Just found out about partner’s gambling debt

Dear @fairy23,

Thank you for sharing your story on the forum today.

I can appreciate how difficult all of this must have been for you. If you haven't already, I would recommend reaching out to us on the National Gambling Helpline. We can chat with you about your situation and talk you through support that is available for yourself to help you through this. 

We are available 24 hours a day on our Helpline 0808 8020 133. You can also reach us on live chat, WhatsApp and Facebook.

You may also find our group chat sessions helpful to speak with others in a similar situation to yourself. We have a dedicated session for affected others on the last Tuesday of every month at 7pm, as well as daily sessions at 8pm every evening in the general chatroom.

https://www.gamcare.org.uk/get-support/group-chatroom/

Please do continue to share your story with us here.

Warm regards,

Forum Admin

George

Hello Fairy23 and Welcome

I will give you some advice you need to protect yourself.

you now need to learn about what you are dealing with here. Its not about trust and believing him at this stage.... its about an ill person reaching out for the recovery to get better

he hasnt done this with an evil laugh to hurt you..... addicts are in the control of a higher power within the mind

He needs help and you can only help from a position of knowledge and strength

a gambling addiction is one if the most powerful of addictions.... it is essentially a drug addiction

ALL finances will now need to be controlled by you and your partner lives on a small allowance with receipts

He needs your love and moral support but not your trust and you can never be complacent again about the power of compulsive urges in this addiction

He has a recovery journey to do if he is truly ready

I repeat protect yourself financially as you are just at the beginning of learning what this is all about

its not your fault and you may need some family support or counselling to build the strength to help in a calm and loving way

Best wishes

I think reading your story you have been absolutely amazingly supportive.

Knowing what I know now I would ask him to sit down in a day or two and tell you everything and to make sure there are  no no lies. A strong foundation for the future is getting everything out and in the open, talking it through but then importantly moving on with honesty. The one thing I learned going through this with my own partner was getting ALL out in the open showed the intent she needed from me and left no nasty surprises to come out in the future. Seeing what was needed for her was also very important, it is a two way street here, you too need support from him in this too.

I agree with the comment aboce. Its not about trust at the moment. You must never forget that he is a gambler. Even if he hasnt had a bet for longer time. You must control the finances because you cannot trust him at the moment. This is illness.

I suggest you help him fund the tools and support he needs. But first of all he has to be willing to kick the habit.

As he has a debt it means he has been gambling big.

I never had a debt but blew my savings in 2 months 6 years ago, during depressive episode, and at the end ended even more depressed and isolated. Luckily I wasnt married, and had some others savings that iI didnt have access to. 6 years I didnt gamble. I even forgot about the shame and guilt and this year I slipped but not very big money. I stopped again as I dont want to repeat the scenario from 6 years ago.

Help him but dont really have too much confidence in him at the moment. Best of luck on your journey

Thank you all for replies. It’s most helpful to me right now. Luckily, we have no joint finances and I’m not affected (on paper). I work in financial services, and this could have ended my career. One of the standard pieces of advice I see is not to enable my partner as this is an addiction. I understand that, and will never pay his debt off. However, do you think I should insist he pays towards our living costs now? He’s got away scott free for nearly two years without contributing a penny to the mortgage, bills etc. I’m wondering if this hasn’t helped? Sorry I’m starting to feel very angry about this right now. Any opinions welcome.

@fairy23 I’m an a very similar position to you, found out a few weeks ago my partner has around £35k of gambling debt. I’m still reeling to be honest. 

i feel similar to you and wonder if I’ve enabled him. We split costs but I’ve always paid for extras (holidays, kids activities, days out). We both earn decent money and should have a better standard of living than we do, and I feel really bitter and angry about that now. Plus I feel incredibly stupid for not realising. Going forwards, I would certainly insist your partner pays his way and he’s been extremely lucky you have supported him so far. 

I would like to split up, and would leave if it was just me. I am unsure if I can get past the lies. My kids are extremely close to their dad and it would devastate them, plus I hate the thought of them being away from me every other weekend. I feel I have to try for my kids sake, but I do not feel good about it. This whole situation has really thrown me.

I hope you manage to move forwards, and I would certainly seek some help and support for yourself too. Wishing you all the best x 

The difference in your story from many others on here, unless I've misunderstood, is that he has told you without immediate fear of being discovered as a gambling addict.  That being the case, I'd be inclined to help him through this - but one slip and I'd end it for good as it will ruin your life otherwise. There will be no trust, you will always wonder where he is and what he is doing and where his money has gone....it will be dreadful and you will regret it for the rest of your life.

The only reason he wont agree to you seeing his bank statements is that he has something to hide. He will make up all sorts of excuses and 'good' reasons for you not to see them. He will start to make you feel unreasonable and guilty - that's what we gamblers do - so he can carry on secretively gambling. Insist on seeing them every single month. No excuses.

I'm assuming he has self-excluded from bookies and on-line. Don't take his word for it, ask to see the emails confirming it or he will mislead you. Insist on seeing the emails. No excuses.

