for you, we can’t fix you. We can only control ourselves.
@merry-go-round totally agree with this i have been going on and off Ga what i did notice the one that were successful had the same way of thinking as even after decades of gamble free understand the seriousness of this addiction the truth is the addiction cannot be cured, by making false promises saying i will never do it again are the one who were most unsuccessful i was one of those people its a life long committment
I'm not an expert and am the addicted gambler,
Well done on admitting the fall, hopefully early enough it doesn't have lasting financial impact but you've eroded another layer of trust. I place huge value in reading friends and family posts, none of whom chose the life we burdened them with (whatever outcome, we had a choice and they have to deal with our choice) it helps me remind myself that it's not all about me, my choices impact others and that can be in a devastatingly, life altering way
My words around money mean absolutely nothing, we found it relatively helpful to call that out,
the point I really want to make is one I found it hard, and still do, to get my head around, the best 'help' I can give my wife is to work on me and let her do what she needs to do
The work I do on me might not be enough and I have to accept that, my wife has her own life to live, yes I want to be part of that but trying to be who she wants me to be wont work, my brain is very jumbled and I have proven to be capable of huge distortion of the truth, a master of deflecting away from the question and ultimately capable of lying
I'm anything but selfish, too far the other way in fact but I have to work every day on my brain, to stop myself from relapsing - I choose to do this day by day and have done for the last 7.5 years
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