So my boyfriend of nearly 4 years is a gambling/C*****e addict, when I met him I never knew anything about his addiction he was the best thing that ever happened to me and my children and after getting out of a bad dv relationship with their father I thought this was it and I'd found the love of my life, I remember saying to my family and bestfriend that the way he treats me feels like its too good to be true like did I actually get it right this time, anyway a year down the line I had a knock on the door and he was getting arrested for stealing from his workplace (money) and then it all flooded out from there and spiraled he had been gambling since 19 years old had been in trouble for stealing over 10grand from one of his old workplaces to pay debts off for drugs and gambling and cheating on me by talking to other women,planning weekends away etc to get them to send him money to fund the gambling,he stole from me and my children to get funds for the drugs and gambling and we split up, I spent 6 weeks begging the man I fell in love with to come back and be the man he showed me he was in the first year and eventually he agreed he started the GA meetings and I had control of the finances like he asked me too to make sure it wouldn't happen again the meetings fixzled out very fast and he only attened the first two, but he said he was ok and didnt need them anymore he had it under control he was just going to do £20 max a week or whatever so this lasted a good two years with some hiccups from time to time and quite a few winnings and then it got back to me begging him to stop because it was getting too much for me even though I accepted the money he threw at me when he won like he would to say to me when I tried to bring it up he was spending hours a time at the bookies or if he wasn't there he had constantly had his head in his phone watching gambling videos which he used to say helped him not do it because he could just watch it and get the kick it gave him from that, he did manage to stop the drugs but still sometimes he would do it, it got to the point were I'd had enough of asking him to stop and just continuously being lied too every week a new lie would come out so I asked to see the bank transactions which really wasn't that bad at all it did actually show that he hadn't being doing it a lot at all but then I went off them and onto his WhatsApp and seen two women blocked so I unblocked them and when he realised what I was on amd what I did he was wrestling with me for the phone literally bruised my arms when holding me to get the phone back, and then ran out of the house. We are texting and it's just going from arguing over what has happened because he is saying I am controlling (when he asked me to control the finances to stop him doing it) which I know I messed up by letting him do even 20 a week he started a new job a few weeks ago and is now saying he can do what he wants with his money after he has payed his half towards bills etc and that I cant really say no you can't when he's earned it himself, he wants to make the realationship work but I won't be allowed to say how I feel about what's happened again or bring up the first time it happened or even see the phone and be able to go threw it for confirmation he wasn't actually cheating again like I think he was because of the reaction I got from him with the numbers I found, I suggested thread he said yes to that but only if we agree none of the past will be brought up and we start a whole new fresh where he has control of his own finances and lives separately but im just not sure what to do, I don't know if that's just his way of having a family and doing the gambling or is it actually the only reasonable way to be able to move forward with each other or just go our separate ways?
Sorry for the longest post in history there's a lot there I know but I just needed to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Hi d.h,
Thank you so much for sharing your story, and please don’t apologize for the length. You’ve been through an incredibly difficult journey, and it’s clear how much thought, love, and effort you've poured into trying to make things work. Your voice matters, and everything you wrote deserves to be heard
t’s understandable that you’re feeling torn right now. On one hand, you clearly love this man and want to believe in the version of him you first fell for. On the other hand, you've been repeatedly hurt by a cycle of lies, addiction, manipulation, and broken trust. That contradiction is incredibly hard to reconcile, especially when children are involved.
You mentioned you're unsure whether this arrangement is a genuine attempt to move forward or just a way to keep the relationship and the gambling. That’s a really valid concern. The truth is, you can’t be the one doing all the work, and you can’t fix his addiction for him. Only he can do that.
Ultimately, it is his decision whether to access support for his addictions. Even with support in place, if someone is determined to gamble, they are likely to find a way. So, it’s important for you to be able to maintain boundaries and ensure you are looking after your own and your children's health and well-being.
You are welcome to contact our helpline to talk through everything with one of our advisers and access some support for yourself – our HelpLine on 0808 8020 133 and our 1:1 Livechat are both open 24 hours every day.
We are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. You can also contact us for free on 0808 80 20 133. If you would like to find out more about the service before you start, including information on confidentiality, please click below. Call recordings and chat transcripts are saved for 28 days for quality assurance.
