Hi, sorry for the long post, i tried to keep it short.
I'm new to this forum but definately not new to the world of gambling. My ex husband was a gambler, he gambled on anything and everything on a daily basis. Our bills were always paid and he never sold anything to feed his addiction but he took out multiple loans to pay off his debts and added thousands to our mortgage to repay those loans. We seperated in 2009 after 13 years and 2 kids - gambling was a major factor in that split.
Fast forward a year and i met an amazing man, my soul mate, It wasnt plain sailing - mainly because of me but he stuck with it and 2 years in we were settled.
Then my world fell apart. He called me up one day with something big to tell me - he'd been gambling. Not just a little bit, but thousands over the course of a few weeks and i mean upwards of £10,000. I was absolutely devastated and ready to walk there and then but we talked it all through, he reminded me that he stuck by me when i was having issues, he swore blind he had never done it before and he promised never to do it again. Another 9 or so months past, he regained my trust and we spoke about moving in together. Then he did it again and moving in went out the window!
To cut a long story short, this has been the pattern over the last 4 years, sometimes he goes near on a year other times its been 2-3 times in a year and it's never a small amount. The most i think was £22,000 His reasons generally being he's fed up with being skint all the time and he keeps going until theres no money left.(new CC's taken out and maxed, overdraft maxed etc)
Each time he promises never to do it again , he knows how much hes hurting me etc. He makes changes lifestyle changes for a few weeks but then he slowly slips back to his old ways. Hes given me his credit cards only to then report them lost so he can get another one, I put K9 on his computer but that didnt work, hes been to GA but he didnt like the group aspect and said he wasnt like the people that were there because they couldnt walk past a bookies without problems and that wasnt him and he tried face to face (although she wasnt for gambling, she was more life in general). Nothing has helped.
This year everything seemed good and I was beginning to look at the future again (although my gambling radar is always up these days) We took our kids on an amazing holiday - within a week of being back he gambled £4000. I said i would leave him if he didnt get proper help because everytime it was taking longer for me to 'recover' from it. He can barely afford to live anyway so he cut down on his drinking, swapped to weaker beer, said he'd give up smoking, took up running and finally managed to line up some online councilling.
He was supposed to have 1-2 drink free days a week but this lasted maybe a month, when i brought it up I was nagging him. The no smoking lasted 2 days, the running was a bit hit and miss and lasted til the clocks went back then it was too dark and too cold. The councilling was 6 sessions , the last of which was this Saturday - he missed it for the 3rd time. When i asked why - gambled his months wages on Fri night when i was out.
Ive barely spoken to him since - he said hed gone to his mums to change his banking passwords as he cant be trusted and that he is scared as he doesnt understand whats going on and knows he needs proper help.
I spent most of last night sobbing into his pillow because I just cant cope with this merry go round anymore but feel so guilty if i walk away. What if this time he really means it and he does get proper help and it does work. I feel like im deserting him when he needs me the most. I feel like I cant talk to my friends anymore - they must be so bored of it now. My parents dont know, he made me promise not to tell them as he wants them to think good of him. But Im just so tired of all the broken promises and half arsed attempts to fix things, I feel like he tries just long enough to shut me up then goes back to his old ways.
I love him to pieces and just dont know what to do anymore,
Hi meligs, welcome to the forum 🙂
First of all, he's given up the right to call the shots so you tell anyone you want to, especially anyone that can support you. Secondly, get yourself some proper support...GamCare can offer you counselling & if there is a GamAnon group near you, all the better. There is a small part of me that wants to shake you & say run, run for the hills because everytime you roll over & accept his half hearted excuses & pathetic attempts to change he has no reason to stick with his recovery but the gambler in me knows that this is absolutely not your fault! We can be so incredibly manipulative when it comes to not giving up on our dreams! Quitting is hard, he may mean it everytime he says it to you but the pain of our losses fades & the reality of the debt we have caused is a great reason to go back, to win money & make it all go away rather than actually face up to our demons.
