Not sure what i am looking for..

Hi

Wow what a post.  Alot of what you've written has hit me hard.  Especially where you wrote "why  couldn't he talk to me before it happened".  I can relate to that part, my husband once said the same to me.  I can hopefully try and explain to you why.  When we are having our urges or whatever there is no rational reasoning and common sense goes out the window.  Maybe something that triggered it.  For me Christmas is a trigger because gambling changes the way you look at money, you think oh maybe if I just have a quick go I'll be fine.  Then that quick go turns to hundreds.  It's never intentional to hurt you. 

Joining this website has been a massive help for me.  They run courses of CBT, which are amazing. I've also installed gamban for my phone. You can put a million blocks in place, but he must want to quit.  

You sound like you are a very supportive partner indeed. All you can do is be there for him.  Relapses I've read are common in recovery but he will eventually stop if that's what he wants.

Good luck XXX 

Hi @spendlikewater84 

Thank you so much for taking time to reply to me. I am hoping that other peoples stories will help me. 

I dont feel very supportive when I'm screaming, shouting, crying at him but it's so hard to hold in when you're emotionally involved and invested. 

I want nothing more than to support him through this but at the same time I dont want to accept it or accommodate the gambling either. 

He says he really wants to stop and has put measures in place. He Hope's to stick to it this time and I have access to his internet banking. What worries me reading through here is how many people say that they stop at nothing if they want to gamble. I cant bare the thought of this being a wasted effort. 

Do you mind me asking... is your husband supportive of you.. did he seek help or support for himself? 

X 

I could’ve written this whole post.

Sending you lots of love and best wishes x

Hi @Likemindedsupport

Again, thank you for sharing this seemingly all too familiar story. It's heartbreaking and I genuinely feel that so you putting that into words is a massive step. I've read posts from a few partners on this site to really try and understand what it's like living and loving a CG. I'm alike many others, a CG, it's a lifelong commitment, I'm day 523 of forever, it's not an easy task. Being 27, I've been through the mill.

If an individual shows compassion and love to a CG, in our evil and twisted mindset we see it as a weakness and a reprieve. As a CG, in the past I would guilt trip, constantly lie and do the most irrational activity just to be alone with the gambling demons to escape from my day to day normality of life. I wanted the flashing lights, the big wins, exhilarating highs and oddly enough some of the lows. CG's like us, need to be made accountable and understand this issue is firmly with us no matter how hard we push the issue or blame others. We need acceptance that we're powerless to gambling and we've hit rock bottom to the point of making the change selfishly for ourselves to also improve the lives of those loved ones around us. You showing your emotions in all the ways you explained is acceptable and my god completely natural. You care and our irrational behaviour is not logical. I can imagine it leaves the question of 'why?' on so many more counts than I can believe.

Regarding support, your partner needs to speak to the wonderful team here and start the real road to recovery. Attending local Gam-anon sessions is a great start and there is also a session for partners to gather and talk/listen, with whatever you see fit. In the past where you left your partner after one simple phone call to a helpline, it's OK to be more involved, ensure he goes to sessions, check in with counselors, handle the finances and put in all the blockers necessary to help him avoid a gamble. If he's serious, this should be welcomed and in-fact a relief. Your partner has to focus and dedicate the time but it's a very rewarding program and I still work it daily.

But in summary, you need to first of all protect yourself. Only your partner can really start the road to recovery. I hit a low and wanted to change myself for those dear ones around me as I know they wouldn't be if I have a bet. Be supportive but it's OK to live your own life and feel how you feel. You're not letting anyone down. Stay strong and keep in touch here.

Thank you again for sharing your story.

AndyJ

Hi witsend91, 

Thank you for your post, sounds like you are going through the same. 

If you want to talk, I'm here. 

Hi Andyj

Thank you for taking time to respond to my post. 

Wow over 500 days that's fantastic and a hope that I hold on to for my partner.. but I fully understand that it is life long.. that's something that I find quite scary.. can we actually work through it, I just dont know right now but I'm willing to try. Do you mind me asking how long you were gambling for? 

He is 14 days GF but struggling emotionally... I'm not sure how to support in that way when I have so much negative feeling around it all. I feel torn.... support him or protect myself.. is both possible at the same time?  

I've started reading a book 'The Secret' have you heard of it? It's all about the law of attraction and how all effect is caused from your own thoughts..  its helping me. 

My partner hasnt been to any sessions yet but I hope he does.. he did ask if I would go with him.. is that recommended or should it be something he does on his own? What are your thoughts on that? 

