Hurt

Hi Tichimus, welcome to recovery 🙂

You will find support & maybe even friendship here but you must get proper help! Phone Gamcare for some counselling, get to GA meetings, hand over you finances to get your Time-Money-Location triangle broken to stop you until you accept that you do have choices & learn how to control them! You have to do this now, before you lose everything! Get your partner to ring & get herself some support from Gamcare or even by posting on the friends & family section.

We understand, we have all walked in your shoes but we can't stop you gambling, only you can do that - ODAAT

I don't expect anyone to stop me, i need to sort that! Just so relieving to see people going through what i am!

Have just self excluded myself from the online betting i use!

Great start with the self exclusion 🙂

That was a huge relief to me too...Realising I was not the only muppet throwing my life away! This forum is full of great advice & tools to beat this so keep reading & pick what is best for you! You do realise that there is blocking software if your damage is done online? Not my thing but K9 is the free one & Gamcare will be able to give you advice about the paid versions (there is a sticky post but I don't know how to link into it)!

If you're planning on sticking around & want to commit to the Forum, there is a 2015 Challenge with a once a week check in running til the end of the year & Sandra12 has a couple more months running on a 90 day one with a Friday check in that I am sure she will welcome you to with open arms! I personally found using a diary really helped me (I didn't know this place existed) & this may be something to consider?

I started writing last night! Was very helpful, such angood release. I'll chec out the challenges, thanks ODAAT

Hi,

I'm also married long term to a CG, it's been a few years since our kids were babies but recently I found out the hard way what he'd been doing behind my back.

I would have appreciated him coming clean before he was exposed, he didn't and it made it worse. So credit to you for telling her, yes it's still traumatic all round and you should both get the help and support you need from GamCare, GA for you, maybe GamAnon for her, maybe your doctors and definitely her midwife.

I have stayed because the abuse stopped....as far as I know. He goes to GA, he cooperates with the barriers, I have absolute control of the finances, we're trying to rebuild our relationship. Nothing is easy but he has improved from the snarling denials of an active CG and I am becoming less neurotic.

She won't be able to take your word for anything, I check everything and it reassures me to, he doesn't like it but he understands it's necessary.

You absolutely can choose to do what it takes to stay in recovery. Stick with it and things will improve.

Wish you well,

CW

Thank you for all the help! I am and will continue to do everything/anything i can to earn her trust again and to help rebuild our relationship and soon-to-be family.

1 whole day no gambling.

I also want to point out that i have never commited any illegal activity to enable my gambling! All the accounts, overdrafts etc are in my name, on my accounts. I have never stolen for it. I have also ensured that we have everything we need for our new arrivals, that bills, rent, loan repayments etc are sorted.

I'm not excusing what i've done or what i kept secret, but having read most of the stories on here it is good to know i have not spiralled to the lowest depths... Nor shall i now.

Welcome to day 2 🙂 Good to see you join the 90 day challenge!

Good on you coming here before this spiralled out of control but the desperation in your 1st post was clear to read! You know you must arrest it now & by any means because you have a life to live that you just can't do as an active gambler! Just being here is unlikely to be enough so please put up some barriers, even if it's just to humour us 😉 Today gambling may seem as far from your mind as it possibly could be but addiction is evil, it will strike from nowhere without warning & willpower is not the strongest tool we have available!

Look after your family by looking after you - ODAAT

I refuse to let that be me. I've only ever gambled online (in an app). Maybe twice in a bookies in about 7 years and been to a casino once. Sports betting is my bogey. I make money on it but it's not about that. It's about not wanting to have no control over myself and being able to focus 100% on the people i love!

My partner now has complete control of my finances. Any direct debits i have are being switched to come out the day after i'm paid (purely because if there's an issue with my pay for any reason one month i don't want all my bills to come out the same day and leave me with huge fines etc).

I got a new debit card last month and only one betting account has those card details, the one i have self-excluded from. The rest are old cards that can't be used and my partner has my card so i can't set anything up with it.

I feel so run down and drained from all this but i know she is going to be feeling it 100x more! So i'm focusing on being there for her and making sure she knows i'm serious about it all!

Thanks for the help, please keep it coming!

2 days no gambling.

Hi, Titchimus

Well done on keeping going but your post on another thread about your skills at sports betting is worrying. My husband thought he had similar spread betting skills and his overall losses were telephone numbers. Yes, some of it was his earnings but you know the saying about no man being an island? "His money" was also family money. In our case, we live in a flat, we manage but we're squashed, he gambled our chance to upgrade to somewhere a bit bigger with a garden for the kids.

No one makes money by betting. The bookies and the websites make it by everyone's losses. CGs never win because they can't stop.

Keep the barriers high but do go to GA or get counselling, it's all part of doing what it takes to stay in recovery.

Wish you well.

CW