Hello

Hi Adam, sure there will be someone along better than me to help. I'm the mam of a cg. Firstly you have done really well by abstaining since 2014 and paying off your debts. Did the urges to gamble stop in 2014, what made you have that first gamble again in February? It's going to be tough for both yourself and your wife, why don't you sit down with her and make a plan together, give your wife control of your finances and put blocks in place to help stop you gambling. There is lots of information on this forum. You can't really blame your wife for being annoyed she will be feeling hurt and dissapinted, but if you can talk and be honest with her and show her you are serious she will hopefully support you and you can move forward together. Good luck. Wcid

Hi Adam,

Its good you've come on here, first thing I can say is I wouldnt think about raising 4k quickly, not any quicker than it would take to save it back up. Getting a bail out from someone is not going to help you long term. If you have somewhere to live now its probably not the main issue - although it probably feels like it. As a fellow CG we see the problem as financial, your mrs is looking deeper than that, trust, hurt, feeling cheated etc - they are all worse than worrying about money in the grand scheme of things.

Obviously everyones character is different but to repair the damage done to your relationship is probably better done by fighting back to get your life back in order and prove your relationship can be great still. I think your wife will feel better that than getting someone to lend you it. Is being able to borrow the money/sell stuff to bail yourself out going to be the difference between saving your marriage or not? I doubt it.

I think serious action is what will help you here, what did you do before that worked for over a year, what did you stop doing? Did self exclusion finish and that gave you the option to bet again? Was someone in control of your money and that stopped? Were you attending GA, felt you had beaten the problem, stopped going and then a few months later your guard dropped? Have a think about what it was that gave you that open door to gamble again and address it.

From there show your wife you are serious by doing all the practical stuff that is mentioned time again on here. Self exclusion, handing over finances, blocking software of laptops/phones etc - do it all and do it now. It then becomes harder to gamble, but also shows you are willing to invest time and effort into stopping, even if they themselves are not a way to gaurantee success (which of course they aren't). But what that does for some is show you are willing to fight it. Thats one thing, then you need to address the addiction itself and there are plenty of ways you might have tried before, GA, forums, councelling. Explore all of that again, or for the first time.

I was in your shoes last July. I'd gambled away my savings and got into debt - the usual story. I didnt gamble my partners money but what it did do is set her back in life a few years, her life was with me, I had set myself back years financially and subsequently she now had to wait for me to get myself sorted out. Kids, holidays, house buying the lot - shes ready but i'm not because of gambling, I'm in a financal hole and she has to wait for me to sort myself out so we can do normal things in life together. We are renting because of me, we have had to wait to have kids because /of me - its all my fault. I did that to my lady which is a disgrace but now I am fixing it. I'm not a disgrace now, I'm a CG who is rebuilding his life proving we can have a future together and I can bring something to the relationship. But up until 9/10 months ago I was a straight up disgrace - nothing more or less than that, it can be turned around.

The only thing that saved my relationship was for me to do all of the stuff I mentioned and stick to it, I've not missed a single GA meet, I attended all councelling, I provide evidence (receipts) for every scrap of cash I spend (what little money I carry), she came with me to self exclude from all gambling in my area, I post on here from time to time,I give full access to my lady for everything. I do all of this with a smile on my face and if she wants a question answered I answer it. As time has gone on we have rebuilt a lot of trust. The first few months were brutal for both of us, I dont like some of the processes (getting receipts for everything can get annoying, sitting down weekly to audit my spending etc) but I do like not gambling and I do like having a future. Whats a bit of hassle to make sure I can have the better things. Absolutely no hassle at all thats what.

Ive spoken to my mrs and she said if I put in half of that effort yet had borrowed money/laid my hands on some fast money in some way (sell stuff or similar) she would have probably left me.

I would have been a CG who messed up and then just tried a quick fix to sort my problems out which is all we ever do right?. What I did (mostly with her help) is do everything I could to face the problem I created. Without me knowing your wifes nature or personality I feel that approach is the best approach in general. Prove you are willing to turn your life around by putting in 100% effort in all areas of trying to give up, not only will most of this work (and so what if you have to do some things that dont work, GA is becoming tedious for me at the moment but if I cant invest 90 minutes per week to continue to face my problem then thats the first little chink in the armour to show I'm slacking off). It will show her something about you and your willingness to fix your problems and be a husband she can have a future with.

Good luck mate, chin up, focus on everything you can do to prove you are serious and then stick with it. It might take a few weeks or months to start winning a little bit of trust back, but that is the route to consider over and above getting someone or something to bail you out. That will only serve to passify or fix the financial side in the short term, not much more than that.