Pocket money: need advice

Hi hope hope.

you can help but only from a position of knowledge and strength. You need to protect yourself and there is no shame in telling your partner that gambling is not and never will be acceptable to you

What stands out is how much this seems to be stressing you. You didnt cause this problem so its not your fault.

If your husband is ready to stop he should be willing to live on an allowance and feel relieved that he is getting help.

He should not be getting angry as this is about saving his life.

I can only advise deep breaths and start looking at this from a position of confidence and stength. A gambling addiction is effectively a drug addiction. I dont know your relationship but its no time to be a shrinking violet about this. He needs your strength and guidance but only if he is ready to stop. You may need some counselling and extra support

A gambling addiction is deadly serious so yes he will need to provide receipts and he should feel a pride in doing so.

Obviously there is only so much you can take. all the burden should not really be on your shoulders so its also a case of whether you can deal with this.

Ive been a compulsive gambler and know what a devastating illness it is. My best advice is you control all of his wages and administer a small allowance he can function on. If he doesnt like that why should you put up with the stress?

Either he is ready for a full recovery or he isnt. That is the key factor. for your own protection you need to be in control of all finances.

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

Hi Joydivider,

Thanks so much for your advice.

You are right, I should not get stress. I am going to send all leftover to him and let him deal with it because he doesn't accept the idea of receipt. Thus there's nothing I can do.

I begin to attend Gamanon, which gives me a real comfort. Also, I am waiting for counselling.

Thank you again for your kind advice.

Hi hope do you have your husbands money because he asked you to look after it? A cg needs protection. If he's sticking to the money you give him why give him more to gamble? You have choices too. Gambling causes damage, emotional, mental and financial. If your husband chooses to gamble with the small amount you give him that's his choice. Giving him more money than he needs is yours. If you want him to stop gambling don't give him money. If you're scared of him that's another matter. Living with a cg is stressful. You have to be strong. You have to stick with what you're doing. Giving him more money will make this worse.

Hi Merry go round,

Thanks for your reply. I can see I owe a clearer explanation.

I am not giving him my money or extra money at all.

I only give his own money that he asks me to keep it. He gives part of his wage which covers the following.

- Half of all bills: I pay half, he pays half. So he gives that money to me when he receives his salary.

- Money to pay his IVA(debt): He gives this amount to me when he gets the salary. When the Direct Debit date comes, I pay the amount to his account just before the midnight so the DD debit to IVA is safely paid.

- He also asks me to keep some money which is only enough to cover 1 month Oyster (to go to work) and a small amount for his weekly pocket money; the amount is equivalent of cheap lunch for 5 days, I guess.

What I am struggling with is the last bit - weekly money. Before I discovered his gambling, I just thought he would buy coffee or lunch. However, I now know where he may spend that money. So when I send that possibly lunch money, I feel so bad as I am worried about him spending that to gambling.

However, I can't stop him, ain't I? He needs money for lunch anyway, so I have to send anyway. And he doesn't want to show me receipt. I can't make him starved without lunch nor prevent him spending to betting machine.

So I just have to give it I think.

Hope I explained more clearly.

Just one more thing to add.

My CG husband never agrees with my suggestion of giving his full salary to me. If I keep forcing him, it only becomes a bad argument which hurts me badly. I don't see a point of hurting myself to help him? I rather want to focus on my wellbeing for now.

Just to clarify - he pays half of the full bills from his salary. What I wrote above may lead to a misunderstanding. 🙂

Ok so if you are forcing him he is not willing to stop. Keep paying the bills etc, so stick with that. I doubt he's buying any lunch, but that's his choice. Just keep yourself safe. I would not give him the extra. 

Hi

What seems to be happening here then is that you can assume he is still gambling but has moved to a stage where he seems for now to be covering the outgoings before he gambles.

this seems to be why he is asking you to make sure the oyster card is covered because he knows he cant trust himself to have it left over.

So essentially you are doing the extra work of a book keeper making sure you protect certain expenses from an allowance he is giving you...therefore he is controlling you

My advice then is that you can assume he is still gambling but is somehow covering bills in some way...yes thats better than nothing but I know the power of a gambling addiction and no compulsive gambler should be controlling any part of the family finances

That would set alarm bells ringing for me because an addicted gambler needs help which means the full salary needs monitoring. Effectively he seems to be paying you an allowance and instructing you to hold parts of it back to pay his train fares.

In my opinion thats all the wrong way round for a proper recovery. You should be getting the whole salary to keep safe and paying him an allowance. Then you automatically know you have the money for his day to day expenses.

Sooooooo what happens when he doesnt pay his share of the mortgage one day because a gambler can get in deep at any time??

Just saying that you cant let him control you. If he wants help its the other way around. Am I wrong about this?

Keep your eyes open and you really do need to know that the roof over your head is going to be paid from secure funds.

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

I think you simply have to decide if you are willing for him to gamble as long as he pays his share of the bills or demand for the sake of him and yourself that he seeks help and that gambling is and never will be acceptable in your relationship.

You are in control.

The real questions for you to decide are how you want to live your life and how you want to participate in close relationships. Because whilst he’s using and you’re trying in vain to stop him, there’s no real relationship.

Focus on protecting yourself financially and learning how to protect yourself emotionally. You mentioned codependency, keep with it. CoDA is a Fellowship for anyone who desires healthy relationships. The journey may be uncomfortable at time but do you really want to stay where you are now?

CW