Just need someone to talk to

Hi Bowe, welcome to the forum & sorry to hear what a horrible position you are in whilst you should be enjoying your pregnancy. Sadly, there’s not a great deal you can do to help him that doesn’t involve helping yourself 1st & if you aren’t ready to tell your loved ones then you really should try & find a GamAnon meeting where other people who have walked in your shoes can support you as you figure out how to move forwards. Talk of suicide is very discomforting & with a compulsive gambler, it’s hard to separate truth from reality but if he’s not engaging with any of the help out there, he’s not @ rock bottom. He’s also not likely to get there whilst you are picking up the pieces...I get that this is a needs must where bills are concerned which is why you need help to establish the ground rules so that he has clear boundaries. At the moment, he’s manipulating you & by keeping HIS dirty secret, you are enabling this to continue...People who care about you will judge because they won’t want to see you being taken for granted as he currently is. This is progressive so baby worries may have compounded his stress which in turn has made him gambler harder (gambling isn’t a financial problem, it’s a not coping with life problem)...Saying he accepts he has a problem is lip service. Unless he actively shows you he’s doing something about it, he won’t be & you’ll have to go with your instincts rather than what he says.

Sorry this is all very gloomy but you deserve better & although you don’t need to make any rash decisions, you are going to need to figure out more about this addiction & what you are prepared to put up with before the baby comes. Others will be along soon & if you need to, give the helpline a call, the advisors will be able to point you in the right direction.

I wish you strength - ODAAT

Hi Bowe I'm so sorry you're here. I remember being pregnant and my husband was just on another planet and I couldn't fathom why. Now I know! My sons 17! The first thing you must do is get support. Call gamcare, find a meeting, tell someone. Yes everyone will be shocked, some angry but at the end of the day the secret will be out. His access to funds will diminish. As Odaat has said your secrets let the gambling continue. Bailing him out paying his bills and giving him money, let him continue. So you have to stop that. The best way to help is stop giving them money. Safeguard your money, no joint accounts. They want you to be isolated. They want you to feel bad. They don't want you to tell anyone so they can continue to borrow. So he needs to show you he's actively seeking help. You need to look after you and the baby. As Odaat said gambling is a 'go to' in crisis. They can't cope. You are living with an addict and you need to realise that. You cannot fix him or stop him. You can only change you, look after you. Please get some advice, you can't do this alone and it will just get worse. Ask lots of questions, keep sharing.

Thanks for all your advise, I think I’m to soft for my own good & I need to toughen up. We do have separate money so that’s one thing & he has recently asked me to look after his bank cards & take charge of his online banking & change the passwords etc. I’m hoping that’s the first step to him trying to take control but I think I’m very naive to it all.

Its really good to speak to someone who has been there.

I was tip-toeing around the word naive (no idea why) but yes, you are & you are going to have to wise up to give yourself the best chance of moving forwards in a way that works for you. It is a good sign that he is handing over financial control but I will warn you that not only this can be really hard going (cards being re-ordere & some gamblers can get very aggressive demanding ‘their’ money back) but you need to stay on top of it. It’s not uncommon for partial disclosures with secret bank accounts & loans flying under the radar so to do this properly, you need full access to his credit files too.

Sadly, we behave like spoilt children & so need to be treated like them with firm boundaries to keep us in check.

Sadly, there are plenty of people here from both sides of the fence so to speak so as MGR says, keep writing & get asking - ODAAT

I am really naive so all this information is really eye opening & useful for me & it’s good to hear the truth on how bad it can get & what I can look out for so don’t worry about P***y footing around me I need to know how bad it can get. I really do appreciate getting advice from you all & it’s nice to hear it from both sides of the fence. Tbf when my partner has gambled & he’s upset & ashamed It breaks my heart. I understand that it’s an illness and I just want to help him and make it all better, which I realise now isn’t helpful and is also making me resentful towards him as I am angry that I have been stupid enough to lend him money time & time again (well I say lend very loosely as I never get it back). I really do love him so much & other than gambling he is the perfect partner but I need stability for me & my baby. I suppose I have been thinking that I will be able to make it better if I keep helping him get straight, I even thought maybe if he gets a better paid job he wouldn’t need to gamble & chase fast money but i know deep down that he’s an addict and I can see I need to find a way we can manage it rather than trying to fix it.

My partner did get a high interest loan last year (he’s got very bad credit do not many places will lend him money) without me knowing but he struggled to make the payments & ended up gambling behind my back to try & make the payments so after a couple of months he come to me & I helped him get straight.

Ha has told me he is going to go to the doctors about his moods being up and down all the time, he also said he has been on this site & he is going to keep going on it but there has been so many lies I don’t know what to believe anymore. I’m just going to keep encouraging him to go on the forums or even go to meetings.

