How do I tell my girlfriend?

Good morning,

First things first - in no way are you an idiot (as alluded by you in your name). Like all of us you have found your way here because you are a gambling addict.

The simple answer to your questions is you tell her, you tell her everything and you tell her everything today. Many on here have been in your position and partners did not leave - in fact many of them supported the addict.

So what blocks are you going to put in place to avoid any relapse. I was a slots gambler in the bookies and gave up all access to cash and cards for 9 months meaning if i wanted to gamble i couldnt. 

There are othet tools surrounding gambling via the internet which others can assist with.

What about counselling sessions, GA and looking at why you gamble.

You are 24 with your whole life ahead of you. Time to take stock and admit your addiction and begin to move on with no secrets and open transparency.

Best

PS - start reading some other peoples diaries on here over the weekend. Many are packed with raw emotion of how horrible this addiction can be. 

Best

Morning.

There is a film called I bought a zoo. In it, Matt Damon's character is talking to his son. There are talking about how he met his mother but how it applies to life in general. You can have anything you want in life but you have to be brave for just twenty seconds. That's it. Take a deep breath and talk to her, just be brave for twenty seconds.

New I'm paraphrasing slightly but the answer to your problem is the same. Be brave. Take a deep breath and tell her. You've probably thought it through in your mind a dozen times and imagined all sorts of scenarios, most of which end badly. If you keep gambling and lying to her I can guarantee it will end badly, and there's a possibility that she already knows somethings up anyway.

Whatever happens, being honest with her will help you take the first step.

Chris.

Hi guys thanks for the responses and the advice. 

I am still yet to tell her, I am doing a night shift atm and I plan on telling her tomorrow when I'm starting my days off work.

As for preventing myself from relapse I am going to ask her to take control of my finances. I think this is the only logical answer to prevent me from gambling again, I know she's going to be upset and hurt and I can't blame her, I just hope she sticks by me and helps me through this, we have had our fair share of bumps in the road so I hope we can make it through this too. When I was gambling I never thought about the impact it could have on our relationship, its taken me to lose thousands to realise it.

Wish me luck, anonymous. 

Hello

The first step is that you come on hear to tell us your troubles which is a great step. 

I do not want to sound harsh but you do need to tell her today. Putting it off does not solve anything and will make it worse. Trust me, I took this course of action more than once and it never worked out. There will never seem a right time so get it out there. 

Secondly letting your GF look after your money can only be a temporary option and does not work long term (e.g. past 4-6 months for most people). You will both need to work through it together and if she does leave you can not go back to gambling, you will have to fight and deal with it yourself or with a family member.  The embarrassment is part of recovery but it doses go away if you stick to stopping gambling.

To help you stop online I would suggest signing up to gamstop for 5 years which will help prevent you gambling online. Best move I have ever made and wish I knew about it a long time ago. 

Good luck in telling your GF and well done for coming on hear. Good luck with the rest of your recovey, and we are on hear to help each other.

Hi guys, 

So me and the missus had the dreaded conversation today, I got home from my night shift to find a note on the kitchen side. The note read that she felt I had been distant recently and she knew something was wrong, she didn't want to lose me and she loves me very much. She felt I had not been myself and that I needed to talk to her.

When I read this I broke down and sobbed for a good half an hour before tiredness finally took me to bed (I had been up around 22 hours at this point).

It broke me that I made her feel this way and that she felt she was to blame for me being distant.

We got up early afternoon and I sat her down. 'I think I have a gambling problem, infact no. I do have a gambling problem and it's gotten worse over recent weeks. The first thing she asked was about the £2000 in savings we had (this money mostly came from my gambling). I told her the truth, I said there's only £750 left and I owe my overdraft £250 also.

She was surprisingly calm about the whole situation and told me everything was okay and that she loved me. It came as abit of relief to her that there was still some money left, she also explained that she thought the distance was because she thought I was seeing another woman! I reassured her that this was not the case and that I also love her dearly and would never do such a thing! I can't blame her for thinking this as I had left her thinking of all sorts of scenarios as to why we had been more distant.

The second thing she said was, stop gambling now and let's delete all the accounts you have access to. We are still going over them all as I have around 50 accounts!

She also explained that she still trusted me but to transfer her the remainder of the savings we have, I asked if she would like control of my finances but she said no. I think this is partly because she's not the best with money herself although she doesn't gamble. From now on however, any money I save each month must be transferred to her and she will manage that, to which I agreed and said it was the best thing to do. 

So I still have control of my finances and although at this point in time I am not tempted to gamble, I am a little worried about relapse in the coming weeks removed link

Although I'm in the process of permanently closing all my betting accounts, what other steps can I take to ensure I don't make the same mistake in the future? I cannot trust my willpower alone as this has let me down massively in the past.

It is such a relief that I no longer carry this burden around with me, she got upset (understandably) but overall it went better than expected.

Thanks to you all for your advice and support, overall things aren't too bad as I haven't incurred much debt from the gambling and we still have savings tucked away.

Hopefully this is the last of my gambling days and I can now look forward to the future with my girlfriend ? thanks again everyone, I'm extremely happy I found this site! 

It's amazing the things that our partners think we are doing because we are distant yet we think they'll walk out and leave us. How mucked up all our thinking becomes.

I'm pleased you were able to be honest. Now your recovery can start.

Apart from Gamstop you could also install Gamban on your devices. This stops all gambling access, not just making accounts.

I would also suggest you go to Gamblers Anonymous after the lockdown stops and for now, pick up the phone to a Gamcare adviser.

This is just the beginning, but it's the beginning. I won't say good luck because that implies chance. If you take this seriously and put the work in then you can beat it.

All the best

Chris.