Hope to hear from you soon 

Hi... I am a compulsive gambler. I have read your story. I don't know what its like to be in your shoes but I do know how hard it is to stop gambling and more importantly to stay stopped. Unfortunately once the line has been crossed into irresponsible gambling, there is no crossing back, he's got this problem for life, not just for christmas.

Its also true that when all is said and done, its down to him, its his battle. 

Never paying his debts, if you do do this then the gambler doesn't have to take responsibility for their behaviour. having a bad credit rating is actually a good thing for a compulsive gambler. Easy access to credit never did me any favours.  I had bailouts in the beginning, but my family soon got wise, it doesn't help. Most people who gamble (me included) have to fully feel the consequences in order to become motivated to want to change and then the hard work begins.

I think that IF he has asked you to go with him to these sessions you talk of, then yes do go, because it is HE who has taken the lead and "asked" for support. However if you find yourself organising and sorting everything out then stop and take a step back and remind yourself that this is HIS problem. Be a listening ear and respond to positively to things that he is doing to help him himself but don't take the lead... its not your problem.

Other things that you might want to think about.... Has your partner put any barriers in place to make it more difficult for himself to gamble... self-exclusions, signing up to GAMSTOP, limiting access to money. Remember that once the immediate crisis has passed, once the emotions have settled, once your seemingly living a normal life again, then thats when it all goes wrong again. Its often when live starts to get better again that gambling then resumes. Its a very powerful compulsion and that's why barriers can help, though of course they are only a small part of the picture. If a gambler really wants to gamble they will. If I really want to gamble i will always find a way.

Sorry to be a pessimist, but i just feel everyone has to be realistic about the future. It is only a small percentage of gamblers who go on to be gamble free forever and i as yet have not been one of them. I guess that when all is said and done you will "know", you will "see it" and you will "feel it" as to whether your partner is struggling or whether he is doing well.

All the best with whatever you decide to do.

Hi s-867, 

You are absolutely right.. my partner went 4 months without gambling and things were genuinely feeling good again but he started again then for a month before he told me... 

He has told me that he has gamban and has given me his internet banking details. I haven't taken full control of his money.. his wages will go into his bank account. He will leave enough money in his account for Bill's and the rest he will transfer into a savings account in my name. Giving up his banking details was hard for him but he did it and he knows I will check it. 

He is also signed up here and keeps a log of his recovery. I hope there are many people reaching out to support him too. 

If you can choose to gamble or not... what is it that stops you from doing so? 

I have in the past paid some of his debts. In hindsight I shouldn't have done that. I wanted to alleviate some of his stress but also to stop people knocking at our door - which has happened once before and I was mortified beyond words. 

Thank you for your insight x 

If you can choose to gamble or not. What is it that stops you from doing so?........

The illusion that gambling is helping you. That gambling is offering you something that you need.

Choosing to believe that gambling is the only way out of your situation....if you are in debt, gambling will seem like a better alternative than accepting the mess you have made.

Using your gambling to hide from your responsibilities and escape real life instead of dealing with problems.

Believing that you have no choice.....and excusing your addiction. Feeling stuck and feeling trapped.

Refusing to accept that gambling is causing your problems. Instead, you run to it to escape them.

The need for the high overpowers everything else, even common sense. The fact that you have lost so much money doesn't matter because each time you gamble again, the win is still possible. People continue to gamble because no matter how many times they have lost, there is still a chance that they could win on the next bet. To the addicted gambler, the last bet doesn't matter but the next bet is the lure. It is not winning that keeps you gambling but the possibility of winning that keeps you going back.

An addicted gambler is not blind to the fact that they have lost so much money. Pointing this out to them will do nothing to stop them because they are addicted to gambling, not to winning.

I am now nearly 2 years gamble free having gambled every day for the last 8 years. I had been gambling for 20 years all in all but when family problems took over 8 years ago, my gambling was already in my life and I leaned on it. Would I have just taken up gambling to deal with my issues? Probably not. But I already had it there in my life and my betting changed drastically, taking me from 50p spins to hundreds, even £1500 in one spin on roulette.

Leaving gambling behind is incredibly hard, but I believe that people can change. It all depends on how much you want it. You have to learn to hate it and you have to learn to walk away from the past and forgive yourself. Guilt will keep you gambling. Wins will keep you gambling. Losses will keep you gambling. There is no other way to beat it except to turn your back and walk away.