The unvarnished truth is an unaddressed gambling addiction can and will ruin not only the gambler but everyone else around him/her. You can't make your husband stop. He has to want that for himself and then keep on wanting it more than he wants the next bet. It's not in your interests to be too understanding. If he wants to stop he can get the understanding he needs from sources such as GA where they 'get it' in a way we never will.

You priority must be yourself and the baby. That means you taking immediate control of the finances including access to his credit reports from all three agencies - all available free via Noddle,Clearscore and MSE's Credit Club for Experian. As much as you can into your sole name and no access to family funds for him. No more lending to him and tell anyone you can think of who might fall for a sob story likewise. Bailing out a CG prolongs the agony for everyone. Once you've stopped the financial bleeding you have breathing time to see if he means what he says about stopping.

hi there - i only joined today an my first post talked of a very similar story to yours, except i am much further along in my story. I had my child with the gambler, he promisd he would change and that i could control his money. Sadly gambling takes over even the most genuine of promises and kind intentions. He lied and deceived his way through 4 unhappy years of marriage, also with alcohol as another vice that he could not control. He mentally abused me becuase he hated me being in charge of his money and made it feel like I had the problem by being a control freak and suspicious of his behaviours, when i found out he had gambled it was always my fault as i had driven him too it. I had my own savings and before meeting him my own home, he now is trying to force me to pay over to him many 1000 pounds in divorce settlement which i just cannot believe. I have many regrets about not leaving him sooner, you just have to follow your gut feeling. I always knew he was never going to be who i wished he were, i wanted to save him early on but after becoming a mum your priority has to be child firt and it is exhausting to have to look after both. x

I love this place so I don’t want to do it a disservice as the support here is 2nd to none but the advice, although well meaning is sometimes misguided so popping in & out won’t do him a great deal of good...Push for the meetings and/ counselling really. The GP is a good idea but I hope he isn’t expecting a miracle cure.

He will be upset & ashamed when he has been gambling but those feelings don’t get a look in when he makes the choice to gamble or the whole time he is doing it! I meant every word I said about stopping when I came home after a binge & the tears were real, as are my Mum’s when she gets in so deep she can’t maintain the lies anymore & has to come clean to us. But until I sought help & realised I had to stop gambling because there was no stop losing option they were empty promises. So many of us think this is a financial problem, think the only way out of the financial mess we have created by gambling is to rely on the exact thing that got us into the hole...It’s an excuse to make poor choices. My debt was cleared repeatedly & yet I continued to gamble because I wanted to. It didn’t matter how much overtime I did, every spare penny I could get my hands on got thrown at my addiction so don’t get too caught up in him needing to earn more. He didn’t gamble to make the loan repayments , he gambled because he is an addict & he came to you for a bail out.

So sorry to hear of your situation ME, it’s indicative of his addiction that he continues to put his want over you & his child & I hope you are getting the support you need to cope with all of this.

Sadly this is all too common & whilst I think my husband is onto a good thing with me, I wouldn’t want a relationship with me & I certainly wouldn’t trust myself as a parent. We are sick people but it’s up to us to seek out what medicine works for us & not for you to administer it. You have to do the same for you because being around us is not disimilar to being around a passive smoker 🙁

As always ladies, look after you - ODAAT

ME I’m sorry to hear what your going through & it sounds like you are being really strong & putting yourself and your child first. I hope you have good friends & family around you to support you, also keep talking on here as people understand what your going through & have lived it. I suppose I am like you use to be as I keep thinking I will be able to fix my partner and it will all be ok in the end which is why I come on here in the first place as I knew I was being naive and I just feel completely out of my depth. I want everything to be ok but I need to be realistic (which I’m struggling to deal with at the moment)

ODAAT I really appreciate your honestly and advice on living with a CG & so many things you are saying reminds me of my partner. When he gambled he always blames it on because he owes somebody money or he wanted us to have a nice Christmas. He never takes ownership for what he has done, he also promises he will get the help he needs but never does. He use to go to the meetings but because they were quite far from where we live he didn’t keep them up & then he slips back into lying and gambling again. I suppose I need to be tough & if he isn’t going to get the help he needs I can’t be around for him to drag me down with him. Which is easy to say but I love him so much I couldn’t imagine my life without him. Although my baby needs to come first & I need to give him or her the best possible start in life.

Hi Bowe. If you want to stay and see this through he has to actively seek help. You take control of you. You can go to a gamanon meeting. Find out if where he went there is a meeting for you too. Recovery is for both of you if you want it.

Hi,

Sorry but it’s a fallacy to think that he would be the perfect partner but for the gambling and possibly the drinking. That might be what you’d like, but what’s the reality of your situation? That he does gamble/drink, blame you for it, refuse to take ownership, lie to you, is emotionally unsupportive?

It’s fairly classic behaviour to know exactly who and what your OH could be once you’ve fixed him but not to be able to see who and what he is in reality.

The answers to improve your situation lie with you. The help is out there at GamAnon or CoDA but it’s up to you to take it.

Hope you go for it.

CW