Contract/ agreement

A postnuptial

Hi

You may need to get legal advice but this is about your openness and honesty in being ready to tackle the addiction. You need to be ready to hand over control of finances to the non gambler. That should actually be a sense of relief and its not about emasculation or treating you like a baby

There is no room for half measures and you need all this to reinforce a healthy fear of gambling.

This helps build your self respect again. Its too early to talk of trust but your partner needs to know that the blocks are cast iron and that she is not liable for any debts you have run up by gambing

Gambling is a deadly addiction. I sometimes wonder how gambling is even legal in a civilized society.

Being gamble free is a wonderful feeling

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

In a nutshell, no. There are hard consequences to gambling and no contract in the world will remove them. The point is that most of them aren't financial. It's less about the losses and more about the fact that the gambling was going on without her knowledge (which by definition involves deceit), that your gambling time wasn't relationship/ family time, that her financial security has been jeopardised. Presumably you know about the harm the gambling has already done to you but if you read round the forum, there are a lot of cases of things spiralling downwards as the gambling continues.

Normally when dividing the assets on divorce, conduct isn't relevant. Adultery isn't because it doesn't affect the finances. But gambling is because it directly affects the finances. A Court might take account of a separation agreement where both have been legally advised. But to get your wife to sign a piece of paper saying that your gambling doesn't matter won't change any application on divorce.

Forget the idea of a post nup, it doesn't exist. It's all too easy to focus on the finances but the real problem is your gambling and the inevitable effect it has on you and your relationships. The best way forward is the less comfortable one: using the GC helpline and counselling, GA, habitual barriers and coming clean. Encourage your wife to seek her own help and focus on doing what you need to do to help yourself.

Not easy but worth it.

CW

Actually CW Is right on this. I will do a bit of editing

The agreement you make with your wife is more immediate in that you need to be discussing and handing over control of finances. You need to be showing your wife exactly what you are doing this time to regain your self respect and her trust over time

You could get some legal advice about control of finances but really this is about a lot of discussion between you on how the relationship will work in future.

This is what gambling does and its one of the biggest tests of any relationship. If you and your wife understand how stong the addiction is and how it works you can build things from there.

Im just saying there is a tendency to think If you just sign a piece of paper. You need all the advice and help you can get and your wife will alse need to seek her own advice and focus. You both have to do what makes your relationship work now

I cant put it better then CW.

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

I have the blocks, I am going to GA, I am having counselling. Sarah now has full control over the finances. I cannot see myself gambling again.

What we are doing is consolidating the debt through the flexibility of the joint mortgage. This means that the debt built up in my own name will Ben paid off with the joint mortgage.

The post nuptial would be for if it doesn't work out I am still liable and not jointly. More of a peace of mind for her that I am serious.

Yeh so you pay off your gambling debt from your equity...Sarah would not be liable for that...sounds fair to me. But hopefully if you do everything else, you can work it out together, and the agreement will not be necessary.

Yes thats fine as you are taking all the other correct steps.

Anything that makes it work for you. I suppose you will have to get solicitors advice and get it drawn up.

If it gives you both the peace of mind and its legally sound, then it would be of real benefit to everyone concerned.

All the best with it

From any lender's point of view, your wife has to pay if you continue gambling and don't or can't. She's effectively guaranteeing your debts with the roof over her head. That's the main risk from her viewpoint, less than what you agree between you now.

It's not easy to achieve certainty whilst staying married. If you separate or divorce, you can agree then that the debts are yours. You might be prepared to sign a memorandum to that effect now. In default of agreement upon divorce, a court would look at all the circumstances and make the decision.

Echo JoyDivider: what matters is what you do to combat the addiction.

CW