Advice wanted

The fact he is stealing money from you means he has a major addiction, it’s completely unacceptable and not fair on yourself,   The more you bail him out the worse it will get, because it’s not teaching him a lesson, he just thinks oh my partner will bail me out it’s alright etc etc. 
If he really cares for you he should be willing to let you take control of his Finances, the longer he has free reign the more money he’s going to lose , and the more likely he is going to steal from you again. 

The fact he gambled away the last payment of your wedding shows his priorities are all wrong. 

The longer this goes on for the more heartbreak is he going to put you through. Time to nip it in the bud and sit down with him properly and lay all your cards on the table 

Sorry to be very blunt, but gambling ruins families and lives - it really is the devil 

Hi Nicola. I obviously can't tell you what to do but as a recovering gambler I would say you need to give serious thought about marrying this guy. Read some stories on here about just how serious things can get, it's an addiction and a progressive one I can't see unless you both change 1 ...Him giving up gambling  2 ...You stopping enabling him( when he gets away without paying bills , towards wedding ) he gambles with no consequence, how you can have a future that is happy. Do you know the full extent of his gambling? I became very good at lying, covering my tracks ran up credit card debt without my husband knowing. You cannot control compulsive gambling , and unless he stops and gets help your future will be always punctuated by periods like you're going through now. Will he talk to you about it other than saying he's in control? Spending all his wages is not in control. I'm in no way criticising you when I say about you enabling him to gamble because you are caught between a rock and a hard place and I feel for you. I'm guessing his mental health is suffering I know how bad I felt and how good I feel now 82 days without gambling I'm happier calmer more stable. Try and get him to open up and get help just remember you can support him but you can't fix him that has to come from inside him. Best wishes and good luck 

Hi Nicola80

Its not your fault but you now need to realise that gambling was never a harmless activity you could let your partner do. I would say that any gambling is dangerous behaviour and when it becomes a compulsive addiction its extremely destructive.

I dont know of many other addictions that can clean out a bank balance in minutes never mind hours....well seconds really!!

You deserve a better quality of life and you should NOT have been bailing him out...not one bronze penny...they are his money problems and he needs help. I understand his money issues become yours as a partner but you have some decisions to make about the relationship

Im not saying he his inherently bad but his addiction is manipulating you and will take you on the hell ride all the way down. Believe me its a train ride down the steep hill into a buffer of flames....he needs to stop gambling NOW!

He CAN NOT control it so that is his addiction talking because it needs its fix. You need to learn about this as a drug addiction and your partner needs tough love and cold turkey.

He needs ultimatums...you cant make him stop and he has to be ready to stop. He needs to know you wont tolerate gambling any more

He needs a strong dose of reality because his mind is addicted and delusional

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

Thankyou I appreciate the honesty I've tried the whole sit down he just says I will do better but obviously 7 years down the line it's still the same I'm sick of hearing the same excuses.

I do not mean to sound overly harsh but you need to also seek help and support. Yu have come on here for advise which tells us you know something is not right but there are so many warning signings here it basically sounds like your in an abusive relationship and not only that you are about to get married. 

None of us are perfect we all make mistakes but your partner not only does not pay the bills he won't even contribute to his own marriage, why are you getting married then? what exactly do you get out of the relationship? You need to try and answer these questions honestly. If you are getting married then you need to sit down with him and discuss how he treats you as it sounds horrendous.

I myself am a compulsive gambler so I know how selfish our mindset gets, but I would certainly be a single man if I did not change and tackle this problem. Why should your partner change? He can do as he pleases and if he messes up you will bail him out. There are no consequences to him. Im not trying to be overly harsh on you as its not easy for partners who are the middle of this, as it's a gradual process, but you have to ask yourself what you want out of this or any relationship. 

Thankyou for the advice everyone and in the last hour by all your comments I can see things are not going to change unless I change 

He does manipulate me I've always know but push it aside for some stupid reason I can not answer 

He knows exactly what hes doing and I've made it worse because sometimes when he does it and I just know he will throw it in my face and say well it's done now get over it 

As I'm writing this I'm thinking God I sound like such an idiot but maybe its took me to actually write it out to see that

I'm not perfect I know I dont support him with because it makes me so angry when he does it because he knows I will always make sure that theres a roof over our children's head even if it means I have to work overtime to pick up his slack

I dont think hes quite ready to admit his problem yet which makes me wanna shake him and say look at what your doing to ya whole family

Thankyou everyone you really have put a lot of things in perspective for me

My advice, don't marry him, zero point in marrying a seriously problematic gambler. He needs to want to stop gambling. If he's not one bit ashamed when he gets caught or does it then it's a major warning sign.

Posted by: Nicola80

Hi so I'm new to all this my partner of 7 years is a gambler I've always known,he gambles all his wages sometimes without putting money into the house bills etc sometimes it will be what hes left with out his wages about 300 pound so at least that amount every month hes also stole money of me a few times for this,we are due to get married next month in Cyprus and final payment had to be made last week but he didn't want to part with any money so gambled all his wages it's so frustrating I'm just not sure what to do I'm tired of bailing him out with money but at the same time want to help sometimes says he has a problem a lot of the time he says I can control it.Any advice would be great 

Thankyou 

Hi Nicola - sorry to read your struggles and I must say you are a good person for trying to stick with your partner. Speaking from the other side of this as the addict I think there is no solution other than your partner to relinquish all control of his finances / get paid or pass wages directly to you. I genuinely believe that if he is serious about getting his life straight and your future he will do this. Addicts do have moments of clarity and in one of those he will surely see this is the right thing to do.

Of course you need to make sure he doesn’t have to go through absolute hell to get money from you and as enough available for all things other than gambling and can be open about this.

This is all that worked for me

We all go through things in our life that are difficult and we bottle things up instead of speaking out. Don't beat yourself up, all you can do is learn. You did the right thing coming here to seek advice so well done on that. You deserve so much better and some counselling might be a good idea if possible. 

Keep posting here on your progress whatever you decide and I wish you luck.