Please know that nothing I did had anything to do with the way I felt about my family or my partner and I doubt very much that any of this has anything to do with you either. I did not ever intend to hurt my family. In fact, I carried on gambling to the point of ruining my health, not because I wanted to, but because I still saw gambling as a way out of debt. I hated what I had done to my family and I couldn't accept it, so all I did was keep making it worse. I needed to learn that my family didn't want the money back. They wanted their mum and their partner back.

Now that I know that, I can walk away and I am slowly coming back to life again. It takes time to rebuild and the pressure of still having so much debt is difficult but it is not a trigger anymore. I can see that gambling caused my problems so there is no way that I will ever look for gambling to save me. I am going to do that myself with hard work and patience. Gamblers are not bad people. They just make bad choices. If he lets you in, take that opportunity to reach out to him. He will be hurting, no matter what he says. 

xx best wishes to you

Lost and found, 

Thank you.. that bought a tear to my eyes. He is not a bad person.. in fact he is one of the most caring people I've ever known. It is the choices he makes which I think makes it all so much harder. We want the people we love... not the gambling. 

I've always told him it's not about the money... I'm not materialistic.. I dont crave material things. I crave happiness and memories. 

It's the trust that hurts the most. It's so precious and damaging at the same time. From what you're saying I think I need to tell myself that it isnt a direct dishonesty to me.. but a relapse for him. I am just a bystander caught up in the mix of it.. 

2 years for yourself is a huge achievement... well done and dont give up. These stories give me hope... 

Thank you

Although weirdly comforting that someone else is going through the same thing as me, i am so sorry you are having to go through it. I hope your husband finds a way out this time. I hope you have the support you need also, as I know it is just as hard for the family. You can feel so alone and helpless sometimes. 

best wishes  xx

Yes, you are caught up in the mix of it all. It is so easy to personalise things and see it as a betrayal or an attack on you and your relationship but I can tell you that when you are gambling, it is not rational. There is a need to feed the addiction and it trumps everything. Gambling addiction is a form of self harm. It is easy for non gamblers to see a gambler as selfish but really, there is no self in gambling. You actually lose yourself. You lose everything and you sell it all to try to feel human. Gambling addiction is a cry for help. It is a sign of pain and of immense mental suffering. People say things like 'how can you do that to your family', when really they need to ask 'how bad are you feeling that you must do this to yourself'. That way, you can learn to solve the problems because it is the gambler that holds the key to solving the problem, not the family. Happy people don't suffer from addiction anywhere near as much as those who are struggling. If your partner can unravel the reasons why gambling is attractive to him, then he can understand how to make it stop.

Your partner is not thinking anything bad when he makes the decision to gamble again, chances are he is not thinking at all.

After all, that's why many people gamble. Sometimes we gamble to forget the fact that we gamble so much, to forget that we are wasting our lives and self destructing. We are often very aware of the harm we are doing but change is difficult and we put these hurdles in our way because then we get to say that it is too hard, and we get to stay the same.

Some times, it is easier to face the problems we make for ourselves than to face what is really bothering us. I was so badly depressed and I felt numb. Gambling hurt me but it made me feel alive and I understood the pain from gambling and I felt in control of the pain I felt. I did not know how to fix my depression, so I gambled to forget. I made so many problems by gambling that I didn't get time to think about my own problems that were bothering me. In a weird way, having gambling create such a huge mess was a welcome distraction from my own issues which felt too complicated to fix.

It was so easy for me to say that I gambled because I was depressed, because I felt hopeless, I had debt, I had no outlook on life. I had nothing to look forward to, so I gambled more and more instead of realising that it was gambling that was making me feel this way. Gambling was not the answer to my problems. Gambling WAS my problem. This is when you are leaning on your addiction and accommodating it so that you don't have to admit it is a problem and in doing so, you get to keep doing it.

Gambling is very addictive because you immerse yourself in it completely. You don't think. You just switch off. It is so easy to lose thousands in a gambling session and that is not because you don't care about the money. It is because you are effectively under anesthetic while you are doing it. It is like being drugged while they pick your pockets, except you hand it over willingly in exchange for the way it makes you feel.

Just the same, your partner will not set out to hurt you by gambling. He will be struggling himself and gambling is offering him that safe place where he doesn't have to think about the damage he is doing. Even though it is that same thing that is causing the harm. Addiction is not about choosing to bet over you. It is about feeling a compulsion to bet. It is a horrendous sense of feeling out of control. I was terrified of my own self. I often didn't even know I was going to bet. I would just be doing it. Online betting is so dangerous.

I only ever felt safe from myself when I was in bed. It would be such a relief. That is how it feels to be addicted. I  was so scared of what I was capable of and there was no place I could hide from it because my own home was where I did all the damage. I felt trapped. Everywhere I looked reminded me of the pain and the loss.

