Good evening,
It’s time for me to admit defeat and say I’m addicted to gambling. I waste money by betting on football games having over 0.5 goals in a half or game.
I’m 32 years old, I have a fiancГ© and a 18 month old daughter. I have gambled away my savings account of over £15k and I’m literally on my last £100 to last me till a week before Christmas when it’s pay day. I have never been in debt, I always add my side of the mortgage and monthly payments to our joint account and I want to keep it that way but I’ve never been this low on money in my entire life. I have a well respected job that pays well but I just waste my wages on betting.
My fiancГ© has no idea, she thinks I still have £15k savings and its now hurting me. These last couple of weeks have been the lowest weeks of my life, I love my little family more than anything in the world and I know I’m potentially going to ruin everything and I only have myself to blame.
How do I approach the subject to my fiancГ©? I need to tell her as it’s weighing me down and it’s only going to get worse. I know the minute it comes out of my mouth my whole little family could potentially be destroyed and I will have lost everything I’ve ever wanted.
Hello Liam and firstly i want to say well done on recognising you have this addiction. It’s not an easy one to admit. I’m all too aware of that.
54 days ago my world fell apart. My partner found out about my addiction. The one thing he said was he wished I had told him before it came to the extreme. My story is slightly different in that i had racked up a considerable amount of debt with my addiction.
Your partner will be disappointed and probably angry at the deceit. However, in order to move forward being open and honest is the only way in my experience.
If your vice was online I suggest registering with gamstop. This will stop your online activity. I took a screen shot of the completed registration as proof to my partner what I had done.
You are fortunate that savings can be replaced.
I found speaking face to face difficult at first but now me and my partner are so much more open about all aspects of our relationship. We have been together 13 years and have a 5 year old son.
I wish you all the luck on your journey.
Sarah
Hey Liam.
I fully understand. I also have a young family and decided/needed to tell my wife about my addiction nearly 3 weeks ago now.
Its such a difficult thing to do. You don't know how they are going to react. Will there be tears? Probably. Will there be shouting? Probably. Will there be disapoinment and loss of trust? Absolutely!
But honesty is one of the main things needed to beat this and get your life back on track. I was so scared to tell my wife, but I knew I had no choice, and deep down I wanted to, because then I knew all the secrets could stop.
Its a massive weight off your shoulders once you cone clean. Admittedly it's not a nice time, and it will take a long time for things to begin to go back to normal, but for the sake of your recovery it needs to be done.
I wish you all the best mate and I hope all goes well if you should decide to tell your partner.
Cheers
RA
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