Looking at some of your stories I wonder if you think I'm "overreacting" too or whether i am merely spesking out earlier.
My husband has always liked to gamble. We have little spare cash so his recent 4.5k credit card spend in two days is a lot to us. Over the past few years there has been incidents i.e. spending our solicitors money when buying our house or borrowing 500 chasing money for my 30th (which ended uo worse than a normal one as i had expected a auprise because of all the secrets and money borrowing) A few weeks previous to this crdit cards biggy I had changed how we manage finances after becoming fed up with trying to manage everything whilst he spent over with no concept or value of money. I spilt it so after bills we each had our own. This made him view what he was doing as his problem; not understanding that we have a joint mortgage so ultimately effecting me and the kids too.
After this credit card incident; he did at one point look like he understood and was sorry. We put limits on his online account for which I had the password since then he has used another site, and gone into the bookies (where he picked up his old hobbit of playing the roulette machine). Hes happy at the minute because he's a few wins but last night we argues big time. I explained that over the past few weeks I have been reminding him we are struggling to pay for up and coming events. His daughters 16th and school prom, our sons birthday and our holiday. The car is cluncking about and needa air con refill etc etc. But he keeps taking us out for meals and yesterday spend £130 on clothes for himself. He says I'm a hypocrite for coming but I know if I refuse to go he will be grumpy and then stubborn then the kids will just see mummy as grumpy and not wanting to join them.
I hate how our views on money are parralles apart he lives for today and money burns a hole in his pocket, I like to plan at least for the events in the coming months.
How can I tell him what to spend winnings on? But it's so frustrating to watch money wasted that we could really use.
How can I get him to see his betting as a problem?
How do get the worry out of my head that there will be another thousands of pounds debt we can't afford? When he just argues I'm silly and he won't do it again ?
He doesn't want to give up, does he? And all the time you do the worrying for him he's failing to make the connection between his actions and their consequences.
You need to protect yourself and the children from him financially. End his access to houesehold finances and take control of his bank account if you can. He can't be trusted around money and he needs to understand you have to stem the financial bleeding. You need to establish the true extent of the debt with access to creit reports from all three agencies all of which are available free and then monitor them regularly to make sure there are no hidden accounts he can use for gambling.The debt is his. Let him sweat about how to pay it. Don't take on anything you could end up liable for because you will.
You can't control whether or not he gambles but you can make it very much harder for him to do real financial damage. If he doesn't want to stop all this is going to go down like a lead balloon but at least once you've limited the damage he can do you can take stock of the situation and decide how much if any of his appalling behaviour you tolerate.Think hard about what you want and deserve and put yourself first. All the time he's gambling you are the only one who will.
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