Your partner has been gambling for some time and those patterns are hard to break. His brain has been wired a certain way and this pathway is difficult to break but it can be done. I would often be gambling before I even had a chance to think about it. It became an automatic response to stress. My brain would recognise that I was hurting and send me the impulse to bet because it remembers that gambling feels good. This is the danger because gambling ALWAYS feels good for the addicted brain but it doesn't feel good at all for the addict.

Your brain is being fed dopamine the whole time you are gambling, even when you are losing thousands. It is selfish of the brain to seek the high because in doing so, it is hurting the person, but this is how an addict is torn and conflicted.

Remember, it is the possibility of the win that keeps us high. 

There were times when I was several grand down in a session, but while I still had money to bet with, I hadn't really lost because I could still win with the next bet....that's why we chase the win. We are not ever really chasing losses. Technically, we are chasing the win. It's only after all the money is gone and you can't chase anymore that you have to come to terms with what you have just done. That's how we end up doing so much damage. It is very scary. 

I am really proud of the support you are giving your partner. You sound like you are both a lovely couple. I am so sad that this is happening to both of you. It gets easier when each of you can see it from the other person's perspective. My poor partner was so scared of me. Imagine that. How horrible. He could never rest because he was on egg shells. It got to the point where he was even afraid to argue with me in case it triggered another session. He cried once after a heavy loss and it hit me so hard. It changed me. For the first time, I could really see the way I was affecting him. Instead of wanting to bet again, I wanted to make this right.

This all takes time but you are both on this journey together and you are strong, so you will get through this. I really, really wish you well and I am so sorry for the way addicts affect others. I can see that now, but I can tell you that my heart was breaking with this addiction and I was so lucky to have my partner and family support me the way they did and your partner is lucky to have you too. You can both come out of this better than ever before. I really hope this is the case for you both. 🙂

xx

I am so thankful for you giving me your time.. I can't tell you how much your words mean to me. They have made me feel like I want to go and hug him... 

You have made a lot of sense.. I honestly couldn't tell you if I know the real reason behind it all but I know there are many. It could be something I know of.. equally it may not be. He has been open over the last couple of years about struggling with his mental health... he spoke to his GP and had a period of counselling. We are both very active fitness goers and he always says that helps him mentally.. but so far hasnt grasped hold of the gambling urge and kicked it away.. oh how I would love for it to be that easy. 

I can relate to your partner 100% when you say he felt like he was on eggshells... sometimes I feel like I cant say how I really feel incase it tips him over the edge... but I'm learning now that we need to talk to each other more but not in the heat of the moment because all that happens is a game of top trumps on who feels the worst. 

I've said before in a previous post about more should and could be done to protect people against gambling. Its and invisible addiction which makes it so hard to detect. The signs and symptoms take longer to see and are easier to hide. 

My partner to everybody else is confident.. funny.. caring.. hardworking..an amazing dad.. my friends and family think he is great. But we have been suffering privately like many people on here. 

I'm really pleased for you and how you and your family are on a positive road. And again I'm so thankful for you being open and sharing a part of your life with me. 

At first I felt I needed to talk to people in the same boat as me.. to have others that understood where I was coming from but actually it really helps to hear from CG. I'm not sure my partner fully understands it yet himself let alone us have conversations that aren't fueld with hurt.. so if this helps diffuse my personal thoughts it may give us the chance to talk about it together from a different view point. 

X 

It really does help to get both perspectives. Once you remove the pain, you can remove the anger and work on a solution to this. I hope that I have helped you get inside your partner's head a little and that this will help you to understand his motives.

Your pain is a sign that you love him dearly and you can let him see that. It can speak more loudly than anger and arguments though it is perfectly natural to feel this way.

The pain on my partner's face and in his voice when I messed up badly, (I blew our family holiday and £2,000 of savings) not to mention the stress I put him through, was what really got through to me. It was a gift because it was a turning point for me. The penny dropped and my thinking began to change. So much good has come from so much suffering and I am so grateful for that. Years of bickering and hurt over relapse never changed much, but that day was different. He didn't shout, he didn't get mad. He just sat, held my hand and we both cried. I think he finally could see my pain and in return, I could see his.

Understanding is half the battle because when you don't gamble, you can't understand how your partner can do that to you. How can they lie, steal, deceive.....Once you lift the lid on all that, you can see what's really going on and anger can turn to understanding which is a much better platform to work from and one which he is more likely to listen to.

xx