Please try and support him too as (no sympathy is expected here!!) its not easy for a GA to stop. It is a long and difficult journey. You need to be very firm and assertive but you can be supportive too. If he could explain to you when he gets that urge to have a look or a bet you can work through it together.

Regarding your finances, hell yeah!, of course he should be paying half. The debt is his and he can sort that out over the next few years. If he doesn't pay half of the household bills and rent etc, then, in effect, you are paying for his gambling. Smell the roses and stop being so reasonable - his mess and he should clean up.

Sincere good luck to you and to him too for coming clean (which is very very difficult to do with someone you care about) and I hope he can get himself out of this venomous life destroying habit.

Mick

It is so hard to overcome an addiction, most people want to stop but the urges are often stronger 

Just be prepared for a lot of heartache. There are enough threads for you to digest and see just how difficult the ahead can be. I'm not sure of the ratio of success stories to failures, the ratio seems skewed towards the down side.

My advice is dont pay his debt support him in terms of help he requires and support for any mental problems he might be facing, at my worst i blew ex bank balance ontop i was lossing wages as well as my money i was loaned from family it didnt matter how much money i could find i couldnt resist the tempstion to stop gambling, even when on rare occasions i managed to win money i struggled to spend it 90% of the money i was able to get hold of i was lossing it i wish i could turn back the clocks having said that it still gets the better off me from time to time im actually far better off now financially now then i was then i have blown close to 100k if i had 100 million it wont have made a difference the value of money had no value, you need to protect your and understand one thing this a life long illness and it one of the reasons i have remained single as it not fair on anyone else

Posted by: @fairy23

Hi

Its good to see a place to discuss these things with others who’ve been affected. My partner admitted a few days ago he’s racked up a huge gambling debt. He had a period of illness and couldn’t work a couple of years ago. This is when it started. He says he hasn’t done it now for over a year but he is willing to go to GA to make sure he’s never tempted again. I believe him. What I find difficult to process is how I didn’t know. I knew something wasn’t right financially. I’ve paid all our household bills since we’ve lived together and he’s always avoided talk of working out budget and finances. I earn good money so I suppose I just stupidly let it ride. He works full time and I often wondered where his money was going. We’ve got one toddler and a baby on the way. I don’t want their future to suffer, and I think we need counselling and I need total transparency now of his finances. I feel very hurt by this as I haven suffered financially as well as the family, despite my partner thinking he was doing us a favour by hiding it. We had spoken about marriage too and now he says we can’t get married as his debt will affect me. My dreams have been shattered. I’m willing to forgive him and support him not to do this again. I don’t think he realises how accommodating I have been.  We’ve been so busy the last week, I haven’t had a good time to bring this up. Any suggestions or experiences most welcome.

This is almost identical to what’s happened to me today. I’ve been paying the bills the last couple of months and not really explored why and I guess it’s partly my fault for just getting on with it. I’ve been struggling mentally so I guess I just wasn’t as observant as normal. 

she has racked up 15000 pounds worth of debt by opening virtual mystery boxes. This started about 7 months ago and although hasn’t done any in the last 6 weeks she has continued to get loans to pay off other payday loans. We are due to get married next year and I now need to work out wether I can trust her again. She has agreed to let me manage all finances. We both work full time. 

im upset because she didn’t tell me - I guess this is the case with a lot of people but also angry that she allowed it to get to this stage. However she is broken, distraught and riddled with anxiety. 

@sophiejenkinson1996 you need to protect yourself at all costs at my height of my gambling i even stole money from family which i wouldnt have thought about doing in a million years 99 percent of people end up relapsing unless you have experinced gambling it hard to understand, i wish my ex partner just left me as it didnt make a difference to me as it didnt matter i needed professional help at the time

Thank you so much for all of your replies. I’ve taken time to read them all and take your advice on board. Slightly concerned that my partner is very slow in sharing information with me. I asked him last week when he’s going to the debt charity. He said that he was still waiting for all of the information to come in. I understand it may take a bit of time, but I shouldn’t be the one asking him every few weeks what’s happening. It should be him trying to show me now that he’s doing everything he can to sort this out. 

@fairy23 Sorry to hear that but in your heart you know the truth of it......he's lying. Trust me as I know how this works. He's fobbing you off and within a couple of days he will turn this around and pick arguments and blame you for pressurising him.

As him to show you what he is waiting for - is he still hiding things from you? Give him the chance to come clean and show you the problem he has. If he shows you, say, an email or letter saying it will take xx weeks then fair enough but just make sure that you see it all.

It could be that things are worse than he originally told you and he is embarrassed about it. He might feel unable to share it all with you......but he must so be firm.

If he wont agree then tell him its over as it simply won't stop. You need to look after yourself and your children and having him around won't help.

Its very sad but seems he's not ready to share all of his problems and QUIT yet.

Good luck

@fairy23 exactly actions speaks louder then words if he determined to quit he should be honestly with you and get the support he needs he needs to make a list of things why he turns to gambling the addiction is bad and relapses do happen but i do believe a person needs to be a 100% open even get him to try different stuff to take his mind of things the urgues to begin with are very strong but over times things do become easier and nothing is immposible i know one thing for certain the longer it goes the harder it is to quit