If you love him enough to keep having this exact same fight, be true to you. Get yourself the support that you need to help you & the kids that need you because he is letting them down, then whatever is left, offer it to him. Living with an active CG is hell on earth for you & everyone around him. You have to decide what you will accept & stick with it. Tough love isn't abandoning him, it's giving him direction & it's all very well him running off to his mums but why couldn't he sit down with you & do that? If he wants help, it's out there & you don't deserve to be treated like this! It's going to be hard for both of you but if you don't take control of your life, he will continue to destroy it.
Stay strong for you & your babies - ODAAT
Thankyou ODAAT for taking time to message me
I would also like to shake myself - if a friend told me the same thing I would say ' what the hell are you doing putting up with that?' but its so different when youre in it and emotion is involved.
One issue that seems to come up is that because he doesn't live with me its his money, this is what he told me last time when things got heated. Hes right, it is his money, but he refuses to see the knock on effect. I refuse point blank to live with a gambler ever again and every time he gambles hes just pushing me further away, but his only answer is he says he would never gamble my money and things would be ok if we lived together.
If he gambled all his wages away living with me like he did last Friday then who would pay that months bills? It may not come from my account but it would still indirectly be mine. I just cant trust him anymore.
Everything I read seems to focus around people that gamble all the time and not the sporadic way he does it. He says he doesn't get a buzz from it and when he's in it hes not thinking about anyone else, just the screen. Its very difficult to try and understand and see a way forward.
Ive looked at Gamanon but unfortunately there is nothing even vaguely close to me, I'll try and ring Gamcare tomorrow - my daughters due home soon.
I dont see how he could possibly love me like he says he does when he constantly does the one thing that upsets me more than anything else and makes little effort to try and break the cycle and move on. I feel like Im not good enough and he would rather drink and gamble his money away than change for a future with me
We'll tell anything to get you off of our backs & yep, it may well be 'his' money but when there are relationships & kids involved, finances aren't black & white & yep, things would be great if he lived with you, he wouldn't have to worry about paying rent or putting food on the table, you would do that!
Lots of people here 'binge gamble' if you can call it that, I personally wonder whether his binges coincide with him having money? It's very easy not to gamble when you don't have a penny! Equally it's common for people to 'feel nothing' when they gamble, that's the beauty of it for some people, an escape from the world, leave all their demons behind for a while! As you say, if he didn't get something from it, he wouldn't do it so this is all part of his justification why he doesn't need GA or why counselling doesn't work. Half of us here have spoken about how we didn't think we were that bad, hell, I kidded myself for years that I could stop if I wanted to & yet it took shed loads of support & a very strong other half to get me into recovery!
My mum is a CG (still), she's had 2 partners since I've been alive, the 1st a druggie come alcoholic, the 2nd an out & out alki. I learned to stay away from both drink & drugs very early on. I didn't see the dangers of gambling but with nearly 30 years of trying to get rich under my belt, I see them now. Part of what I have learned in recovery is that partners get beaten down into believing they are to blame, that they are not worthy of anything better. I can't begin to get my head around why she replaced a drinker with a drinker but although I despised both of them, I can still see that they were very charming & I guess she had a type? You are good enough & although you may not recognise it after years of psychological abuse from people who are supposed to love & nurture you, you deserve more than this. 'We' talk about recovery for partners & I guess part of that is about re-installing their self worth, helping them realise that they don't need to accept this type of behaviour.
What you will need to get your head round is, there is no cure. Once we become a CG & make no bones, he is one, we never stop being one, we just learn how to arrest & live with our addiction. First & foremost, we need to do that for us & just like nothing you said or did causes him to drink/smoke/gamble nothing you can do will make him stop although you can support him if he is ready to do so & you have more chance of that if you cut off his lifelines. Rock bottom is different for everyone but as long as he knows you're going to keep putting up with his nonsense, he can keep pushing the boundaries! I understand that you have invested your time & emotions into someone but there's a reason why you have stood your ground & not moved in with him. You may not realise it but you are stronger than you feel @ the minute. Tell someone close, ring the helpline & don't be afraid to trust your instincts - ODAAT
We are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. You can also contact us for free on 0808 80 20 133. If you would like to find out more about the service before you start, including information on confidentiality, please click below. Call recordings and chat transcripts are saved for 28 days for quality assurance.
