New User - Advice

Phone Gamcare...Both of you! You need help now as much, if not more, than she does & you are the innocent party! If she really is ready to give up, she will need all the support you are able to give her as well anything else that she accepts such as GA! Unfortunately, you need to take every step possible to protect yourself financially as CG's are not to be trusted with money!

I can't imagine how much you are hurting but if you have a look @ some of Pangolin or Half-Life's posts, you will see it is possible to live with this!

Be strong - ODAAT

Soz...Double post.

Hi Jody,

Thanks for your post, and welcome to the forum. The first thing you need to do is make sure all your own finances are protected, and that she doesn't have any access to your accounts. If you're willing to manage your partner's finances for a while, that's a step that can help her get some breathing space away from gambling, but she'll need to address her issues whilst you're doing that. Beyond that, the most you really have to do is just be supportive and encourage her to get professional help, both through GA and hopefully through individual counselling. This is her problem to address, and realistically there's only so much you can do to help her. Have you given her our number, for example, or shown her our website? We'd be happy to speak with her and see what we can do to help, and we could possibly refer her to one of our partner agencies throughout the country. They provide counselling at no cost, and that really does help a lot of people.

Don't forget to look after yourself. You don't need to solve your partner's problems, but you can take care of, and focus on you. It's stressful to live with a gambler, and you need support as well, so remember to reach out for that when you need. We're here for you, as well, so feel free to call us on the Helpline (0808 8020 133) or the Netline any day of the week from 8am to midnight.

Hope this helps,

Travis

Thank you for your replies.
She doesn't have access to any of my finances I can assure you that.
I aren't sure if she has been on here or not, I only found you guys this morning as these problems only came to light yesterday.
I don't feel like I can be supportive right now, its hurting too much at the moment but I am sure I will get there once the storm has passed and we see some progress with her going to GA meetings. I will send her your number, I am sure she would benefit from private individual counselling also.

Thank you again all of you

Hi jody

i am the partner of a CG too. You're right, it does really hurt. That is why it's so important for you to get support too. Do you have someone you can talk to about this? I understand that it is not something you actually want to tell friends about but the few people I have confided in have been a brilliant source of help. You are already being supportive to your partner by coming on here. It will get easier when you see that she is making progress. In the mean time keep reading and talking on here. It has helped me no end.

Thank you Katiecola. I have told a couple of people but I feel like they are judging me for staying with her and not leaving her as it isn't the first time she has done this to me. We are meant to be getting married in May 2016, I just see no light at the end of the tunnel right now 🙁

Yeah well the thing is we love them don't we!! I don't think your friends are judging you- they are probably just worried for you. They don't want you to be unhappy. I see it in my friends faces- they probably think I'm mad but we have been together for 20 years and I know if the roles were reversed my husband would stick by me. I think I have a tendancy to over think things. Just give it some time, see if she takes the positive steps forward and go from there. I really do understand how painful it is but if she means what she says with your support she stands a good chance of recovery.

Thank you for your kind words Katiecola x

Thank you Half-Life, your kind words mean a lot.

I came home from work last night and she was drunk so that didn't help either 🙁

Really struggling today

Hi

As a recovering gambler I'd like to try to put you in the picture of what she will be going through.

For me gambling is something I hate so much yet I did it all the time. And once it had a hold of me in the bookies I was a different person. It wasn't the real me. It's like someone inside takes control and there is no stopping you. It's hard to get out of it. And your head thinks it's the best thing to do. In stressful situations I seen it as a break from everything, something I thought I enjoyed doing. But deep down I knew it was damaging me as a person as well as my bank account.

I wanted help but didn't know who to turn to. To this day nobody knows about my dirty secret apart from these amazing supportive people on here.

I'm 43 days gamble free. Not a single bet. No lottery no nothing.

I needed help for a long time but I couldn't hurt the people around me in telling anyone so I kept going thinking it would be alright. Then 1 day I decided to search for help online and found this place.

I swear by the golden triangle.

Time - - Money - - Location.

Eliminate 1 and you can't possibly gamble.

Be supportive and help her. It's what she wants and she has trusted and confided in you.

Together you can make in through it. Use your wedding as a target. For every ВЈ1 you save it's £1 towards an even better honeymoon.

Best wishes

T

Thank you annon1 (T) and congratulations on being 43 days gamble free, keep up the good work!

can you come to a gam anon meeting? in the early days its very hard to know who to talk too. i too thought my friends were judging me and became aware mr P had told a lot of lies about me, i felt very alone and isolated, it took a few gam anon meetings to work out how i wanted to deal with things, who and what i wanted to tell. but i know after the first five minutes of the first meeting i didnt feel alone anymore.

keep talking

We are both going to a GA meeting tonight in our local town so that's a step in the right direction I suppose.
I told my best friend on Friday and she told me I was amazing for sticking by my partner and supporting her in the help she needs.

Let's see how tonight goes, probably end up in tears but I guess everyone will understand

GA is for the gamblers, its good news if they let you go for the first meeting, but after that they want the gambler to take repsonsibility for themselves, so dont worry if it doesnt include you after tonight, its also easier for the gambler to be open about what hes done with other gamblers and confidentiality, so let go after tonight and let the ga do its magic. gam anon is for friends and family of gamblers, the meetings are a bit sparse unfortunately, but anyway thats what we do once a week, we have a bite to eat out and then we go to our seperate meetings (in the same building, different rooms) and then travel home together, serenity boosted for the week.

you will also want a meeting, be it here or a gam anon meeting, that the gamblers dont come to, so you can really speak your mind and focus on your own recovery, we've been through alot us partners and family, we need our time to repair.