Hi I'm new here and would really appreciate someone to chat to who is in a similiar position to me. I will try to be brief. 7 years ago my husband confessed that he was £20,000 in debt on various credit cards. This was a complete shock to me. We took out a massive loan secured on the house to repay it. We have just made the last payment. I never really got to the bottom of where the money had gone and he never told me it was due to gambling. Paying it off hasn't been easy and I have resented him for putting our family in such debt. As a result of this I have always been quite suspicious of his spending and last year our joint account was always becoming over drawn, money was missing from my purse and seroius looking letters started appearing in the post. I asked him over and over if there was anything he needed to tell me and he looked me straight in the eye and told me no. One day my paranoid thoughts got the better of me and I opened his post. It was a letter from a credit card company saying he had gone over his limit. Anyway to cut this long story short I confronted him and he has now run up £22,000 in debt but this time he admitted his problem gambling. Just as we have finally repayed his first massive debt. He has started councelling and he feels positive about stopping, I have said I will stick by him because I do love him and we have two lovely daughters and we have been married for 20 years. My problem is I keep thinking to myself- What the hell am I doing? I can't trust him ever again, he lied to me over and over, and now I feel I am taking the biggest gamble of my life on him? Everything I read says don't sort their debt out for them but we can't go down the debt management route because of his job and we can't sustain paying off £600 a month just to make minium payments off all his cards. So I can see me repeating the loan and my life being this one awful cycle of debt. Am I mad to be even thinking about going down this route? Any thoughts, advise, help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Sorry for your pain.
A tough choice for you. First & foremost protect yourself & your children as you are the innocent parties in this.
Only you can answer if the marriage is worth the fight.
If he is serious about recovering he should have no problem in handing complete & utter financial control over to you. This means all his earnings going into your account, handing over debit credit cards etc. This is not to say he is not allowed to spend his own money he just needs to be accountable for where it goes. For instance if he has ВЈ20 & spends £14 of it he needs to receipt what he has spent that money on & produce the change.
Also has he come clean over all his debts i have found over the years many compulsive gamblers hold onto 1 or 2 to enable them to carry on gambling in the future.
For you both to move forward total honesty from him is required.
Im sure its the lies & deceit you are finding difficult to come to terms with as much if not more than the monetary loss
Best wishes
Day
Sorry for your pain.
A tough choice for you. First & foremost protect yourself & your children as you are the innocent parties in this.
Only you can answer if the marriage is worth the fight.
If he is serious about recovering he should have no problem in handing complete & utter financial control over to you. This means all his earnings going into your account, handing over debit credit cards etc. This is not to say he is not allowed to spend his own money he just needs to be accountable for where it goes. For instance if he has ВЈ20 & spends £14 of it he needs to receipt what he has spent that money on & produce the change.
Also has he come clean over all his debts i have found over the years many compulsive gamblers hold onto 1 or 2 to enable them to carry on gambling in the future.
For you both to move forward total honesty from him is required.
Im sure its the lies & deceit you are finding difficult to come to terms with as much if not more than the monetary loss
Best wishes
Day
Hi Katiecola, I echo day@atime - You have to make sure you & your children are protected from the financial damage he is doing!
All the counselling in the world won't help him beat this if he is not ready & if he is ready he will be willing to do whatever it takes!
I understand Gamcare offers a friend & family service so it may be worth having a chat with a professional about how you move forwards. Gambling is a very selfish addiction, it messes with our heads & prevents us sparing a thought for anyone around us whilst in the grips of it. We lie & manipulate to hide what we are up to. Your husband has obviously been gambling for many years & may struggle to come to terms with letting it go. As stupid as it may sound, he will need you more than ever now as your support is vital to help him stay in recovery so you need to be getting the help you need to stay strong throughout this journey! Although he should start to have more time for you all now, the mood swings are strong in the early days. Whatever he says in anger, do not accept that any of this is your fault, it isn't!
Look after you, look after your children & I hope you have enough left to offer him the supper he will need so you can get stronger as a family & out of this mess - ODAAT
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story and replying to me- I was so pleased to see I had replies! The feeling of having someone to talk to who understands is worth so much to me.
He has cut up the debit card to our joint account but as yet he hasn't cut up the credit cards infront of me which I will insist on. I actually haven't seen the seen evidence of his debt in black and white and part of me likes that because it doesn't seem real. But I do know I can't bury my head in the sand and it has to be tackled. I don't know how though. Every bone in my body says don't repeat the loan but I can't see an alternative. He will never be able to repay the debt as it stands- it's just not financially manageable for us as a family- I work full time as does he so we can't earn any more income.
I am attending councelling myself which does help me to offload but I just keep wondering if I have MUG written on my forehead. If it was a friend of mine in this situation I would be saying ' What are you doing?'
He is saying all the right things but I don't really trust my own judgement anymore. As I say he has lied to me so many times and I swallowed it all....I will access his credit report- that is a great piece of advise thank you.
Can I ask Half-Life, did you stay with your husband? I don't know if I can forgive and move on even though I really do want to. It is really early days- I found out in November and only decided to give it a go mid December but already I'm feeling the strain. Also I'm quite open with him about my concerns and then I think I shouldn't say too much because that might trigger to him to place another bet. It's such a mess but thanks again for taking the time- I really do appreciate it.
Hi Katie I'm sorry to read your post it must be devastating. I have been with my husband over 7 years and have just had the bombshell he has gambled away thousands behind my back and has spent nearly all our savings for a house deposit. We have a 7 month old baby. I can't believe I never had any idea and now I look back and little things / lies now make sense! At the moment I feel so angry I don't know if I can forgive him but a part of me does want to help him for my son. How do you know if it is worth fighting for when they can betray you so much?! It still doesn't feel like this is really happening
Hi again
I know exactly what you mean Buddy when you say it doesn't really feel like this is happening. I feel so stupid to have believed the lies I was told. He would get really angry with me for asking about where money had gone and made me feel guilty for daring to ask! Devasting really does hit the nail on the head. I feel that his burden has now lifted- he is gettting help, I now know all the details but it is now all passed onto me. All I can say is that I decided to stand by him because it feels right to me.I won't know if it is the right decision until he proves himself and like Half-Life I know I won't be able to trust him financially ever again. It is going to be incredibly hard and I don't even know if I'm strong enough to overcome the resentment, anger, disappointment etc.
It sounds like your husband Half-Life is doing really well. I can only hope that mine will. I have spoken to Stepchange but because of his job the debt management plan isn't an option. It is too risky and we need him to keep his job! My husband is happy to pass all financial responsibility to me but I'm not sure I could have the house put in my name because the bank would say that I can't afford the mortgage on my own. I do worry about say 3 years down the line when his credit history has recovered and he is then able to apply for new credit cards and the whole sorry cycle starts again.
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