partner just gone into rehab

Hi, welcome to the forum but to be honest I’m really surprised they signposted this site rather than GanAnon where you can get real life support. My best advice other than getting to a GanAnon meeting is to educate yourself on addiction & get as much support for you as you can...Living with an addict is challenging to say the least and you need healthy boundaries so that you are not utilising all of your strength & energy on someone else. His recovery is not your responsibility so support him by all means but don’t for one minute lose sight of this journey being about you too! You don’t say how he’s ended up in rehab but regardless of how he got there (jumped or pushed), he won’t come out cured & there are going to be tough times ahead...Try not to take anything personally, you didn’t cause this & you can’t control it! I know as an addict I’ve needed my now husband to be strong & not let me walk all over him as addiction helped me become a master of manipulation. Trust your instincts & protect yourself financially any which way you can.

I’m sure some of the friends & family will be along to offer you more over the next few days but remember, you can also ring the helpline to speak to an advisor.

Take care of you - ODAAT

Hi it's impossible to see into the future. I have no idea about tomorrow, today is what you need to think about. As odaat has rightly said, ongoing support from real people, others who live with compulsive gamblers, is found at gamanon. Find a meeting near you. The thing to remember is they are never cured, they can only arrest this addiction. They are secretive, emotionless, compulsive liars. So you need to think about yourself. What are you going to do? How are you going to safeguard yourself and your finances? The best thing I learnt was 'I can't stop him'. Don't give a gambler money, no bailouts. Learn all you can about compulsive gambling, addiction, compulsive behaviour. Another good thing to look at is codependency.

Hi Danakatie1998,

It sounds like they advised you to come here and seek advice and support for yourself as it can be very difficult to live with a compulsive gambler. Your partner has gone to rehab for his addiction so he must have sank pretty low to seek help, did he come clean to you? did find out on your own?

The reason I ask is I am a compulsive gmabler and I held things back from my partner as I resented not having control, if I wanted to bet I would regardless of consequenses. I was in denial to the extent of my problem and as I was the main finiancial provider in the house I resented anyone telling me what I could do with my money. Unfortunalty I had to hit rock bottom befoer I realised that gambling controled me and not the other way around.

I am now on the road to recovery, its not always easy, I have had a couple of minor slips but I attend my GA meeting every week and am focussed on not gambling each day I get up. I know once I am not gambling my life will improve steadily and so it is proving.

You can help your partner by learning about compulsive gamblers, one of the best ways os to speak to GamAnon where you will speak to others in your position. Its vital as unless you know whats its like it is easy for him to maipulate you if he does revert back to type. Fair enough he is in rehab but remeber a compulsive gambler is not a bug you take a pill for to rid yourself of, its part of your make up that you have to live with for the rest of your life. You can give in to urges and let it take over or you can put barriers in place, seek help and support in the battle to change and sto this addiction from ruling us.

Obviously you hope he changes his ways once he returns home but the reality is you cannot be sure so you have to have protections in place. If he is willing to change and stop gambling he should be accepting of this. My partner has full access to everything now, she has her own account, we also have a joint account where my money goes into, she can see every transaction there as I very rarely need cash now a days with all card payments(some people dont even have access to money at all, it depends on what you decide to do). But even here you have to know the pitfalls, for example some shops you can get cashback so you can ask him to produce a reciept if he spends over a certain amount. I know its sounds like baby sitting but its vital, if he knows he can syphone away amounts of money to use towards gambling it can feed a relapse.

Another barrier is self exclusion, you can have hime register wiht GamStop so he can self exclude from all sites and cannot sign up to other ones. Be with him when he self excludes. Get access to his emails and credit score. His credit score is important as it shows up any loans or credit cards he may hide from you.

Any debt he has is for him to sort out, bail outs from families and friends are one of the worst things to help a gambler as it may seem tehy have no money but it means their credit rating is fine so they can borrow.

Keep posting here on how you get on as people on here are happy to help and are further along the path your about to travel.

Hi thanks for the reply. i knew he had a problem since around 2017. he used to ask me for like £20/£30 to pay a mate or something silly, id do it becuase he always gave it me back on his payday and i just didnt think anothing of it. i knew he gambled but i never looked into it. i was only about 18 at the time (we were together since i was 16 and he was 17) so i was pretty naive to gambling in general as no one in my family gambles ever so i never made any of the connections until it started getting bad. he would ask for hundreds to cover 'serious debts' to friends and say they would hurt him if he didnt pay often it would worry me and i would just do it. onbviosuly now i can see it was probably not for that at all and he had just run out of money and needed more to gamble. i think he had it marginally under control until he had is 'big win' of 30,000. we went to mexico, he bought clothes, macbooks, iphones for all his family, paid off *some* debt and masked the fact everything was okay and everything was. after that holiday it all went downhill. he mustve gambled at least 10,000 of that and got himself into mroe debt as a week after we got back from mexico he took £500 out of my bank without asking so i broke up with him imideately. id had enough. during out breakup i distanced myself got my finances back up but still spoke to him and supported him.. maybe that was silly of me. eventually he got into such a mess with borrowing money off dangerous people instead of me he really did have people after him, me and his parents house, he owed around 6,000 to one man who was not nice at all. me and his mom then said enough is enough and you need to get help. there were a lot of tears and he did find a rehab centre, sent across an application and they said he would have a bed in march 2019 to start the programme. this was in november 2018. so the following 2 months he was still borrwing money off everyone to pay these various people while still visibly gambling. so on janurary 4th he called them himself (without us saying anything or asking him to go sooner) asking to be let in earlier. he went in on the 14th jan and is there until mid april. i have spoken to him twice and the first time we spoke i did get an apology for everything he put me through (which he has never apologised for before) and even said he knew he was manipulating me. as much as that hurt to hear im glad ive finally had an apology, i know its not going to be a mircale and it will be hard when he comes out but i think thats a decent start. i just kind of want to know how to handle things when he comes out. i do have his wages coming into my bank account and i like the idea of him showing receipts i know its babying but i think he needs to understand we dont trust him and we will not trust him for a long time regarding money. his credit score is awful and is in the process of setting up things with stepchange the debt charity. he is making all the right steps but its knowing how to support him when he comes out. i know all the signs i will never borrow him money again, ive changed my bank details so he cannot access anything and ive change my passwords for everything. i am surpised however the rehab centre didnt provide us with more support as its not just the gambler who is severely affected as im sure you know. im just a little lost and clueless still i think

Hi if you want support gamcare offer counselling to those affected by their partners gambling. You could also attend gamanon meetings. I personally would want him to continue with some support such as GA when he comes home. The money thing is about what works for you, keeping your finances secure and keeping check on accounts. Nothing is foolproof though if he borrows from others. You don't want him to have a good credit score, you don't want him borrowing. If he's involved with loan sharks you can get advice from stepchange. Don't ignore this, don't think he will be cured. He needs to maintain abstinence with support for the foreseeable future. There are also blocks that he can put in place, online gambling can by restricted by signing up to gamstop. Self exclusion from bookies. Do some research, get prepared and find out what living with a compulsive gambler is really like. Personally meetings are the best place, you need to look after yourself and keep your wits about you.